[Jarod] It had been a long time since Jarod had celebrated his birthday. At least, not properly. Most of his acquaintances didn't even know when his birthday was, and he liked to keep it that way. This year, he'd grudgingly admitted the truth to his daughter, but had not discussed the matter with anyone else, including friends and family. That was the thing about friends and family, though. Sometimes they remembered things, whether you wanted them to or not. And sometimes they got ideas all on their own.
The early portion of the day had gone easily enough. He'd spent the afternoon with Ilana in the Chicago Botanic Garden, and she'd rather adorably stuck a candle into his Dragon Roll later at sushi dinner, and given him a picture that she'd sketched of him while he'd been napping on the couch one evening. Thinking, of course, that this was the most celebration that he was required to submit himself to for the day, he'd been preparing himself for a relaxing evening on the drive home, contemplating perhaps a cup of tea, a fire, and an old movie. But there'd always been a nagging worry in the back of his mind, because it was unlike Dana and his sisters not to call him on his birthday, and the fact that it was his 30th made the possibility of an ambush seem even more likely.
So he was not surprised when he got home and walked into the lobby... and found an entire group of people waiting there for him. But that didn't prevent him from putting a hand up to the bridge of his nose and letting out a long-suffering sigh. It was not quite the reaction that one might hope for when throwing a surprise party, but these people all knew him well enough not to be thrown by it. Dana, especially, who was the ringleader of the event, and jumped out of the crowd to run forward and give him a hug (whether he liked it or not,) seemed to have been expecting exactly this reaction. Of the people present in the lobby, Emily would recognize a few. There was Maia, of course. And Violet, whom she'd met briefly over Ilana's birthday dinner. The elder of the two Nightingale females was taller, thinner and prettier than her sister - who was already very pretty. She also had a more refined and elegant sense of fashion, but her contained and austere manner could occasionally be off-putting when compared to the warmer and livelier Maia. Violet was closer to Jarod's age, and had been sporting an extremely expensive-looking diamond engagement ring which Jarod had glanced at meaningfully but not commented upon.
There was also a man present who at first glance might not have been recognized as a family member. He was probably in his mid 30's, and unlike Jarod and his sisters, was fully Caucasian. There were hints of a resemblance, though, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise when Dana introduced him as Jarod's older brother. Aaron was dressed in jeans and a pale green polo shirt, and he sported a strong tan and a noticeable Texan accent. (Jarod's of course, had long-since been eradicated, though hints of it tended to slip out when he was around his family. Violet was a similar case, though you could still hear it a bit in her voice now and then. Maia still sounded Texan, despite years of living up North, but her accent was muted enough not to draw too much attention to itself.) The eldest Nightingale was handsome in a more traditionally masculine way than Jarod was, and he was a couple inches taller, but he didn't have the exotic beauty of his half-siblings. He also seemed distracted during a large potion of their wait-time in the lobby, and spent most of it on the phone talking to either his wife or one of his co-workers.
Logan's mother Ellen - an attractive bottle-blond in her late 30's - was in amongst the guests, but only for as long as it took her to collect Ilana and offer Jarod a sly congratulations. She kissed his cheek when she said goodnight, and left a lingering gaze in his direction that Jarod patently ignored and Ilana seemed momentarily displeased by.
In addition to all of these, there was a group of five men which included two familiar faces - Sebastian and Nick. They were all college-aged, and seemed to know each other to varying degrees. They were also all probably gay, and even more probably former sex partners of Jarod's, though this was never overtly mentioned (in either case.) The two whom Emily had not met introduced themselves as Jake and Chris. They were both brunettes. Jake seemed to spend a lot of time flirting with Sebastian.
Dana could have invited a larger group, no doubt. But wiser thoughts had prevailed, and she'd stopped at a more manageable number. Certain family members were noticeably absent, but nobody mentioned them. There were no co-workers either. Jarod always did like to keep his business and personal lives separate.
After a few minutes of teasing and happy birthdays, the group at large headed up to the 27th floor and filed into Jarod's condo (which, luckily, he always kept spotlessly clean.) Presents were left on the kitchen counter, and music soon began playing through mounted wall-speakers all around the flat. (Say this for Jarod, he had good taste in sound equipment. The quality was perfect.) Dana immediately set about tossing up decorations, as she ran about with streamers (white, silver and blue) and balloons. Jarod watched this with an expression that resembled that of a drowned cat, and grumbled at her not to put any holes in the walls. Despite this, there were occasional moments when he seemed genuinely happy to see her, for all his prickliness. One could get a sense, watching the two of them, that this may have been a part of their habitual interaction, and that they played the parts now as much out of a sense of friendly ritual as anything else.
There was food, of course. Violet had been in charge of that, and had provided plates of expensive-looking canapes and bite-sized desserts. There was also booze. A lot of it. (Maia had been in charge of that.) Jarod immediately opened a bottle of very expensive looking cabernet-sauvignon and poured himself a glass. As people began to form little groups, some sitting on the sofa and some standing around with food and glasses in their hands, Jarod beckoned Emily to join him in the kitchen, whereupon he first offered her a glass of wine, then stared at her measuringly and asked: "Exactly how long have you known about this?"
[Emily] Undoubtedly, some time ago, Dana had called to inform Emily about this surreptitious party. She'd introduced herself, been charismatic and intriguing and Emily, flush off their trip to Madison, had not the good sense to be busy or taking a Midterm or [/i]holding a review session[/i] or on sentry duty that night. No, no. Something about Jarod's long-standing good friend drew her into the conspiracy.
Living in and out of Embassies should have taught her that large groups of disparately connected people were rarely viable without copious amounts of drugs or alcohol. She's already quietly regretting it when she finds her way into the lobby of Jarod's building, a place populated by beautiful family members and ex-flings (perhaps current flings, one never knew with Jarod).
Emily is plain. She's long limbed and a little too thin. She's pleasant, but not pretty. When she tries, she is pretty enough but still very humble compared with the likes of Jarod and his siblings. Her taste in clothing, if one could pretend that she had a style beyond rumpled graduate student and diplomat's daughter, ran toward the demure or vintage. Classic and simple lines. Solid colors or clear patterns. Faintly feminine, hinting at flirty. Tonight it's a simple slip dress and ballet sweater, because she has come from campus and had to change in the staff bathroom. Her heels help make up the height differential between her and their guest of honor, but she is remarkably plain.
And longing for a distraction, like their eldest brother has, of being important enough to disrupt things with telephone calls. Her battles via cell tower have already been waged for the day. Her phone is quiet.
Perhaps in reaction to all the twang in the room, her accent becomes a bit more clearly Northern England. It's the precision and clarity that Thomas mocks in her, teases her about, birthed her nickname. The discomfort she feels at being alone in this group (and the rising anxiety she feels were she to be singled out at Jarod's side in front of such group) is easily hidden behind that Embassy upbringing. She's friendly, warm, offers smiles and hand shakes and wryly twisted grins to the people she meets. Emily assesses and reflects quickly; she can make herself at home in a room of people if needs be.
This? This was social Def Con 4. Needs be. Definitely. Whether it was a delicately amused purse of her lips when she noticed Logan's Mom making eyes at Jarod, or a quick offer to help Dana decorate Jarod's pristine flat (and the cheeky look he got for pretending to complain), she was doing her best to cover the nerves with a carefully extroverted facade. She even greeted Nick warmly, as if everything that had happened in that winter soup kitchen was merely water under the bridge.
Considering her last year? It was hardly worth rehashing, however unlikely she was to be bosom friends with the sandy-haired humanitarian.
The present Emily left for him was eaily overlooked. It was a plain box, wrapped in white paper and a deep blackberry colored ribbon. The ribbon was satin, sleek to the touch, expensive. The corners on her wrapping are perfectly square.
It's likely that she's helping hang streamers or some other defilement through revelry of his flat when he beckons her over. Emily excuses herself, still smiling and socially light-on-her-feet, and makes her way over to him. This is probably the only time she's come into his home without taking off her shoes. It's a thing to notice, because she's not usually this close to of a height with them, when they're having a quiet tete-a-tete in his kitchen.
Emily wraps her fingers around the bottom of the wine glass's bowl, the stem slips into a place between two fingers. This is ease, practice, remembered familiarity. Her mouth quirks; her eyes dance: mischief.
"Oh, long enough," she tells him. The playfulness almost covers how nervous the gathering makes her. "The question, though, love, is how long have you?" She waggles her eyebrows a little, and smirks at him over the bowl of her wineglass before sipping at it.
[Jarod] "Which?" he asked with some dry amusement. "My birthday or the party?"
Clearly, he'd known about his birthday since he was cognizant enough to understand what a birthday was. And he'd been much more keen to celebrate birthdays back in those days, when his mother had made a yearly habit of planning creative and delightful little parties, with presents stacked up in a huge pile against the wall. When she'd died, his enthusiasm for birthdays had diminished. It had disappeared completely with adulthood, but perhaps having his own child had softened his edge a little, because he seemed to be tolerating the attention a little better this year than he might otherwise have done (grumbling and meaningful sighs aside.) When Bastian mocked him for his age (30 was half-dead, in their eyes), Jarod shot back with a cocky grin: "Kid, I look better at 30 than you looked at nineteen." (And it was true, he did.)
But he was a little more relaxed now, with Emily - a little less consciously social. They both had a habit of acting out roles when confronted with groups. He took a drink before actually answering her question. "I've had tentative suspicions about Dana all day. Didn't expect you to be an accomplice, though. Thanks for the warning." That was definitely dry sarcasm in his voice, but he didn't really seem upset. "I feel like I'm under-dressed."
He wasn't, really. Most of the other men had on fairly casual attire. Violet was in a 3-piece with a white knee-length skirt and jacket, and Maia had on a more party-appropriate outfit of black shorts and a purple silk camisole, with her favorite pair of boots. Dana was about as casual as the boys, in a long, flowing gypsy skirt and a white tank-top, which had been hidden under a denim jacket earlier. She'd complained a couple of times about the cold weather, though only in a playful manner. (And like Aaron, her accent was fairly strong, so she tended to come off as charming and friendly by default.) Of the men present, Nick was the only one who'd gone with more formal dress. He had on a pair of dark gray slacks (the name here was a misnomer - they were fairly slim and not particularly slack at all) and a buttoned silk shirt in a particularly flattering shade of dark green.
Jarod, having just been out all day with his daughter, was in jeans and a t-shirt. Interestingly, he too had left his shoes on. (One didn't take their shoes off at a party, even if the party was in one's own home.) He'd already resigned himself to the fact that the floor would need to be cleaned later. But right now... he was thinking about his outfit. (Something he genuinely seemed to concerned about - and rather amusingly so.) So he finished off his wine, leaned down to kiss Emily's cheek, then disappeared into his bedroom. Before doing so, he'd wryly warned Emily not to get into too much trouble while he was gone.
And then... she was alone. But it wouldn't last long. Nervous though she might have been, Emily was probably well familiar with these kinds of gatherings, and soon enough (whether of her own volition or otherwise), she'd find herself swept up into the party at large. Dana was quick to grab her attention when she slid in beside the younger, taller woman, and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially: "Don't be intimidated. They're not half as perfect as they seem. Jarod's family has enough issues to warrant their own reality show."
[Emily] My birthday or the party?
Embassy Emily rolls her eyes a little, sufferingly patient with the inanity of his question. The cant of her smile slipped a little to one side -- enough to show he'd caught her enough off guard to genuinely smile under all those layers of polite and (im)proper behavior. And then he kissed her cheek and abandoned her to the gathered masses.
She had barely a moment's breathing room in the kitchen, alone, before Dana reached her and dragged her back into the fray. But Embassy Emily has a way of handling this, too, with something akin to grace. Dana was warm, and seemed a bit more grounded than the others. She was brazen enough to loose balloons and streamers on Jarod's flat. Emily had to admire that, in some ways... or marvel at it.
At whatever Dana tells her, Emily laughs a little. It's the sort of honest-sounding mirth than wells up when someone is caught a little by surprise.
"Cheers," she says, and it sounds genuine enough. Her smile warms a little, softens ever so slightly. "I needed that. Though, really, what family doesn't, right?"
Standing where they are excerpts them a little from the gaggle of beautiful and wealthy people.
"I've found, in rooms of beautiful and powerful people, that drinking helps immensely," this is whispered back, also conspiratorially, because Dana cannot be half as calm with the collected Nightingale clan as she seems. And Emily cannot be half as serious as she sounds. Surely not.
"What say you?"
Perhaps its here that Jarod will re-emerge and see the whispering and well-intentioned smiles between his long-term best friend and his... whatever he was considering Emily these days. Surely he didn't consider her a student any longer.
"And thank you for inviting me," she says. Punctuated by a meaningful pause. "I think." And a side-long smile.
[Jarod] Dana was brazen because she could be. Because she'd known Jarod since they were kids, and through a combination of quiet, earthy charm and sheer, stubborn tenacity, had managed to instill herself into his life in a way that no other person had ever managed to achieve. In a way, she was more of a sister to him than his actual sisters. (Emily would probably understand that. She knew about family-that-was-not-blood.) Though if that were truly the case, their relationship would not have been so complicated (and it had been complicated, over the years.) One did not know someone like Jarod that well and for that long and never once notice how attractive they were. And she'd seen him in some very intimate moments. One could argue that he'd used that to his advantage - that he'd willingly and purposefully kept her interested - and truth be told, sometimes he had. But for all that, she was a strong enough person in her own right, and had never let him achieve control over her. This fact alone had always been a source of respect. (Though Jarod was, of course, unlikely to admit it.)
Time and distance had mellowed their relationship a bit. They had their own lives now. But she could still get away with covering his beautiful flat with birthday decorations. And from the sound of things, she had the skinny on the Nightingale Clan. (And oh, did she ever.) Emily whispered conspiratorially about the benefits of alcohol in these situations, and Dana laughed. "Oh honey, you have no idea. Not too much though, or they'll eat you alive before you even see them comin'. Just be glad his parents aren't here."
She didn't mention his step-brother. Nobody did. (Jarod had never even mentioned having one.)
Just then, the volume of the music increased, and Bastian came out from around the corner and started dancing with Chris and Jake, beckoning for Nick and Anthony (the fifth of the group) to join them. They declined for the moment, seemingly engrossed in some topic of conversation, but Maia was more than happy to jump in. Violet glanced at them with an unreadable expression, then went back to chatting with Aaron.
"Come on," Dana said, playfully. "Let's dance."
Jarod took a long time getting dressed. Not so much that anyone would start to worry, but long enough that the length of his absence would be noticed. At some point, Anthony joined the dancers, and Nick disappeared down the hallway (presumably to check on the birthday boy.) Both of them appeared a few moments later, with Jarod now dressed in a deep red satin shirt (it shone with a soft luster wherever the light touched it), a torso-hugging black vest and matching pants. Dana spotted him and wolf-whistled in appreciation.
[Emily] Jarod had this horrible way of narrowing her social circles. Nick, of the soup kitchen catastrophe fame, had been a fellow volunteer. She knew Bastian, now, from that night in the club, and Anthony...
There was probably a moment when his gaze and Emily's locked in some sort of quiet understanding that they would never speak of what happened here in the other place they're apt to see one another. A place where Emily was judged not by her relationships to others, or her connections to the birthday boy, but on the merit of her academic pursuits.
They were classmates at the University. He'd helped her re-word her research proposal after class one day. She'd made some pointed but helpful comments about his psuedocode. They weren't directly competitive, but each had the personality to take it that if circumstances merited it.
After last spring, she has never once called him Tony. He probably doesn't know why; Emily's not apt to explain.
Dana playfully cajoled her into dancing, and Emily's retort with a quick, utterly flawless, "If you insist..." as she was already finding a place to set down her stem, and head toward the gathering of bodies. Dana wolf-whistled and Emily, ever more demure, cast Jarod and appreciative look that lingered just enough to suggest that his good friend was calling up that wicked side of hers, darkly playful, a little less reserved.
Wicked was definitely the adjective to describe the smile she threw his way as she slipped into the group of dancers.
[Jarod] Anthony was unlikely to complain about not being called Tony. He hated being called Tony. Though Emily probably could have gotten away with it, as he rather liked her. Granted, they didn't know each other very well, but she was intelligent and competent and seemingly a nice person, which was more than enough to warm him to her in an academic setting. Here, though, they were not academics. He hadn't expected to run into her in this environment, and as such, had not yet figured out precisely how to approach her. So he hovered among his friends, and Emily meanwhile... got swept up by Dana.
Dana wasn't like Jarod. She didn't dance like someone who was born to it. She danced... probably a lot like Emily did, though it may have been fair to say that the shorter woman had probably had more experience. She had, after all, spent her teenage years hanging out with a certain Nightingale. But there was no pressure here, and no expectation to live up to a certain level of skill or aesthetic. Most of the people here were dancing just to have fun, and it showed on their faces.
But then Jarod appeared, and he was soon dragged into the mix (whether he liked it or not.) Being the man of the hour meant that his focus was pulled in various different directions, and though he probably would have preferred to single out one or two people to talk to, he held up well under the attention. He was used to it. He danced with multiple people, moving about through the group at large without ever really singling out a specific partner. Emily was included in this, and she was afforded a quick, charming smile before he got pulled away by one of the boys.
Dana had a game-plan, though, you see. And she was not about to veer off-course. So, after awhile, she left the group and went to turn down the music, before calling out over the voices to get everyone's attention.
"Alright, so... since this is Jarod's 30th birthday, I thought it would be fun to go around and let everyone take turns telling stories about him. Because if you can't embarrass a man on his 30th birthday, when can you?" There was an absolutely wicked smile on her face when she looked pointedly at Jarod, who in turn just stared at her as if he could suck all the heat out of her body just by looking at her.
Within moments, everyone had gathered together amongst the couches, leaving Dana standing as the ringleader. She bit her lip and contemplated, then pointed at Emily.
"You can go first."
[Emily] (Subterfuge [Evasion]: Oh, no no, I couldn't possibly play this game with you. Let's instead pass the floor to....)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP] Re-rolls: 1
[Emily] (Subterfuge: ... Excuse me, Kahseeno. I know where you sleep! +1, re-roll)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Emily] There's a little faulter when Dana passes the attention her way, though it is not entirely noticeable to most. It's just a lack of the utter flawlessness of which she was capable that might have been noticeable to a few (a single person) present.
Emily rises from the corner of the couch she claimed, smoothing her hands over her skirt and shaking her head a little. This crowd is not so large as to necessarily be off-putting, but the weight of so many wealthy and beautiful people's attention was not something she's commanded in a long, long time. Most of them would never know it.
She lifts a hand toward Jarod, as if presenting him to the lot of them. She is, after all, going first at this game of Dana's. Then there's the slightly-overplayed (to draw laughter, and to distract) character of her mannerisms and tone, paired with that clipped-crisp accent. She can be a bit charming when she needs to be.
"Oh," she says, her tone lightly wry and somewhat dismissive. "We've only known each other, what?" a glance to Jarod. "A year now? I hardly think I have any stories to share. As you all know he's practically perfect in every way..." A tripping lilt, a cheeky grin for the birthday boy.
"This would be a lot more fun if we, say, turned the floor over to Maia, don't you think?"
No, Emily did not want to play Dana's game, but she would set it up nicely for a younger sister to waltz in and tear down that Mary Poppins allusion with smirks and stories that would far outstrip anything Emily might have to share.
And the best lies, side-steps, evasions carried a kernel of truth. She really didn't know any compromisingly funny stories to roast him with. Most of their interaction had been personal, and she did not have any design to share that with his closest bedfellows or family.
[Jarod] Jarod had been placed in a seat of prominence, centered on the middle sofa, in between four of the college boys. When Emily got called out, he glanced toward her with a subtle expression. It might have been an apology, but if so, no one besides her would notice. Her answer, ultimately, didn't surprise him. After all, Emily was nearly as prone to secret-keeping as he was. He may have been glad for this, in her case, since most of the stories she could tell of him were of a decidedly personal nature.
In any case, she deflected the attention smoothly, and although there were a couple of playful awws of disappointment, no one seemed particularly bothered. Dana smirked when Emily referred to Jarod as practically perfect, then beckoned to Maia, who was only too happy to stand up and embarrass her older brother. After some consideration, she launched into a story about a time, when Jarod was about sixteen, that he snuck into their parents bedroom while they were asleep and flipped all of his their step-mother's religious iconography upside-down. He also managed to hang a large wooden cross (also upside-down) over their bed, and paint "666" on the wall in actual pig's blood. (He never admitted to anyone how he acquired this.) This had been precipitated by an argument with their step-mother the previous day, regarding Jarod's immoral behavior. Naturally, she pitched an absolute royal fit when she woke up screaming the next morning.
This story earned a great deal of laughter from the college boys. Dana, who was already familiar with the tale, merely chuckled with wry, remembered amusement. Violet cracked a smile. Aaron... looked stone-faced and irritated, but no one paid him any mind. The next person to come forward with a story was Nick, who regaled everyone with the time that he had tricked Jarod into coming to the soup kitchen with him. His description of Jarod's reaction to the attention he'd been given by the people there was so spot-on perfect that after awhile, even Violet was giggling.
She was the next to stand, and surprisingly, the eldest Nightingale sister broke out of her mold enough to exhibit a bit of lively wickedness. Her story was about the time that Jarod had gotten himself expelled from his first high school (a very prestigious prep school in Dallas) by "sexually assaulting" the male principle. (In actuality, he'd climbed across the man's desk, grabbed his tie, and pulled him into a kiss. Not quite the horrific drama that other students would later gossip about.) At the end of the story, Jarod rolled his eyes and hinted that said principle had not been quite as innocent in the affair as he liked to seem.
Sebastian, Chris, Jake and Anthony ended up telling a story together, though Sebastian, with his refined storytelling skills, was certainly the leading voice. This was a much more recent story about an outing to a nightclub a couple of months ago where Jarod had inadvertently danced with (and kissed) the girlfriend of one of the club's bouncers, who was, naturally, furious when he spotted them. The bouncer had tried to punch Jarod twice - missed on the first try, but landed one on his jaw the second. Jarod's reaction to this had been to kiss the man before he could think to punch him again... and somehow (Emily might be able to guess that magic had been involved) the man had just given him a blank, shocked look... and ran off.
By the end of this, even Jarod was laughing.
Aaron didn't tell a story. Like Emily, he demured. And with that, everyone dispersed to chat amongst themselves once more. Jarod stood up and moved over to sit down next to the place where Emily had perched herself, and he pulled (by the waist) playfully down into his lap. He seemed to be in a good mood, despite himself. "I hope we didn't horrify you too much."
[Emily] Emily laughed, quietly and mostly to herself, at most of the stories. It took awhile for her to warm up to the idea that it was alright to laugh, in this gathering, and the first story rode a thin line between humor and sacrilege for her. Not that Emily believed there was a necessary division between the sacred and the profane in other people's home, just that if anyone had ever done something similar in her home...
... Emily suspected that his step-mother was not possessed with a rooted, immanent, graceful sort of Faith. That was the only explanation for it. And so she could chuckle and shake her head without taking personal offense. She could think about it like Anna's be-sequined Madonnas. Sparkle icons. It was art, not artifact. That made it, somehow, okay to laugh.
The soup kitchen was a story Emily could own, but she didn't laugh aloud at this either. She remembered standing in the rain, wondering if he was alright. She remembered what came afterward. That night at the Soup Kitchen a vagabond had died out on the loading docks. Emily had found out that she was less alone than she imagined in her brave new world.
She remembered, with a little flurry of anxiety, that just this time a year ago, she'd been Waking Up. So there was laughter for the caricature, the pantomime, for the ease that Nick had found in being in this group, but not the memory. This still wasn't funny to her.
And then came stories of kissing principals (kissing Princes) and making scenes at clubs (being seen at clubs), which were more the things that Emily could relate to in measure of bad behavior. The troupe-style story telling of the boys made her laugh all the more, because Bastian and Anthony were personalities rooted in her own experiences with them; she didn't have the friction there that she felt with Nick, or with Jarod's siblings.
She was a little more willing, and a little less rigid when he pulled her into his lap. Emily sat crosswise on it, looped an arm around his shoulders. She rested her temple against the crown of his head. Embassy Emily, you see, cared infinitely less for who saw her flirting with whom. The Diplomat's Daughter was aware that people would talk regardless of what she did, and that what she did had very little to do with what they would talk about.
"Oh, everyone has stories, love," she tells him, and it's easy how the endearment slips from her lips. She doesn't think about it. It's one of those features of her accent and speech that make it easy to tell when she's just ever so slightly shifted from her usual self. Love, poppet, lovely -- they're weightless here. They don't weight down her sentences or meanings.
Everyone has stories. Even Emily. The curl of his smirk says so. The way it darkens the corners of her eyes, deliciously. Oh, yes. She had stories. (Never in an elevator) And if she had her way no one would ever have cause to roast her, like this, at any point in the future.
"Are you having a good birthday?" she asks, but this is less playful. It's quieter. The words thread into the curl of his ear and linger, like the smell of her skin or the soft of her sweater against his shirt.
[Jarod] "Mm," he pursed his lips and purred thoughtfully. "I'll let you know when it's over."
Because lots of things could happen in the course of an evening, and he'd learned that it was best to reserve judgment for the end. That said, for the moment, he had enough warmth in him to offer up a bright, charming smile, and during a moment when no one was looking, he tipped his head up and caught Emily's lips in a kiss. It was just a momentary thing, but the execution was teasingly sexy. (Frustratingly so, perhaps - for that was the goal in mind.)
Then someone made a call for the opening of presents, and Jarod broke away and approached the gathering group to open the various packages that had been neatly piled on the table. They consisted of an assortment of tasteful, appropriate items, of varying degrees of expense. Naturally, his family members had given the largest gifts, but not always the most personal. In fact, none of the gifts from his siblings were of sentimental value. They were practical things (or fun things, in Maia's case.) Dana had given him a photo album full of old pictures she'd taken of the two of them (and their many adventures) over the years, beginning at age 13 and continuing on through last Christmas. Jarod had never given the impression that he was the sort of person to collect these kinds of memories, but he smiled a little when he looked through it, and then gave Dana a long hug, followed by a kiss. It was on the lips, which some might see as a little overly forward for friends, but there wasn't anything particularly sexual about it. (This was not how he'd kissed Emily.) And judging by Dana's reaction, it was a kind of Jarod-speak that she understood. He expressed the most when he wasn't speaking at all.
Bastian made a few attempts to look at the album, but Jarod snapped it shut and handed it back to Dana, who merely shrugged apologetically and left to go deposit it in a safe place (namely, Jarod's bedroom.) While she was gone, he opened Nick's present, which looked like a very plain and simple old book. Whatever may have been written on the cover or binding, once upon a time, it wasn't there any longer. (If indeed anything had ever been printed there.) This was not just an old book. It was an old book. The pages slid against each other like old leaves when he opened it. There were Chinese characters hand-written on the pages. Jarod's eyebrows raised in appreciative surprise when he realized what he'd been given.
"How on earth did you find this?"
Nick just smiled, a little shyly, and gave an enigmatic shrug. Playing Jarod at his own game, evidently. Jarod closed the book carefully and grabbed Nick's hand, pulling him into a fiercely tight embrace. As with Dana, this was a thank you. And Nick... well, if he felt anything else, he kept it to himself. But his cheeks did flush just a little, and he was quiet for a long time after they broke apart. This gift, too, was deposited in a safe location, before Jarod finally landed on Emily's present. He looked at her, smiled softly, and began to ever-so-carefully unwrap the neat, elegant box.
[Jarod] [edit: right, that second "old" should be italicized. Go me.]
[Emily] It was a momentary thing, but that kiss left her breathless and struggling to cover when the rest of the gathering looked their way next. This freely affectionate way of his, it would never fly with Emily's own family. She was a little more reserved, on a whole, and that was only a shadow of what she's grown up with. So it's easier to make her blush, and to keep that blush riding the line of her cheeks and the ridge of her ears and nose.
Dana gave him something sentimental.
Nick found a precious book.
Emily offered up a plain box with a nice ribbon.
It's wrapped in nothing more perfect that butcher paper, but the creases are precise. He'd expect nothing less from her. The ribbon itself is sleek and sensual. There's a contrast here between something so starkly plain and something rich. When he unwraps it, he'll find a proper box, with a lid, none of this cardboard folding nonsense either. It's wooden, and the joins are neatly made. There is a cut away carving along the top edge that looks like lattice work. It's just imperfect enough to have been hand-carved.
The box itself is not expensive, though it is nice. Inside stands a collection of glass jars with heavy seals. There are teas here, sealed away from the light and the air, from her trip to Asia last winter. From her trip home this spring. Six different ones, each with a handwritten tag proclaiming country of origin, varietal name, quality. Nestled between these is a thin book of poetry, by Rumi, because Jarod has always reminded her of the simple and sensual pleasures in their lives.
It is a present for a friend who is also sometimes a lover. For someone who knows the merits of rich poetry and sleek ribbons, of time taken and good tea, of slowing things down long enough to see the world around them for what it is.
There's nothing overtly expensive or special about it. She'll likely get teased by his siblings, or even Dana (quite possibly Nick), but at least it isn't holiday cookies with carbohydrates this time.
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