The Ties that Bind Us

j a m e s

James felt his cheeks heat up as he realized it was Eliza behind the door and that she was coming to tell him to keep it down. With his own words. That was embarrassing. Really embarrassing. James stared at her for a second, quietly as the music continued to blast, until he finally turned towards Dan and gestured to him to lower the volume while uttering the words, "turn it down." Dan looked a tad bit confused at first but then looked and saw Eliza and seemed to put two and two together.

After that there was nothing James could do but face the music, or rather the cause for it to have stop. Elizas smile was almost a little smug, and while it should have made James feel more embarrassed there was something kind of endearing about it and it made him feel a little more relaxed. Eliza so far seemed like kind of a playful person, at least with the way she acted with her kids, and the fact the she was looking smug and not angry was a good thing.

"Sorry, Dan's used to playing music at the studio, he forgets other people might be living right next door,"
He said, embarrassment gone and replaced by something more a little more amused as he very much jokingly but all the responsibility on his friend in the couch. Dan protested right away by yelling, "You are equally responsible Jamie, don't fucking try!"

James let out a soft chuckle but didn't take his attention of Eliza. He leaned a little against the door frame and decided to actually be decent about the whole thing, "yeah, uh actually... I'm sorry if we were being loud," he said, as the actual apology escaped his lips he sounded a little awkward again, he didn't particularly like apologizing, but he didn't want his neighbor to hate him, that sounded like a nightmare. Maybe she'd tell her kids to make all the noise they could in the early mornings, "I guess I'm officially a bit of a hypocrite douche-bag, but I'll try to keep it down,"
 
e l i z a
A soft and obviously amused chuckle emitted from Eliza in response to his joking antics and the response he was given by his companion, Dan -- she believed he called him. She had already been at ease, but seeing that her mocking complaint was well received she was not only entertained but content. Eliza could have walked away and not cared if they continued to play any loud music at this point -- if it wasn't for her work. Still, she was very pleased and it showed on her still smiling face. Her smile had gone from smug to simply amiable and amused.​
She shook her head once and answered him. "It's okay," Eliza assured Jame, unfolding her arms and shoving her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans. And it was, that much was clear because she was hardly upset, only disturbed. "Thank you or turning it down, hypocrite douche-bag." Eliza said sarcastically, though she was genuinely grateful.​
"And thank you for giving me an excuse to stop working for a spell," Eliza added to that she was grateful for with a shrug. Looking at her computer screen had been giving her a headache. Leaving it behind to do this gave her brain a break and even amused her for a while. It was funny how the chain events were almost a small blessing in disguise.​
 
j a m e s

The phrase 'hypocrite douche-bag' sounded kind of jarring coming from Eliza. But not in a bad way, it was just kind of funny. Ad it was probably because of his own picture of who she was it even did to begin with. She was a mother with two kids, one that was fairly young, somehow he felt like she should be this mature and boring person when not playing with her kids. Because you had to be kind of mature to raise a kid, or to raise a kid well at least. Or well, that was what he thought. He really had no idea, and now that he thought about it the playful nature Eliza had shown several times now, probably made more sense. Either way hearing her say that made him chuckle a little and his amused smile persisted when she mentioned that she actually appreciated the disturbance in a way.

"And here you are, demanding an apology when I was helping you out all along? Really, I knew what I was doing," James dared another small joke. He knew he had messed up and embarrassed himself, but there seemed to be no hard feelings. If anything, it seemed like Eliza had come over more to tease him about his hypocrisy than to actually complain. And honestly? James could appreciate that. Clearly Eliza had a sense of humor.

He then got quiet. The music was still playing quietly in the background. Danny had gotten quiet too it seemed, waiting for his friend to be done getting scolded by his neighbor so that they could get back to what they were doing. Jame wasn't sure what to do ext though, he could invite Eliza in, but then the tone of the evening would probably change drastically seeing as they didn't really know Eliza. And she probably wanted to get back to work anyways... Which made him realize that she probably worked from home, and chances were that when he'd been doing things like playing music on his days off in the past, chances were Eliza had been there forced to listen to it, even though he didn't play it as loud as they had now. Or maybe she was just doing some left overs in the evening, and he didn't have to feel guilty about being an annoying neighbor, "What is it that you do anyways?"
 
e l i z a
Rolling her brown doe eyes, Eliza chuckled softly once again. The only character traits that she had been able to derive from James and their previous encounters was his distance and sort of grumpiness. It was nice to see that even he had a joking side, something she never would have been able to guess until now. It made it easy to forget why she had come over in the first place or that she had ever been annoyed at all. Perhaps, they could be friends yet and not just polite neighbors. That was what hoped for.​
Eliza knew she had an issue. The insatiable need to have people like her or stand and at the very very least, to be polite. It was a terrible trait to have when you were raising kids in the world they lived in now. Of course, she never shoved this on them as even Eliza knew it was a personal problem of her own. Still, she was always hopeful.​
"I thought you never ask," Eliza brightened at the inquiry of her profession. She loved talking about her job, something that she struggled to get a hold of due to being a stay at home mom and part-time student for long. She had adapted to doing a lot of homework from home and so she had no qualms against working from her house most of the time. "I'm a play producer, well most times a co-producer." She never had led a project all on her own nor got any of her own works published as an aspiring playwright. She was no Lin Manuel Miranda as much as she wished she could be. "I also act sometimes, for the Chicago theatre, have you been? If not, you should go at least once. I promise you won't regret it."
She rocked forward on the tip her toes for a brief moment, "we've brought ging back Wicked if you've heard of it, you're crazy if you never heard of the musical. My daughter loves it. And I may even be in it." She added confidently.​
 
j a m e s

Turns out Eliza probably did spend quite a bit of time at home. James was honestly a tad bit embarrassed and wondered how much music and shitty TV she had heard through her walls when he thought he was alone in the building. Though his embarrassment was quenched pretty quickly and replaced by curiosity. He hadn't expected Eliza to be a performer. It was definitely a very different type of performer than he had been-- or that he was now on the radio. But either way James suddenly found her a lot more interesting. Some people would maybe think of him as kind of a shitty person for not having much interest in another person when they were just the neighbor mom, but as much as James knew that taking care of kids were impressive and yadda yadda, he had little interest in kids and finding out that Eliza was more beyond that made her seem a little more approachable.

"Of course I've heard of wicked," he said, pretending to sound offended for a second before swapping over to slightly sheepish, "But I can't say I've seen it, no. Might have seen a song from it on Glee when there was nothing good on the TV or something but nothing else. I don't think I've been to the theater since high school though, if I'm being honest," he shrugged, his immature younger self wasn't so keen on anything that could be considered 'fine arts' even though he now probably could appreciate theater for what it was.

"Maybe it's time to go and see something soon though,"
he said with a bit of a laugh. He was fairly certain it wouldn't happen. Sure their conversation had sparked som curiosity in the matter, but he didn't really know Eliza enough to have the energy to go to watch one of her adaptations. The only reason he could consider himself doing it was to get a story to talk a little about on his show at some point. It could be interesting, and he could probably make a couple of jokes about how his younger self viewed the people who went or something.

He shifted a little on his feet, trying to think of how to phrase things without accidentally forcing himself into something he couldn't get out of. As fun as a story for the radio could be he wasn't about to make any promises just like that, "but you know-- keep me updated on if you're gonna be in it the next time I play my music to loud?" he said. He sounded a little joking and hoped that it didn't actually come across too much as 'I'll come watch if you're in it' because it wasn't really what he had meant.