Late night fix (Very Open)
Feeling much better and reading to get out and about again, Addison headed down to the little cyber cafe he'd seen once while passing by. The establishment had looked ok, but he didn't trust the machines there farther than he could toss them so he'd brought his own powerbook. Gabriel, the thin little power book of his, was tucked under one arm, cradled in his cozy, expensive leather bag. It was late, but the place looked to be quite busy still. Addison supposed that on a diet of caffene and nicotene, these were the all-night gamers of Nachton. 'We all have our vices,' he thought with a shake of the head.
Stopping at the counter, he looked over the memberships as the pimply faced kid came over and started speaking. Hmmmm.....to go for the seasonal pass or not? It wasn't like he couldn't afford it....
'I can hook you up though.'
Addison looked up at the tone Mr. Gross gave. He noticed with some distaste that the youth was leaning towards him in a lecherous manner. "No thank you. I'll take the seasonal pass and an iced latte, extra large, carmel, whipped cream, and an extra shot of expresso in that..."
And with that, the red head dropped his money on the counter and backed away, keeping a wary eye on the fella behind the counter until he got to a free seat. Gabriel hummed happily, starting up the newest OS of Mac, his data port clicking happily with the connection. Yes, he thought of his powermac as it's own living entity, but that wasn't so strange, was it?
Pulling open excel, Addison started going over the financial reports for a business he was considering investing in. The clerk dropped off his drink and Addison purposely ignored him, concentrating on the screen in front of him to avoid further conversation with the letch.
(OOC: Openness!)
Parking in front of some cyber joint Val decided that if she were bored she could at least check the numbers on that filly she’d had her eyes on. The current trainer had been sending Valentine the fractions on the workouts and Val was considering purchasing the horse. It had been years since she’d been that closely associated with the racing world.
Ordering just a plain black coffee earned her a dirty look but she just smiled sweetly until her back was turned and she could scowl. Apparently, they thought she should order something frilly like Mr. Excel over there.
Standing a bit back from Mr. Excel she again smiled, her nice cheerful smile.
“You are looking far to serious for this time of night.”
"Not necessarily...if you love what you do..." He flashed a smile and pointed to the seat next to him before holding out his hand. "Addison Monroe. So I take it you are here for less serious persuits?" He looked around the room at the gamers, faces inches from their screens. "A gamer yourself?"
“Valentine Connor, nice to meet you Addison.”
She was making the rounds, getting used to the city before settling into anything more serious. It was groundwork though and had to be done. She also didn’t mind it that much.
Laughing at the idea of being a gamer, she shook her head and sipped at her coffee, letting it burn her lips.
“Hardly. I just don’t have the attention span for it, can’t stand staring at a screen that long. I came in to check on a potential investment.”
"It could be considered pererverence or laziness...depends on who is talking about it." He smiled slightly. His mother had been pleased when she found he had the knack with numbers and the ability to sit still long enough to get everything done. Most of his schoolmates, however...did not.
"Investment, you say? The cafe itself? I dare say that it could use new..." He looked over his shoulder and frowned slightly as pimply promptly winked at him. "...staff."
“Thank you I’m rather fond of it, but it wasn’t my folks who were the romantics. It was my guy at the time.”
Val shook her head at his comment and after making sure the clerk couldn’t see her grimaced.
“Thank you no. I’ve got one business, I’m not sure I could handle this one. I’ve actually got my eyes on a filly at Aqueduct.”
She set down her coffee and absently fidgeted with the ring on her right hand. It was totally unconscious, using her thumb to spin the platinum and sapphire around.
“This means you’re a numbers man though doesn’t it?”
Addison looked back over at the clerk and was quite relieved to find he was talking to someone who'd just walked in. "He rather creeps me out, so I was hoping you might mean to buy this and fire Mr. Visual Stalker over there. But wishful thinking..." He chuckled. Ok, the fella was forward and unattractive to him, but that didn't make him a bad employee, he supposed.
"Filly at the aqueduct? You into investing in race horses?" That's what it sounded like anyway.
His eyes were drawn to the action on the ring and he made a little "hmm" noise as he sipped his drink again. "Yeah...I'm in finance and accounting...mostly business."
“I’ve always taken it as such.”
Laughing, she had to laugh, own a coffee shop? Her? Not in this lifetime or the next, perhaps the one after that though. The idea of her investment though got a cheerful nod.
“Yes I am. Well, thinking about it, I’ve never been an owner before. I used to work for a trainer and be around the track a great deal but I’ve never owned. I thought it might be fun. She’s quite a promising two year old.”
Finance, good accountants were hard to come by. She currently had at least one at the dealership she wanted to fire but without any potential replacements, Val was reluctant to do so. Obviously Addison was engaged, employed that is, if he were here in the middle of the night working on a spread sheet, that and she didn’t know if he was any good or not.
“Yours sounds like a much more stable line of work though, at least much more so than the ponies.”
"Yours sounds like a much more stable line of work though, at least much more so than the ponies."Â?
"Yes, corporate finance is where it's at if you can handle it." He smiled, knowing he was good, but it was nice to hear every now and then...which reminded him. He'd have to stop into Carol's office at some point and pick up some files he'd asked her to look into.
He leaned back and gave the young woman his full smile. "I work over at Dubine." He reached up to tuck a lock of red hair behind one ear and yelped when the motion offset the overly large cup of latte, sending the remainder of the liquid over with the ice....
Addison's cheeks went red. Ok, it had missed his own powerbook (sometimes he thought Gabriel was charmed to not get liquid on it) but it spilled all over the table and between this and the other, soaking the cables of at least two computers occupied by teenage boys with circles under their eyes ( a sure sign they had been Wowing it too long).
Both PCs sparked and the fans cut out. "Oh wow...." Shit...that wasn't good. But at least pimply was rushing over and taking care of it. He did NOT want two angry gamer geeks after him, yelling "magic missle magic missle" and throwing tennis balls at him or something. "...and I just made an ass out of myself in front of a lady..." he sighed...some days, one shoudl stay home.
While still debating how to approach the subject, she watched the latte fiasco occur. She allow her typically pleasant and friendly demeanor drop, just for a second, to give the clerk a cold hard look. She did not want to be interrupted right now, she was trying to think. She didn't think he'd have nightmares or anything, but Val occasionally had trouble controlling that.
Returning her attention to Addison, she laughed lightly.
"Hardly. I've seen guys do much worse trying to impress those six foot blond amazons with casaba melons strapped to their chest. So don't worry about it, I'll just take it as a compliment."Â?
That sounded reassuring enough so she sipped at her coffee for a second trying to think how to turn the subject back to Dubine. She wasn't good at subtle and so went for obvious.
"So what exactly do you do over at Dubine?"Â?
But soon the empty cup was gone and mess cleaned up - gamers moved to new stations and a new iced latte almost seemed to materialize out of no where at his elbow. 'Hmmm....maybe the kid got a clue...' Addision eyed the new drink and looked back at Valentine, still embaressed about the whole thing, despite her words.
“So what exactly do you do over at Dubine?”
"I'm chief financial officer and Controller there. I oversee the financial and accounting departents that work on future as well as day to day finances." Ok, that sounded important and big, but really, he was just a finance guy/accountant. "You've heard of Dubine? Not thinking about trying to purchase the business...our boss doesn't seem the sort to give up the company easily."
(OOC: Am assuming that would be his title. If I am wrong, please let me know and I will edit)
"That is one hell of a title, how do you get it to fit on your office door?"Â?
She teased him, from what she'd seen Val didn't think that Addison would be upset by that sort of thing. That and it would distract him from the moment of clumsiness.
"Do I look like a hostile take over sort of girl?"Â?
Smiling more broadly than she usually did she pretended to be shocked.
"I have heard of it, fascinating business actually. Not that I have a head for medicine or anything."Â?
"Do I look like a hostile take over sort of girl?"Â?
He smirked and tipped his cup in her direction, being much more careful about it this time around. "Well...looks can be deceiving...one of the things I've learned at Dubine." That's for sure. Who knew that a multi billion dollar corporation was really being run by vampires. Well...it did have a lot to do with the synthetic blood business and that he could understand in the corrilation, but medicine? Seemed such an odd undertaking for vampires to him. After all...they didn't die like humans did or get sick...
"I have heard of it, fascinating business actually. Not that I have a head for medicine or anything."Â?
"Yes we have...a lot of difrerent employees. I actually just started recently. They have an excellent health plan. But dreams of ponies and the like would keep you from corporate life, I am sure."
She laughed at her own joke.
He was cautious, that was certain look at how he'd side stepped the question, both of them. It made her think he did know something, but she wasn't sure. Why couldn't they just have a secret handshake? It would make life so much easier, knowing who you could talk to about what instead of all this tip toeing around.
"I should hope a medical company would have a good health plan, it would be a bit odd if they didn't."Â?
What was she going to do, ask if he got a lot of use out of it? Val shelved the idea for a while and would come back to fishing later.
"No I'm just not suited the corporate life, I like to keep my own hours and the ponies well they're a hobby. Will be a hobby if I buy this one. I just can't make up my mind."Â?
"Besides, the hostile take over women always are the sexiest in the movies and have the classiest excessories..." Somewhere in his jacket pocket, slung over the back of his chair, came a faint chime. He smiled apologetically and pulled out his little cell, quickly reading the message. Eh...nothing interesting. His old professor wanted him to help design the end of term practical from real business experience. Eh...boring, but it was good to keep up contacts.
So, while his E-mail was loading up, he tried to think if he had ANY information in his mind on horses. Nope...not a thing. "I'm afraid I can't give you much advice on it...I think I might end up basing my decision on the horse based on it's color. Do you know much about the horse's background?"
Val preened slightly, she did like to look good and that was down to the last detail, today was no different.
Being a multi tasker herself, she took no offense to his checking the phone and his continued work on the computer.
"Actually the name isn't a bad thing, a lot of times it's tied in to the name of the sire or the dame. Look at Seattle Slew, a lot of his off spring have Slew as part of their name. The filly I've got my eye on isn't that well connected though. She's a Strike the Gold filly. Her dame isn't as impressive but still a graded stakes winner so she got a nice pedigree. And none of this means a thing to you. Please don't let me bore you."Â?
The little powerbook showed no new mail from Ellis...and what looked like a forward from Carol...something quirky and strange no doubt. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Valentine. "You a resident or just passing through?"
She was lucky in the respect, most prospective owners had no clue what they were doing and relied far too heavily on the trainer. Often they didn’t even pick the trainer well and wound up with either a total novice or one so over loaded the apprentices were training the horse any way.
“Me? I’m a new arrival, just got here a few days ago. I’m still trying to decide what I want to do for digs. Any recommendations?”
((OOC.. I’m going to be sans net out of town until Sunday… just so you know 8) ))
He thought on how to answer her question. He preferred his domicile diggs, but he didn't know who this person was really, and he'd been cautioned not to speak of the clan to anyone...at all. Addison looked around to make sure that the clerk wasn't listening in. The last thing he needed was some wierdo stalking him. "There's a new complex of townhomes just north of here. A nice little culdusac really. And while they give off that "white picket fence" vibe, the occupants so far are more singles and couples without children that still head out at night. Cause if it's one thing I wouldn't have been able to stand is a whole lot of breeders as neighbors." He wrinkled his nose up. He'd had his share of too many people about at home and then at college. The above ground abode was perfect so far....but it was new and still developing it's niche. [/i] "You should check them out. Very nice...secure and seems pretty active even at night."
“Shoot me before I get to white picket fence time.”
And the idea of kids and yuppies, gir, the idea just made her cringe mentally.
“Although night life is not to be dismissed. Actually I’ve got one or two people I need to see before I jump to any conclusions.”
It would probably be best to live with the rest of Tacharan, but Val had a bit of an independent streak in her. She’d have to check in before doing anything too fancy.
"I actually have housing through my work place, but I like the townhouse for visitors and a place to get away where it's harder for things to bother me."
"Although night life is not to be dismissed. Actually I've got one or two people I need to see before I jump to any conclusions."Â?
"Can't say I've seen much. Just the Museum of art and the House of pain. Both were interesting in their own right."
(OOC: I be back chiki!)