Target Shooting [Jake]

Jake Novak
'Tomorrow night' turned out to be later than intended.  Jake called the next morning, something had come up.  Sunday got busy, something like that.  Many apologies.  It took some phone tag to come around to a new evening, but on the appointed night and at the appointed time, a car pulls into Drew's driveway.  The engine neither purrs nor roars but snarls, a sound that is as deep and aggressive as it is restrained.  The car is black, the windows tinted, and though it is low to the ground it is no sleek coupe but a solid sedan.  The blue and white emblem on the front marks its driver as, most likely, some form of asshole.  It is a couple of years old, which means it is newer than the vast majority of cars seen in and around Browntown, and it is kept in remarkably good shape and shine considering they live in the boondocks
.
Whether Drew is around to see it or not, Jake gets out of the front once he's parked behind Drew's truck and the door shuts with a solid but subdued thump and click.  He goes around to the back, pulls a heavy black gym bag from the cavernous trunk -- as well as a paper grocery sack -- and shuts that with a little more noise than the door.  Jake is in jeans, though not ones as worn as he had on at the bakery, and a chambray work shit, tucked in at the waist.  His belt is brown and aged.  The sleeves of his shirt are rolled to his upper forearms.

The sun is only just setting now, the bakery is still open, and his phone is on vibrate in his pocket in case Trevor calls with some emergency.  Jake takes the time to look around, though he's been here twice now, then walks with purpose up to the house.

Drew RoscoeScheduling and planning was pretty easy with Drew-- she was very prompt about answering her phone, be it a phone call or a text message.  That was one of the benefits of working from home, and one of the very big reasons she fought to be able to do so.  It gave her freedoms that she felt would become necessary given her life as a Kinfolk, like being able to drop what she was doing in a moment's notice to race away from home and go help Family out, or to answer a question that needed a quick answer with a five minute conversation.  Or, simply, to be able to have her door unlocked and her door open to someone who would need it.

Granted, none of these were necessities, or even close, with Jake, but it was still nice to be able to build a reputation of reliability.  So Drew was flexible with Jake's schedule, and the evening that was decided upon Drew's truck was certainly home, the porch light was on (even though the dark had not fallen yet) as a universal indicator that someone was home, and though the blinds were closed, Jake could be assured that the brown-eyed girl would be home when she said she would be.  She seemed like the kind of gal that would stick to her word after all.

So, when Jake pulled up, Drew of course heard the sound of the engine and knew someone had arrived.  A brief glimpse through blinds confirmed that the visitor was who she thought it was, and she didn't need to answer the door with her gun.  Instead, she had opened it up just as Jake was walking up the stairs, not giving him an opportunity to have to knock, and smiled brightly.

"Jake, good to see ya.  I've got targets set up and beer in the fridge.  Some harder stuff in the cupboard if you prefer.  We'll be around back, but you're welcome to acclimate first if you want?"  She was holding the door open for him and gesturing with her free arm that he was welcome to come on in.

Jake NovakNothing is a necessity with Jake.  He's not Family, not in any sense.  But he is a neighbor, a near-enough-to-walk neighbor, and he comes bearing snacks and firearms, so it's nice to be able to greet him at the door.
He looks up as he approaches the porch, the door opening to him, young Ms. Roscoe stepping out, and he smiles.  It comes easily, though as always there is some odd trace at the corners of his eyes and behind his lips like that sort of easy, warm smile pains him somehow, though what flavor the pain takes and how severe it is and if, in fact, it's pain at all is hard to tell.  To many it just makes him look like the smiles are fake, even when they touch his eyes.  It's just an odd cant to the way Jake's expressions work, it seems.  He smiles, and walks up the porch steps.

The truth is, there is something powerful about walking up to a house and the door opening, someone walking out and smiling at you, knowing your name.  Such a thing is far enough into the progression of human civilization to have mutated away from pure instinct, but there is primality to it.  Hearthfires, lights in the darkness.  It's just knowledge, however transient or shallow, that you are being taken in somehow.  Jake wonders how she does it.  He cannot imagine opening his door like this, smiling at someone walking up to him, welcoming them in, and anyone feeling that upon seeing his face.

The thoughts are gone by the time he finishes the few steps.  The bag in his right hand sags at the straps from its own weight -- it holds a great deal of metal -- but Jake's grip isn't clenched, his arm isn't tensed.  He carries that weight with a familiar ease, which is not terribly surprising, given the way he examined her gun the night she opened the door with it in hand.

"Good to see you, Drew," he replies, and though it's a 'you too' sort of answer, the tone makes it sincere.  She's welcoming him to come inside, all the way, and he glances past her into the house, as though to decide based on what he sees there.  He decides yes, and steps past her, angling his body sideways with the bag of groceries and the bag of guns so they don't bump against her.  "I might not be opposed to whiskey later," he tells her, walking a few uncertain steps into her house, "but beer is probably better to start, given..."

The gym bag moves in his hand, lifts an inch, descends again.  He twists his head to look at her.  "Where should I put this?" he asks, indicating the paper sack.  "It's just odds and ends.  Some of it mine.  Some of it from the market."  There's a beat.  "I have this thing for sucking on peppermints when I'm shooting.  I don't know why."

Drew Roscoe"Probably for the focus," she guessed in answer to Jake's making conversation by revealing that he likes to suck on peppermints when he's shooting.  He makes his way past her and she closes the door behind him easily.

Inside the house is warm and well kept.  There are no children or pets to be messing things up after her, after all.  The living room is decorated with a large brown sectional couch, a television mounted on the wall that is turned off, and a large coffee table in between.  The floors are all hardwood (for a damn fine reason) and there's a rug in the center of the room to pull it together.  There are a few prints and pretty pictures to kill dead space on the wall, but nothing personal-- no faces, no family.  Just decor.

"I had a friend that would chew gum while he worked.  It helped relieve stress and let him think a bit better."  As for the bag--  "That we can put in the kitchen on the table.  It's close to the door out back, and that's where we'll be shooting anyway."

And with that she leads him back into the kitchen, a room close to the side of the living room with updated appliances and a large open space that has been filled with a big wooden dining room table.  The color scheme in here is yellow, she's always found that appropriate for kitchens.  The table has been cleared, and she's gesturing for him to place his things on the table while going to the fridge herself.

"I've got some PBRs and a pumpkin ale, and a few Buds left over to boot.  What would you like to start?"

Jake Novak"Could be," he says.  "I do it on long car trips, too.  Keeps me awake."

The gym bag is not set down in the entry, not in the family room.  It simply is not set down.  He does look around, unabashedly, but without more than a cursory glance.  A couple of times his gaze fixes on something or other, some minor and unimportant thing, but then he pulls his eyes away as though intentionally not getting too curious.  He carries the two bags with him to the kitchen, Drew leading him, and takes what needs to be refrigerated out of the bag first.  The gym bag goes on the kitchen table.

Jake, holding some thinly sliced meat -- likely got at Cutler's, given the wrapping -- turns toward Drew at the fridge, handing it over.  She mentions PBRs, Buds, and something with pumpkin.  "Let's go with the ale," he says, not seeming terribly invested.  But it is autumn.  And at least the pumpkin ale comes in a bottle.  "I brought some of the little croissants," he mentions, unpacking a bag of starlight mints from the groceries as well.  His back is to her again.  "You mentioned liking those.  I won't lie to flatter, though: they're just leftover from this morning."

Drew RoscoeBags are set on the table, and Jake pulls things that need to be refrigerated from the bag and hands them over to Drew where she stands at the fridge.  She glanced up, grinned some, and accepted the paper-wrapped sliced meat (Cutler Meats, so sayeth the packaging) to stash in the meat drawer.

"Thanks!"  And, from there, he's requesting the ale and mentioning that he brought the croissants that she liked.  The smile that she'd offered turned into more of a playful grin, and she straightens up with two bottles of the pumpkin ale, cracks them open with a bottle opener that's kept as a magnet on the fridge, and hands one to the taller, older, darker man in her kitchen.

"Well don't you just know how to charm a girl before she takes you out back to shoot shit."  Eyebrows wag, all jokes and play, as she takes a good swig from her bottle.

"Shall we, then?"  Of course, talking about going out back and getting started.

Jake Novak"I keep telling you that I don't dance around when it comes to plying my neighbors with pastries," Jake says, trading her a block of muenster cheese -- that would be from the local dairy -- for the opened beer.  He sniffs it, and there is something so familiarly feral about it that Drew may forget for a moment that he's only human, then takes a drink.  "You think you're the first woman that's opened a door to me with a gun behind her back?"

He takes another drink.  "That's quite good," he states, with a certainty and decisiveness in the words that is so often there and so often just a little awkward, amusing in his stiffness.  He enunciates when he speaks.  He tries to choose his words precisely.  He does not say 'yeah' and 'sure' and things like that.  And it is so at odds with the relaxation of his shoulders, the darkness in his eyes, that it seems like a coat he wraps around himself, staving off the risk of exposure.

Shall we, then?

Jake inclines his head to Drew, using his free hand to swing the gym bag back up into his grip.  "After you," he says, just as politely, gesturing with the pumpkin ale bottle to the back door, the deck beyond it.

And so they head out, just like that.  Jake apparently brought a whole collection of toys, and a reasonable but not ridiculous stack of ammo.  There are a few boxes of blanks as well.  But he doesn't get every single thing out to spread across the deck and look at.  He does pull out a shotgun, though, which is black from toe to tip and is, if Drew would know it, a Mossberg HS12.  There is also a very large .45 from Strayer-Voigt, which is also black.  He has a few others in there, but he doesn't go digging around to get everything out.
Jake just takes out that matte-colored .45 and the shotgun, setting the latter aside and finding the ammo for the former.  The way he treats each weapon, and in fact each cartridge, bespeaks great respect for what they can do, and yet... there's a strange ease about him, like this is just as familiar as baking bread is to him.  Drew has never seen him bake, of course, but it's not hard to imagine him doing it with this same look of utterly relaxed concentration.  The precision in his movements is almost military.

Drew Roscoe[Something feels telling...
Intelligence 3 + Intuition 2]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

Jake NovakThere is a subtle difference between being able to discern someone's emotions about a thing and having a feeling of what to do, what is coming.  That Jake is relaxed, that Jake is also quite focused, is evident simply in the way he handles and loads the handgun.  That there is even a glimmer of excitement in him isn't that hard to pick up, for anyone who might pay attention.  So he likes putting 'rounds in the ground', as he said -- what of it?  This was his idea, anyway.  He even gave her cookies as though asking her to please, please be his shooting buddy.

But all of that lies right on the surface, as evident as a dusting of powdered sugar over one of Jake's brownies.  That is not what runs its fingertip up Drew's spine, though, ticking off each vertebrae like keeping a count.  That isn't what a sense like a wolf has is picking up on.  This is gut instinct.  This is in her bones:
Jake is very dangerous.  He is calm, and he is almost awkwardly stiff, but he is on the precipice of great violence.  There is a capacity there for such... carnage that she has only felt before when in the presence of true wolves or true monsters, or those Garou who are both.  Jake, though perhaps he is the gentle giant sort, can make one's skin crawl as he loads a firearm.  He is not a safe man.

And yet, concurrent with this, Drew knows with just as much certainty that she is safe.  Maybe not with him -- she has seen too much in this life to believe in 'safety' or 'security' as permanent or even tangible realities -- but certainly from him.

Drew RoscoeIf Drew has guns other than what she's most comfortable with stashed away for collecting or sport purposes, she doesn't bring them out tonight.  She wished she had a good sniping rifle for the purpose of assisting friends and family, but she didn't feel the need to put money into such an investment at this time.  Other than that, it was her magnum, her colt, and her shotgun.

For the purposes of target practice, she's brought the Magnum out from where it's normally kept in the front room, and has a couple of boxes of rounds set on the table on her back porch along with the gun itself.  They hadn't been out there long, the night didn't call for rain, so she wasn't concerned about leaving them unattended for a fistful of minutes.  As Jake is setting up out on the back porch, Drew is making sure that her pistol is completely loaded.

The targets she's set up are back against the treeline.  They are simple-- big, round, with the white and red circles coming to a close with a black dot in the center, set up on two different tri-stands.  She is quick and practiced at loading her gun, the motions committed to muscle memory-- this suggests that she uses the gun frequently, and has had to reload more than once before.  She does very little to hide this fact, perhaps because she's simply forgetful of the things that can draw unwanted attention to you.

There is a calm and comfortable quiet between them while the guns are loaded and they make themselves ready for target shooting.  Drew, naturally, is ready before Jake, and has come to stand easy and content with one hand holding her gun, the other in the pocket of her zipped up black hoodie.  She's watching him carefully as he handles the weapons with a slight crease of thought (but not concern, not worry, not fear or doubt) to the center of her eyebrows.  She seems to be figuring something out.  And is none too shy when she asks:

"You haven't always been a baker, have you Jake?"

Jake NovakJake has examined the targets from a distance, but only takes his eyes off his own weaponry for brief glances.  "You just pick those up at the general store?" he quips.

And he does pay attention to how she handles her firearms.  It isn't the wary gaze of a man who's not quite sure this cheery brunette in the backwoods knows how to do much more than hide a Colt behind her back to warn off strangers, but a gaze of attention.  Maybe she takes it as interest -- shared interest -- or mere curiosity, but it isn't uneasy.  The cartridges click. Jake, who had to unpack his gun -- and also unwrap a peppermint from the bag to toss in his mouth -- finishes up a few moments after Drew, shifting the SV to his side and moving to stand.

Before he gets that far, however, Drew asks him if he's always been a baker.  Well.  She doesn't ask so much as say it with a bit of a question at the end, looking more for confirmation than anything else.  Jake's head comes up with her voice, eyes fixing on hers, but he doesn't look caught, doesn't look unnerved.  He just huffs a faint laugh, a breath really, and rises to his feet.  "Not professionally, no," he admits, walking down the steps to the grass, passing her on the way, looking back at her when he gets there.

"But I've been shooting for almost as long as I've been baking, so if you're impressed with my croissants, don't worry -- my aim won't make you look too bad."  He grins, his tongue sweeping the mint in his mouth to the side, clacking against his teeth lightly.  It's the first time she's seen him grin like that.  A little cheeky, twinkling, mocking.  It would be vicious if he meant it.

Drew RoscoeHe makes a comment, playfully at least, about her choice in targets.  Her answer was to shrug and grin right back at him.  "It was that or the ones that look like deer.  I figured this was a little better an option."

Soon enough he's ready as well and straightening up to stand where was best before the targets-- which, as it turns out, is just a few steps away from the back porch.  Drew follows him down and stands several feet to his side.  She's watching him curiously as he speaks, noting the way that his grin went sharp and delighted, different from any of the half-accomplished smiles that he was more prone to wearing.  An eyebrow lifted, just a little, and she turned and lifted the gun, steadying her shot and speaking while she did so.

When she spoke and aimed simultaneously, her tone of voice went cool and even, like she was thinking mildly aloud rather than holding a conversation.  That's what happens when you talk and focus on other things at the same time:  "Oh, I'm not worried about you making me look bad.  I'm just curious about why you've got that sparkle in your eyes and teeth when you pick up a gun."

BLAM!

Drew fires, and the bullet cuts the outside ring closest to the very center of the target.  She licks her lips, a quick swipe of the tongue, before she's looking back to Jake again.  "I'm not accusing you of anything.  You're just a real interesting soul, is all, and when a weapon is the trigger for all those curiousities I'm inclined to ask where it's come from."

Jake Novak[bang! I may have the diff for a .45 wrong but I'm not gonna look it up right now LOL]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8) ( success x 6 ) [WP]

Jake Novak[meant to check the 're-roll 10s' box, not the WP box. that's 5 suxx!]

Jake Novak"Next time," Jake announces, already assuming there will be a next time, "I'll bring some competition-style sheets with me.  We can keep score.  Literally.

He swings the beer off the ledge where he'd put it and takes a drink, then sets it down again.  A quick dig in his hoodie pocket and he pulls out a small plastic case with a pair of earplugs, which he wiggles into his ear canals as they cross the yard to the makeshift shooting line.  His mouth closes around the mint, and he stands back -- ladies first, or something.  Or maybe she wasn't waiting for his fool ass anyway.

She mentions the sparkle in his eyes -- and teeth, like he's a slavering animal -- when he picks up a gun and he doesn't get a chance to reply before she aims, fires.  A few night-sleeping birds startle from the nearby trees, taking flight in a flurry of feathers.  Jake laughs.  "Not bad," he says, and seems genuinely pleased rather than condescending with it.  Drew looks at him again, and his eyebrows lift a bit when she says she's not accusing him.

"I didn't even think of it," he says, clearly able to at least mostly hear her despite the earplugs.  He modulates his voice so he isn't yelling back at her.  It may sound muffled to him, but he knows it's clear for her.
Jake steps up to the shooting line then, looking down at the second target.  An interesting soul.  A weapon in his hand triggering all this curiosity, this brightness in him.  Jake doesn't answer.  Jake just smiles.

The gun goes off with a blast and a roar and after the smell of gunpowder clears, there's a bullet lodged dead center in the target.  The firearm is powerful, and the kick has to be intense.  Drew knows.  Drew feels it every time she lifts that thing.  Jake's arm doesn't even move.  It remains level, with only a jerk of the wrist to absorb the shock.  That isn't cool, that isn't will, that's mere strength.  But the aim, the perfection of that shot, is telling.

Jake lowers the SV to his side.  He stares at the target a moment, then turns and looks at Drew.
"I think we should stop there," he says, with the appearance of all seriousness.  "Because I may not be able to top that."

Drew Roscoe
Drew had finished her shot, Jake had then taken his turn at his target.  He'd lifted his weapon and found the line-up expertly, damn near lovingly with the same knowledge of where the gun needed to point that a man has of his lover's face-- where scars and pockmarks may lie and how vibrant eyes can be.

The shot was lined up and fired, striking the target dead center and offering enough force to knock the hastily-purchased little thing off its three legs and onto the ground.  It didn't go flying, no, but fell over without hesitation.

Jake's arm didn't buck back, his hand and wrist absorbed the shock to the point that it didn't even shift his shoulder, and when the tall man in his thirties looked over to the girl in her twenty-somethings, she appeared skeptical but not concerned.  He suggested that they stop there, and Drew nodded in agreement, made certain the safety on her gun was on and carried it with her back up onto the back porch.  The gun was set on the table, where Jake had placed the things he wanted outside with him for target practice, and Drew flopped herself to sit in one of the four chairs that were spaced openly and vaguely circled about the table.
"You're not gonna own up to being in the military, or law enforcement, or cartel or anything like that, are you?  Just gonna be vague and let me wonder why you're such a level shot."  Her tone wasn't playful, nor was it angry or cautious.  It had fallen to the standard 'matter-of-fact' volume and flat way of speech that came when she was tired of beating around the bush.

Jake NovakTruthfully, he doesn't expect Drew to agree so quickly to stopping there.  A flash of disappointment skates across Jake's face, fading away only to be replaced by a vague wariness.  Not of her, though.  Not even of her questions.  But wariness, nonetheless.  He stands where he is, that poor target dead on the ground now, the .45 at his side.

Drew safeties her weapon, walking back up to the porch.  Jake watches her, glancing at the target as she takes the steps, then exhales a barely-seen and completely unheard sigh before he follows.  She's already moving to her seat, draping into the chair, as he moves to the table and begins not just putting the safety on but completely unloading the SV.  These motions, like loading it to begin with, seem to happen without his thinking of them.

So, his back is to her when she starts talking.  To be polite, he turns to look at her over his shoulder, then his hands stop moving so much.  He could do this blind.  He knows that.  Chances are Drew wouldn't be surprised and may even expect it.  But Jake doesn't.  The safer thing is not to do it blind, not to show off, not even to let his hands continue while he pays attention to something else.  He does the safer thing.

One corner of his mouth tugs outward and a little upward.  It isn't a tense, tight, unamused smile but one that seems half rueful.  "I wasn't aware I was being vague about anything," he says, turning back to the gun til he finishes.  When it's unloaded, the ammo stowed, he turns fully.  His hands rest loosely against the edge of the table, his body leaned back against it, watching her from across the porch.

"I was raised to think it was impolite to talk about yourself.  So when you mentioned that I probably haven't always been a baker, I didn't realize you were asking me what else I've done for a living."  The smile comes back, a little more bemused -- tolerant -- than rueful this time, and fuller on his lips.  "I have never been a part of any military, nor law enforcement, and I am not involved with organized crime."

Drew RoscoeThe expression of disappointment doesn't slide by the Kinfolk unnoticed.  It wasn't urgently addressed, though, because Drew seemed invested in pulling an answer out of the Baker.  You see, he didn't control her salary, he didn't hold any real heavy sort of leverage in her daily life.  He was a neighbor, potentially a friend, but there were hurdles to be jumped to be trusted with a title so strong as 'friend'.  Acquaintance was the best term, in this moment at least.

Drew wasn't friends with strangers, and Jake Novak had a lot of mystery about him.  Hence the interrogation that the poor man was now suffering through.

"We don't have to stop entirely," she said when he started taking his weapon apart, looking a bit apologetic while expressing this.  "I figured, the way I'm taking this conversation, it's probably better without guns in hands."

He answered her question to an extent by stating he'd never been any of the professions that she listed.  A smile filled out his mouth and face again, a little moreso than others that she's seen on him, and this time more sincere and less... nostalgic, Drew figured, was a good word to use to describe the way that man's face looked when he tried to smile.

Drew looked nonplussed at best.  "So then why can you load and accurately fire a weapon with two hours of sleep and, probably if you had to, dirt in your eyes and a pint of blood missing?"  I'm tired of playing coy, the tone and expression both stated.  Don't lead me on.

Jake NovakDespite her protest, Jake goes ahead and finishes unloading the gun, at very least.  He doesn't dismantle it, since he only does that at home when he's cleaning it, but the ammo still ends up stowed.  He can always reload it if they decide to get going again.  Her comment does make him laugh, though, even if it's a short, loud breath of a laugh.  It's a joke, or at least he seems to take it as one.  After all, why would she be serious about making sure they don't have weapons in their hands with this conversation?  They're neighbors, after all.  Not murderers.

Not monsters.

Drew is far, far removed from the gossip that has already started in town about Jake.  Everyone is forming an opinion.  Some think he's a Sterling-Fisk mole.  Some don't know what to think, only that they get a bad vibe from him.  Even the woman who seems to trust him to at least help start a business group in town is wary of him, uncertain, curious.  Drew is, as far as he can tell, outside of all that.  Just his neighbor.  Just a fellow marksmanship enthusiast.

Jake sighs, a little tightly this time.  "Because I've been shooting almost as long as I've been baking," he repeats, "and I've been baking since I was five.  But that's just aim and practice, Drew.  I don't know where you're getting this idea that because I can hit a target in a backyard, in near-perfect conditions, I'm some sort of ..." he struggles to find the word, then just blurts out: "Batman."

Drew RoscoeJake's defense of his skilled marksmanship and familiarity with guns is digested for a second, then answered with laughter.  It's not the kind that says that all suspicions have been laid to bed, there's no air of relief that follows along with it.  Yet it's not harsh, not hard or snide.  She found the Batman comment funny, and it wasn't worth the effort to try and smother a grin and repress giggles.

"Batman doesn't use guns," she advised when the short-lived laughter had petered out, still chuckling a little bit.  Her fingertips, ended with short and unpainted fingernails, tapped on the wood of her patio table (painted a muted moss green, much like the rocking chair on her front porch) casually while she considered.
Her next words were spoken with something akin to acquiescence, but not utter acceptance.  "I've just never met a person before that's that good at a shot without having a reason to be.  No hobby-shooter, no gun-collector, no matter when daddy introduced 'em to the rounds.  It's rough to see someone that seems to have as little time as you do managing to squeeze very much practice into their schedule.

"No offense, but you're no young kid, Jake.  Got some time and road behind you.  Been a 'real grown up' for a while, workin' man with all kinds of obligations on his plate and in his mind.  Hell, I barely find time to practice shooting targets myself, and I have the luxury of getting my shit done at home."

She paused there, unsure of where to go from that point.  There's an awkward silence, should Jake not pounce upon the moment to fill it with words.  If he does not, and let's be honest he probably doesn't, Drew would gesture toward the house and suggest almost meekly:  "I'll grab us a drink, huh?  You pick your next weapon of choice and knock over the other target."

Jake NovakHe snaps his fingers up by his ear and points at her when she points out that Batman doesn't use guns.  She's got him there.  He pushes away from the table and takes a few steps closer to where she's sitting.  He folds his forearms across the back of one of the chairs, facing her, but still standing.  She gives a little.  She admits that she just hasn't ever met anyone with that kind of aim who didn't have a good reason, and this makes a small frown crease Jake's forehead.  It almost looks sympathetic, but that doesn't seem to fit quite right on his face, so it just looks puzzled.

Then she talks about how he's not a kid, and coming from someone he guesses is at least ten years his junior, all that gets from Jake is a wry smirk.  She's guessing a lot, truth be told, about what his life has looked like, but he doesn't argue with her.

Thankfully, that awkward silence doesn't actually happen, because Drew isn't the only curious once.  Jake almost instantly asks her at that pause: "What do you do, if you don't mind my asking?  I've only seen you come to town the once."

Drew RoscoeThe girl didn't quite get a chance to offer the drinks like she'd wanted to, because Jake cut in with a question before her pause had a chance to morph into the silence that had her uncomfortable and wanting to go inside and fetch bottles or tumbler glasses.  Her neighbor, that tall thirty-something, all dark tones and undisclosed history (beyond baking and shooting from age 5), was asking her what she did for a living, and confessing that he'd only ever seen her in town that once.

She was too young, too cute and social to be a recluse, after all.

The question was met with a shrug that was mostly dismissive and a little apologetic-- she had nothing interesting to tell about her work.  "Oh, you know, nothing exciting.  I tend to tech and programming issues for a bank's internal systems.  If something's acting weird I hop in, figure out the problem, and resolve it lickety-split."  Again, the same shrug repeated itself, and she grinned sheepishly.  "Bland as hell, but it pays the bills just fine.  I work from home, so I don't really have any reason to be in the town, especially not these days after the place fell apart."

Jake NovakHe has that pumpkin ale dangling from his hand still, and takes a drink from it after he asks her about her work.  And yes, the fact that she is as young as she is does make it strange that she lives alone in a house too big for her out in the middle of nowhere, not even getting involved in what little town life there is to be had.  She's cute.  She's friendly, if a bit uppity with her questioning.  Jake thinks it's weird.

His eyebrows go up.  Not surprise -- whaaat?  The neighbor girl is a techie? -- but interest.  "I don't think that's bland," he says.  "It's problem solving.  That's like hunting for the intellect.  Besides," he adds, giving a shrug, "I punch dough and make pretzels every morning.  It's less exciting than you'd think."

Jake steps around the chair and tips his bottle to hers.  The fact that he's offering a toast is obvious enough to give her a chance to tap them together, cin cin.  "To boring jobs," he says.

Drew RoscoeJake looks more interested than surprised to hear her confess that she did tech work for a living.  She's pretty sure that the surprise isn't there simply because his face has grown accustomed to keeping away from such a look.  He had to practice looking unruffled, for being as good at it as he was.

So he tipped his beer bottle to her, and she recalled that, oh yes, they already had beers, and recovered hers from the edge of the table to her right to meet his toast, clinking the mouth of her bottle lightly to his.
"To dull jobs that make dough."  And her head tipped back so that she could take two deep swigs from her bottle of pumpkin ale.  She didn't smack the bottle down onto the table, but instead held it between two fingers by its neck, dangling almost precariously from her hand off to the side of her chair when she was done.  With a slight sigh on her exhale, the kind that came from taking a deep drink of anything, she grinned.  "Yeah, the pun was bad.  It was meant to be."

She's quiet for a second there, letting the air settle between them again, then her shoulder rolled against the back of her chair to relieve an itch.  While this awkward shoulder-scratching method was carried out, she asked randomly:  "So, had any wild critters on your property yet?  Coyotes or anything poking around that I should be wary of?"

Jake NovakDrew's suspicions about Jaker, her guesses, assumptions, the things she feels so certainly, don't play across her expression.  Jake, truth be told, does not look that deeply.  Some of that is just sheer lack of skill, and some of it is politeness.  If he really was taught that it was impolite to talk about oneself overmuch, chances are he was also taught not to pry into other people's thoughts.

He freezes at her joke, then just shakes his head at her.  "God," he mutters, just before she grins at her own horrible, horrible pun.  He drinks, tipping his head back with the sort of careless exposure of his throat that someone at ease -- or someone who has never known wolves -- might have.

They aren't getting back to shooting, and Jake has been moving nearer every so often, so after their little toast, he lowers himself easily into one of the other chairs.  His eyes fall on her shoulder-rolling to scratch an itch, then travel back to her face as he lifts the still-icy pumpkin ale.  Her question, for some reason, makes him laugh.  "Well, not critters," he says.

Drew Roscoe"No critters, 'eh?"  Drew seemed to be getting comfortable with the man once again, now that her interrogation about his snipe-able shooting abilities had faded away into the evening.  Dusk had fallen by now, and as it was too late in the season for fireflies and crickets it meant that, of course, the space in her backyard had to be filled by something else instead.  Given the climate, the weather, the geography, it seemed a good time for a thin fog to begin rolling in from out of the trees that lined the back edge of her property.  Drew watched this in the same way that someone lost in thought (or conversation) will watch waves lap at a rock for an unrealized amount of time.

"I'd classify raccoons, skunks, deer and coyotes as critters.  Anything bigger than that is a 'Holy hell, you'll never believe what came into my yard' kind of animal."  Jake had made himself comfortable in a chair beside hers, and Drew took another drink from her beer bottle and lowered it to rest outside the arm rest of her chair, dangling as it had been, all in one thoughtless motion without blinking away from the fog.
After all, last time she saw that stuff she had to drag the shotgun out.  Good thing there were guns on the table, at least, though she doubted this fog was anything but weather.

"What's been up on your property, then, if not critters?  A bear?"

Jake NovakWith the darkness comes the cold.  It isn't pitch yet, but it's dark enough.  There is humidity though, cold humidity, and it creates that thin fog.  Drew watches it, and Jake watches Drew.  She classifies critters, and when she looks at him again, he's smiling.  It's a half smile, because few of his smiles are large grins or even easy smiles, but it isn't because he's trying not or is afraid to.  He's just... quiet.  This inexpressiveness may have been partly trained, but a lot of it is quite natural to him.

Maybe he was The Shy Kid.

So if not a critter, she is explaining, then it might have been something bigger, something holy shit wtf you will NOT believe.  Jake's smile does grow then, and that's when he does try to tamp it down, muffling the near-grin with a drink of pumpkin ale.  He wasn't around when the fog rolled in and the town nearly got destroyed, the people all but wiped out.  He looks at fog and thinks only that it's going to get colder out here.  If they get back to shooting it'll be harder to see.

"Well," Jake begins, swirling the dregs in his essentially empty beer bottle, "I was actually going to ask you tonight if you'd ever come across a young woman digging up mushrooms in those woods."  He nods at the trees at the edge of her property, eyes on their darkness, then looks back at Drew.  He doesn't mention that they were poisonous mushrooms.

Drew RoscoeJake's asking if she's ever come across a woman picking mushrooms in her woods snapped Drew's trance-like gaze from the fog and back to the man's face.  Her eyebrows went up, partially with surprise, but more with.... caution?  Is that what that is?  She seems to already know what he's talking about, or have some kind of an inkling.  But, what she says after taking another swig of her beer declares otherwise.
"Nope, can't say I have.  I thought I'd have you beat sayin' I had to kick a raccoon out of my house, but there's no topping stray women collecting mushrooms in the woods."

Now, if Drew were to be perfectly honest with Jake in the way that she can be with the Sutherlands and Cutlers and other people she knows to be In The Know, she'd shrug and laugh and say that she wasn't surprised, and that he should've packed the poor stray a lunch and sent her in the correct direction of the Sept.  Since she has no idea that Jake is In The Know, she assumes that he isn't (even if she is suspicious of his skill and familiarity with a gun).

So, of course, she has to play dumb.
Even though she's not very great at it.

Jake NovakThat snap.  Jake finds it curious, and tips his head a bit -- an inch, a centimeter.  But of course he doesn't ask.  None of his business.  Maybe she saw a ghost or something out there in the woods.  But he does study her face, as though to check and see if there's fear there or if she's getting angry, if she thinks he's playing a joke on her or something like that.

"It was an uncommon experience," Jake says mildly, and sets his empty bottle on the table.  "I figured she wasn't doing any harm, so I told her she could go ahead and pick all the mushrooms she wanted on my property.  Maybe they don't grow on yours."

Jake puts his hands on the armrests and pushes up.  "Let's go another few rounds before the fog makes it too dangerous or jams the guns.  Then I will make you the most spectacular peanut butter and jelly sandwich you have ever tasted."

Drew RoscoeJake doesn't find anger in Drew's face.  He knows this because he's looking for it specifically.  There's no fear either, although there is something along the lines of concern that some kind of secret has been revealed, one she was supposed to keep safe but let slip somehow.  It might be a joke?  But if it is, it's a pretty convincing one and she's all about selling the punchline, whatever that may be.

So Jake had finished his bottle of pumpkin ale and admitted that it was strange, but he told the weird young woman that she was fine to take all the mushrooms she pleased from his property, and figured that she wasn't around Drew's because she must not have as many mushrooms.  Drew chuckled to this around the mouth of her beer bottle and nodded in agreement, then tipped her head back once more to finish what little remained in her bottle.  She set the brown glass container down on the table after wiping her mouth with her wrist (the motion not exaggerated, but small and easy).

He suggested that they go a few more rounds before it was impossible, and Drew nodded her agreement and rose as well.  "Alright.  It's too dark to make a contest out of it, plus I've got half a thought that I might actually lose to you.  But another time, certainly, we need to shoot for proper points."

So, the night would roll on.  Drew would fire a few more into her target, Jake would have to set his back up to continue abusing it, and shots would ring out in the night.  Then the remnants of dusk would fade away and the cold would settle in a definite and vaugely ominous way.  They had both heard the news reports, they knew a storm was going to be rolling in and that it was going to be intense.  So they would close down shop, Jake might help bring the targets back to prop up against the side of her shed (or he might not, who knew, maybe he was in a rush to get home at that point?), and they would say their goodbyes, promising contact for another time to shoot again.

For now, though, the night would settle and the two would go to their own homes.  And in about 48 hours the storm of the year would pound its way toward their tiny town in the sticks.