[Jaeyi] This time, she managed to keep her clothes on at least long enough to get a tour of the Beac
RL Date: 4/17/10
IC Date: 7/4/22 --Very not-graphic sex stuff.
The Beach House, Ista Weyr(#1647RJ)
Standing between things: the beach and the jungle, the Weyr and the Hold and serving more than one function, both public business and private abode, the Beach House has a comfortable, relaxed feel to it. Built along southern lines, the entire cothold is wrapped around with a porch and the roof slopes low, hanging out over the edges of its support structures: future protection against Thread. The windows are wide and set low in the walls, a few boasting full glass panes, the rest screened and shuttered with sliding panels.
On this end of the building, set at a slight angle to the water with a full view of the beach, the porch lies nearly flush to the ground allowing patrons to walk right into the restaurant. Cane-weave tables and chairs for two and four line the porch walls and a long counter provides both extra seating 'bar' style along with a view right into the open kitchen. An opening wide enough for two people is cut into the counter allowing servers to pass between the kitchen and the dining area. Warm-hued wood paneling lines the underside of the roof and all of the surfaces within the restaurant and local climbing vine flowers curl around the support posts of the porch from planters hung beneath. When open for business, little glow baskets are unlidded within the embrace of the vines to provide a little extra decorative touch. Dimly visible, about a quarter of a mile away are the docks and the Sandbar.
Lunch has been over for a while and the restaurant has been cleaned up since the last plates were served about two hours ago. Now the Beach House is pretty quiet - there's some thing simmering on the stove for later, but the help is on break and Paddy's sitting at a clear table with the books, tallying up the lunchtime take from earlier, cash box open, ledgers alongside and boy his brow is knitted all up trying to sort through it.
Rather than actually do so, Jaeyi pronounces, "Knock knock knock," upon letting herself in, along with her big old basket of treats. Just inside, she stops to take the lay of the land, to make sure the person she /thought/ was P'draig (from peeping through the window) actually is him, and brightens her smile from tentative to delighted. "You look like you're working," she decides, head tilted, curious, confused even.
Looking up, at 'knock, knock, knock' P'draig focuses on the figure standing in the porch entryway and his face loses it's knitted brow-wrinkling in favor of a wide smile. "/Jaeyi/. Welcome to the Beach House," the brownrider says and puts his pencil down in the middle of the ledger. "I ... am trying to figure out if I put in all the entries right and making sure I counted all the marks from lunch. So this is a very welcome break before we hit the dinner rush." He pushes his chair back, walking around towards the baker. "How've you been?" Paddy leans in to brush a light kiss to her cheek in welcome.
Bright; "Thank you. I actually came to see it once before, but it didn't work out like that, though I peeked in the windows for a little bit. It's verrrry nice." Jaeyi passes a hand over one of the chairs, takes the liberty of setting her basket on the table in front of it, tilts her cheek to receive a kiss expectantly. As to how she's been, she teeters her palm in a 50/50 gesture, leaves it at that. "You don't have someone who can do the bookkeeping for you? You should hire someone," she says, like it's that easy. "How is it, being a restaurateur? Everything you hoped?"
"Oh? Should I ask?" P'draig laughs, though he eyeballs that teetering hand with a squint, reaches over to catch it and give it a squeeze. "Not unless you count my eight turn old daughter, or stealing time from my headwoman sister, but that means a trip up to the Reaches," the brownrider explains and gives a little shake of his head. "I can't afford to hire a separate bookkeeper and I do need to understand what we're spending on so I can balance things right and still keep the menu fresh." Breath out. "Mostly? Yes. I love the rush you know? Getting in the zone behind the stove? And hearing from people about how good the food was."
Jaeyi, to the first question, just makes a face and shakes her head, nope. "Can she do math? The eight-year-old, I mean. I'd hope the Headwoman-sister can, or else the Reaches must be in pretty bad shape." Easily caught, her hand then moves to lace fingers with P'draig's already drawing on it in the direction she can pretty easily guess is the kitchen. "A harper and I once had a very long discussion about that, the rush and how it pretty much works out to vanity, only at least it's generous vanity. Can I see?" The kitchen.
"The basics, like you'd expect, addition, subtraction," P'draig says of is kid. "Milani though, yes, she's a whiz." Fingers lace and Paddy smiles again. "Of course, professional pride and all in the design," the brownrider jokes a little and lifts his brows. "Really? Vanity. Hm. I guess that's one way to look at it." As he leads beyond tables and through the cut out in the counter to step into the half of the kitchen that faces the dining room and is visible to diners. Work stations are neat and tidy right now and it smells like some kind of chowder and the base sauce for several meat dishes are simmering on the stovetop. The woodfire hearth is quiescent, embers gleaming inside, but not stoked up.
"It is, though, isn't it? I mean, to some extent. Liiiiike, I do it because I enjoy giving people what they want." Presumably, Jaeyi means cooking in that and not, er, her other talent. "But also because it's nice to know I'm really good at something, and get that feedback from people to confirms it." Inside the kitchen, she drops Paddy's hand for now, hers running briefly over a countertop with covetous familiarity, making her way toward the stuff on the stoves like a hungry little moth to a flame. "And you do all the cooking all by your lonesome?"
"I'll be honest and admit I never really thought about it that way." P'draig leans against the counter, backwards, hands curling around its edges as she steps away and goes sniffing around. "But ... I guess I kind of get off on seeing people's faces when the food is just /that/ good and they're ... yeah. Happy." His head shakes. "No, can't stay open four days if it's just me, though I've had to pare back down to me and one other cook until we're pulling in more of a profit margin. I've been running on my savings, so ... have to get the place to a certain point where the take pays for all the supplies and then some and the profit is profit in the clear."
Jaeyi tips her fingers back toward P'draig at that turn of phrase; "Exactly. Get off, vanity, whatever, it all pretty much works out the same-- some part of you takes pleasure in knowing that you're the one responsible for providing pleasure to someone else. Anyways, the Harper didn't seem to agree with me." She crinkles her nose at the memory, lifts a lid, fans steam into her face, and gives up the crinkle for a luxuriant sigh. "See, I could never make a business of cooking like you have. I'd have two or three glorious weeks, then wake up one day and have no money left at all. You must be exhausted, though, if you're doing the books and the cooking and whatever else?" Replacing the lid, she looks back to the brownrider with a poor-him moue.
"Huh. And here I though that was always kind of a generous thing. But you did say that," P'draig reminds himself and grins as he watches the baker breathing in the scent of soup and sauce-base. "You probably get a pretty sweet budget up at the Hold, yeah?" Brows up and his shoulders lift. "It's not so bad. We're not open for breakfast and it's only four days out of seven. But ... still looking for that balance, yeah. I hadn't necessarily intended to be open quite so much at first. But the point of the place is to be a draw, so we need to be open more if we're going to do that and also be able to pay into the Weyr."
Jaeyi, with a brief, bright grin, "Sweet. Budget." Hah! His last remark, about paying into the Weyr, has her tilting her head yet again, cocked questioningly. "Why would you do that? I mean, I could see if you had to maybe pay them some rent or something for existing on their territory, but shouldn't your profits be, well, yours? To keep or spend or whatever?"
"Must be nice to cook at that level. They've got pretty refined tastes at the hold?" P'draig grins again. "Yeah, there's rent. But this wasn't really for me, the business part. Yes, a part of the profit, but most of it I've always meant to put into the Weyr's upkeep. Interval and all."
"Oh, I love cooking there, definitely. Any time there's any kind of special dinner or people visiting, which is like pretty much every day, I get to do something different for the occasion. I brought you some samples," Jaeyi informs happily, though she doesn't expect it to come as any big surprise. "Okay, I'll grant, then, that it might be more generosity than vanity for you. I have made sure I'm very well-paid for my services, but I guess my employer can afford it more than yours."
"I'm glad it's working out. I don't know if I could go back to that, to be honest. I mean, I did it for several turns at Tillek, but I don't think their tastes were quite as high-flown as Fort's." Paddy's eyes light up at mention of samples. "Are you going to spoil me a little?" he asks gaily then lifts his shoulders. "I already get a stipend as a rider and an all-expenses paid place to live, plus free meals. So ... it just seemed right to give back. I don't really know what the Weyr can and can't afford. I'm not really all that inclined to ask the headwoman either."
With a little sigh, Jaeyi agrees, "I don't know what I'll do if I ever get posted elsewhere. Boll was nice for that, though not quite to that level. The Weyr-- mmn, a little utilitarian for my tastes. Oh well." As to spoiling him, she tilts one of her more indulgent smiles and answers, "Depends. Are you going to let me?" Advice: say yes. "Technically, I get those things, too, but I still make sure I get my 'little something extra' in my pockets if I'm going to go the extra mile. You're a better person than me, Paddy, clearly."
"Yeah, I'm kind of ... straddling a line here between fancy and things that'll have broad enough appeal that people come back for it," P'draig explains his own strategy for this particular kitchen. His head tip back and he laughs, nods. "Of course I'll let you." The brownrider holds his hand out again though, head shaking. "I don't know if that's true. Like I said, I still get my stipend, and other than using it to pay for things for the restaurant, I'm not going to go destitute if the Beach House fails." Pause. "Come see the other side of the kitchen? The pantry station is back through there and more oven space for baking bread and pies and cobblers."
Sympathetic; "Yeah, I guess if you actually have to cater to-- what's the term? The lowest common denominator? You'd have to be a little more aware of stuff like that." Jaeyi starts to take the hand, but draws hers back just before fingers touch, saying, "Should I go and get the basket? Not that I think anyone would steal it, but-- as a general rule-- when I go into places like pantries and back-kitchens with attractive men..." She trusts Paddy can guess what happens, not exactly rocket surgery.
"General population?" P'draig makes another attempt and squints outward. "Looks like a storm might be rolling in too, and yeah, better get the cash box. Wouldn't do for someone to lift /that/," the brownrider says with a shake of his head and his grin tilts sideways. "Bring on the basket then," he answers gamely, a touch of appreciation for both the pretty baker herself and the implications she's making sliding into his gaze.
Jaeyi, as if the thought is just now occurring to her, agrees quickly, "It would kinda suck to spend all that time trying to balance the budget only to have the budget walk out the front door, hmn?" Some people might get bashful or even prim about the whole affair, but she just beams briefly at that particular look in Paddy's eyes and, rather than take his hand from there, goes to collect her basket instead. "What do you do for cold storage? At Boll, we had the inner hold, but here?" she continues chattily.
"Only if it's taking a walk with me to see the headwoman and or my trading contacts for supplies," P'draig replies and ambles along with to collect his cashbox and the ledgers and then head back through the kitchen. Her question though pauses him. "Ice boxes," the brownrider explains and bends to flip one of the under counter ones open. "See, it's all insulated along the sides and you go get ice first thing in the morning and put it in here and it keeps things cool. Otherwise, mostly I have to buy fresh all the time. But this works for milk, eggs, cream."
For his talk of ice boxes, Jaeyi drawls, "Yeeeeah, I have definitely gotten spoiled. The last time I replenished ice was..." She trails off, leaving it as some so-long-ago page of history that it's now forgotten. "But don't say it like that. 'I /have/ to buy fresh.' Come the end of winter, when everything's come out of jars for months now, having something fresh is suuuuuch a luxury." With her basket on her arm, she peers into the open ice box, sticks her hand in to test the temperature, and must decide it passes muster. Move along, with a satisfied nod.
"Okay I shouldn't just say 'fresh' I mean 'buy new' daily. And it /is/ one of the nice things about Ista. There's never a shortage of fresh fish and produce," P'draig claims. "And the nice thing about being a dragonrider is that the ice trips aren't bad either. Short hop between up to the wastes above Telgar, get a couple of blocks of ice, done." Paddy waits until Jaeyi's finished her examination then shuts the door. "I guess if the place starts to really earn, I could ask a smith about looking at one of the back pantries to put in some kind of cooling system, but I don't know how that would work. Otherwise, I do have a small cellar dug out back." A jerk of his thumb toward the jungle. But he's leading the way onward into the rear part of the kitchen, where he can show off how the hearth bridges both sides.
A doubtful brow quirks and Jaeyi answers, "I think that depends on your definition of 'not bad.' Frankly, a daily hop *between* up to some cold wasteland doesn't sound like the best way to start the morning." She follows the point of the thumb with her eyes, but it doesn't really mean much to her, the direction, so she just ahhhs about the cellar, good for him. Following along so he can show off whatever it is he's got for the showing, she chatters, "It must be nice, designing a kitchen all just for you, hmn? Don't get me wrong, I love cooking at the Hold, but sometimes I think the cabinets are too high up and I wish there were more cutting boards and-- mmn, you know, the thousand little things you'd change if you could."
"Depends on how fast it melts too, some days, I don't have to go get fresh. And sometimes I can slip a mark or a free bowl of soup to the rider who's going for the ice for the Sandbar if it's a really hectic day." Paddy shows off some of the drawers too, the spice racks and the little collection of recipe books. "And yeah, I think that was really some of the most fun I've had in a while. Picking it all out and laying it out so that I could work really efficiently on my own, or with help."
Jaeyi, sagely, "Some day, when you retire and someone else takes over, they're going to have their list of a thousand things they'd change if they could." For example, she flattens her palm on a counter and then presses on it, as if she could shove it down just an inch or two to be a more ideal height for her in particular. "Oh! I should have brought you one. I found a remarkable seafood cookbook the other day, with things the Hold has so infrequently-- like scallops and, oh, shark, and something called 'sablefish' that I've never even heard of before."
"Well if Palia turns into a baker the way she says she wants to, she can worry about it then, or try to grow as tall as possible," P'draig says with a chuckle and leans a hip against said countertop which is indeed just at the right height for a guy who's as tall as he is to work comfortably. "Something else to ask a smith about. Adjustable countertops," he murmurs thoughtfully then focuses back on the baker. "Yeah? We've got a lot of different kinds of fish around here. I'm /still/ learning all the different kinds."
Jaeyi, as a test, puts her basket down on the counter, picks it up again, puts it back down again, gives an indecisive, "I guess I wouldn't complain too vocally, but still. You might wanna wait till you're operating in the black before you go adding any adjustable countertops, hmn?" She gives a brief 'aw' for Palia following in daddy's footsteps, but returns to the earlier subject with, "Next time I'm coming to Ista, I'll bring it for you. Then, if you ever come across any sablefish, you'll know what to do with it."
"Oh yeah, not now, future, far future plans," P'draig says with a wave of his hand and laughs as the basket goes up and down so. "So here's the part where I say something naughty ... because those counters are just the right height for other kinds of being vocal than complaining," the brownrider claims with a quick-flashed grin her way. "And thanks, I'd like to have a look at that book, I can copy down some of the recipes, see what comes in from the daily catch to experiment with.'
Forgive Jaeyi if she looks a little too amused but, "That's naughty, you think?" With a quick glance over her shoulder, making sure no one's coming along behind them, she steps on over close enough to take hold of Paddy's belt, offering with one of her lashly looks, "Try... those counters are just the right height to bend me over them till the only thing I've got to be vocal about is how good you are." Yeah, they're done talking about cookbooks now.
"Clearly, I've been spending too much time working with my eight year old lately," P'draig says laughingly in answer but his hands lift to her waist as she takes hold of his belt. "Here's to being vocal," he tells her before the demonstration of just how good they can both be if they have a mind to be. Those counters? Definitely just right for Paddy. And if anyone decides to wander by just then, hopefully the "Closed" sign outside will be a good enough deterrent. On the far side of 'very vocal' and hopefully 'very good', the brownrider's fingers are seeking out Jaeyi's again, to slide between gently. "Did I ever tell you that you really did help? That time at the hold, when we were trying out?"
Jaeyi draws on threaded fingers to pull P'draig's arm on around her, resting a now sweaty cheek against his bicep, smiling a mellow satisfaction. She always looks her best after that sorta thing, all lazily content even if it is in the middle of a working kitchen. "With the menu?" Coming out of this moment and casting back to that one takes a minute or two, but then it's, "Oh, mmn, I remember. I'm glad. I like to help, now if only I could solve everyone's problems the same way."
"Nah, not the menu," P'draig says with a low chuckle and nuzzles a kiss down to her cheek. He's just fine with the use of his arm as pillow. "Mm. It's ... it's been easier since then," he tells her slowly, gray-blue eyes on her prettily flushed face. "Just go with the flow, you know? Like just now." And he grins at her with a touch of mischief in the curve of his mouth. "I actually wish I had a little bit more time, or we weren't open tonight. There's a shower out back, see. And this girl showed me a /very/ neat trick the other day that you might like." Jaeyi: Pern's Doctor Ruth. Only much cuter.
Truly, "I am glad you feel better enough to go with the flow, as you say. Not that I think everyone's suited for this sorta thing." Fucking at random, she means. "But if you are and it's just something in the way that you need a little help getting over?" Jaeyi shrugs, happy to help, and draws the tip of her index finger up to the mischief at the corner of Paddy's mouth. "You can't just leave the sign up? Sorry, the head cook's living up to his title? Because that's an awful tease, a /very/ neat trick."
"No and ... I guess deep down a part of me is still inclined towards loyalty, but it's not the shape of things for me and Mic, so," P'draig lifts one shoulder a little and his grin deepens under the touch of her finger. "The sign is staying up for another hour or so ... but that other cook is coming in. I /can/ leave him a note about the sauces though, because otherwise we're in pretty good shape for prep today." His mouth drops down beside her ear, voice continuing to tease in very descriptive terms. "So if you want to give it a whirl ... I'm game if you are."
Jaeyi shouldn't sound quite so surprised but, "Are you?" Inclined toward loyalty. What he goes on to say surprises her less and has her forgetting about his inclination toward loyalty pretty promptly, her finger back-and-forth across his lower lip while he muses through what the other cook can accomplish, her ear tilted readily for the lower words. "I'll try just about anything once. And since you don't neeeed to be here, and it's not like I'm at Ista every day, it really seems like we'd just be laughing in the face of good fortune if we didn't."
"Ten turns, one woman," is P'draig's quiet answer to that question though he's readily distracted in short order. "I'll write that note," he agrees to her proposition and frees his hand to reach for the pad of paper that's not too far off: it's recycled stuff, a little gray-toned and he scrabbles a note out with the thick charcoal pencil, then bends down to kiss the baker on his counter and pushes away a breath later, carefully. "Be right there," is the promise and he slips around into the other part of the kitchen, where the note is tacked up visibly and heat on the pots is turned down. We he comes back, the brownrider collects scattered clothing and holds out a hand. "Here's hoping this is incentive to visit more often," Paddy teases further with a little wink.
Ten turns, one woman, "And one very sad rest-of-the-world, I'm sure of it." While Paddy busies himself with the business of his business, Jaeyi busies herself with the business of sitting on his counter, looking very pretty and watching him with open interest. "Do you think I need," she begins, taking the offered hand and letting it help her half-hop, half-slide to the ground, then letting it help her draw his arm around her shoulders, "further incentive to visit more often? I'd be here lots if it weren't for the whole 'traveling sucks' issue. So we really better make the most of this time." Very serious, that last.
Laughter for that quip and his shoulders lift. "Maybe. I'm not that vain about what I'm like in bed." Matter-of-fact. "Or not in bed, as the case might be," amused that and his arm curls around Jaeyi supportively. "So does that mean I should get on my big brown dragon and head over to Fort every now and then?" Paddy tilts a questioning look over at the baker. He is however, moving on through the cothold to carry on this little shower demonstration, collected clothes abandoned on a lounge chair on the back side of the porch.
Jaeyi bites her lower lip around a grin, echoing through half her mouth, "Big. Brown. Dragon. Mhmn." As funny as 'pie' might have become, 'big brown dragon' is better, you gotta admit. "I wouldn't put you out in the cold or anything if you turned up. Mind you, I do have to work." In more ways than one. "And I can't just put up a 'closed' sign, unfortunately, but if you turned up before, say, supper time at the Hold, I could find a few hours for you. I haven't got a /shower/, but my bathtub's pretty damn luxuriant. Oh wait." She's gotta untangle herself for long enough to go trotting back and get her basket.
Chuckling lowly, P'draig winks over at the baker for the way she says that. Big. Brown. Dragon. And gives her a little brow waggle to go aong with it. "Mm. Before supper, got it. That could work out sometimes, given the time difference," the brownrider points out. "And shells, you know, I thought about a tub for here? But I thought it might be a little over the top. The shower is mostly for rinsing off after swimming in the ocean all day and well, you know how sweaty working in a kitchen gets. I /miss/ the bath I had at Fort Weyr. Talk about luxury." But. Basket. And Paddy leans in the doorway to watch her scamper back, the grin on his face shading towards fond.
Jaeyi, with a brief, sly grin, answers, "I've heard about this tub of yours, actually. Though I kinda bet mine's better. When you get super-rich from your restaurant, ignoring the fact that you're giving away most of your profit, you can put in a lavish bathtub and I'll visit often enough to make it worth the investment, hmn?" She returns with the basket, loops her arm through his again, and asks now that it occurs to her, after his description of the shower's /actual/ use, "It's not cold water, is it? Aside from the fact that /I/ don't care to shiver, there are certain parts of a man that don't seem to get along well with cold water, I've noticed."
"Now there's incentive," P'draig answers laughingly and walks on through companionably. "It's not /hot/," he say of the shower. "But it's usually pretty warm by this time of the day. Full sun up there and all," he continues. "It's another one of those things I'll need to look at if I get a good profit turning around. Heater for out there."
Predictably, after perhaps a touch of pouting about the temperature disclaimer, Jaeyi suggests, "Well, I guess we'll just have to figure out how to keep each other warm then, hmn?" When he adds on the bit about a heater, she draws in a deep breath-- partially because Jaeyi + deep breaths = pretty-- and lets it out with a puff. "You have a very long list of investments, Paddy. I hope you're business sense is as good as your ambitions."
Deep breath = suitably distracting. "Hm? Oh. Well, some of it is just pipe-dreaming. I'm not ... flush like I was before. Put a lot of my savings into this, so." But hey, porch. Shower. And the water is pleasantly warm at least, just not steaming hot.
Jaeyi will accept suitably distracting, that's pretty much why she does it anyway. "If you do get rich again, let me know? I'm good at being a kept woman. And I can help you cook sometimes." All in play, of course, with her trailing along into that shower after she finds some place to stow her basket, whose contents would object even more loudly than the girlish squealing about being "cold cold cold!" that comes in response to water that certainly doesn't deserve to be so maligned.
"I'll keep that in mind if you're looking for a backup job, or get tired of really, really fancy," P'draig answers in the spirit of good fun. All that squealing just means Paddy's got all the more incentive to show her this little trick and shift things from the claimed 'cold' to 'warm warm warm' instead.
It's hard to call what they're doing in there 'getting clean,' but there may eventually be some back-scrubbing for Paddy and an effort made to finger-comb through some wrecked curls for Jaeyi once he's gotten her distracted from pretending she's freezing to death. Afterward, letting water trickle over her back and shoulders, letting her hands slip over his skin, she adds contentedly, "Thanks for not insisting you had to work. It's fun to be with someone fun."
"You saved me from a dull half hour with the books. I think I can pretty much endorse 'fun to be with someone fun' wholeheartedly," P'draig says and pushes back a little sodden lock of hair. "I'm going to guess that goes to ..." and he lifts his other hand, waggles it back and forth. "Don't need any details if you don't want to share. But. If you need an ear ... or more fun ..." both of his shoulders (nice shoulders) shrug. Even though his finger is following the path a drop of water is tracing down her skin.
The things Jaeyi's mouth proceed to do to P'draig's ear might be a roundabout way of unburdening herself, probably a lot more restorative for the Baker than trying to explain things would be. "Maybe later," she says into that ear, regarding his offer to share her woes. "'Cause I'm betting you've got big-fluffy-towels, and I've got pear polenta tarts, and somehow... somehow, I think those just seem like they go together, don't you?
She opts for fun and P'draig's eyes go rolling back in his head. "Sweet Faranth ..." the brownrider exclaims in a hoarse undertone and if his hands do a bit of clutching and roaming, hey it lets her know that mouth-ear is a very very happy combo. "I do ... have towels," he musters after a moment of throat clearing. "And those sound delicious. I have pear liqeur around somewhere."
Jaeyi and Paddy met in a bar the very first time, it helps to remember. "Do we need it?" The liqueur. "Because I think," with some pretty wandery hands of her own, so damn easy to encourage, "we could do without it. Some water, those tarts, big fluffy towels, an hour or two in that swing I see up there... I could find better things to sample than pear booze, I'm pretty sure."
"No. Just tastes good ... on skin," P'draig breathes out and in again. "That ... all sounds very, very good." A kiss follows but Paddy's expression is colored with regret. "Towels and tarts ... but the hour or two with the swing will have to be another time."
"What? Skin doesn't taste good all on its own?" Jaeyi kisses his chin at that, debates with a long hmmmmmn that melts right into the big-sad-eyes she turns up at P'draig when the swing gets taken out of the equation. People don't normally say no, see, so it takes her a second to react to it. "Why?" Pout forthcoming. Just wait.
"Sure, it's just ... it's fun," Paddy answers and oh those big-sad-eyes are hard to resist. "Because I have to go cook in an hour ... maybe a little less." He aims a kiss for that pout. "Compromise on half the time?" he offers as an alternative.
Jaeyi crinkles her nose to point out, "But I don't drink, so that's only one-way fun." She lets him have a kiss from her pout, stepping into him all damp and warm and sighing as if sadly at the time limit. "I guess. I mean, if you really have to go. Your assistant's not capable of, like, doing without you for a night? Get a better assistant." So he can spend his time banging girls who are-- hey! She graduated to 'slightly more than half his age,' yay~!
"/Oh/ well. There's always lemonade or whatever juice we've got on hand." He lifts a finger to touch her nose gently. "Not if it gets busy, no" Paddy says with a little shake of his head. "And are we talking all night or just that hour or two?"
Slightly more than half his age and still; "But what if yooooou want to get busy?" Jaeyi thinks it's funny, will probably always think it's funny. Looping her arms around his chest, she presses distracting things against him and answers, "Just a little while. I have to be back at the Hold later this evening, and I could probably use a proper bath and a catnap."
His forehead dips towards hers and clearly, distracting things are very, very distracting. "Shells, I really, really wish I could say 'yes' Jaeyi. I do. But I have to try to make this place profitable sooner rather than later so I can pay the rent this month. If I still had two cooks for backup, I could, but I need to be there." Deep breath, pause. "But I'd love to share tarts with you in the time I've got left. And I'll come visit on one of the days the restaurant is closed with something to make it up to you with, how's that?"
"So responsible." When Jaeyi says it, in that particularly put-out tone, it's really not a compliment. But she'll take a breath and put away her pout and unloop her arms, hands clasped behind her back in a posture that's ludicrously innocent given she's still naked and soaked and bummed that she can't convince P'draig to blow off work and spend his afternoon having sex with her. "I guess that'll have to do. You could at least add 'oh, and you should stay and try the food.'"
Ludicrously innocent for sure, because of course, P'draig is instantly captivated. Clearly, if he didn't have a stronger conscience, he'd be all over it. As it is, his hands reach for her hips to pull her near again and his smile is bright. "If you can stay for opening, that'd be really great. I've got some amazing things you can try and I don't mind sharing the recipes, or at least the combinations."
Because really, he does love to talk shop with her about as much as he enjoys the no-strings and very enjoyable sex.
Jaeyi, not difficult to draw on over, though she resolutely refuses to unfold her hands or touch him back, nope nope nope. Instead, there's a very long moment after his words where she just kinda looks at him, her eyes dancing amusement even if she's forced into behaving herself. "Really, Paddy. You ought to listen to yourself sometime." Amazing things she can try. Baker-ing has to be the absolute worst for those euphemisms, excepting maybe the 'I've got something to make you feel better' line that belongs to Healers. "Towels and tarts, brownrider, and then we can talk about exchanging recipes." See? Even that sounds like a double entendre.
He laughs, a bright, unfettered sound and slides a hand downward. "That does sound bad, doesn't it? Or good, depending which way you look at it." P'draig's smile doesn't dim in the slightest and his brows bop up and down a few times. "I've got a big book of recipes to go with my big brown dragon!" Icing on the cake? "But come on, you're starting to get goosebumps and they're not because I'm making you break out in delighted shivers." His thumb brushes the edge of her arm. Time's running out, but there are nice towels and the chairs on the porch are comfy and the tarts are probably to-die-for delicious. Clothes have to find their way back on at some point, but that too miiight just be worth it for some kind of delicate local fish, tender pork with appropriate sides that blend a Fort and Ista sensibility and though he's not the dessert expert, apparently Paddy does make a decent tropical-fruit infused creme caramel.
It might be. If anything's going to make Jaeyi forget to sulk about sex, it's food. The way she talks about it, the way she enjoys it-- well, if Paddy hadn't already gotten lucky, he could probably count on it with a reaction like that. She even finds someone she can flirt with in the restaurant, though it's more the idle, not-really-interested kind of banter than the kind that leads to naked. At the end, she promises to come back again some time, bringing the cookbook with the weird fishes in it.
It was mentioned earlier that they both like making people happy with the good food, and Jaeyi'll earn more than one very pleased smile from P'draig at that clear enjoyment of the meal. "Here, if you want to try making that," he slides her over a card with the recipe for the tropical infusion. "Some of the fruits only grow here. Could trade you for some Fortian nuts though if you've got extra on hand." Though he's super busy cooking by the time Jaeyi needs to head out, he takes a moment's pause to kiss her cheek on the way out. "See you soon," is a promise.
"There's no shortage of nuts at Fort," Jaeyi assures cheerily for that bit, like she's so effing clever. Cheek-kisses and she ducks out before the fellow she was flirting with expects any kind of follow through.
IC Date: 7/4/22 --Very not-graphic sex stuff.
The Beach House, Ista Weyr(#1647RJ)
Standing between things: the beach and the jungle, the Weyr and the Hold and serving more than one function, both public business and private abode, the Beach House has a comfortable, relaxed feel to it. Built along southern lines, the entire cothold is wrapped around with a porch and the roof slopes low, hanging out over the edges of its support structures: future protection against Thread. The windows are wide and set low in the walls, a few boasting full glass panes, the rest screened and shuttered with sliding panels.
On this end of the building, set at a slight angle to the water with a full view of the beach, the porch lies nearly flush to the ground allowing patrons to walk right into the restaurant. Cane-weave tables and chairs for two and four line the porch walls and a long counter provides both extra seating 'bar' style along with a view right into the open kitchen. An opening wide enough for two people is cut into the counter allowing servers to pass between the kitchen and the dining area. Warm-hued wood paneling lines the underside of the roof and all of the surfaces within the restaurant and local climbing vine flowers curl around the support posts of the porch from planters hung beneath. When open for business, little glow baskets are unlidded within the embrace of the vines to provide a little extra decorative touch. Dimly visible, about a quarter of a mile away are the docks and the Sandbar.
Lunch has been over for a while and the restaurant has been cleaned up since the last plates were served about two hours ago. Now the Beach House is pretty quiet - there's some thing simmering on the stove for later, but the help is on break and Paddy's sitting at a clear table with the books, tallying up the lunchtime take from earlier, cash box open, ledgers alongside and boy his brow is knitted all up trying to sort through it.
Rather than actually do so, Jaeyi pronounces, "Knock knock knock," upon letting herself in, along with her big old basket of treats. Just inside, she stops to take the lay of the land, to make sure the person she /thought/ was P'draig (from peeping through the window) actually is him, and brightens her smile from tentative to delighted. "You look like you're working," she decides, head tilted, curious, confused even.
Looking up, at 'knock, knock, knock' P'draig focuses on the figure standing in the porch entryway and his face loses it's knitted brow-wrinkling in favor of a wide smile. "/Jaeyi/. Welcome to the Beach House," the brownrider says and puts his pencil down in the middle of the ledger. "I ... am trying to figure out if I put in all the entries right and making sure I counted all the marks from lunch. So this is a very welcome break before we hit the dinner rush." He pushes his chair back, walking around towards the baker. "How've you been?" Paddy leans in to brush a light kiss to her cheek in welcome.
Bright; "Thank you. I actually came to see it once before, but it didn't work out like that, though I peeked in the windows for a little bit. It's verrrry nice." Jaeyi passes a hand over one of the chairs, takes the liberty of setting her basket on the table in front of it, tilts her cheek to receive a kiss expectantly. As to how she's been, she teeters her palm in a 50/50 gesture, leaves it at that. "You don't have someone who can do the bookkeeping for you? You should hire someone," she says, like it's that easy. "How is it, being a restaurateur? Everything you hoped?"
"Oh? Should I ask?" P'draig laughs, though he eyeballs that teetering hand with a squint, reaches over to catch it and give it a squeeze. "Not unless you count my eight turn old daughter, or stealing time from my headwoman sister, but that means a trip up to the Reaches," the brownrider explains and gives a little shake of his head. "I can't afford to hire a separate bookkeeper and I do need to understand what we're spending on so I can balance things right and still keep the menu fresh." Breath out. "Mostly? Yes. I love the rush you know? Getting in the zone behind the stove? And hearing from people about how good the food was."
Jaeyi, to the first question, just makes a face and shakes her head, nope. "Can she do math? The eight-year-old, I mean. I'd hope the Headwoman-sister can, or else the Reaches must be in pretty bad shape." Easily caught, her hand then moves to lace fingers with P'draig's already drawing on it in the direction she can pretty easily guess is the kitchen. "A harper and I once had a very long discussion about that, the rush and how it pretty much works out to vanity, only at least it's generous vanity. Can I see?" The kitchen.
"The basics, like you'd expect, addition, subtraction," P'draig says of is kid. "Milani though, yes, she's a whiz." Fingers lace and Paddy smiles again. "Of course, professional pride and all in the design," the brownrider jokes a little and lifts his brows. "Really? Vanity. Hm. I guess that's one way to look at it." As he leads beyond tables and through the cut out in the counter to step into the half of the kitchen that faces the dining room and is visible to diners. Work stations are neat and tidy right now and it smells like some kind of chowder and the base sauce for several meat dishes are simmering on the stovetop. The woodfire hearth is quiescent, embers gleaming inside, but not stoked up.
"It is, though, isn't it? I mean, to some extent. Liiiiike, I do it because I enjoy giving people what they want." Presumably, Jaeyi means cooking in that and not, er, her other talent. "But also because it's nice to know I'm really good at something, and get that feedback from people to confirms it." Inside the kitchen, she drops Paddy's hand for now, hers running briefly over a countertop with covetous familiarity, making her way toward the stuff on the stoves like a hungry little moth to a flame. "And you do all the cooking all by your lonesome?"
"I'll be honest and admit I never really thought about it that way." P'draig leans against the counter, backwards, hands curling around its edges as she steps away and goes sniffing around. "But ... I guess I kind of get off on seeing people's faces when the food is just /that/ good and they're ... yeah. Happy." His head shakes. "No, can't stay open four days if it's just me, though I've had to pare back down to me and one other cook until we're pulling in more of a profit margin. I've been running on my savings, so ... have to get the place to a certain point where the take pays for all the supplies and then some and the profit is profit in the clear."
Jaeyi tips her fingers back toward P'draig at that turn of phrase; "Exactly. Get off, vanity, whatever, it all pretty much works out the same-- some part of you takes pleasure in knowing that you're the one responsible for providing pleasure to someone else. Anyways, the Harper didn't seem to agree with me." She crinkles her nose at the memory, lifts a lid, fans steam into her face, and gives up the crinkle for a luxuriant sigh. "See, I could never make a business of cooking like you have. I'd have two or three glorious weeks, then wake up one day and have no money left at all. You must be exhausted, though, if you're doing the books and the cooking and whatever else?" Replacing the lid, she looks back to the brownrider with a poor-him moue.
"Huh. And here I though that was always kind of a generous thing. But you did say that," P'draig reminds himself and grins as he watches the baker breathing in the scent of soup and sauce-base. "You probably get a pretty sweet budget up at the Hold, yeah?" Brows up and his shoulders lift. "It's not so bad. We're not open for breakfast and it's only four days out of seven. But ... still looking for that balance, yeah. I hadn't necessarily intended to be open quite so much at first. But the point of the place is to be a draw, so we need to be open more if we're going to do that and also be able to pay into the Weyr."
Jaeyi, with a brief, bright grin, "Sweet. Budget." Hah! His last remark, about paying into the Weyr, has her tilting her head yet again, cocked questioningly. "Why would you do that? I mean, I could see if you had to maybe pay them some rent or something for existing on their territory, but shouldn't your profits be, well, yours? To keep or spend or whatever?"
"Must be nice to cook at that level. They've got pretty refined tastes at the hold?" P'draig grins again. "Yeah, there's rent. But this wasn't really for me, the business part. Yes, a part of the profit, but most of it I've always meant to put into the Weyr's upkeep. Interval and all."
"Oh, I love cooking there, definitely. Any time there's any kind of special dinner or people visiting, which is like pretty much every day, I get to do something different for the occasion. I brought you some samples," Jaeyi informs happily, though she doesn't expect it to come as any big surprise. "Okay, I'll grant, then, that it might be more generosity than vanity for you. I have made sure I'm very well-paid for my services, but I guess my employer can afford it more than yours."
"I'm glad it's working out. I don't know if I could go back to that, to be honest. I mean, I did it for several turns at Tillek, but I don't think their tastes were quite as high-flown as Fort's." Paddy's eyes light up at mention of samples. "Are you going to spoil me a little?" he asks gaily then lifts his shoulders. "I already get a stipend as a rider and an all-expenses paid place to live, plus free meals. So ... it just seemed right to give back. I don't really know what the Weyr can and can't afford. I'm not really all that inclined to ask the headwoman either."
With a little sigh, Jaeyi agrees, "I don't know what I'll do if I ever get posted elsewhere. Boll was nice for that, though not quite to that level. The Weyr-- mmn, a little utilitarian for my tastes. Oh well." As to spoiling him, she tilts one of her more indulgent smiles and answers, "Depends. Are you going to let me?" Advice: say yes. "Technically, I get those things, too, but I still make sure I get my 'little something extra' in my pockets if I'm going to go the extra mile. You're a better person than me, Paddy, clearly."
"Yeah, I'm kind of ... straddling a line here between fancy and things that'll have broad enough appeal that people come back for it," P'draig explains his own strategy for this particular kitchen. His head tip back and he laughs, nods. "Of course I'll let you." The brownrider holds his hand out again though, head shaking. "I don't know if that's true. Like I said, I still get my stipend, and other than using it to pay for things for the restaurant, I'm not going to go destitute if the Beach House fails." Pause. "Come see the other side of the kitchen? The pantry station is back through there and more oven space for baking bread and pies and cobblers."
Sympathetic; "Yeah, I guess if you actually have to cater to-- what's the term? The lowest common denominator? You'd have to be a little more aware of stuff like that." Jaeyi starts to take the hand, but draws hers back just before fingers touch, saying, "Should I go and get the basket? Not that I think anyone would steal it, but-- as a general rule-- when I go into places like pantries and back-kitchens with attractive men..." She trusts Paddy can guess what happens, not exactly rocket surgery.
"General population?" P'draig makes another attempt and squints outward. "Looks like a storm might be rolling in too, and yeah, better get the cash box. Wouldn't do for someone to lift /that/," the brownrider says with a shake of his head and his grin tilts sideways. "Bring on the basket then," he answers gamely, a touch of appreciation for both the pretty baker herself and the implications she's making sliding into his gaze.
Jaeyi, as if the thought is just now occurring to her, agrees quickly, "It would kinda suck to spend all that time trying to balance the budget only to have the budget walk out the front door, hmn?" Some people might get bashful or even prim about the whole affair, but she just beams briefly at that particular look in Paddy's eyes and, rather than take his hand from there, goes to collect her basket instead. "What do you do for cold storage? At Boll, we had the inner hold, but here?" she continues chattily.
"Only if it's taking a walk with me to see the headwoman and or my trading contacts for supplies," P'draig replies and ambles along with to collect his cashbox and the ledgers and then head back through the kitchen. Her question though pauses him. "Ice boxes," the brownrider explains and bends to flip one of the under counter ones open. "See, it's all insulated along the sides and you go get ice first thing in the morning and put it in here and it keeps things cool. Otherwise, mostly I have to buy fresh all the time. But this works for milk, eggs, cream."
For his talk of ice boxes, Jaeyi drawls, "Yeeeeah, I have definitely gotten spoiled. The last time I replenished ice was..." She trails off, leaving it as some so-long-ago page of history that it's now forgotten. "But don't say it like that. 'I /have/ to buy fresh.' Come the end of winter, when everything's come out of jars for months now, having something fresh is suuuuuch a luxury." With her basket on her arm, she peers into the open ice box, sticks her hand in to test the temperature, and must decide it passes muster. Move along, with a satisfied nod.
"Okay I shouldn't just say 'fresh' I mean 'buy new' daily. And it /is/ one of the nice things about Ista. There's never a shortage of fresh fish and produce," P'draig claims. "And the nice thing about being a dragonrider is that the ice trips aren't bad either. Short hop between up to the wastes above Telgar, get a couple of blocks of ice, done." Paddy waits until Jaeyi's finished her examination then shuts the door. "I guess if the place starts to really earn, I could ask a smith about looking at one of the back pantries to put in some kind of cooling system, but I don't know how that would work. Otherwise, I do have a small cellar dug out back." A jerk of his thumb toward the jungle. But he's leading the way onward into the rear part of the kitchen, where he can show off how the hearth bridges both sides.
A doubtful brow quirks and Jaeyi answers, "I think that depends on your definition of 'not bad.' Frankly, a daily hop *between* up to some cold wasteland doesn't sound like the best way to start the morning." She follows the point of the thumb with her eyes, but it doesn't really mean much to her, the direction, so she just ahhhs about the cellar, good for him. Following along so he can show off whatever it is he's got for the showing, she chatters, "It must be nice, designing a kitchen all just for you, hmn? Don't get me wrong, I love cooking at the Hold, but sometimes I think the cabinets are too high up and I wish there were more cutting boards and-- mmn, you know, the thousand little things you'd change if you could."
"Depends on how fast it melts too, some days, I don't have to go get fresh. And sometimes I can slip a mark or a free bowl of soup to the rider who's going for the ice for the Sandbar if it's a really hectic day." Paddy shows off some of the drawers too, the spice racks and the little collection of recipe books. "And yeah, I think that was really some of the most fun I've had in a while. Picking it all out and laying it out so that I could work really efficiently on my own, or with help."
Jaeyi, sagely, "Some day, when you retire and someone else takes over, they're going to have their list of a thousand things they'd change if they could." For example, she flattens her palm on a counter and then presses on it, as if she could shove it down just an inch or two to be a more ideal height for her in particular. "Oh! I should have brought you one. I found a remarkable seafood cookbook the other day, with things the Hold has so infrequently-- like scallops and, oh, shark, and something called 'sablefish' that I've never even heard of before."
"Well if Palia turns into a baker the way she says she wants to, she can worry about it then, or try to grow as tall as possible," P'draig says with a chuckle and leans a hip against said countertop which is indeed just at the right height for a guy who's as tall as he is to work comfortably. "Something else to ask a smith about. Adjustable countertops," he murmurs thoughtfully then focuses back on the baker. "Yeah? We've got a lot of different kinds of fish around here. I'm /still/ learning all the different kinds."
Jaeyi, as a test, puts her basket down on the counter, picks it up again, puts it back down again, gives an indecisive, "I guess I wouldn't complain too vocally, but still. You might wanna wait till you're operating in the black before you go adding any adjustable countertops, hmn?" She gives a brief 'aw' for Palia following in daddy's footsteps, but returns to the earlier subject with, "Next time I'm coming to Ista, I'll bring it for you. Then, if you ever come across any sablefish, you'll know what to do with it."
"Oh yeah, not now, future, far future plans," P'draig says with a wave of his hand and laughs as the basket goes up and down so. "So here's the part where I say something naughty ... because those counters are just the right height for other kinds of being vocal than complaining," the brownrider claims with a quick-flashed grin her way. "And thanks, I'd like to have a look at that book, I can copy down some of the recipes, see what comes in from the daily catch to experiment with.'
Forgive Jaeyi if she looks a little too amused but, "That's naughty, you think?" With a quick glance over her shoulder, making sure no one's coming along behind them, she steps on over close enough to take hold of Paddy's belt, offering with one of her lashly looks, "Try... those counters are just the right height to bend me over them till the only thing I've got to be vocal about is how good you are." Yeah, they're done talking about cookbooks now.
"Clearly, I've been spending too much time working with my eight year old lately," P'draig says laughingly in answer but his hands lift to her waist as she takes hold of his belt. "Here's to being vocal," he tells her before the demonstration of just how good they can both be if they have a mind to be. Those counters? Definitely just right for Paddy. And if anyone decides to wander by just then, hopefully the "Closed" sign outside will be a good enough deterrent. On the far side of 'very vocal' and hopefully 'very good', the brownrider's fingers are seeking out Jaeyi's again, to slide between gently. "Did I ever tell you that you really did help? That time at the hold, when we were trying out?"
Jaeyi draws on threaded fingers to pull P'draig's arm on around her, resting a now sweaty cheek against his bicep, smiling a mellow satisfaction. She always looks her best after that sorta thing, all lazily content even if it is in the middle of a working kitchen. "With the menu?" Coming out of this moment and casting back to that one takes a minute or two, but then it's, "Oh, mmn, I remember. I'm glad. I like to help, now if only I could solve everyone's problems the same way."
"Nah, not the menu," P'draig says with a low chuckle and nuzzles a kiss down to her cheek. He's just fine with the use of his arm as pillow. "Mm. It's ... it's been easier since then," he tells her slowly, gray-blue eyes on her prettily flushed face. "Just go with the flow, you know? Like just now." And he grins at her with a touch of mischief in the curve of his mouth. "I actually wish I had a little bit more time, or we weren't open tonight. There's a shower out back, see. And this girl showed me a /very/ neat trick the other day that you might like." Jaeyi: Pern's Doctor Ruth. Only much cuter.
Truly, "I am glad you feel better enough to go with the flow, as you say. Not that I think everyone's suited for this sorta thing." Fucking at random, she means. "But if you are and it's just something in the way that you need a little help getting over?" Jaeyi shrugs, happy to help, and draws the tip of her index finger up to the mischief at the corner of Paddy's mouth. "You can't just leave the sign up? Sorry, the head cook's living up to his title? Because that's an awful tease, a /very/ neat trick."
"No and ... I guess deep down a part of me is still inclined towards loyalty, but it's not the shape of things for me and Mic, so," P'draig lifts one shoulder a little and his grin deepens under the touch of her finger. "The sign is staying up for another hour or so ... but that other cook is coming in. I /can/ leave him a note about the sauces though, because otherwise we're in pretty good shape for prep today." His mouth drops down beside her ear, voice continuing to tease in very descriptive terms. "So if you want to give it a whirl ... I'm game if you are."
Jaeyi shouldn't sound quite so surprised but, "Are you?" Inclined toward loyalty. What he goes on to say surprises her less and has her forgetting about his inclination toward loyalty pretty promptly, her finger back-and-forth across his lower lip while he muses through what the other cook can accomplish, her ear tilted readily for the lower words. "I'll try just about anything once. And since you don't neeeed to be here, and it's not like I'm at Ista every day, it really seems like we'd just be laughing in the face of good fortune if we didn't."
"Ten turns, one woman," is P'draig's quiet answer to that question though he's readily distracted in short order. "I'll write that note," he agrees to her proposition and frees his hand to reach for the pad of paper that's not too far off: it's recycled stuff, a little gray-toned and he scrabbles a note out with the thick charcoal pencil, then bends down to kiss the baker on his counter and pushes away a breath later, carefully. "Be right there," is the promise and he slips around into the other part of the kitchen, where the note is tacked up visibly and heat on the pots is turned down. We he comes back, the brownrider collects scattered clothing and holds out a hand. "Here's hoping this is incentive to visit more often," Paddy teases further with a little wink.
Ten turns, one woman, "And one very sad rest-of-the-world, I'm sure of it." While Paddy busies himself with the business of his business, Jaeyi busies herself with the business of sitting on his counter, looking very pretty and watching him with open interest. "Do you think I need," she begins, taking the offered hand and letting it help her half-hop, half-slide to the ground, then letting it help her draw his arm around her shoulders, "further incentive to visit more often? I'd be here lots if it weren't for the whole 'traveling sucks' issue. So we really better make the most of this time." Very serious, that last.
Laughter for that quip and his shoulders lift. "Maybe. I'm not that vain about what I'm like in bed." Matter-of-fact. "Or not in bed, as the case might be," amused that and his arm curls around Jaeyi supportively. "So does that mean I should get on my big brown dragon and head over to Fort every now and then?" Paddy tilts a questioning look over at the baker. He is however, moving on through the cothold to carry on this little shower demonstration, collected clothes abandoned on a lounge chair on the back side of the porch.
Jaeyi bites her lower lip around a grin, echoing through half her mouth, "Big. Brown. Dragon. Mhmn." As funny as 'pie' might have become, 'big brown dragon' is better, you gotta admit. "I wouldn't put you out in the cold or anything if you turned up. Mind you, I do have to work." In more ways than one. "And I can't just put up a 'closed' sign, unfortunately, but if you turned up before, say, supper time at the Hold, I could find a few hours for you. I haven't got a /shower/, but my bathtub's pretty damn luxuriant. Oh wait." She's gotta untangle herself for long enough to go trotting back and get her basket.
Chuckling lowly, P'draig winks over at the baker for the way she says that. Big. Brown. Dragon. And gives her a little brow waggle to go aong with it. "Mm. Before supper, got it. That could work out sometimes, given the time difference," the brownrider points out. "And shells, you know, I thought about a tub for here? But I thought it might be a little over the top. The shower is mostly for rinsing off after swimming in the ocean all day and well, you know how sweaty working in a kitchen gets. I /miss/ the bath I had at Fort Weyr. Talk about luxury." But. Basket. And Paddy leans in the doorway to watch her scamper back, the grin on his face shading towards fond.
Jaeyi, with a brief, sly grin, answers, "I've heard about this tub of yours, actually. Though I kinda bet mine's better. When you get super-rich from your restaurant, ignoring the fact that you're giving away most of your profit, you can put in a lavish bathtub and I'll visit often enough to make it worth the investment, hmn?" She returns with the basket, loops her arm through his again, and asks now that it occurs to her, after his description of the shower's /actual/ use, "It's not cold water, is it? Aside from the fact that /I/ don't care to shiver, there are certain parts of a man that don't seem to get along well with cold water, I've noticed."
"Now there's incentive," P'draig answers laughingly and walks on through companionably. "It's not /hot/," he say of the shower. "But it's usually pretty warm by this time of the day. Full sun up there and all," he continues. "It's another one of those things I'll need to look at if I get a good profit turning around. Heater for out there."
Predictably, after perhaps a touch of pouting about the temperature disclaimer, Jaeyi suggests, "Well, I guess we'll just have to figure out how to keep each other warm then, hmn?" When he adds on the bit about a heater, she draws in a deep breath-- partially because Jaeyi + deep breaths = pretty-- and lets it out with a puff. "You have a very long list of investments, Paddy. I hope you're business sense is as good as your ambitions."
Deep breath = suitably distracting. "Hm? Oh. Well, some of it is just pipe-dreaming. I'm not ... flush like I was before. Put a lot of my savings into this, so." But hey, porch. Shower. And the water is pleasantly warm at least, just not steaming hot.
Jaeyi will accept suitably distracting, that's pretty much why she does it anyway. "If you do get rich again, let me know? I'm good at being a kept woman. And I can help you cook sometimes." All in play, of course, with her trailing along into that shower after she finds some place to stow her basket, whose contents would object even more loudly than the girlish squealing about being "cold cold cold!" that comes in response to water that certainly doesn't deserve to be so maligned.
"I'll keep that in mind if you're looking for a backup job, or get tired of really, really fancy," P'draig answers in the spirit of good fun. All that squealing just means Paddy's got all the more incentive to show her this little trick and shift things from the claimed 'cold' to 'warm warm warm' instead.
It's hard to call what they're doing in there 'getting clean,' but there may eventually be some back-scrubbing for Paddy and an effort made to finger-comb through some wrecked curls for Jaeyi once he's gotten her distracted from pretending she's freezing to death. Afterward, letting water trickle over her back and shoulders, letting her hands slip over his skin, she adds contentedly, "Thanks for not insisting you had to work. It's fun to be with someone fun."
"You saved me from a dull half hour with the books. I think I can pretty much endorse 'fun to be with someone fun' wholeheartedly," P'draig says and pushes back a little sodden lock of hair. "I'm going to guess that goes to ..." and he lifts his other hand, waggles it back and forth. "Don't need any details if you don't want to share. But. If you need an ear ... or more fun ..." both of his shoulders (nice shoulders) shrug. Even though his finger is following the path a drop of water is tracing down her skin.
The things Jaeyi's mouth proceed to do to P'draig's ear might be a roundabout way of unburdening herself, probably a lot more restorative for the Baker than trying to explain things would be. "Maybe later," she says into that ear, regarding his offer to share her woes. "'Cause I'm betting you've got big-fluffy-towels, and I've got pear polenta tarts, and somehow... somehow, I think those just seem like they go together, don't you?
She opts for fun and P'draig's eyes go rolling back in his head. "Sweet Faranth ..." the brownrider exclaims in a hoarse undertone and if his hands do a bit of clutching and roaming, hey it lets her know that mouth-ear is a very very happy combo. "I do ... have towels," he musters after a moment of throat clearing. "And those sound delicious. I have pear liqeur around somewhere."
Jaeyi and Paddy met in a bar the very first time, it helps to remember. "Do we need it?" The liqueur. "Because I think," with some pretty wandery hands of her own, so damn easy to encourage, "we could do without it. Some water, those tarts, big fluffy towels, an hour or two in that swing I see up there... I could find better things to sample than pear booze, I'm pretty sure."
"No. Just tastes good ... on skin," P'draig breathes out and in again. "That ... all sounds very, very good." A kiss follows but Paddy's expression is colored with regret. "Towels and tarts ... but the hour or two with the swing will have to be another time."
"What? Skin doesn't taste good all on its own?" Jaeyi kisses his chin at that, debates with a long hmmmmmn that melts right into the big-sad-eyes she turns up at P'draig when the swing gets taken out of the equation. People don't normally say no, see, so it takes her a second to react to it. "Why?" Pout forthcoming. Just wait.
"Sure, it's just ... it's fun," Paddy answers and oh those big-sad-eyes are hard to resist. "Because I have to go cook in an hour ... maybe a little less." He aims a kiss for that pout. "Compromise on half the time?" he offers as an alternative.
Jaeyi crinkles her nose to point out, "But I don't drink, so that's only one-way fun." She lets him have a kiss from her pout, stepping into him all damp and warm and sighing as if sadly at the time limit. "I guess. I mean, if you really have to go. Your assistant's not capable of, like, doing without you for a night? Get a better assistant." So he can spend his time banging girls who are-- hey! She graduated to 'slightly more than half his age,' yay~!
"/Oh/ well. There's always lemonade or whatever juice we've got on hand." He lifts a finger to touch her nose gently. "Not if it gets busy, no" Paddy says with a little shake of his head. "And are we talking all night or just that hour or two?"
Slightly more than half his age and still; "But what if yooooou want to get busy?" Jaeyi thinks it's funny, will probably always think it's funny. Looping her arms around his chest, she presses distracting things against him and answers, "Just a little while. I have to be back at the Hold later this evening, and I could probably use a proper bath and a catnap."
His forehead dips towards hers and clearly, distracting things are very, very distracting. "Shells, I really, really wish I could say 'yes' Jaeyi. I do. But I have to try to make this place profitable sooner rather than later so I can pay the rent this month. If I still had two cooks for backup, I could, but I need to be there." Deep breath, pause. "But I'd love to share tarts with you in the time I've got left. And I'll come visit on one of the days the restaurant is closed with something to make it up to you with, how's that?"
"So responsible." When Jaeyi says it, in that particularly put-out tone, it's really not a compliment. But she'll take a breath and put away her pout and unloop her arms, hands clasped behind her back in a posture that's ludicrously innocent given she's still naked and soaked and bummed that she can't convince P'draig to blow off work and spend his afternoon having sex with her. "I guess that'll have to do. You could at least add 'oh, and you should stay and try the food.'"
Ludicrously innocent for sure, because of course, P'draig is instantly captivated. Clearly, if he didn't have a stronger conscience, he'd be all over it. As it is, his hands reach for her hips to pull her near again and his smile is bright. "If you can stay for opening, that'd be really great. I've got some amazing things you can try and I don't mind sharing the recipes, or at least the combinations."
Because really, he does love to talk shop with her about as much as he enjoys the no-strings and very enjoyable sex.
Jaeyi, not difficult to draw on over, though she resolutely refuses to unfold her hands or touch him back, nope nope nope. Instead, there's a very long moment after his words where she just kinda looks at him, her eyes dancing amusement even if she's forced into behaving herself. "Really, Paddy. You ought to listen to yourself sometime." Amazing things she can try. Baker-ing has to be the absolute worst for those euphemisms, excepting maybe the 'I've got something to make you feel better' line that belongs to Healers. "Towels and tarts, brownrider, and then we can talk about exchanging recipes." See? Even that sounds like a double entendre.
He laughs, a bright, unfettered sound and slides a hand downward. "That does sound bad, doesn't it? Or good, depending which way you look at it." P'draig's smile doesn't dim in the slightest and his brows bop up and down a few times. "I've got a big book of recipes to go with my big brown dragon!" Icing on the cake? "But come on, you're starting to get goosebumps and they're not because I'm making you break out in delighted shivers." His thumb brushes the edge of her arm. Time's running out, but there are nice towels and the chairs on the porch are comfy and the tarts are probably to-die-for delicious. Clothes have to find their way back on at some point, but that too miiight just be worth it for some kind of delicate local fish, tender pork with appropriate sides that blend a Fort and Ista sensibility and though he's not the dessert expert, apparently Paddy does make a decent tropical-fruit infused creme caramel.
It might be. If anything's going to make Jaeyi forget to sulk about sex, it's food. The way she talks about it, the way she enjoys it-- well, if Paddy hadn't already gotten lucky, he could probably count on it with a reaction like that. She even finds someone she can flirt with in the restaurant, though it's more the idle, not-really-interested kind of banter than the kind that leads to naked. At the end, she promises to come back again some time, bringing the cookbook with the weird fishes in it.
It was mentioned earlier that they both like making people happy with the good food, and Jaeyi'll earn more than one very pleased smile from P'draig at that clear enjoyment of the meal. "Here, if you want to try making that," he slides her over a card with the recipe for the tropical infusion. "Some of the fruits only grow here. Could trade you for some Fortian nuts though if you've got extra on hand." Though he's super busy cooking by the time Jaeyi needs to head out, he takes a moment's pause to kiss her cheek on the way out. "See you soon," is a promise.
"There's no shortage of nuts at Fort," Jaeyi assures cheerily for that bit, like she's so effing clever. Cheek-kisses and she ducks out before the fellow she was flirting with expects any kind of follow through.