Huge apologies for the massively delayed update! Work has been non stop and I have found it hard to carve out time to get everything down on paper.
Audrey pulled into the Grey Gull's parking lot, an hour or so after closing. The outside lights were off but she could see a few dim lights through the windows of the restaurant. She sat in her car for a moment, watching Duke restock the bar.
He had a habit of letting his staff go early, as charming as Duke was with people he like the solitude of closing alone. As unsure as he was about being a legit business owner, Duke had settled right in with the highs and lows of owning your own business.
She had had a bad day today, and wanted some of Duke's unique charm and two fingers of his good whiskey to help her forget about the day.
Who wouldn't need a good stiff drink to help deal with the fact she had no idea who the hell she was really was. It seemed like everyone in this town knew something about Lucy Ripley and no one was feeling friendly enough to throw her a bone.
Dried up leads, false trails, failed attempts to uncover information about a woman who may or may not be her mother, yeah just another day in Audrey Parker's life.
Shit, she was going to need more then one stiff drink.
Audrey got out of her car, pulling her jacket tighter around her body and walked up the stone path to the Gull's entrance. It was a crisp night out, the smell of winter on the air wafting in from the ocean. Her boots clunked on the wooden stairs as she walked up them and headed for the door she knew was open.
She stood in front of the door for a moment, watching her crooked friend. His the bruises and cuts on his face had heeled, and she could see the stiffness that had been in his movements had all but disappeared. It appeared that Duke Crocker was on the mend.
Audrey grasp the door handle and pulled, the door swinging wide open. "You know you should lock this, right?"
"Parker," Duke looked up from straightening the bottles behind the oak bar. It wasn't a rare thing for her waltz into his place after hours, it was however a rarer thing for her to come in wearing that scowl that he knew meant trouble. Usually this type of visit was prompted by a shitty shift, one that couldn't be talked out of her by the stoic Nathan. Duke reached under the bar and pulled his special stock of high end whiskey that he kept for himself, and the occasional friend.
To get two fingers of this whiskey, they needed to be a damn good friend. And he didn't have many of those, but Audrey was the closest he could call in a long time.
Audrey watched as Duke poured her a generous amount of Glenfidditch into a glass and slid it over to her waiting hand. She knocked the golden liquid back with ease that always made a Duke a tad bit proud before sliding the glass back over to him for another hit.
"One of those days?" Duke asked her before giving his favourite blonde another hefty hit of whiskey.
"You have no idea." Audrey told him as she made herself comfortable in one of the bar stools in front of the bar. She took of her jacket and laid it on the bar stool next to her before picking up her drink. " There are just some days that kick you in the ass, you know?"
"Tell me about." Duke leaned over the bar and took a really good look at Audrey. She was tired, that much was clear. The bags under her eyes told him that she wasn't sleeping that much, and if he was honest she was a little on the lighter side since she first arrived in Haven. And he doubted that was from her four times a week gym habit. "Nurse that drink while I go grab us some dinner. You can tell me all about it while we eat."
"I don't want to eat." Audrey told him. What she wanted was to get good and fucking drunk, forget about Lucy fucking Ripley. She snagged the bottle from the bar before Duke could reach it and gave him that look." If I wanted to eat, I would have had pancakes with Nathan. You eat, I'll drink."
Duke watched her toss back the three fingers of whiskey in her glass and then pour herself a heaping amount of his whiskey. This was no normal four drink Audrey, this was a completely different breed of Parker.
He needed to call backup.
"Ok, you do that." Duke retreated from the bar towards the kitchen, leaving Audrey with his whiskey. When he swung the kitchen door open he was greeted with a sight he was becoming accustom to in the Gull.
Callie cracked her neck as she closed the store room door behind her. She had just reorganized the shelves of alcohol Duke had stored in the room behind the kitchen. How he managed to find anything in that room was beyond her.
Her old pair of blue jeans were slightly dirty from moving the boxes around and cleaning the store room. Her purple long sleeved shirt was pulled up to her elbows and under her arm was a clipboard with detailed notes on what brands Duke was overstocked in and what he need to order more of.
If Duke knew that she had spent the last hour or so rearranging the stock room he would have chewed her a new one. Even though the doctor gave her clearance to work, Duke was admit that she refrain from lifting heavy objects like a case of beer. It had been a on going fight between the two of them for the last week and a half since she started working at the Gull.
Since the night she had verbal diarrhea and basically spit out her whole life on the floor in front of him, they had reached a tentative compromise. Callie didn't know what having a friend felt like, but when she couldn't sleep at night she often thought this is what it felt like. Duke didn't bring up her gift, if fact she wasn't too sure what he thought about it. He understood there was a lot of pain wrapped up around it.
He went out of his way to make her laugh, he care about Max and never seemed like he didn't have time for her. He had managed to wiggle his way into her life that she couldn't help but give a little bit. They went on walks together around his favorite spot he took her to that night after dinner, as the doctor made it clear that exercise would go along way with easing the stiffness in her body. Both her and Max enjoyed their time around the bluffs that were on the outskirts of Haven. They cook dinner together, exchange books and shared past con stories.
Callie found it oddly comforting.
"Your going to need to order more liquor." Callie told him as saw Duke enter the kitchen . She held out the list she had made when she was reorganizing the back room. "I've listed the brands you are low on, also I've gone through your past orders and I think whoever is doing your ordering is an idiot."
"Great, I'll fix that." Duke told her as he took the list and put it on the kitchen counter. He pulled the brunette over the door, pushed it open just enough for her to see the blonde FBI agent at his bar. "Distract her."
"Excuse me?" Callie hissed at Duke as she turned to him. The kitchen door closed silently as Callie glared at him. "You want me to go distract the FBI agent from what? And why the hell would I go out there with her when all she wants to do it poke at me?"
"I need you to do this." Duke told her as he moved around the kitchen looking for the phone to call Nathan or hell even whatever the name of that woman Nathan was seeing. He would take anyone at this moment. He stopped at the fridge and pulled out a plate of cheese, grapes and assorted finger food, he thrust it in her hands before turned her forcefully towards the door. " In another thirty minutes your going to have a gun toting, drunk of her ass very determined Parker asking you questions which I can assure you, you don't want her to start digging around. A drunk Audrey Parker means nothing to anyone but trouble."
With that Callie found herself pushed out of the kitchen and into the restaurant area. Audrey stared at her for a moment, before swirling the liquid around in the glass and downing it. Callie could see Parker was well on her way to a good drunk as she walked over to the bar.
"Your face looks better." Audrey told her, as she stared at the healed face of woman who she knew was up to something in Haven. She wasn't sure what, but her gut told her it was something big and nasty.
Callie looked at the half empty bottle of whiskey, then back at Audrey." Gee thanks, piss tank."
"You say the nicest things to me." Audrey went to pour herself another drink but the bottle was snatched right up in front of her." If you don't put that back, I just may have to hurt you."
"I think Duke would like that to much, don't you think?" asked Callie as she pulled a second glass out and poured herself two fingers worth of Duke's whiskey. Duke wanted her to distract Parker, then she might as well get in on the fun while the whiskey was running free. " How about I'll pour from now on."
"Duke didn't send you out her to cut me off?" Audrey looked at her as Callie poured more whiskey into Audrey's glass.
"Duke's an ass." Callie told her as she tossed her hair back into a high bun on her head then picked up her glass. She held it out for Audrey to cheers her. " While Duke is playing with himself in the kitchen, I suggest we drink his whiskey, exchange Duke secrets and eat his food."
"That, my none friend sounds like a damn good plan." Audrey clinked her glass to Callie's and watched with appreciation as Callie emptied the glass in one go.
Duke tried Nathan again for the fifth time in a row. Of course the one time in years he calls Nathan, he neither answers or is quiet possible ignoring Duke's calls. He bites his lips in frustration and dials the next number that comes to his mind.
Where the hell was Nathan when he needed him? And since when did Wournos turn off his cell phone? Even the night duty attendant at the police station didn't know where he was.
Duke ran his hand over his face, and wonders what the hell is going to do with drunk Parker. He knew he couldn't leave Callie alone with Audrey for that long. God only knew how much time he had before someone got offend and started to throw punches. He doubted that his bar insurance covered that weird thing Callie's hand does.
He dialled Nathan's cell again, and proceeded to leave another, in his own opinion pathetic message . " Nathan, old buddy. Like I mentioned in four previous messages, you need to get to Gull. Audrey, you know your partner is swilling back my good whiskey like she's a cheap drunk at Kmart. Come here or I swear I'll dump her on your door step when I can manage to pry her away from the bottle."
Duke hung up the kitchen phone and stuck his head out of the kitchen doors. Both the pretty brunette and the inquisitive blonde's head swivelled in his direction. He felt the weight of the stares and panicked.
"You ladies need anything?" he swore he heard his voice for a pitch higher.
"I think we got everything we need here." Callie told him as she waved the almost empty bottle at him. She winked and reached under the bar to pull out a second bottle of his private stash.
"Go away Duke." Audrey waved him off with her hand as she reached over the bar and grabbed two shot glasses. " Callie is more fun to play with then you."
"You got cards around here somewhere, Crocker?" asked Callie as she set the bottle on the bar and began to dig around under the bar.
" Go left." Duke told her as she gave a little whoop of victory. He watched her opened the card box and shuffle the deck like a Vegas pro. He filed that away in the back of his head, Callie had hidden talents every where he looked.
Audrey gave him a pointed stare in till he retreated into the kitchen once more. Duke shuffled his way to the walk in fridge and rooted around in till he found the stash of beer that he knew his chef Alfonzo kept there for his clean up beer.
He grabbed one and cracked the seal before leaving fridge and closing the door behind him. Tossing the cap in the garbage on his way to the counter where he placed on hand on the stainless steel and boosted himself up. He braced his feet on the island and leaned back into the counters, and took a deep pull of the beer.
Sweet Jesus Nathan could not show up soon enough.