2025-06-23 - Country Club Casual

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: Hello, is this Hayley with two Y's?

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: This is, I don't think I recognize the number? 👀

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: Hello then! This is Liam from the UK

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: We met at the supermarket

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: Oh, Liam from Tarjay, ketchup boy. Right! Sorry, I should have realized it was probably you!

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: LOL Ketchup Boy? I shan't tell the lads back home about that one. Love it. Look

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: I meant to ask you about a drink, All-American Girl

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: And this is me asking. Up for it?

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: I could be up for a drink. Where are you thinking?

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: Well. We can dress down and prop up the bar at Lucky's. OR...

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: We could dress smart and pop in for a cocktail at the Port and Portal

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: I'm a professional chameleon 😉 so I'm open to either. Though if you leave it to me it'll be the P&P

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: Suuuure let's do that. Means I very much need to head home after work to clean up, I'm not ruining a dress with mud.

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: Oh, excellent. Let's go with 8PM then? If that's not enough time feel free to say so

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: I've never been responsible for mud on on a girl's dress and I've no desire to start now 😉

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: I get off work closer to sundown, around 9. And if you haven't, you need to be more adventurous!

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: But yeah, 9:45? Gives me enough time to scrub up and put a face on.

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: Well challenge accepted in that case!

[TXT to Hayley] Liam: And 9:45 works nicely. See you then, All-American Girl

[TXT to Liam] Hayley: See you there, Beans on Toast!

'Country Club Casual' isn't really a thing in Britain, unless it means an outfit a bit more stylish than one might find at Marks & Spencer but retaining the informal air of a relaxed aristocrat slumming it. If that's the case, then Liam might just have hit the nail on the head as he lounges in a booth of the island's closest thing to a fine-dining establishment, idly scrolling through his phone.

Snug-fitting Jack Wills polo in an understated grey, two buttons open at the neck? Check. Tennis sweater tied about his shoulders? Check. Proper chinos rolled at the ankle over a pair of navy canvas sneakers? Check and check. Even the typically untamed mop of his hair is swept back with some sort of product maintaining the style's hold.

He hasn't been waiting there long, yet with an air of effortless ease, he seems like he could wait there forever. It's a beautiful night with a faint, cool breeze. Something on the phone elicits a wry chuckle.

The last and only time Liam saw Hayley, it was in the morning in a grocery store when she was wearing pure comfort clothes -- sweats, to be precise, and with absolutely not looking her best and well-rested. Whatever it was that had brought her there in that state, it seems gone now.

She comes in wearing a mostly-modest green dress, though it does show off some leg and thigh, and a pair of simple, inch-high, gladiator style heels, a small clutch on her arm. If it's the same outfit she wore to the influencer party, well, he wouldn't know, would he? Eyes have been marked out in pale eyeliner with just a touch of golden eyeshadow that matches her fingernails, and her lips have been reddened, a bit of effort put in to her appearance. Even her mop of blonde curls has been done up into a loose bun.

The server shows her to the table, and she clears her throat softly to announce her presence.

Glancing up from his phone, the hard planes of Liam's face soften as his gaze settles on Hayley in her green dress, and that smile turns a few ticks friendlier.

"Oh! Hello there," the young man greets his guest with an unruffled, low voice that still manages to carry a faint note of self-effacing humour. The iPhone is slipped into a front pocket as he stands up from the booth, gesturing for her to sit with a sweeping gesture. "You're looking absolutely lovely, Hayley with a pair of Y's."

The genuine compliment is followed swiftly by an arch, "Shame about the mud, later. Though I suppose greens and browns are a natural complement."

"I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm a girl that's afraid to get a little dirty, but I can assure you a little mud isn't going to ruin this dress," Hayley says with a warm smile as she takes the seat across from Liam, though in a corner booth, that's also very much next to him.

Her head turns, and she looks out the window toward the mermaids, a smile on her face as she watches them in the water, before she looks back to Liam. "So why this place over the other?" she wonders.

"I wear a black polo shirt daily," Liam deadpans in response, dry tone delivering the implication that the repetitive, staid nature of his employee uniform is at best dreadfully boring, if not insulting. His face breaks in a vibrant smile then, moving swiftly from sarcasm to an earnest, good-natured tone. "Honestly. I don't get many chances to dress up a bit, even this," he shrugs, indicating his lapsed-rich-boy look with a chuckle.

"Plus. I suspect we'd get on well in your work clothes and the sort of gear I like to wear more typically," Liam admits. "Most days, I'd rather be out in the woods, myself... but if my sister agreed to a hike in the wilds with an ex-military chap she'd just met...?"

Liam shrugs his broad shoulders. "This seemed a fairly low-risk proposition. Though if you'd rather ditch the heels and hop in a speedboat," his eyes twinkle, "you wouldn't be twisting my arm any."

"I just meant over the other bar that you were considering, not over a walk in the woods or something like that," Hayley points out as she picks up the menu, opening it to the drinks menu and running her fingers down it, though her eyes flick up now and then to consider Liam as he speaks a few times. "But yes, I think in that situation, no offense to you -- but hardly knowing you, I would end up having to pick the bear."

She lands on a drink selection, it seems, and then moves on to the main menu, searching through a few things. "I haven't really eaten today," she admits, "But if this goes well, speedboat isn't really out of the question." A pause, a glance up toward Liam, and she checks, "This is a date, right?" she asks. "I've been assuming but I don't think you ever really said the word."

Then she wonders, "You have a sister?"

Smiling over steepled fingers, Liam laughs softly when Hayley says she'd pick the bear. He might not follow the reference innately, but the context is clear. Between his laughter and a ready grin, it's clear he agrees, but he says as much via non-verbals, not interrupting.

A cocktail waitress is approaching over his shoulder, but Liam doesn't see her yet, eyes flickering to the drinks menu and back to Hayley. He gives the Southern blonde his full attention, laughing again as he answers her.

"Yes, and yes. It's a date, and I've one sister. Lilly's... quite a trip," he admits, shaking his head with a rueful amusement in his brown eyes. "But I love her dearly. And you?"

"The, uh, 'fun on the beach' for me," Hayley says to the waitress with a smile as she approaches, letting Liam make his order and the waitress shuffle off before she looks back to him, smiling gently as he confirms it's a date, and then nods, lifting three fingers. "Three sisters. I'm the youngest and flightiest. They're all still back in Beaumont, married and with kids," she says with a little shrug. "It was sort of a big deal when I wanted to come up here."

Her hands fold, and she rubs her thumb against her index finger, clearly feeling a little awkward as she brings her hand up to brush her hair away from her face. "I've not been on a ton of dates," she admits after a moment, glancing away.

Liam’s a listener. For whatever reason, he’s good at it, never interrupting or breaking in with some observation or quip whilst Hayley’s telling her truth. Maybe it’s to do with his profession. Maybe it’s his upbringing. Maybe it’s just his nature.

Whatever it is, beyond making his order—some local variant of that Midwestern classic, the brandy old-fashioned sweet—he doesn’t say a thing until she pauses beyond a murmur of assent now and again. Only when she admits she’s not been on a ton of dates does he chime in with those surprisingly cultured tones.

“Honestly, I’m surprised,” he says with a wide-eyed look that doubles down on the sentiment. “I haven’t either, but that’s almost entirely due to my service. Men in my former line of work don’t make for great committed boyfriends,” he chuckles with a sheepish, self-deprecating smile. “Same for you? Or something different?”

Hayley glances up to him with those green eyes of hers when he says that he's surprised, giving an understanding smile, and she shrugs her shoulders eventually with a sigh. "Wasn't allowed to until I was eighteen, and then after that, I wasn't -- well, I was with someone," she admits. "Cards on the table, that was pretty recent. This is my first date since. So, you know," she says with just a touch of tease, "No pressure for either of us."

Thankfully, at that moment, drinks arrive, and she picks hers up. "How long did you serve?" she asks in what is surely the smoothest change of topic in the history of conversation. "And where?"

Liam accepts the news—this is her first date since a breakup?—with an arch of his brows, surprised again and laughing out loud to the words ‘no pressure!’

He takes up his drink—local as it gets, with a couple Door County cherries from Wisconsin in it—and smiles in delight at the first sip. Then Hayley asks about service. This is safe ground.

“Well,” the tall young Englishman explains, “you could say I’d been serving half my life, until recently, if you count Sandhurst.”

He pauses, then explains, “That’s the Royal Military College. Like your West Point or Annapolis. Then a tour in the Royal Marines, and all the tests, and finally the SAS. I’d probably still be in if my shoulder had healed properly.”

“It didn’t,” he laughs. “But tonight’s the first time I don’t mind as much.” Beat.

“How’s your drink, then?”

"So is this the part where I admit to you I'm a little bit of an anglophile?" Hayley asks Liam, looking more than a touch amused at his explanations, her hands lacing together as she provides, "I had a lot of BBC on when I was younger, and I know it's kitschy but I'm a Whovian. SAS is very, very impressive, I knew I knew the tattoo from somewhere, and now it makes sense." Her head cants slightly, and she looks to his shoulder. "What kind of injury?"

A smile as he says he doesn't mind it too much tonight, and she lifts her glass. "It's pretty good, just kind of a standard of mine. I like fruity things a lot. Yours?" she wonders, but she moves right past that.

"What's been the hardest part of civilian life to get back to?"

There's something in there that says she's known her share of soldiers.

Hayley will find her smile’s echoed back in kind by the young man across from her. If she’s an Anglophile, it’s possible she’s picked up on the verbal cues and the mannerisms that betray the officer class.

“Well,” Liam begins politely, “it’s everyday things, things like Doctor Who, honestly. You’re an American and you probably know more about whoever the latest Doctor is than I do. I mean, I can recognize a TARDIS, anyone can, but after that….”

He trails off with a helpless shrug and a gentle, playful smile. A lock of brown hair falls into his eyes, and he brushes it back with a laugh.

Then Liam holds up his drink with the cherries in it, muddled and whole alike. It’s a good-natured answer to her question about fruity drinks, and it comes with a grin of its own.

“I didn’t even realize you could watch the BBC here. Honestly, it’s a treat to hear the way you pronounce our words,” he admits!

There's a brief furrow of Hayley's brows at that, her lips pressing tightly together as she listens, fingertip tapping against the stem of her glass before she says, "Yeah, I guess culture moves on and if you ain't part of it, off it goes without you. Still, I think I'd find that exciting in its own way. All these new things you get to experience and discover."

She does add, though, "You definitely do get it here, and there's things like Britbox and so on, or Disney is putting episodes of some stuff out. It sometimes takes a little digging, but Who and Taskmaster, especially, I keep up on."

Then she adds, "You've brought up my accent a few times now," mostly sounding confused. "I don't think I sound that funny?"

“Not funny,” Liam stresses congenially. “Different than I’m used to. Charming, even.” Again, that smile. “I could listen to the way you speak all night, frankly. We English are a people obsessed with accents. How an Englishman pronounces a certain vowel can tell you not just where he’s from, but his class and upbringing, at times. You—“

And here, he gestures to Hayley with his highball glass, half-full now, “You’re outside of all that. Americans, Canadians, you’re not subject to the same… expectations.”

“I’d even call you lucky,” Liam adds with another grin. “It’s all a bit tiring, really. You’re better off without it. It’s not like that in America at all, is it? Or am I mistaken?”

Hayley blinks rapidly a few times as she hears that, and slowly, her lips turn down slightly as she reaches for her drink and takes another long gulp, letting Liam finish his thoughts before she shakes her head quickly and says, simply, "You couldn't be more wrong."

She sighs, then rubs at her temple for a moment, before she goes on, "Southern drawl is a lot like the Yorkshire accent in England. People think you're dumb and uneducated the second they hear it. Which is fine, doesn't bug me, but saying it ain't classist is very wrong. You can hear a lot in how people speak. There's about fifteen different big southern dialects that all get lumped together in one thing, that you can pick apart if you got the ear for it. There's only gonna be more as the country gets older."

Her hand falls, and she looks at him. "Lots of southerners -- women especially -- try to hide their accent because of how they get treated for having it. Especially if they're from more rural areas. And even where I'm from, it's a Cajun town, so there's a whole other layer to that. It may not be as strong, but it's here, and it's very much a thing we gotta deal with. There's a reason I get a little cagey when someone keeps drawing attention to mine."

Liam listens again, face falling a touch, lips pursed together. Finally, he answers.

"Oh. I'm terribly sorry, in that event." His tone is genuine, sympathetic; his dark eyes expressive with a hint of remorse. "I truly am charmed by it. I hadn't known. I'm learning so much about America. All of this makes sense to me. I just didn't realise it was so like the UK." Tilting his head, he wonders, "I hope you'll forgive me?"

"And if you can," he adds to that, "Maybe you could tell me more about how you know the SAS?"

"Also, Black people, and their dialect, and --" Hayley starts, but she pauses, catches herself, and rests her hand flat on the table. "Live nerve, I think, that I didn't realize I had. Sorry about that."

She offers an apologetic, awkward smile, and reaches for her drink to take a deep sip of it, setting it down after. "You're forgiven," she says easily.

Then she wonders, "Don't most people know about the SAS? Sort of like Mossad, just one of those things people pick up?" She shrugs, then says, "Lots of my high school friends enlisted. They'd come back and talk about things and people they met."

Forgiven his faux pas, Liam agreeably responds to Hayley’s explanation about her general military knowledge with a look of real approval.

“Oh, it’s hardly security clearance material,” he seconds her. “Most everyone in the UK knows about the SAS. I think the average Yorkshireman,” he adds, borrowing her example with a wink, “would be hard pressed to tell you much about the U.S. Marines beyond the fact that they exist, though. Just recognizing my tattoos is impressive!”

He sips again at his drink, nearly through it. “Did you ever consider serving? I rate you as someone who could probably handle yourself—and I have to be a good judge of things like that.”

"The motto, I think I might have read it in a book, though I couldn't tell you which one," Hayley says, and when he asks about her and serving, she nods once, her hand coming up to brush a few strands of hair from her eyes.

"Yeah," she admits. "I thought about it a lot. I took the ASVAB on a lark in high school when some Navy recruiters were around, and when they saw my scores and learned what my grades were -- well," she says with a small shrug of her shoulders. "They wanted me to come be a nuclear engineer. I would have made a lot more money than I make right now, I would have soared through the ranks almost certainly. They were even talking about commission paths."

She finishes her drink, then looks up at Liam. "I got to the point where they scheduled me to go to MEPS, and then I decided I couldn't do it. I had to ask myself if I would ever be okay helping drop a nuke on a city if I was asked to, and the answer to that was an easy no. I was never going to just be a grunt, and -- I would have been a great officer, all except the part about needing to be ready to kill because the president said so."

A sober look steals over the Englishman’s face at the talk of nuclear weapons. Grimly, he nods, jaw set.

A moment passes before he says anything. When he does, it’s initially quiet and thoughtful.

“You know,” Liam begins, looking Hayley square in the eyes, “I’d say that’s precisely the sort of response every government needs to hear from their high command. We hold this responsibility… life and death. Anyone who takes it lightly shouldn’t be serving.”

He draws a deep breath, then essays a hopeful, confident smile. “I’ve worked with my share of Yanks, but I’d have been honored to serve alongside you, Hayley Birch.”

"Might be the sort of response they need to hear, but doesn't mean they would listen to me, or that it wouldn't be twisted out of me by the time I got to that level," Hayley says with a small shake of her head, lips softly turned down. "Instead I help life flourish now. I'm a lot better off this way."

She looks back up at the compliment, and smiles softly. "I think I might be a little bad at dates," she admits. "I'm not really knocking this out of the park, am I?"

Liam’s reply to the question is that same confident smile. “I’d say your shots are all on target, actually,” he laughs good-naturedly, setting his palms on the table.

“We all have to respect the chain of command. But every officer must be comfortable speaking truth to power. You might’ve done, I think,” he insists, “but I’m sure you’re right, and better off where you are. Still. Look—“

Now he gives her a grin, a mischievous glint in his eye. “We can order some food. Or we can order a speedboat. Your choice.”

Hayley blinks in surprise as she is given those options, and then taps her fingers softly against the stem of her glass. A look at the menu. The menu is pushed away, and instead, she looks right up at Liam.

"Speedboat," she decides without any further hesitation.

"Excellent!" Liam's enthusiasm builds off the platform of Hayley's decisive selection. With a nod of affirmation, he looks her in the eyes. The matter of a wallet, a wad of cash to cover the drinks and a generous tip-- U.S. Dollars, still unfamiliar to him-- all the minor details are easily addressed. "I'd rather hoped you were leaning that way. We'll need to take the ferry back to Crescent at this point, but I have an idea...."

He slides out of the booth and offers the blonde a hand, though it's hard to say if it's a gallant gesture or done in good humour and self-awareness. Possibly a bit of both.

Hayley had started to reach for her purse, but when Liam covers the drinks, she doesn't protest. The payment dance is sometimes solved easily, and she reaches for the hand when it is provided, standing with a smile as she rests hers in his. Her skin is rough -- manual labor leaves its mark in callouses that are easy to feel.

"Sure, heading back to Crescent's no problem," she acknowledges with a quick nod, hand fluffing her hair back once she's stood, head tilting to look him in the eyes. "Night on the lake, hm? Hope you're not planning on ditching me out there."

With a squeeze of her calloused hand in his own-- no less toughened by work and hard environments-- a smile flashes across Liam's aquiline features, as much in his eyes as his expression. "No. No, I'd never leave anyone behind," he swears, and for all that there's amusement at the joke, there's sincerity too. Something's there, beneath the surface-- he's only been a civilian now for a few months, after all.

"Come on, then-- let's find ourselves a boat."

There's a slight glance from Hayley at that, her hands sliding to fold in front of themselves as they walk, engaging in general small talk on the way.

Then, they're on a boat! The Lonely Island would be proud.

They have a boat!

Liam hasn't been here on Spellbound too long, but somehow working security and the loose connections of ex-military types means he's 'got a guy' that keeps a Yamaha 222SE moored down at the end of a pier at Crescent Beach Harbor. After a stop at Fox Run for negotiations' sake, a bottle of Macallan 18 proves a fair price of passage.

After making their way down the pier by the dim lamps of the harbor, they untied the mooring ropes and Liam gave the dock a light shove with one foot, sending the boat drifting free from the pier. Settling in behind the wheel, he gently nudged the throttle into gear. The speedboat eased forward with a soft churn, and he spun the wheel to steer into open water, adjusting instinctively like he would on the road.

Before too long, he's pressing the throttle further and the speed is picking up, the bow lifting out of the water. Wind pushes against their faces, blowing their hair back, lake spray misting their arms and their faces from around and above the windscreen. The boat cuts clean across the water’s surface, smooth and fast under the moonlight.

"This," Liam half-shouts above the rush of the air and the hum of the engine, "This is living!" There's a wide-awake gleam in his eyes, a broad grin on his face as he looks over to see how Hayley's enjoying the ride!

It's a little crazy, to be honest, out on Lake Michigan in the dark... but isn't that the point?

Hayley, for her part, seems more used to boats than not, and as soon as she's invited on by the temporary captain, her heels are off and she's reaching back, clinging onto a bar tightly as it takes off and settling into her seat.

Any attempt she had made to keep her hair bound falls apart in the wind, and she laughs brightly as it frays out her curls, her arm coming up to shield herself -- at first, at least, but soon there's enough water that's gone through that she is firmly damp, and she sort of gives up, screwing up her nose playfully.

"Taking me anywhere in particular?" she calls curiously.

"I don't know, should I?" Liam laughs, clearly loving it as they accelerate away from Crescent Island into the open water of Lake Michigan. It's choppier for certain, the farther they get from shore, but the waters are fairly calm in the summer season and tonight is no exception.

The lights of Spellbound Park itself light the sky to the north, though it's mostly hinted at behind the dark bulk of smaller, unlit and undeveloped Moonrise Island. Killing the gas and downshifting into neutral, Liam lets the boat drift forward as he spins to his right to smile at Hayley, his aristocratic countenance lit with the rush of speed.

"We could try and find a beach to make landfall," he tells her, considering, "or we could keep to the boat and tour the whole of the islands from here." His eyebrows arch-- and he makes an offer.

"Care to take the helm for a bit?"

After a while, Hayley has stopped caring about the water splashing up at all, and is leaning out the side of the boat as they ride -- her hand on the mooring point, both feet flat on the floor, a tripod of steadiness that accidentally causes her arm to flex, showing the toned muscles even in the dim light. She has a content, relaxed smile on her face -- and then he's talking, and her head turns in his direction.

"I don't want to have to deal with sand," she says after just a moment of thought, "But we can take it slow and steady around here, maybe drift somewhere nice. I don't want to get too far away from land," she admits

Unspoken: "I want my magic to work."

She then nods at his offer, shifting up to the helm. "I'm going to go fast," she warns him.

"Bring it on," is Liam's encouraging response, beaming, more than on board with her desire for speed. A hint of the wild night flickers in his dark eyes as he lifts himself out of the helmsman's seat and makes way for Hayley, more than enough room in the Yamaha for them to exchange positions without the clumsiness entailed by a smaller craft.

"I haven't a chart," he admits, "but between the moon and the light off the inhabited islands, we shouldn't have any trouble staying close enough to know where we're at-- but far enough from shore to avoid any trouble."

He purses his lips for a thoughtful moment, then reaches his arms up to pull his damp tennis sweater off over his head. Shaking his hair out a bit when it's off, he nods, satisfied. "The only real concern I have is the distance betwixt Moonrise and Spellbound. There'll be what? Ten, fifteen minutes where we're out of sight of any land. I can get us there easily enough-- if you trust me."

"We're not touring all the islands at night," Hayley says, her head shaking slowly. "We just want to get somewhere we have a good view." Her voice is rising, as the motor spurs to full action, and the boat starts to rear back as she settles onto the seat, grinning as she looks over at him. "Probably get where we can see the Castle clearly, I think, but they can't really see us. What do you think about that?"

She keeps her hand on the guide, then, actually turning to focus for a moment -- there's a not-zero chance they're not the only ones on the water at this point, and rocks at this speed in the dark are a real concern.

Liam nods once, thoughtfully in response, a slow smile forming on his lips. He seems impressed, and just why becomes clear when he responds with evident praise.

"You'd have done quite well in the SBS," he tells Hayley, words draped in something akin to an air of professional approval. "I think it's a solid plan of attack. No farther north than Spellbound Isle proper, and the castle. Let's do it. Now if we only we had some hot tea...."

He glances under the console, knowing it's unlikely but looking for a thermos or cooler. Finding nothing, he merely laughs and gives his broad shoulders a sheepish shrug, but something did catch his eye.

"You're still good in that dress? I think Andy may have a few sweatshirts in the port-side locker?" His own tennis sweater was discarded due to its soaked status, as well.

"No, I wouldn't have, I've never wanted to stay at absolutely peak physical condition, and I can't handle that kind of strain for that long," Hayley says with a faint smile. "Besides, not many women make it in, anyway." They're approaching their destination, and she starts to slow them down, letting the boat start to bob on the shallow waves of the lake.

"I would have been surface, probably," she says after a moment, then turns her head to look at Liam, and shrugs. "I'm freezing," she admits with a sheepish smile. "I thought I'd be okay since it's summer."

He compliments her acuity with the small craft, and she demurs with an entirely-serious take on her fitness for the Special Boat Service? Hayley's level-headed passing-off of what he'd meant as a collegially approving remark throws Liam a trifle off-balance, so when she smiles and admits to being freezing, he's happy to agree, "Even on a hot day, I don't know that I've ever felt warm in a speedboat. But I think we've got you covered."

Spinning in his seat, he takes a lunge-step astern and half-crouches to open the portside storage chest and peer inside.

"Covered quite literally, it seems," Liam dryly observes, moving a large, folded blanket aside before he finds a single crew-neck sweatshirt, old and faded red with a Wisconsin Badger on it. Holding it up toward her, it's quite wide-- probably a men's XL originally, possibly a bit looser now. He grins over the top of it.

"You may drown in the sweatshirt before you'd ever drown in the lake."

Maybe something about Hayley's stance or posture indicated that she didn't even really process it as a compliment, for whatever reason. She might be bad at getting them. Some people are! Still, now that they're in a stable spot, she takes her arm away and turns to look at him. "I've cooked in a boat before, but if you're moving, it helps, yeah," she says as she watches him tilting.

"... I'll take drowning in the sweatshirt, but you're not allowed to take any pictures of me in that," she decides, looking partially unsure as her eyes sweep over it. "Feels weird putting on someone else's clothes, randomly, but I'm too cold to argue."

“No pictures,” Liam agrees easily, prepared to toss the faded red sweatshirt to Hayley—before pausing. He brings it up to his nose and takes a sniff.

Then he makes a face, aquiline features crinkling into a look of dismay.

“On second thought, you do not want this!” He delivers the about-face with a laugh, and as they drift slowly around toward Moonrise on nothing but the momentum of their earlier thrust, he hands her the sweatshirt for proof.

“Trust me. Have a whiff of that…”

It smells of fuel and fish and who knows what else.

When Liam goes to hand the shirt to Hayley, she reaches out gratefully for it -- and then it's pulled away from her and sniffed, and a frown starts to grow on her face as he expresses that dismay, her breath coming out from her in a sign of dismay.

Maybe that would have been it, but then he thrusts it toward her, and she holds both hands up, palms out, and tries hard to lean away, her head turning from it. "No, no thanks, I'm totally fine believing you if you say something smells bad." Her voice is odd, and if he looks closely, he can see that she has voluntarily squeezed her nostrils shut, breathing through her mouth for the moment.

"I'm good. I promise."

"Right then," Liam demurs, eyes narrowing with concern but pulling the crewneck back and tucking it in the storage locker once more. After turning to stow the offending sweatshirt-- and make no mistake, that odor did offend-- he looks back to Hayley with a milder curiosity.

Quiet but confident, he says, "I'm sorry about that. Truly. If you're cold, we could probably drift for a bit and let the air dry us out." He glances off the starboard side, to open water, where the sky is black and the stars are brighter.

Hayley looks like she might be about to say something to that last comment, but instead, she just wraps her arms tightly around herself and turns to look out at the islands. She definitely isn't upset to see the sweatshirt go, but she's quiet for a long moment.

"It's pretty, but rushing out here impulsively might not have been the smartest move," she admits as she rubs at her arms softly. "What's the plan now?"

Stepping back up toward the front row, Liam folds his long frame into the co-pilot's chair and swivels it toward Hayley as he answers. "It's funny," he admits with a rueful grin, mildly chastened. "I've spent half my life always having a plan-- and rarely getting out on dates. Now, I'm on a proper date with a lovely girl, and I've gone off half-cocked without the foggiest idea of what we'll do next."

Snorting politely in self-deprecating amusement, the young man folds his hands behind his head and smiles up at the stars above. "So. Next. I'm still game to explore that one," he offers, nodding toward the dark, undeveloped woods of little Moonrise Island. "We could gun it for a quick cruise around the park before heading back, or--"

Between them and the shore, a rainbow-like spattering of lights appears in the water, snaking along swiftly for a good twenty feet.

"Bloody hell," he gasps, voice dropping to a whisper. "Hayley, have a look at that!"

Hayley gives a half-smile to that, and says to Liam, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm really not doing much better at my first date in a long time." She sighs, then, leaning against the edge of the boat -- and when he suggests again a trip around the park, she turns to look at him, her mouth opening.

But his remark draws her attention to the thing in the water, and she blinks quite rapidly. "Oh no. No, no, no," she decides, backing away in panic -- she doesn't know this thing's probably not after her.

Immediately, Liam slips into the even breathing and level demeanour of an operator in stressful theaters. It could be the night, the water, the perception of danger or all three, but the end result is the same: a preternatural calm descends upon him as he leans over behind Hayley.

“Shhhh,” he shares with her, a quiet sound low in the vocal register. A strong hand, meant to be reassuring, placating, settles on her bare shoulder. “Just breathe. Breathe and trust me, alright?”

Off to port, the iridescent scales of what can only be the River Serpent ripple through the water with sinuous grace. The creature’s head either has yet to surface—or perhaps already did, before they’d seen it, and only now is diving deep.

Hayley isn't really paying much attention to Liam at the moment, considering there is a giant river serpent that literally just swam beside their boat, her eyes wide as she opens her mouth to say something. But -- nothing comes out, and then there's that hand on her shoulder. Whatever thought she might have had in mind, she keeps silenced at his words - though her brow knits one step.

She turns, watching the serpent go by, eyes wide as much with wonder as with fear at the iridescent scales.

The rippled, rainbow colouring of the shining scales plays with the starlight and the water they pass through, eventually slipping back under the water….

Liam takes his hand back as they both remain silent, Hayley’s initial fear and reluctance giving way to wonder as their wordless watching seems to play its part in the beast slipping past with nary a twitch their direction—

Until it breaks the surface again, that is.

Over on the starboard side now, the great head emerges dripping from the water, arcing through the air with its sinuous strength behind it before diving down into the dark waters again!

This time, even Liam can’t help a sharp intake of breath.

Hayley lifts an arm, holding it out, trying to protect herself from the splash of water coming off the creature as she flinches back. If it went underneath the boat, then it could just as easily have toppled them in and doomed them -- and she respects it and the power it holds.

Still, the scales reflecting dimly in the twice-reflected headlights of the boat make her not shield her eyes completely.

"Wow," she manages to whisper just before it disappears again. "... I feel like that was maybe a warning."

"A warning. A greeting. A closer look at something new," Liam murmurs, running over the possibilities out loud while his own gaze remains rapt, held by the sight of the otherworldly creature as it passes through the gentle waves of the lake. "Who knows?"

He slips his phone from his pocket and thumbs on the record button for video, just in time for the last arc to slide beneath the waterline again. The former British agent squints off into the darkness on that side of the craft, straining to see where the serpent will emerge again-- if it does so.

Hayley keeps looking at that spot, nodding quietly as her hand comes up to tuck some stray hairs from her face, hiding it behind her ears as the wind whips against them on the lake, a small shiver going through her that might be from the cold, or might be from the terror, but probably is from both.

"Has this thing ever eaten anyone that you know of?" she asks, finally.

Liam waits too, thumbing the video off but still watching the surface, still waiting for a telltale ripple, or bubble, or something....

It doesn't come, not yet at least. There's no telling if the thing will return, or not. There's only the waiting, the silence, the starlight, the sound of the waves. And Hayley's question.

He glances toward her, away from the water, with a soft smile. "What little I've heard? They actually think it's friendly," he explains, "though nobody knows for certain."

"Friendly?" Hayley asks, clearly surprised by that as she glances at Liam like he's crazy, her voice rising just a little higher than she means it to be. "I mean, I've heard that it's smart, but friendly is... well, that would be nice if this turned out to be some kind of sea-Luck Dragon, or something," she decides.

She watches the water again, though, for a long while, before she goes to the edge of the boat and -- cautiously -- dips the tips of her fingers in.

"It's getting late," she says quietly. "We might want to think about heading back."

"Whenever you're ready," Liam agrees, his voice strangely unreadable as he, too, looks out over the water, still searching. The serpent seems unwillingly to play along, though.

Eventually he lifts a brow and asks, "I'll take us back." There seems to be a question lingering there, but it goes unsaid as he turns the key and ignites the engine a second time, letting it rev to life and idle a moment.

"I think I'm ready," Hayley says quietly, a touch of apology in her voice as she turns her head and gives him a soft smile. "I have to work in the morning." There's no malice in it, no sense that she's tremendously upset -- shaken, still, that's sure, but that's about it. "It's been a nice time, though. I just feel bed calling me."

"Did you?" Liam seems a trifle surprised, if encouraged by her smile. "I'm glad. I'm terrible at reading women," he admits, "which might be a story for another time. If you're up for one."

The engine revs again as he gives it some gas, easing the craft into a long, slow turn back toward Crescent Island. "I would be."

"I'm hard to read," Hayley admits as she settles into her seat, before she asks, "Did I, what?" as Crescent Island starts to appear in the distance. "And if I'm up for what? A story?" she asks, her head tilting.

"Stories are good," Liam answers over the sound of the boat whipping across the gentle swells, "and I'd love to hear more. I love to tell them. But no," he explains. "Up for going out again sometime. At the end of the day, we went for a midnight speedboat ride-- and we saw a sea monster."

He seems quite pleased with that much!

"But I'd be up for trying again, on solid ground."

"We did," Hayley said, her expression unreadable as her face is turned away, eyes looking out over the water, but after a moment, she nods.

"Sure," she says, nodding once. "On solid ground, though, I think is very smart."