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This is Rosita. I'll hit you back when I can.

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"He might," he agrees, but he's looking at Rosita. "What's 'better' that he could come across than a badass like you, though?"

She smiles, raises her glass a bit at badass: damn straight.

But all the same: "Someone who wasn't introduced as a stand in? Someone that's not a SIN guard? Someone he actually loves?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You have to love your Dominant now to be a good pairing? I didn't think that'd be one of your criteria."

"I didn't say it was one of my criteria, Judgey Judgerson," she snorts. Not by a long shot.

"But I'm pretty sure it's one of his."

"He is kind of a romantic, huh," Jesus says, although a little bit reserved. "We'll see."

"Yeah, we will," she agrees.

"In the meantime, he wants to keep me out of his business, that's cool. But the details of this is mine."

He nods; he can abide by that. "He gave me some brass knuckles for Christmas. I love them." He's used them, carries them with him sometimes.

"But Vrenille gave me a key to the Manor for Christmas, too. I get the feeling Jacob wouldn't take it very well. I don't like feeling like one of my friendships hurts someone but..." But it does and he can't fix that.

Well that's. News. She traces her fingertip along the rim of her glass, toying with where it catches where she's been drinking from it, where a drop dried sticky from the first round.

"Do you think Vrenille replaced him with you?" she asks, not because she thinks it's true, but because she wants to know if he does with his more intimate insight into the relationships in play.

Edited Date: 2023-02-26 03:55 am (UTC)

"No." And it feels good to say it out loud, to have this fragile faith in someone. "I think my relationship with him would be the same even if Jacob had never gone home. Maybe a little more complicated because of Jacob..."

And Jacob's jealousy, which Jesus had assumed was new and it turned out it wasn't.

"But I don't think Vrenille works that way. I don't think he sees people that way." Jesus doesn't either.

"Then it's between them," she says simply. She has a habit of getting herself involved where things get quite complicated, quite quickly, and she has a hard time talking things out at that point, but this is all quite clear to her.

"And I'll tell him that, again, if it comes up. He has a certain way of seeing things, sometimes, but - I'll give him the credit that he does try to listen when I disagree with him."

"How often have you disagreed with him?" Jesus asks, wondering how often they've had to share strong opinions at all yet.

"A couple times." Nothing big yet, of course, unless one counts the Zoo debacle.

"He lets people at the Spread Eagle and the Arena believe that he's got me coming around because I can't live without his dick," she snorts, finally hooking a barstool with her foot.

"Safest way he could figure out how to explain why he's contracted with a SIN guard, I guess. I wasn't exactly happy about that when I found out."

Jesus looks at her, and the anger he had earlier is a very different flavor than this one is. He purses his lips, nods slightly.

"And how do you feel about it now?"

She shrugs, but it's a dishonest answer and she doesn't try hiding that fact.

"I agree it's a lot safer for him than letting his black market pals think he's in love with a SIN guard." It's more of a risk for her, but not significantly more than the sympathies everyone knows she came in with. That she was accepted with. "I just don't go around there anymore."

"That's bullshit, Rosita." Maybe it's the way things are. He doesn't have to like it.

She shrugs again.

"I knew I'd lose people when I did this," she says, and lets that stand.

She did it anyway. She believes in it anyway.

He knew she would, too. This still bothers him but the alternative is Jacob giving up his illegal contacts, and that's not going to happen.

"Well, you still have me," he tells her instead with a small smile.

The corner of her mouth quirks.

"I knew that, too," she assures him. Even if it's more dangerous to stick close with her - for her to stick close with him - that was never on the table.

"One of his boyfriends went to the Zoo earlier this week. He did let me talk him out of storming the fucking gates and into letting me just buy him out."

"Sounds like he respects you," Jesus says, because at least there's that. "Which boyfriend?"

"He does. I know the dick thing is... not great. But he's said some other things that were."

Talk and action are two different things though, and that's something else Jacob has to learn by Rosita's estimate.

"Chris Sonom?" She'd never heard of him before this week. "I don't know him, and he got some pretty rough handling before I could get to him, so I'm leaving him alone until Jacob gives me the all clear to try talking to him again."

"Haven't met him either," Jesus shakes his head. The city is large, especially by Hilltop standards. "But I guess that answers how working the Zoo is treating you."

She offers one of her dry, shallow smiles at the comment.

She would really like to just burn the Zoo down.

"It's been fine. Nothing I can't handle."

"Well in my opinion," he says, whisking the empty glasses away. "We should get together to catch up on movies after your shift."

At least one or two nights a week anyway.

She stands, moving around the bar to help since they're the only ones here and she helped hold him up.

"If we can make it work," she agrees, grateful that he's offering without her having to ask. "Although - I mean to make a bid on the property next month."