remember how to breathe again.

Éva Illésházy

January 2, 2014

The bars and restaurants are all comparatively empty after the crush of the holidays. Everyone has some new resolution: to drink less or eat less or spend less or move more; to go home to the husband and children after work rather than slip off to happy hour. To work more: nose to the grindstone, time to mark partner this year.

So it is that Barrell 44 is comparatively empthy on a chilly-but-not-cold Thursday evening. No rain or snow today so the chalk sandwich board outside announces the specials in colorful calligraphy:

SOUP OF THE DAY: WHISKEYFRESH CATCH: WHISKEYBLUE PLACE SPECIAL: WHISKEY

--

Éva has already arrived, and has taken up a seat - not at the bar where she might ordinarily sit to savor the one drink she will allow herself on weeknights she feels so inclined - but at a rather more private booth with a clear view of the front door. A tablet glows pale against the warm wood, and she skims through e-mails as she waits.

That one drink is already on the table in front of her.

Though perhaps tonight she will have two.

Éva Illésházy

January 2, 2014

The bars and restaurants are all comparatively empty after the crush of the holidays. Everyone has some new resolution: to drink less or eat less or spend less or move more; to go home to the husband and children after work rather than slip off to happy hour. To work more: nose to the grindstone, time to mark partner this year.

So it is that Barrell 44 is comparatively empthy on a chilly-but-not-cold Thursday evening. No rain or snow today so the chalk sandwich board outside announces the specials in colorful calligraphy:

SOUP OF THE DAY: WHISKEY

FRESH CATCH: WHISKEY

BLUE PLACE SPECIAL: WHISKEY

--

Éva has already arrived, and has taken up a seat - not at the bar where she might ordinarily sit to savor the one drink she will allow herself on weeknights she feels so inclined - but at a rather more private booth with a clear view of the front door. A tablet glows pale against the warm wood, and she skims through e-mails as she waits.

That one drink is already on the table in front of her.

Though perhaps tonight she will have two.

Calden White

Barrel 44 has some things in common with the blues bar Calden has been known to frequent. Not a lot, though. Good whiskey, good scotch, yes. A similarity in musical taste, perhaps, though B44 plays it low and background, while Ziggie's plays it loud and live. Also: Ziggie's is a decided hole-in-the-wall, and proud of it. This, on the other hand, is a quality establishment. The sort of place at which a trial lawyer with a bloodline as respectable as her win record wouldn't be ashamed to be seen.

She has a booth with a view of the front door. She has her one, or maybe first, drink of the night in front of her. That front door swings open a few minutes after the appointed hour, and her snowdusted cowboy friend comes tromping in, swatting snow off his shoulders, puffing cold with every breath.

Her table is indicated to him by the greeter if there is one. By the barkeep if there isn't. He comes over, shedding gloves and scarf as he comes. Cowboy boots have given way to outright snow boots; shearling jackets to the same downstuffed heavy North Faces everyone else seems to break out this time of year. The hat, however, with which he was dusting snow off his clothing, is an authentic Stetson, which he sets on the tabletop like a badge of office as he takes a seat.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he says, more out of courtesy than genuine sorrow. "Traffic was worse than I expected." He tosses his coat into the corner of the booth, gloves and scarf following. A sweater underneath, cable-knit, dark green. Calden takes a seat.

"How were the holidays? Did you go anywhere?"

Éva Illésházy

Her response to the courtesy of the apology is quiet noise of dismissal in the back of her throat. Some instinct, maybe from the courtroom, has her almost rising as he finds his way to the booth and begins to dust the snow off his cold-weather gear. She forestalls the instinct with a subtle, arresting motion of her spine, and merely glances up at him, her eyes steady, her mouth sardonic, perhaps at the strange counterpoints between them.

"Don't mention it," she returns, still with that faint curl to her mouth, dark eyes leaving his face to follow the movement of his genuine Stetson onto the table between them. "Gave me the opportunity to attack the accumulation of e-mails. Easier to wade through them without the distractions of the office."

It need hardly be mentioned that Éva is wearing a dark suitjacket over crisp dress, dark gray with a subtle pattern of pinstriping to it, which ends perhaps two inches above her knees. And heels: no matter the snow drifting from his shoulders.

"I stacked business trip on top of emergency business trip all December, but we did manage a quick trip to Vail last weekend. It was exhilarating." Hard to imagine Éva in any garb other than the darkly sheened plumage of a well-healed attorney, but there is a certain gleam in her eye that feels almost animal, there at the end.

"You?"

Calden White

"Vail? As in the ski resorts?" Calden's expression says it all: amusement, bemusement, the faintest touch of disbelief. "Were you tackling the black diamonds or the luxury spas?"

He snags one of the drink menus out of its holder, then, and browses the list while he answers her: "I spent the holidays up at the ranch. Didn't go anywhere. Two of my brothers came to visit, though. Number one and three. My big brother brought his kids. Even my dad looked happy, at least once in a while."

The drinks menu shuts with a faint slap of leatherette on paper. He pushes it aside, then smiles across the table at Eva.

"But no, really. Were you skiing?"

Éva Illésházy

"Mmm." Her quiet confirmation easily and perhaps rather smugly inserted beneath his initial bemused query. There is a quiet gleam of challenge in her eyes too, which he must certainly expect when he dares to question her. It sparks a quietly polished humor that shines beneath the substrate of her skin.

Éva listens to Calden's brief account of his holidays, gives him a supple twist of her mouth, a look of banked empathy, when he declares that even his father seemed happy, now and then. There is an inquiry in her eyes and a question on her tongue that remains unasked, just then, as he returns to the idea of Éva on the slopes.

"We were skiing, yes. I did a bit of it as a child. Took it up again when I moved to Colorado. Afraid I don't do it often enough to tackle the black diamonds with abandon.

"But I did tackle a few of them. At least when the children were in ski school. As a family we stuck to the bunny and beginner's slopes."

Calden White

"There's no shame in the bunny slopes," Calden replies, his gentle teasing relenting to something like compassion. Or perhaps commiseration. "I'll openly admit I'm not terribly proficient on the slopes myself. I know how to ski -- I suspect everyone born and raised in this state knows how to ski -- but I'm not Olympics material by any stretch of the imagination.

"I can't imagine Ellie sticking to the bunny slopes, though. Are you sure you didn't let her go on the blue squares at least once?"

Éva Illésházy

A quietly wry smirk. "She needed the first day and a half to get her sea-legs again, but after that she convinced me to take her on a few intermediate runs. For the most part we had Andris on the mountain, too."

Éva shares a quiet, thoughtful little shrug. "Ellie takes her duties as Big Sister rather seriously, I don't think you've seen that side of her, have you? - so she was quite patient, all things considered, with the limitations of the trip."

--

"You know," a subtle shift in subject; one of those conversation pauses before the new order is introduced. "she wanted you to come trim the tree with us before Christmas. I'm afraid I never managed to get the invitation to you. December was a remarkably busy month.

"I'd hoped to extend the invitation for a plus-one as well. I thought you might bring your royal.

"If I'm not being presumptuous, I hope you stole some time with her as well."

Calden White

"I don't think I have seen that side to her," Calden agrees, "but somehow it's not hard to imagine. She takes after her mother quite a bit."

The subject shifts subtly. Calden leans back, his smile quirked and just a touch wistful. "I actually kept meaning to get the kids presents for Christmas," he says, "but somehow December was busy and the days blurred together and -- well; those are all just excuses, aren't they."

He laughs, then: "Now how awkward would you feel," he can't help this, "if I told you we broke up terribly and dramatically and will never ever speak to each other again on Christmas Eve? But no, your instincts are right. We did steal a little time together. We spent Christmas with our respective families, but I allowed myself to be persuaded into a tuxedo for a New Year's Eve bash.

"Speaking of holiday bashes and missed tree-trimming opportunities," he adds, "why don't we loosely plan for some sort of get-together at my place? I've been meaning to have a few friends come by for a day or a weekend. You could bring the kids and your mother-in-law. I don't think we have a holiday left to serve as an excuse, but that's no reason not to party."

Éva Illésházy

The Shadow Lord's gaze drifts back to Calden's Stetson, not as he laughs, but after - now how awkward would you feel. There is a wry, rather knowing note to the spare twist of her mouth, which seems settled and solid and somehow remote as well. Then her head tips aslant and she lifts her chin, her gaze returning to his face as he confirms that her instincts are correct, meeting his eyes at last as he admits to being persuaded into a tux for New Year's Eve. Her remarkable brows sketch a note of clear skepticism that is balanced by the half-voiced breath of laughter that accompanies the look.

"That sounds lovely, Calden. Difficult as the past year has been, I think we all have reason to - well, at least remember how to breathe again."

Then, as if on cue, Éva's phone begins to vibrate. Her mouth settles into a rather more solemn expression as she pulls it from her leather bag and turns it over in her palm. Breathing out a quiet apology,

" - will you excuse me? I do have to take this,"

Éva rises, phone to her ear, half-finished Stranahan's on the table, seeking a few moments' privacy for a rushed, hushed conversation with whomever is on the other end.

Calden White

There's a moment there -- after he laughs, after he teases again, after her eyes flick from his -- that Calden feels a little uncertain of the ground beneath his feet. Uncertain if he's pushed too far; uncertain if their friendship was familiar enough for that level of humor.

It passes, though. He makes gentle mockery of himself: a tux! as though he did not own multiple million dollars' worth of land and cattle and structural improvements; as though he was indeed a barbaric cowherd, hardly an evolutionary step up from a neanderthal. Though, to be fair, he is in many ways simple and uncomplicated. He likes it that way.

"We'll do it, then," he confirms. "I'll call you when I work out a good date. Probably sometime before the winter's over. I like the idea of everyone crowded in by a roaring fire, a blizzard outside to make us appreciate each other's company all the more."

Her phone vibrates. He sits back, nodding his understanding mutely as she stands. Her call is not short, and it is almost certainly business, and while she makes it he orders a scotch of his own, and checks his own email, and --

-- puts his phone away as she returns. They resume their quiet drink together, growing pleasantly and mildly inebriated over the typical conversation of life and livelihoods, family and love in all its varying and enduring shades.