Extending her hand to firmly clasp his, she gave it a solid shake before letting go and gesturing to the small shop behind her. The garage housed any number of bench mounted tools that were used for firearm production. The wall itself held a pegboard with various hand tools hanging from it, leaving no doubt as to what was done in that room. A side glance was given to the piece of wood sitting in its cradle before she gave it a flick to remove a stray piece of sawdust from its surface.
"Donal. Always a pleasure to meet a booze bearing neighbor. Iâm Abigail and consider my door always open if youâre bringing drinks."
Without asking, she turned away to pull open a cabinet drawer and produce two coffee cups one of which had to have sawdust dumped from it before she set it down. Twisting the top off of the bottle, equal amounts were poured into each cup before taking one into her hand and pushing the other towards him. Nothing beat a stiff drink and over the years sheâd put away more than she cared to admit so this was nothing more than a good start. After lifting the cup to her lips and emptying it in one swig she soon set it upon the bench and nodded in response to his question.
"Custom work is all the rage right now. Problem is most people want it to look pretty and have no function. Itâd be a cold day in hell before Iâd put my name to anything that didnât work and look perfect. Buy-back? I run a full service operation here, Mister Tuttle. We offer the traditional stock firearms all the way up to ⊠specialized orders."
For all she knew, he was trying to see what exactly she could provide. This was her business and while she had to be wary of the attempted police operation to shut her down something told her the man standing before her was no cop. It wasnât time to clue him in on just how much she could actually provide to him weapon wise but there was no harm in leaving the door open for his mind to wander upon it. Using a thumb to point at the bench behind her, she motioned for him to take a look.
"Got a fully custom order going on back here - the guy hunts buck up North and wants something that looks good for his trophy shot pictures. Total tool but heâs paying out the nose for it so Iâm making him a gem. Being honest with you? Iâd rather be doing semi to fully automatic customizations and taking in vintage weapons but this will get me started. I can only imagine the auto body business is equally enthralling?"
Donal's smile faded some when he looked to inspect the setup of Abigail's shop and felt the strong pull of the urge to rearrange everything to make it 'right'. As his ears stayed trained on the owner moving about and speaking, his eyes trailed over the bench mounted tools all fixed at the wrong angle and to the hand tools that were just as offensively disorganized though they were in reality barely so. Flexing his fingers before curling them into a tight fist, Donal stuffed the hand in his pocket and busied the other with holding on to his mug. The werewolf took a healthy sip of Jack and thanked the human silently for offering the distraction of inspecting the custom stock.
"Just 'Donal's fine. No kiddin', 'full-service operation'. I'd let you take my money."
The statement was honest enough, as the mechanic had the kind of critical eye that could appreciate the effort the young woman had put into her work and the attention to detail was on its own level for sure. A smile flickered to something warmer for only a moment while Donal sipped again from his cup and took the few quiet moments to admire the beauty of the piece crafted by a human. Reminding himself that there was business at hand, however, Donal was quick to turn back to the gun shop owner and focused on her face to ignore the whispers telling him to rearrange her chisels.
"Ah, cars are easy, sister. Vintage, modern, whatever. Business is what it is, I mean I don't run any kinda far out casino or anything so you know how it gets when it comes time to sit down and do the bean counting."
Finishing off the whiskey, the alpha set aside the cup next to the other and cleared his throat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other while he settled in to cut right to the chase. Their time, he imagined, was equally important to the both of them.
"Truth-tellin', I've got a Desert Eagle.50 that's my go-to. Maybe if Santa fills my stocking with a bit more than coal I can come talk about a custom handle and some plating but I'm talking more like zip-guns, sweetheart. Know a lot of places give cash for homemade shit and, well, I've got a little hobby that's starting to take up closet space and a lot of bills that don't pay themselves."
