Log: Plans
As the afternoon wore on and the the dinner bell rang, those set to working on the construction of the cottages all gathered up their tools and belongings and headed back to the Weyr to clean up and take their meals. Meanwhile, the sun is hanging low over the sea and Loe has found herself a comfortable seat on the dirty floor of one cottage, back resting against the open frame of the wall, a water skin and the remnants of a meal sitting beside her and her idle gaze cast out across the path to the shore.
They're off work for the day and so is Halsten. This is the first time he's actually wandered down this way, in fact, perhaps a rather pointed absence given his supposed interest in the project. Or maybe the first. At least the first when anybody's still been here at the time. He doesn't seem to particularly expect that, wandering among the work-in-progress, whistling. A high, almost sad little melody. Loe may have heard it before, might recognize that before he gets to the particular cottage where she's resting, stops with hands in pockets a little distance away from it. "Working late?"
It's hard to miss the whistling. Loe doesn't leap to her feet or anything, but she turns to watch the whistler approach, to smile when she sees that the whistler is Halsten. She just sits there, watching, until he spots her. "Not working," she tells him with a wry grin, expecting that much is obvious. "What brings you out here? Curious to see how it's all going?" She brushes a lock of blonde behind her hear and an eyebrow arches lightly, like there's some little competition there.
"Absolutely. Checking in on progress, possibly indulging in some light industrial sabotage, you know, exactly what you might expect." Halsten smiles broadly, finally walks over, leans on one of the posts of the cottage's brand new frame. Heavily enough that if it was inclined to wobble, it probably would. Hopefully it won't, at least not too much. "Seems to all be going quite well. I expect you've been very busy."
"Ha ha," Loe says rather than laughs when he teases her about sabotage. She's amused, if barely so, and she smiles lazily up at him as he takes that lean against the bare frame. "Would you believe I'm not actually building these things myself? I stop by, check on the progress, but there's really very little for me to do here, other than make a few executive decisions when things come up there weren't entirely planned for." But the headwoman looks around the frame with appreciation. Her smile grows more quiet, more honest. "I think these places are going to be gorgeous. Perfect little getaways."
A smirk. "And here I thought you were out there with a hammer all day every day. I'm so disappointed. I thought you had a work ethic." Halsten glances thoughtfully about the place, doesn't really look back down at her. "It is going to be gorgeous, yes." A statement of fact; he seems to have no doubt. "I thought you must be busy, what with you standing me up the other day. Doing something terribly important, anyway."
"Mm." That's Loe's little note of agreement without believe. Or belief without... Nevermind. She hears him and doesn't believe for a moment that he expected her to be doing anything with hammers. She does spare him a small, wry smile for the lie, though. And when he mentions that day some previous in the market, she leans her head back against the wall stud, all relaxed. "Did I?" she wonders, sounding almost innocent.
As though this were a real question, Halsten considers the answer at length, looking over the framing, down at what there is of a floor, out towards the path and the beach. "I did wait. Longer than I should have, maybe. I think you could have put a little more distance between the cottages. Wonder if they're properly out of earshot of one another. The feeling of privacy will matter, I suspect." Moving on, evidently.
"Did you?" Loe asks, pleasure showing in the smile that now curves her lips. "I'm sure I'll be back at some point. I -am- interested in that razor. If you still have it." There's no question in her voice, but there is one in her expression, that lift of that eyebrow again. However, his comment on privacy has her glancing at the vegetation to the side. "It should be far enough between them. And it will fill in now that there's a clearing and the sun can reach deeper. Plus, we can always plant some things, something that flowers." She's not real particular about gardening and so that just gets a lift of her bare shoulder.
"What in the world would make you think I was going to hold onto it this long?" It's Halsten's turn to raise his eyebrows to her instead. "Especially with no deposit. That would be very bad business, to give up a quarter mark today for a quarter mark someday down the road. Maybe. If it suits you." Not that he's said he hasn't, in all that, of course. He steps out away from the framed cottage, just far enough to get a look at the thing from the outside. "A bit bigger than I expected," thoughtfully.
"Well I don't know how fast those things move. And I can't imagine there's as much market for a pink shaving razor as for some of your more... manly offerings." But Loe does smile on him again, no hard feelings if, indeed, the chance for that particuar razor has come and gone already. "Do you still have it?" she wonders more plainly. Her eyes follow him as he steps back from the frame. "They are bigger in reality than they are as drawings, yes. Have you seen the drawings?" Not there's really much reason he would have. She hasn't shown him. But they are around during the day, when the workers are present, just in case he -has- stopped by.
No answer to that first question, which might be an answer of its own. After just decrying it as bad business, he easily *could* deny still having it. But he couldn't as easily admit to such a thing. Or else Hal's just moved on to this other subject entirely. "No, I haven't seen the actual plans, just the preliminaries. Do you have them, here? The plans? I wouldn't mind a glimpse. See a little more about how they're going to look when they're finished properly."
"I don't. I just came here to eat and relax a bit." Evidenced by that forgotten napkin and the pile of crumbs it holds. "I didn't bring the plans with me. You'll just have to behold the skeleton and imagine the beast." Loe lets out a laugh and lifts a hand to gesture grandly if lazily toward the structure around her. Of course, just looking around at it makes her smile that quiet, satisfied smile again. She gets to her feet, the stud for support, her waterskin and napkin left behind. "This part over here is actually the porch, I believe. So the interior room won't take up this entire space."
"So this is where you're hanging out, then, in your off hours? Where will you go when they're done? Just say to people, 'Excuse me, I know you're on vacation, do you mind if I sit on your porch?'" Halsten takes a few steps along the outside, eyes cast up towards the roof or whatever there is of it. Imagining. "I'm still impressed. Your exectutive contributions lead to good work, anyway, even if you aren't personally wielding the tools of the trade."
"Yes, precisely." With a low chuckle, Loe's steps take her toward the rear of the structure, to stand by the back corner of it, where one wall has been erected, the empty rectangle of the window looking out on the jungle. "And I'll ask them to be quiet, too, while I take a nap in the bed. Do you think they'll mind?" She tosses a smile over her shoulder at him, eyes laughing. But she looks away during his praise, even if there's no false modesty her, "Thank you."
No outright laughter, but at least a bit of a chuckle for that. "Who would complain at you in their bed?" It's a hypothetical question. A joke. With a smile and everything. Then Hal's moving along the other side of that wall, to the other side of that window, peering in at her. "You're welcome," quite seriously. "I'm sure you've been waiting all along for my approval," more lightly.
Loe can't help it. The smirk is in her voice even before she becomes visible through that window. "You might be surprised," she tells him, stepping forward to lean her elbows on the sash. With the height of the floor, even bent as she is, she's still a bit taller than him now. "Is that what I was waiting for? I'd wondered," she chuckles again. Just those small, quiet laughs, nothing terrible bright or livey tonight. At least not by the usual standards. Still, there's something keen in her eyes as she grins down at him.
A bit taller, but not so much Halsten can't comfortably rest his hands on the edge of the sill, though not quite where her arms rest. "I thought you must be waiting for something. You do always seem to be waiting for something." When he pulls his hands away again, the razor previously in question is sitting where his right hand was. At least, probably the same razor. It might be redder. Or pinker. Or something. "I don't really make a habit of doing this." It's a little defensive.
Loe wasn't paying any attention this his hands. As he drew in closer, she just watches his face, eyes eagerly lit. It then takes a moment for her to realize that he's left something where his hand just was; she blinks down at the smooth enamel handle sitting there on the rough, naked wood of the windowsill. "You're holding onto it for me?" she guesses with a vaguely uneasy laugh. "I didn't mean you actually had to hold it, keep it on your person at all times." She presses her lips together, trying to control the knowing smile that wants to creep over her face.
"I don't make a habit of it," again. "Bad business. I thought you were coming back." Like Hal's recounting something that happened some long time ago, not a matter of days. "I don't really have a place to keep things that aren't mine, I'm not selling, and nobody is in fact coming to pick up. It was easier this way, for if I saw you." Which, look, there he is, he can see her, the plan has worked out brilliantly, or something.
"It's not like it's a wardrobe," Loe points out. After all, razors aren't terribly large, difficult to store things. She stands up from her elbow-lean against the windowsill and lets her hand cover the razor, just cover it at first. It's a beat later that her fingers actually wrap around it. "I can pay you. I do have the marks," she reminds him, looking down at the sill mostly, taking only quick glances at him. She seems reluctant to actualy claim that razor, for whatever reason.
A faint little snort of laughter. "Well, no. It would have been precious difficult to haul a wardrobe around all the time. But it's not like I don't have space in my pockets." Halsten moves to the side a bit, leans one shoulder against the wall to the side of the window-space. "Of course you can. It's not a gift. When you have the quarter-mark on you, you can pay me." But there doesn't seem to be an urgent press for collection, either. "Unless you find you don't want it, after all."
Not a gift. That helps her relax and now Loe can actually pick up the razor and turn it around in her hand. She watches it, the way the fading light catches the enamel's shine, and she takes another glance at the man who's making himself comfortabe against the cottage's one outer wall. "You really don't like me visiting your booth, do you," she guesses with another wan laugh. There might not be much time for him to answer, though. She bends forward, with one hand slipping the razor into her back pocket, with the other reaching for him so that she might lay a light and leisurely kiss on his cheek. It's a thank you. Or maybe it's her payment. Either way, the blade would seem to be hers now.
Not so much as a quiver of a muscle through that, either towards or away. Frozen as carefully as someone expecting that on false move could scare away a rare and curious creature, until she's well distant again. "Come, now. I never would have asked you to come back if I didn't mean it." Asked and, supposedly, waited. "You are occasionally distracting, but I was not trying to get rid of you." Hal pauses. "You might have had a volunteer to practice on, if you'd come back. But I daresay you'll do well enough on that score without me, hm?"
Loe doesn't give him too much distance. For all that the brush of her lips to his cheek was brief, the hand that steadied herself on his shoulder by the curve of his neck remains there even when she draws back a bit. She lets him speak but might not really be listening. She doesn't look like she's listening. She looks like she's too busy studying him to really be paying any attention to what he says. And yet, as she leans in again, "I don't think I've lost my volunteer," she tells him. And he gets another kiss, still on his cheek, though a bit closer to his mouth this time. Just in case anyone is keeping track.
A shift in Halsten's mouth even as hers is so close, inhale through the nose, lips pressed together, slightly pursed, the beginnings of a word, a protest at this presumption perhaps. And it dies, unspoken, lips just parting to exhale slowly and heavily. "No," with something like resignation and an undercurrent of the effort necessary to stick to casual resignation and nothing more, "I suppose not." A pause in which his eyes stay studiously away from hers. "Are you busy tonight?"
When she draws back, that hand lifts to trace the side of his face. Her smile is quiet, perhaps already a little apologetic. "I'm turning in early tonight. It's been a long day." She turns her fingers over, so that their backs can take a pass across his cheek as well, and her thumb rubs once at the side of his mouth, as if it's brushing off a crumb from her kiss, not that there is any such thing. "But you should come by sometime soon. We can go over the list of things I might need for outfitting the cottages. And I have that other proposal to talk to you about. I think." And then she straightens and lets her hand fall from his face as she steps back from the window.
The blow of a sigh past her thumb could almost have been an attempt at a kiss, but it wasn't. Just a sigh, real resignation that time. "Of course. I would certainly not want to keep you up. Day after tomorrow, perhaps?" Judicious compromise, Halsten avoiding the 'tomorrow' that might seem too eager. "Lunch? Or dinner. Whatever's best for your schedule."
"Either," she answer, if not very helpfully. "And I can show you the drawings, too. They're going to be perfect. Like three little dreams. I don't know how I'm going to give them up and let strangers sleep in them." She continues backing up from the window, moving toward her waterskin and napkin. Loe bends to snag them both, giving the latter a flap to dislodge the crumbs. "Are you staying a bit?" she wonders. It would seem she's about ready to start in on that early night.
"I came to see," Halsten replies, "and I saw. Lunch or dinner, and I'll see how busy I am during the day. Don't want to close down for too long in the middle of a rush." As she finally moves away, he braces his hands against the sill, pushes himself up onto it, swings his legs over like that was somehow any easier than just walking around like a normal person. "As it seems I'm free this evening, I had better well get started on arranging some appropriate debauchery, or the night could go completely un-debauched."
"And what a shame that would be," Loe teases about the un-debauched night, tossing a quick, playful smile over her shoulder at him. "Dinner if you prefer, then. I'm not picky." Before she actually steps down from the porch, there's a moment where she just lays a hand on the cottage frame, looks it over one last time. It's a silent farewell for the place. And then she starting off. "I'll you soon, Halsten. Thank you for the razor." He gets one more wide flash of her grin and then she's heading back to the Weyr.
"See you," he offers in return. She's off, and for all his protestations Halsten does linger for another few moments until she's gone, but there's no need for a big rush; it's not like it's so late in the evening that he doesn't have plenty of time for his usual amusements, yet.