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[nomadic_cam]

Cam hummed to himself as he fiddled with the insides of the woman's car while he waited for it to cool down. It wasn't going to take long considering the air temp had to be somewhere in the forties. But, as he'd explained to the poor, harrassed woman, cars could still overheat in the dead of winter. It took some doing, and he was pretty sure there was more wrong with the engine than just a lack of coolant. So he'd told the woman he'd tinker away at it while she went for the liquid.

He'd offered to go on his bike to get it, but she'd insisted that she needed the walk to get rid of her mad at herself and since she knew the town, she'd be back in a flash.

She wasn't, he knew, going to like what he had to say about her engine, though, and that he could get her home, but that she'd be dropping a fair amount in the very near future if she didn't just scrap the car altogether.

Still. He had his hands in an engine, the sun was shining, and life was pretty damned good.

Find Cam on a road leading towards Siren Cove tinkering in a non-descript sedan on the side of the road, his vintage motorcycle parked behind it.

Comments

[dj_esebel]

"Now that's a position I know well," Audrey says, looking over the guy's shoulder. More than once, she's been arse over apex, staring under the hood of her RV. By now, she's gotten very good at doing all the little things that keep a girl like her moving. "What happened? Gun it too far?"

She's done that and it's made her late for gigs.

Without waiting for an invitation, Audrey comes around the other side to peer at the engine. She combs back her red and black hair in anticipation of being put to the task, if it comes to that.

[nomadic_cam]

"What is?" Cam asked with a knowing smirk over his shoulder at the woman approaching him, the very attractive woman approaching him. "Bent over a car hood? Interesting visual. Thanks for that."

He chuckled as he turned his eyes back to the engine, tweaking a bit here and there. "Truth told, I'm not sure what the woman did, but she's about a week away from total engine failure if she doesn't do some basic maintenance on this thing. She walked into town to get coolant. Mine's the bike behind the car, I just stopped to help."

[dj_esebel]

"No problem, sugar," Audrey says, giving him a very obvious once-over in return. While she tries to decide whether he's her type or not, Audrey takes a cursory glance at the engine.

"I'm pretty sure the radiator hasn't been flushed out since the Titanic was a hot new cruise ship." What a goddamn waste, she thinks.

Nodding towards where her RV is stationed, Audrey adds, "I drive that."

[nomadic_cam]

"Nice," Cam remarked after a quick look at the RV over his shoulder. "I thought about one of those, especially these days when it gets too bloody cold to camp, but I'd miss the bike too much. And I can usually find a room for the night wherever I end up."

He straightened and wiped his hands on the rag in his pocket, well washed but showing signs of a lot of grease having been wiped there over the years. "You live around here or just passing through?"

[dj_esebel]

"I'm basically a turtle, got my house on my back and every inch of me is a disaster." Audrey straightens up and gestures to herself, streaked now with grit from the car and wearing her usual assemblage of messy clothing.

"Yes? I truck around for work, but this is home."

[nomadic_cam]

Cam grinned. "Gotta tell you. I've seen a lot of turtles and I've yet to see one that looks quite like you. Still, I get the house on the back thing." He indicated the oversized Army surplus duffle-type backpack next to his bike. "That's pretty much everything I own."

Bank balances, he though, didn't count.

He extended his hand. "Cam Fielding."

[dj_esebel]

Audrey grins and shakes his hand, appreciating someone else who knows how to live large with only a few attachments.

"Audrey Canillo and what can I say? I put the hot in hot mess."

[nomadic_cam]

"Please tell me there's a bumper sticker somewhere on the RV that says that? It's almost a crime if there isn't," Cam smiled and stuffed the rag into his back pocket. "So tell me about the town," he said after a pause, jerking his head in the direction of Siren Cove. "I only did a little ride through and it seemed a decent enough place to hang my backpack for a while."

[dj_esebel]

She laughs and straightens up, leaning against a nearby railing. "No, but I'll get one printed. Put it on my guitar case too."

Already, she can smell the salt air, feel the song of this particular slice of ocean. "I drive around a lot. But every time I come here, I know I'm home."

[nomadic_cam]

"How long have you been on the road?" Cam asked, heading back to his bike for water.

[dj_esebel]

"This time? Four months. Had an ongoing gig with a renaissance faire, if you can believe it. And yeah, I looked damn hot as a pirate wench," she assures him.

[nomadic_cam]

"Amazingly enough, that's not hard to believe," Cam told her with a very wide grin. "Not the pirate wench, and not that you pulled it off. I've been to a few faires in the past few years. Now that's a group that know how to have a good time. Must've been fun, actually working one."

[dj_esebel]

She nods vaguely, taking a step back when the woman returns with her coolant at last. "It's like any job. The god days are amazing. The bad days make you want to feed someone to a dragon."

[nomadic_cam]

"I can't say I've ever wanted to feed anyone to a dragon, but I've never been in a situation where that would be an option," Cam fired back with a wink. He took the coolant and filled the reservoir with it, then sent the woman on her way with a very strong advisement to get the car in for maintenance and soon. He waved as she pulled off then turned back to Audrey.

"Think there's a shot she'll listen to me?"

[dj_esebel]

"If she's smart enough not to piss upwind?" Audrey suggests. "You want a ride into town, you can hitch your bike on the back of my RV and I'll take you to town."

If she's being nice, she might take the scenic route that usually ends in the invitation for a hookup.

[nomadic_cam]

Cam looked down the road just as a frigid bit of New England wind blew into his face. "You know what, I'll take you up on that. I think I could do with a little less of the open road and the wind on my face about now. I'm going to harbor a small hope that this town has coffee somewhere?"

[dj_esebel]

"Oh yeah, I know the good places," she promises, unlocking the back rig of her RV.

"You cold? I can boost the heat. Or, you know. You did mention something about me bent over the hood of a car."

[nomadic_cam]

Cam focused on hooking the bike to the rig but only offered her a slight smile at the reminder. "Yeah, that was a great mental image. Still is, come to that."

Once the bike was set and secure, he straightened and slipped his hands into his pockets, eternally uncomfortable with any innuendo or suggestions from women wanting him for more than help with machinery or a comforting shoulder to lean on.

[dj_esebel]

"The offer's open for it to be more than a mental picture," Audrey says, with the air of someone commenting on the weather.

"And if that's, you know, not a thing I'll still get you a cup of coffee, if you want."

[nomadic_cam]

"The coffee is definitely on me, payback for the ride into town," Cam smiled back easily in nodding acknowledgement of the offer. It wasn't as though he wasn't interested - she was an exceptionally attractive woman - but he was still, even now, leery of any apart from the casual bar hookups he'd had for the first few years he'd been on the road. They always made him feel emptier than before he'd gotten naked with the girl. Maybe if he'd stayed in this little town, and she did, he'd see. But he wasn't going to just bend her over and take.

Not that that mental image was going anywhere any time soon.

[dj_esebel]

"Fair deal," she says, offering him a brief thumbs up before returning her hands to the steering wheel. "I'd say you could probably charm a phone number out of me but I already offered to let you charm me out of my pants. so how about I offer that one to you for free?"

She's just not even going to pretend she's anything besides an ethical slut.

"I know a good place for pancakes too. I go there after all my gigs."

[nomadic_cam]

"For good pancakes, I'm definitely trading numbers with you," Cam said, already digging out his phone. "Maybe you'll even meet me there and share a stack with me?"

He looked a little sheepish as he asked her, as if he was sure she'd laugh it off. All the years, the changes in his body, he was still the geeky little kid that couldn't get a girl to look at him, much less go out with him. And since she'd brought it up again, he wanted to make sure he hadn't insulted her. "Just so you know? I wouldn't mind charming you out of your pants sometime, but I kind of like to know the person inside the pants first, you know?"

[dj_esebel]

"Hey, I'm not gonna fault a guy who wants to get to know me first," she promises, clearing the town line and giving Cam the first good look at her home. "I live in that trailer park there, off by the docks, when I'm here."

But for now she takes a turn off toward her favorite diner instead. "I met my best friend here."

[nomadic_cam]

Cam had seen his share of trailer lots in the time he'd spent nomading around the east coast and he had to say, this one looked more upscale than any he'd seen before. "Not a bad spot. Looks more like a neighborhood than the land that time forgot or something. I've seen some that look more like an abandoned RV lot than where people actually live. Probably one of the reasons I've stuck to efficiency apartments instead of the RV track."

He thought a little about the family he'd left behind in Virginia and smiled. "A best friend is an amazing thing to have. I miss mine."

[dj_esebel]

Even the "bad" parts of this town aren't really so bad. Less fancy, but even her park is tidily kept. "It suits my needs. This place is home, but hotels are a pain in the ass when you're moving around this much."

[nomadic_cam]

"They can be, especially in some of the more, ah, picturesque places. I'd wondered just what bed bugs were like and now I no longer have to wonder. Let me tell you, that's information I wish I was still blissfully ignorant of." Cam gave an exaggerated shudder, but it wasn't all that put on to be honest. That had been the worst night of his journey northward and had resulted in him ditching pretty much everything he owned to make sure he didn't bring them along for the rest of his adventure.

[dj_esebel]

"Been there. Don't ever buy a used mattress from Somerville," she says, imitating his shudder. It had been a horrible misadventure and Audrey had spent three weeks checking and itching.

"But the space here is pretty good. You planning for a short-term lease here?"

[nomadic_cam]

"Dunno yet. It'll depend on whether or not there's work for me here. I'll probably just find a hotel room or hostel to crash in while I get a feel for the place. If there's work, and I like the town, I'll probably find a short lease apartment somewhere. Though I'll say this, I've been wishing that I decided to head south instead of north a few places ago. I grew up in Virginia. We're not made for cold like this."

[dj_esebel]

Audrey laughs at that and reaches over to pat him on the shoulder in sympathy. "I was born in Miami before we moved to Boston." She still hasn't quite forgiven her parents for that.

"And now I'm here. Because I'm crazy, or something."

[nomadic_cam]

"Yeah, don't most people do it the other way around? Start in the cold then move to the warm?" Cam laughed with her. "Which is really hypocritical of me since I did it, too. Maybe we're all closet masochists or something."

[dj_esebel]

"I stay for the people," she says, choosing her words carefully. With newcomers, it's never a sure thing if they know about Siren Cove's quirks and admitting she's a siren to an outsider can sometimes cause...trouble.

"Besides," Audrey points up, parking her RV in front of the diner. "If I went back down, what would I complain about?"

[nomadic_cam]

"I've come close to that a few times, finding a place that seems to fit so well you can't imagine being anywhere else," Cam said, a little wistful, "but then my feet start getting itchy about what else is down the road and next thing I know I'm selling furniture, putting my clothes and computer into my duffle, and I"m off again to find the next town."

[dj_esebel]

Audrey nods and then hops out of her seat, unlocking the door for them both. "This is the mothership, I guess. I can leave and branch out and go along, but this is where I go to call home."

[nomadic_cam]

"How about family?" Cam asked, checking out the interior and finding it a whole lot charming.

[dj_esebel]

Audrey would say that he's the one being charming. The interior of her home is kind of a disaster with dirty clothes piled up towards the back and a riot of instruments, microphones, and sheet music up behind them. Even as they're stepping out, Audrey has to put her bouzouki back in its case.

She really needs to either master the bouzouki or just sell the damn thing because it's gathering dust.

"Parents are in Boston. I see them pretty often. Crashed when them before I did my gig in Nantasket last night."