“Yeah, well, Poison Ivy hates everyone anyway, so it’s no hard feelings,” Finn replied, cracking his neck as they walked along. He had noticed she was in her pajamas, but made no comment on it– he’d had far too many nights where he wound out sprawled out in a random location, so he wasn’t fit to judge others for it. “Jogging’s not so bad, once you get on a regular schedule. It’s hell when you first start, though. I own Retrolord, the game and arcade shop.” He left it at that, not wanting to start up about how he basically had to do everything because half of his employees were incompetent school-kids who thought working at an arcade and game shop would mean they got to sit around and play games all day.
“Of course– though I admit, I wasn’t raised in the quarter. My family lived over on East Pointe, but I spent most of my days hanging around Bedford as a kid.” He’d never thought he would actually live there, though. He’d ultimately wanted a place at Sunset Vista, but life had other plans for him. Now he was just trying to go along with it until he got out of the hole he’d been dug into. “Man, that sounds tedious. I’d like to think I’m a fairly active guy, but digging up a garden? That sounds like where I’d draw the line!”
His nose wrinkled a little as they talked religion. “Yeah, I don’t know. My whole family is Catholic– I mean, even me, I’ve been confirmed and all that shit, but… Honestly, I think that shit is for the birds. It sorta’ ends up taking away from you more than giving– like, all your failures are your fault, but all of your successes are God’s work? It’s just shit like that, that makes me not want to go to church. But, I do it for my parents, because it’d kill them if I gave it up. I don’t mind giving up my Sundays for family.” He knew how much religion and family meant to his parents– as disinterested as he’d become over the years, it made them happy, so it was the least he could do for them.
“Jogging is aimless. There’s no end goal. You’re not running to anywhere or from anyone. I’m one to talk, though. I beat up punching bags for my exercise.” It was always a good way to get her anger out. Something she picked up when she was in her teens, lost somewhere in her mid-20′s and just got back into again. Veronica raised her eyebrows at the man’s profession. He seemed young, to own his own place, but she wasn’t one to question go-getters. “So you’re a nerd, is what I’m hearing,” she teased with a smile on her face. “Why’d you want to open an arcade place?”
“East Pointe isn’t the fancy schmancy place, is it? I just moved here like…three months ago. I’m still getting used to stuff. It’s weird. I’ve never lived in a town this small, I’ve always been in a city. Tuscon.” Veronica stretched her hands inside her pockets and her toes within her shoes, feeling a sense of longing for the city, her family, life before.
“Boring as hell and exactly. If anyone is doing any saving, it’s me. If I come up out of a bad situation it’s because of what I did. Not because I prayed to an omnipresent man in the sky. Also, why’s God always gotta be a man?” Veronica stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. “Nice of you. Going for your family.”
"The end goal is to be healthier. It gives you an outlet to get out pent-up energy, and makes you feel free-- you're not stuck in some boring office or in traffic." He paused and glanced to her when she mentioned the punching bags. "Same here-- I've been doing kickboxing since high school." He was surprised she shared a similar interest-- not too many people crossed paths with him outside the gym who enjoyed hitting the punching bag. He shrugged as she called him a nerd, his grin returning. "I guess, but not the kind that gets pushed around easily. There aren't many arcades left, and a video game store sounded cool, but I wanted to take it a step farther."
He shook his head, grimacing as she mentioned the 'fancy' place. "Nah, that's Private Meadows. East Pointe's nice, but not super expensive. My parents still live there-- some of my sisters, too." His brows raised when she mentioned Tuscon. "Arizona? Like, where the devil's butthole exists?" He shook his head. With temperatures going up to 120, he wanted to be as far from Arizona as he could possibly get.
His attention turned to the sky as they spoke of religion, his brows furrowing together. "The way I see it, I win either way. I'm baptized and confirmed, so if there's heaven and a God, I get in automatically. If there's not and there's just nothing, I won't even know. Besides, there's no way we were just put on this Earth to sit around and pay tribute. What kind of a God would do that? Then again, what kind of a God would give kids cancer and corporations billions of dollars?" He shrugged again, his expression softening again some. "I mean, there's nothing you shouldn't do for family, right?"
