Club Opening

[bitingmybullet]

Well.

Here we go.

The night is young, the lights are low, and the sound system actually appears to be working. Gwen's dressed in what, for her, is nice: black dance pants, ballet flats, and a scoop-neck t-shirt.

She's just praying no fights break out. She likes this shirt

Comments

[bass_line_blues]

And there's Preston, with his bass-onna-cart - craning his neck and looking around real hopefully for someone who can play, say, a melody.

After a minute, he shrugs, and kneels down to unpadlock the case.

[bass_line_blues]

"Johannes Sebastian Bach," Preston offers, immediately.

With a smirk.

He'll duck if she tries to hit him.

[k_gabriel]

He just gets a look.

"Do you know any Bach that sounds good on acoustic guitar? Because really, I think a pipe organ would be harder to schelpp around."

[bass_line_blues]

Preston plucks a few strings on the bass.

"I manage this thing all right."

(Preston lies. And moreover, Karla has seen his cart, and knows this.)

"Anyway, wasn't there a rap mix-up of the - no, shit, that was Beethoven, I think."

[k_gabriel]

Shrug.

"You got me. I was never real big on rap."

[bass_line_blues]

"Me neither," Preston says, "but my roommate had the alternative station on seventy-five percent of the time; they played it on there a couple times.

"I got to know all the top ten indie hits reeeal well."

[k_gabriel]

"I...mostly heard country or rock back south. Or whatever was on the radios of anyone I hitched a ride with, which was more or less the same."

[bass_line_blues]

"I came from California," Preston says, amiably.

"Home state of the hippie nutcase. I've heard everything under the sun."

[k_gabriel]

"Yeah? Never been to California."

There's a decent attempt to keep the easy-banter tone as she adds, "Don't guess I'm likely too, now."

[bass_line_blues]

A brief pause.

"Maybe not," Preston says; he shrugs, in a quick movement that's less - human-looking than most of his tend to be.

"But hey - you're not missing much. I mean."

A half-smile. "Sure, there's good surfing. But earthquakes on top of everything else would kind of suck. And who needs sun when you've got - uh - wind?"

[k_gabriel]

Karla shrugs as well, and there's a hint of apology in the joking tone when she says, "Hey, I burn easy, and I know how to work the casually windwept look."

[bass_line_blues]

Preston grins; almost reaches over to ruffle her hair, and then runs a hand through his own instead.

(Easy, casual contact - it's a wolf thing. Preston tries his hardest to remember which impulses are, and which aren't.)

"Casual windswept, huh? Have to remember that next time Gwen tells me I look like a tornado hit my head."

[k_gabriel]

There's a second where Karla starts to tense up--but then Preston's gesture changes, and she relaxes.

He's a nice guy. Maybe even a good guy. Easy, casual contact just isn't something she's big on.

Lightly, "Well, there's casual, and then then there's tornado. 'The intensely windswept look' doesn't really have the same ring."

[bass_line_blues]

The tension's not unexpected - not these days, especially.

Preston reminds himself, again, to watch himself; he would anyways, but the extra motivation doesn't hurt.

(And he spares a moment to wonder if Karla's figured out he's wolf yet.)

"I think musicians are supposed to be intense," he says, musingly.

"Probably doesn't apply to bassists, though. Or hair."

[wither_wilt]

Solomon is look down at the bass-onna-cart, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"Yo."

[bass_line_blues]

Preston looks at the cart also.

"It works better now," he offers, cheerfully.

This is not saying very much.