-- the great undoing

[xx] Something 'bout a summer in the South, sure shines like gold down these old, round bale river valley backroads, way back in the holler where the grass grows -- God almighty, baby, we were that close

[scarlettbrowning]

"My reputation proceeds me these days," Scarlett said with a laugh. "Bitches know better than to come for my bread, or whatever that one rap song says." Scarlett was more of a post-hardcore type of girl, but she'd indulge in plenty of different genres when she went on longer runs. Rap, admittedly, wasn't one that was well versed in outside of the classics from high school. "Bitches being birds, by the way. In case that was missed." Her lips tilted upward, and her eyes flicked to the water in his hand.

"That's less fun than the flask." The whiskey that night was good on the rooftop scene he'd gotten to witness. Whiskey from a flask and a cigarette, tough times in the big city. She almost snorted a laugh, think about that night, and how he said she always won in his retelling. She knew damn well he never retold that story. "I don't think I ever apologized for drinking like half of it, so I probably owe you a drink at some point." Her eyes suddenly traveled to the group of women that were watching them. Well, him, in particular. "Well, actually, that all depends on if your horde of admiring fans will scratch my eyes out."

Then, true to form with a woman who threw a rooftop pebble at a bird who stole her breadstick, Scarlett waved at them and smiled. Popping a tomato from the salad into her mouth and chewing it, she wrestled with her inclinations. The urge to mess with them was fighting with the urge to leave it alone and it was playing out in her eyes as they dance with mischief. However, Weston never said he was into messing with them, so she let the thoughts have a moment before she stepped into line with him. "I don't know you well enough to mess with them, despite how I want to. Plus, you might not want that sorta drama in your life," Scarlett said and stopped paying the gaggle of onlookers any attention.

[westoncrwfrd]

"I think it's bitch better have my money." He said, but it was obvious that he really didn't know. "Not a huge rap person." That really should't have been a surprise, just by looking at him, but some people had some outlandish music tastes, so he didn't judge. "I had a teammate a few years back, and I think he listened to the dirty rap I have ever heard." Wes laughed, "and I don't know that I ever tried to listen to it--" he paused thoughtfully, "actually I think I actively tried to not listen to it. Luckily, when you're the pitcher you don't have the same workout as the rest of them." He didn't hit, he wasn't allowed to. He also wasn't allowed to play the outfield or a base. His fitness was exclusively done in the gym with a trainer. A blessing and a curse.

"You think I don't have a flask." He paused, before patting his pockets like maybe-- "you'd be right. I don't. They don't like, really appreciate the teacher drinking in public at these things." If he was at a bar it would be different, but here he was, at the picnic, and somehow it seemed inappropriate. "You do owe me though, and one day you'll have to pay up." He shrugged, "you should be out here carrying one around in your purse, seems smarter." And something that an alcoholic would do, and while Scarlett Browning was a lot of things, an alcoholic wasn't something that was on his bingo card for her.

Wes casually glanced over his shoulder, and flashed them a quick smile before immediately turning his attention back to Scarlett, "here's the thing." He sighed, "I am not saying kids are bad. I am not saying single mothers are bad. I am not saying mothers with high school aged children are bad." The list was long, but he felt like it needed a disclaimer, "women with high school aged children that are in my physics class? Are generally older than me, and married. Not saying being older than me is bad, but not super into the cougar thing, and I am definitely not into being the other woman." He said with a shrug and a broken smile, "one of those women near in tears because my classroom was not straight out of her teachertok dreams, and the other ones, you know if they could just get their son on the varsity baseball team, they'd be so grateful." He paused, "SO. grateful." He rolled his eyes, "however I don't know what they'd do. Maybe use one hand to cover your eyes and the other to cover your throat. Cougars." Wes wiggled his brow at her before laughing. It was part of the territory, unfortunately. He however, was good at letting people down easy.

"I don't know that I need it." He said, deliberately not looking back to them, "and unless you want 50 moms to be stalking you?" He asked, but really didn't give her a chance to answer, "I don't know that you really want it either." Unfortunately for him, none of his social media was private, while he'd been out of professional baseball for a handful of years now, it didn't make him any less well, in the spotlight. It was good publicity for the school, for the team-- and if the price he paid was a box of DMs he didn't dare open, then that was the price. He didn't want to wish that evil on other people too, "unless this is your way of telling me you're absolutely insane and you've just been keeping it a secret this whole time." He said it like they knew each other, they didn't. She could be anything, and he wouldn't know any better.

[scarlettbrowning]

starter for @westoncrwfrd at the labor day picnic —

When it came to people to tended to set Scarlett in a place where she wasn't the facade she so carefully constructed, Weston was on the short list. He'd been witness to not one but two of her shattering moments where she was alive. One of which she internally called the Breadstick Bird Fight. That would be the last time they really saw each other outside of in passing. Marked low points in both of their lives. With another bread roll in her hand, with a plate of tomato salad in the other, she gave him a sheepish smile. "Promise I am not trying to recreate the incident where I very classily lost my shit over a bird taking a breadstick."

There was a vast cavern of difference in her now as opposed to that night. Her collarbones didn't jut out as much, her eyes were lighter, her shoulders weren't pinned forward as she tried to hold herself together. Carefully looking him over, he seemed a little better too. Maybe a lot better. It was hard to tell. They didn't really know each other like that — he'd just been the witness to several of her breaking points over the years. Privy to information that was not really his to hold, the first as the boyfriend of her best friend in high school after a very tense Homecoming Dance.

[westoncrwfrd]

"That's boring." He said, a subtle smirk resting just off his face. It was there, he wanted to use it, but he didn't know if he should. While the girl in front of him currently, didn't look like she would break if the wind blew just hard enough, that's the one he knew. Knew being a very loose definition. Out of all the times he'd ever spoke to her, she never seemed like she could handle the joke.

"When I think of you," Wes started, and while it wasn't admittedly all the often, it was every once in awhile when they saw each other in passing, "you're squared up and ready to Tee off." And then, all the sudden, he couldn't keep the smirk from his face. "And in the retelling," he continued, "you always win." He shot her a wink before taking a drink out of the bottle of water he'd been given by a parent, because obviously he couldn't be dehydrated out here. While he recognized it as a thinly veiled attempt at flirting, he never seemed to reciprocate, not with parents of students, that was messy, and he wasn't a messy person. "You gonna give it up easily?" He said pointing to the roll in her hand, "or has world spread throughout the pigeon population that you're not to be fucked with?"

[cagenewman]

"Nah, you only outgrow it when you're the dad getting your kids ready to go back to school, and you spend your day off shopping for fruit snacks and lunch meats and making sure you've got the right kinds of energy drinks and bread," he replied without missing a beat, reaching for a fry on his plate to pop it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as Weston talked, because he did understand where he was coming from. He and his wife had, of course, planned on making the last weekend before school started fun for the kids, in any way that they could. But it was the last thing that he said that stole a wide smile from Cage as he picked up another french fry and pointed it at his friend. "That's called getting old."

[westoncrwfrd]

"That's the kicker, all fruit snacks are equal." Wes shrugged, knowing good and well that none of them were really good for you, but the same could be said for the gels people carried when they ran, you got the same boost of energy from a Nerds Cluster. "You can quit worrying about that for sure." He shrugged, picking up the beer in front of him and taking a long drink, "oh, and I guess as long as its' not Prime, it's also fine." While Weston realized Cage wasn't necessarily asking for advice, after spending days at school pound out two-a-days with the foot ball team-- not his area of expertise, advise was all he had in the tank. "I'm gonna need you to like-- immediately apologize." The look on Weston's face was real shock and horror. He wasn't getting old. He was in his early thirties. Sure he couldn't throw a fast ball like he once could have, but that wasn't age related. "I'm very young." He continued, "spry even. Just don't listen to my knees when I stand up. They don't know what they're talking about."

[naomiayodele]

“Good morning, welcome I- oh. Hi Wes.” Her smile playfully dropped. All of her opening duties were completed in a timely manner. She had fresh baked goods in the show case along with offering samples of chocolate and plain croissants for customers to enjoy as they walked in. Naomi had two shots of espresso in her system already and of course her first customer was Weston. “Now why on earth would I subject myself to waking up even earlier than I do?” She leaned against the counter. “It sounds like you hate me just for any suggesting that now if you want a custom order, sure but I do not have the mental capacity to wake up at the crack of dawn.” She held up her hands - Five on the dot was the earliest she was willing to wake up for work. It gave her time to clean , prep , start on any orders from overnight and get the day going. “Other than that, your usual or are we going for something new?”

[westoncrwfrd]

"Woooooow--" he said long and low, the sentiment ending in a low whistle. "It's like," he continued, "you were excited about any other customer, until well--" Wes clutched at his chest, fully selling, or at least in his mind selling, the act until the smile spread out on his face, and his pale attempt at acting gave up. "Employees!" He said, "delegate, don't come in before 7, but it could be the donut hours, five to seven." He said thoughtfully, like it had any merit, and to him, it did, however, to anyone else, he was insane. There were donut shops in town, he could just as easily gone to any of them, "and besides, that, once school starts I won't be able to come in here anymore, she opened too late. "I mean, no. Black coffee, pecan syrup, and two sugars." Wes paused, "maybe a cinnamon roll."

[stellylee]

Narrowing their eyes as Weston admitted that he was going to say something that might get him in trouble, Stelly readied themselves for whatever it was going to be... before letting out a laugh at what he admitted to, running their cloth across the bar to clean way any extra suds from the beer that they had just poured. "I think you're asking the wrong person, I've never played a sport in my life," it had never been in the cards for them. They just weren't athletic. Good at dancing, could work out like a pro if they wanted to, but... not so much sports. "But I get you. It feels like when you're a kid, you should just be wanting to spend all the time that you can enjoying summer. Or at the very least sleeping in. What do they have you doing that's got you all miserable?"

[westoncrwfrd]

"When you're in college, or hell even professional--" he paused a moment, not on purpose, but it wasn't something he could have helped either, "training in the off season, is done in doors. In air conditioning. There is no heat, there is no humidity. You don't have to be prepared for this." Maybe he was being a particular kind of spoiled, but when you were who he was, it was a part of the territory. "When I was a kid, I was like, jumping in the ocean or something cool." He couldn't even remember that far back, but he liked to think it was better than this. "Summer football." He almost spat out, "who even likes football?" He questioned without giving her an opportunity to answer, "no one. It sucks." He was a baseball boy. He always had been and he always would be. How he got wrangled into this was his own stupid self not being able to say no.

[westoncrwfrd]

who → @jcksonfields where → merrock high school

"I don't know how you got out of teaching a formal class." Wes lamented as he took a seat, he didn't know how he got roped into it either-- well he did. He didn't want to only be employed 5 months of the year. If he only coached baseball, that would be the reality, "while I like to think of myself as a pretty steady person, it's all challenged when you have a mom near crying when they walk into your classroom for meet the teacher, and it's not decorated." Weston rolled his eyes "clearly she didn't understand the coach that teaches physics is more invested in the coaching over the physics."

[westoncrwfrd]

who → @cagenewman where → mack's

"You'd think you'd grow out of it." He said with a sigh, "you know, the idea that you have to do something really big and cool the last weekend before school starts?" Maybe it was just him, and when he was a kid, well-- there was no money to so something cool so it ended more in the tune of whatever backwoods kids could do on their bikes and in college-- still no money but they were in Louisiana, he was a hop and a skip away from anywhere fun and that took care of itself. "But damn--" he sighed, "I'm so tired?" Wes shook his head, "I like to think I'm a fit person, but clearly, something changed."

[westoncrwfrd]

who → @stellylee where → touchbacks

"I already know this is going to be a complaint before I open my mouth." He easily palmed the beer Stelly had slid his direction, bar wasn't necessarily busy tonight, at least not to him, but for a guy who'd lived in NYC, nothing was busy to him these days. "But why would anyone really-- want to be play any kind of summer sport?" He asked the question, dog tired from summer training camp for the high school's football team. He'd been coerced into playing the role of strength an conditioning coach for the season, and he already knew, he really didn't like it. "It's hotter than it needs to be, no one is really in a good mood, and they have to lose half of their summer." He shook his head, "you couldn't have gotten me to play football for all the money in the world, I swear."

[westoncrwfrd]

who → @naomiayodele where → cherry amour bakery

"I know you're not a donut shop." He started, strolling into the bakery, seeing Naomi behind the counter. He was sure she just opened his watch boasting 7:03, and the door, much to his dismay, always said 7:00. He looked around before continuing, making sure he wasn't going to be talking to himself, the world didn't revolve around him, but sometimes, especially since moving back, his time in Merrock felt a whole lot like being a big fish in a little pond, "but if you did, you could open earlier, who knows, maybe 5?" He asked as he reached the counter, knowing good and well that was never happening but he usually tossed it out far more than he needed to, "think about the possibilities."

[westoncrwfrd]

[totally-paused]

Sydney Sweeney and Brandon Sklenar behind the scenes of The Housemaid