Short of trying to drown himself, Hook didn’t see a way out of Fableton, and with his luck, he would actually die this time. If it wasn’t with his ship, he had no interest in dying, so living was the only alternative. How to make a life here actually livable was a different problem. This world was a constant barrage of noise, light, and people. He thought he’d known noise and a lack of privacy on a pirate ship, but it was nothing like this. Though he grumbled about it, he didn’t even hate visiting the library or staying in their room at the Benbow with a stack of books on business. It reminded him a bit of his Eton days, with about as much drinking. They didn’t have time to get business degrees (which was apparently what people did here), so studying it was. Consider it a crash course in a new life. Sometimes, it even kept his mind off his old one.
Somehow, the idea of remaking the Jolly Roger as a bar had gone from idle banter to a genuine reality in a very short space of time. Strange as it was to have a partner in this venture, Ariel was his least hated person in the entire town, and that made her almost a friend. Near-death experiences had a tendency to bond people; apparently, that happened even when they’d been the ones trying to kill each other. He wanted her around, and he wasn’t going to examine the feeling too closely. He knew there was much more they weren’t telling each other, but she was the only one who understood even a fraction of what he’d lost.
He’d liked the warehouse immediately, and it was the only place they’d seen so far that he could imagine them staying in. It was a fixer upper, true, but it was cheaper for that and, most importantly, it was right on the water. He could hear the ocean even if he couldn’t feel it rolling under his feet, and he’d take what he could get in this godforsaken place. In between reading up on starting and running a business, they’d taken shifts bartending at the Benbow to get a feel for the actual mechanics of the job. They’d have to do everything at first before they could afford to hire help. He preferred it that way. “I know. It’s perfect.” He grinned, casting an approving eye around the place. It didn’t have to be perfect right now, as long as it met basic health and safety standards. The rest would come in time.
Ariel let her lips twitch at the corners, the closest she would come to saying she absolutely agreed with him. The location and the potential of all of the space was exactly what they needed for what they wanted to do. She couldn’t say just when the snarky quips and needling jabs, the drinking plans had turned into something so real as a plan and a building. She’d found she loved the rhythm of bartending at the Benbow, pulling in a frankly ridiculous amount of tips at times that Sarah had been happy to help her use for the wardrobe she’d been assembling between studying and working. So far, she had managed to keep that little side project under wraps because it would get unveiled with the bar itself. All the rest was being stashed aside, knowing it would be handy.
“Alright then, pirate, to work with you,” she bossed as she pushed an industrial sized trash can to him with a challenging arch of her eyebrow. She pulled another to herself, knowing they would fill them so many times neither one of them would be able to count it. Dumpsters sat out front, a pile of cleaning supplies ready. They had plans and she intended to see them through to perfection, as she saw no reason for anything otherwise.
“And while we work, time for more lessons, my drinking music teacher,” she teased, shooting him a playful and teasing look with a wink. The sound of the ocean outside was soothing to her soul and every part of her needed music and sound. The buried sweet parts were glad for company, however complicated the company was. She had a lot of buried parts, secrets she’d happily keep as long as she was allowed.
