Main House
"That's what I'm saying — if he's fishing for information I need to make sure he knows I'm not Baskin' fuckin' Robins thirty-one flavors of dope got him standing by the sneeze-guard passing him nine different sampling spoons. I'm not El Chapo."

Her eyes drifted from you and back to the nothing, her fingertip fidgeting anxiously with the tab on the can.

"…if it were just a matter of volume he'd just order more coke. Maybe he's fickle, or maybe he's accounting for saturation, or covering a different userbase. My read is I don't know, so until I do I gotta guard against the worst case scenario."

Back to you. Back to your face, to what she believed was her catching you finally considering the face-down device.
That she closed the door for the fact that you were literally texting some other woman while you were in bed with her, but she wouldn't know that you saw it differently.

It's a shame Holly kept her mouth shut about it, it was almost like she knew one thing that was guaranteed to make a man apoplectic was to accuse him of mansplaining something.

The pale of her gaze sunk, as if weighsome, until her focus lost its grip on your eyes, tumbled down your cheeks, grasped with futility at your lips, and then crashed into the islandtop by your plate.

"Oh yeah? Anti-Vax Wiccan Shaman Barbie a real sweetie?"

Pool

Loop

Trousers tightening, as she whispers softly

cheeks flushed, flesh tingling, heart racing

finishes my drink and heads out into the night

drinks a little longer

Main House
"Just pump a Triceraflex and do a silly dance to a lil snip of what you've been cookin'? I mean no harm in asking, right?"

When Holly's eyes went to your phone and returned to you, she saw that you hadn't followed, your eyes still on her. Grin gone, portcullis shut, drawbridge raised.
Like she mis-stepped in answering your question and talking about how she was spending less time with Leo.

Holly just chewed and listened for a minute before taking another drink, her posture stilted and awkward and it wasn't just from the consideration of her nails or her lip tint.

"…I've gotta be a little cautious about that," she answered regarding Moss-Lo. "Information ain't free, even if he's posturing like he's expanding his throughput. Seeing the whole menu creates a footprint of goods — could be he's trying to ID my supplier to cut around me. If he guesses wrong, that's gonna go real bad for him so if I were in his shoes…"

Was this existential indulgence a distraction from other pertinent topics? Sure, but this tangent was not for show.
If you were gonna stamp out the other line of conversation with a terse acknowledgment, she'd move on.

"…I'd wanna be pretty certain if I were him." thinking about the biz undercut her appetite, and she left the other half un-eaten.

"…meth is probably the easiest expansion, good margins and the shit they cook in those Mexican mega-labs is so much better than anything they manage this side of the border off of cope-tier reagents. But soon as he sees it he'll know it's Sinaloa. But he won't know where I'm plugged in, or if I'm exclusive to them or not."

Holly pushed her plate away from herself and just focused on the drink, wearily taking off her petty indoor shades and staring off into the distance like she were doing math. "Be nice if I could afford to plug in some decoy goods in the report, stuff I don't expect him to order in bulk, and stuff that'll throw off his sniffing. What do you think?"

gives time a little bit longer

drinks quietly watching over the bar

thanks the waitress as my drink is delivered

stops a waitress and orders another drink

Main House
"Uhh…" Holly used her pinky finger to navigate her phone, since she just went off the chef's profile and out to the new(ish) spot. "Uhhh, ‘Hoo's on First&rsquol; is the spot — guess it's on First Avenue."

She got situated, awkwardly negotiating with the stool that was more Brix-sized than Holly-sized.
Tortilla managed, pinched, maneuvered around metallic plum-hued talons, appreciated while you explained about the music.

The fizzy Truly helped wash it down behind the effervescent suggestion of lime, and the tilt of the can was interrupted by the muted buzz of your phone in its case.

Eyes back to you.

"…yeah no I feelyou but if you're going that, you gotta do the whole song n' dance. Drop teases every other day, get 'em hot and ready to hear it, get all over social media, big stupid smile, get some collab going so other people can talk about it all shush like they ain't supposed to leak it, like drum up interest."

Crazy being mansplained about how modern music culture works, but she just listened, simply holding that for a minute ask you pivoted to asking how the show went, well…

…if you were willing to take up the burden of breaking the ice, she couldn't reciprocate by being dishonest, so she… braced.

"It's… I mean it's going well. Far less nerves now than at the start, but… it's really awkward, with Elodie. There's a huge, invisible rift. We often don't see her at the shows, and you know how I've been paring down my time with Leo lately…" elbows on the counter, hovering the half-eaten bundle with a few drops of bright-red sauce escaping onto the second taco laying open underneath.

"…we're still finalizing the schedule for how many more showings we're going to do. In the meantime I'm just lucky nothing untoward has been going on in Edgewater. Dragoshi and AJ have been quiet, too."

Holly lifted the taco up, paused. "…what about Chicago?"

watches to see if anybody comes in with a project

The House
Heh, speaking of sexy Karl Urban...

slides out to go finish a paused scene elsewhere

sips my drink more