closed starter for @jxckdaley. brooksmarsh beach bonfire, 12:25am solomon was as surprised as the rest that he was still out an about. he’d gone to the bonfire with the explicit intent of working for a few hours then fucking off home to bed. lana, however, had twisted his arm as she was so prone to doing - stay, solomon, she said. have a beer, she said. so he had. he’d had that beer then another, and then a few more for good measure. not enough to get him legless or really anywhere close to that, but enough to loosen him up. he’d sat and stood and wandered about, chatting to regulars who approached, and lana when she periodically checked in with him, often bringing more drink with her. she was a handful, that one - solomon was lucky to have both employed her and gained some level of friendship with her. she’d definitely saved his ass during the early days of his separation - kept things afloat business wise and talked some bloody sense into him.
he had been left on his tod for sometime, though - lana had apparently found a better person to bother. couldn’t blame her, of course - there was only so much surly englishman one to deal with in a day. though solomon wasn’t so surly right then - warmed by the beer in his belly and the fire, he was being fairly good natured. having a right old laugh, he was. he’d been sat chatting to one local soccer mom-esque punter - she came in often enough for solomon to chat her up for a fiver tip and also make little mates with her kids. the kids were long gone now, though - apparently her husband had taken them home and was to come back for her before she got too sloshed to function. ah. good on him.
he’d excused himself, though, to find himself another drink - it was all well and good to talk to punters, but it got a bit stale after a while. she was a nice enough lady but he really didn’t want to hear a lot of the drunk bullshit she was spouting. he also needed another drink - an easy way to make his escape.
he wended his way through the crowd, dumping his empty bottle in one of the big recycling bins as he passed it. he’d shrugged into his jacket sometime ago - while the days were still more than warm the evenings had gotten a bit bitey, breeze off the ocean nipping at exposed skin. he wasn’t all too fond of the cold, really, despite growing up in bloody england. he was used to it, sure. but he didn’t really fancy it - sometimes he briefly imagined retiring to bloody ibiza and spending the rest of his days piss drunk and sunning himself. good stuff.
solomon focused on that thought a moment - long enough to lose a bit of awareness to his surroundings. that loss of awareness was just enough to set him on a collision course with another party goer - a few strides more and they collided, shoulder to shoulder. solomon faltered, drawn out of his reverie, head snapping up.
“oh. shit. you all right, mate?”