Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen


TPOV

Something that she wanted to show me that had the teasing possibility of kinkiness...  I was so there.  I grabbed her hand and let her lead me out the door.  Instead of heading to the stairs like normal, we veered left instead.  And I had no indication of what might be on the agenda; I never went past her door and had no idea what else was even in this building.

I admit I was rather curious when she first mentioned showing me something, but I managed to keep the asking to a minimum.  Whatever it was, it couldn’t be far unless we were taking some other exit out of the building.  She lived close to the stairwell, and I never really paid much attention to the other apartments, but it didn’t look like there were many that were inhabited on her floor.  There was an entire section right after hers that was boarded shut, so I had no idea what the fuck went on there.

“How many people live in this building?” I asked.  

She shrugged. “I dunno.  Not that many.  The first floor used to be a shops or stores or something but they closed a long time ago.  I don’t think there’s anything in there anymore at all.  I dunno though.  I guess they could have rented it for something.  I don’t normally go in the other doors and I’m only down there to get mail and shit.”

I nodded.  “I’ve actually never seen another person in this building.”

She laughed. “There are a few.  We’re sort of a mixed bag.”  

She led me to the end of the hallway and let go of my hand for a second to throw her shoulder into a massive door on the left that was made of metal, and at least two inches thick.  I pushed with her when I realized, and I was surprised she could get the damn thing open herself.  It was one heavy motherfucker.  There were stairs behind it, and she waved me in, letting the door shut with a loud thud.  There weren’t that many stairs, but it had to lead to the roof or something because she lived on the top floor.  

The door at the top of the stairs was identical to the one at the bottom and was blocking my way because she went up first and the stairs were too narrow for me to get around her.  I leaned over her to push the door but she fucking elbowed me.  “What?”

“I can get the fucking door.”

She wasn’t mad at me, she was smiling.  I put my hands up. “God forbid a guy help you out with a heavy door,” I teased.

She turned and elbowed me again, and I dropped down a couple stairs.  Her elbows were really fucking pointy.  “I just mean I can get the fucking thing myself.  I didn’t ask for your help.”

I snickered. “You’re just tiny; I thought maybe it would slip and you’d get smashed by it.  But go ahead.  I’ll just watch you get smashed instead and then tell you ‘I told you so.’”

Well, I didn’t get another elbow, but I sure as hell got a look, and it was not one of amusement.  I, of course, couldn’t wipe the grin off my face even if I’d wanted to.

“You wanna see this or not?”

I tried to be less smug. “Yes, I would like to,” I said sincerely.

She nodded. “Ok.  Then shut the fuck up already.”

I forced myself to say nothing else and just stood back and let her struggle with the door because she wanted to be fiercely independent at the moment.

Once she had it pushed open, she nodded for me to come up.  “You know, it’s ok to let me do shit sometimes.  It’s just…practical.”

“I can do it myself.”

“But I’m right here.”

“But I can fucking do it myself.”

“You have a problem with chivalry?”

“I hear that’s dead.”

I shook my head. “Not all the time.  I don’t pull out chairs or open car doors, but I will hold the door for you so it doesn’t slam on your tiny little body.”

She was trying not to laugh.  She wound up rolling her eyes at me instead and taking a deep breath.  She shrugged while nodding me in the direction away from the door. “This is it.”

I turned and we were on the roof.  Except this wasn’t at all like the roof of our building that had literally, a lawn chair and Aidan’s stupid bench press.  This roof was huge; easily twice the size of ours and it looked like people actually used it.  Aidan and I never saw other people from the building on our roof.  There was a garden in one corner that looked like it had seen better days, a heavy, wooden lawn chair that looked like it wouldn’t blow away in a hurricane, a swing that paint was peeling off of, a clothesline, and some other random shit placed around.  There was also a little spot next to the stairs that was covered and must have served as storage because it had a table and a bunch of mismatched chairs.  The side of the storage part that I could see was completely tagged in a mess of graffiti.  Other tags and little spots of graffiti lined other places along the wall ledge that surrounded the building.  

I turned back to her, smiling when I finished the once-over, but she wasn’t by the door anymore.  She was leaning on the ledge across the roof, looking up at the city.  Her building was only four floors, so the view was somewhat limited, but it was still a pretty awesome view, even if you looked up instead of down.  Sometimes the tallest buildings were too overwhelming from the ground.  This gave you a little boost so they were sort of magnificent.  A lot of the staples were missing, but I always thought a lot of them blended together anyway.  When all the buildings are tall and square, it’s sort of hard to give a shit differentiating.  

I joined her over by the ledge, sliding next to her and leaning similarly.  

She had a smile on her face that was the most content I’d seen outside of her bedroom.  It was loud on the roof, but this was New York, and it wasn’t any louder really than a lot of other places, even though she was close to the tunnel.  She didn’t seem at all affected by the noise or anything else.  So I didn’t say anything, because this place obviously meant a lot to her.  It meant enough that she wanted to share it with me, so the least I could do was let her enjoy it.  

It was a while before she said anything, and we both kind of leaned there and looked out or watched the people as they ran across the street and honked at each other in their cars, sirens, all the noise of the city that I’d heard my entire life.  I wondered sometimes if I ever left and moved somewhere else if I could actually stand to live in silence.  I didn’t think I’d like it.  I think the sounds became part of what was normal, and I even had trouble sleeping at my mother’s house on the rare occasion I stayed there for a night.  It was like an entire element was missing.  Like we thrived on the activity even if we were sleeping.  

“New York is the only city that I’ve ever been able to do this in,” was the first thing she said.

I smiled and turned my head in her direction, but she still wasn’t looking at me.  Her eyes were closed.  “If they have roofs like this in other cities, I never knew they existed where I lived.  That’s one of the things I love about New York.  And that it’s not as hot here as it is down South.”

I almost didn’t want to talk.  Just let her keep telling me things.  But her eyes opened like she was making sure I was still there.  

I was still smiling. “Do you like the noise?”

She nodded. “I find it kind of distracting, but in a good day.”

I nodded back. “I was just thinking about that.  If I ever lived anywhere else, it would have to be noisy.  I don’t think I could function or sleep or anything without it now.  It’s just part of everything.”

“Vegas was loud,” she said, chuckling.

I laughed. “I’m sure it was.”

“Not the same kind of loud though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, it’s just different.  New York seems really alive.  Vegas is restless.”

That was probably more accurate than most people could come up with.  

“I like it better up here at night actually, when the city’s all lit up, and the roof if basically lit by nothing else.  You don’t even need lights up here; the city does it for you.  It’s really pretty at night.”

“Well, you’ll have to bring me up when it’s dark.”

She cracked this sort of bashful smile, which was ridiculous because she wasn’t trying to be coy, she was just legitimately bashful. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“What do you normally do up here?  Just chill?  You have barbeques or something with the rest of the building?”

She scoffed. “Uh, no.  I mean, sometimes other people are up here when I’m up here, but I think we sort of have different schedules.” She winked at me again.  That was getting damn sexy.  “I just sit a lot.  Think.  Not think.  Zone out.  Sometimes I’ll take a nap or bring music up.  Jordan and I eat up here every once in a while.” She shrugged. “Nothing huge.  I just like it up here.  I think it’s peaceful.  Lots of air.  And you realize how small everything is when you look out there.” She nodded to the skyscrapers that littered the landscape of this city. “But I like being up high.”

“We don’t use the roof as much as we could, but I’ll mess around on the guitar up there and Aidan has a bench press that he can’t do shit on.” I laughed.  “Ours is much smaller though.  This is a bigger space.”

“Yeah, I think it’s kind of an unwritten rule or whatever, we all just come up and use the shit and put it back.  People buy shit and it sort of just shows up here.  We don’t worry about people stealing shit because it’s all from thrift stores or sales or whatever.  It’s not worth stealing and then we all get to use the shit.”

“That’s a good.  Apparently we can trust people in our building or else all our shit would be gone because of the lack of a lock.”

“Yeah, you should really fix that.”

I shrugged. “I have better things to do than fix that right now.”

Her lip went behind her teeth.  “You wanna sit down?”

“Sure.”

“Chairs are over here.”

“What about that chair?” I asked, pointing to the heavy wooden thing that wouldn’t blow off in a hurricane.  

She shook her head. “You can’t use that one.”

“Why not?”

“That’s Mr. Sanderson’s chair.”

I looked around the roof. “I don’t see Mr. Sanderson.”

“No, he’s, like, religious about the chair, dude.  Or he’s got fucking powers or something.  He knows if someone sits in the chair or moves the chair.  He’s this crazy old man and I wouldn’t piss him off.  We’ll just get other chairs.”

“Oooook.”

“Seriously, he’s cracked.  But he’s cool.  So we all leave his chair alone.  It’s important to him.”

Ok then.  Don’t sit in Sanderson’s chair.  Got it.  I followed her over to the storage and hauled two chairs out.  “What’s with the dead garden?”

She sighed. “I tried for a while to fix it.  I’m just not good with the whole living plant thing.”

“Whose garden is it?”

“I dunno really.  I think some lady that used to live here made it.  It was still green when we moved in, but I never saw anyone up here looking after it.  I picked weeds and shit a few times, but I dunno what happened to her, it just all kind of fell apart because I didn’t know how to keep it going.”

“It looks like it was really nice when it started.  I don’t know anything about gardening, or I’d help.”

“It’s ok.  I think someone would have to start all over now.  There’s, like, seriously technical shit to running it up here on the roof, and when she bailed or whatever, none of that got done.  There’s all this fucking drainage that has to be taken care of and that didn’t happen, so now whenever it rains, we get water that drips from the ceiling in the kitchen.  It’s over the sink, so we don’t really worry about it, and the landlord’s a fuckhead, so it’s sort of pointless.  He gives us a break on the rent though because it leaks instead of fixing it, ‘cause he’d have to do shit with this.” She pointed to the depressed garden with all its brown, dead leaves and overgrown weeds.  “We get water a few other places sometimes, too.  I don’t think he really does anything with the building.  But we get the rent break, so...”  She broke off and we sat our chairs down.  

“I was kind of wondering why the rent wasn’t breaking you guys.  Other than the world’s smallest fucking shower, the rest of the apartment’s pretty big for New York.”

She waved me off. “It’s still a shithole.  Just a little bit bigger shithole with constant water problems.”

“I think it’s pretty nice.” I shrugged.

“Yeah, it’s better than some places I’ve been.  A huge step up.”

Conversation kind of dropped off then, but we really didn’t need it.  I slouched in the chair until my head was resting on the back of it, even though that wasn’t really comfortable because she’d told me I could nap up here and I intended to do so.  I don’t think I’d been sleeping, more dozing, when I heard something like a scraping sound.  I pried my eyes open and she was moving a fucking twin mattress out from the storage place.  She let it drop next to the storage and smiled at me, gesturing from across the rooftop.  

“A mattress, huh?  You think of everything up here?”

“I dunno where it came from.  Things kind of just show up here.  S’probably stolen.  But it’s clean-ish and you can sleep on it—that works for me.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s all you need.”  And promptly plopped down on it.  I craned my head back up at her once I was sitting, squinting against the sun.  “Am I napping alone?”

She smiled. “I’m not really tired.”

I looked down and thought a second before craning and squinting some more.  “Yeah, but you could sit here instead of the chair and be my pillow instead.”

She laughed, debating.  Didn’t take long, though.  “Yeah, ok.”

Which is exactly how I wound up napping with my head in her lap and her hands in my hair, and I might have loved this fucking roof more than she did.  To recap the day: I’d been woken to a supremely awesome blowjob; which is probably the best way to be woken, like, ever.  Except if it was sex.  That might trump the blowjob.  Might.  Depends on the blowjob.  And if all of hers were like that; competition would be fierce.  There was something really sensual about being sucked to hardness.  It was just a completely different feeling associated.  Blowjobs were good no matter what, but being blown while you’re already hard skips the getting there.  I have no idea if women enjoy that, but it’s way more powerful than starting in the middle of arousal.  I suppose it would be like going down on a girl and getting her wet versus going down when she already was.  At any rate, it’s all good.  She’d told me one time that when she blew me it would be something memorable and amazing, and she was absolutely right.  Everything was perfect; just the right amount of suction, where her hands were, everything.  She never lost eye contact and that was so essential.  She even did this tongue under the foreskin shit that was just epic; like she knew the head of my cock would be that much more sensitive.  And that was all before the sexy, “Good morning,” before literally swallowing me down.  If it wouldn’t have been completely amazing, the speed at which I came would have been rather embarrassing.  And she swallowed.  Which was fifty times sexier.  

She made everything seem more intense, and I think it was because I felt so strongly about her.  I had to reciprocate, and wound up getting a handjob out of the deal, too.  Seriously, this was best day ever and we hadn’t even had breakfast yet!

In a lot of ways, her initiating the blowjob was a huge thing, because I didn’t ask her for it and it wasn’t in response to something I’d done to her.  Indirectly, I’m sure she was rewarding me or reciprocating for the previous night, but she wanted to do it, too.  And coupled with the unprovoked hair touching and kissing, she seemed to be letting that wall down more and more, and I was elated she was doing it with me.  I kind of loved seeing the progress.

Seeing her standing in front of the stove in nothing but her underwear and my flannel shirt, so huge on her tiny frame, was out of some dream of domestic bliss.  I was being overly romantic and dramatic, but I could see her there, in our apartment, making breakfast after we’d just had unbelievably great morning sex.  She moved around the kitchen… happily that morning—with a lightness that even I didn’t see a lot.  Sure, she was happy with me a lot, but not like this, not this unguarded.  Probably it had a lot to do with the fact that she didn’t know I was watching her and she had no reason to be self-conscious or embarrassed about me seeing her.  Not that my entire fixation was about how she looked, but damn, she looked good and it wasn’t just the clothes or lack thereof.  She was sexy and she didn’t even know it.  I think there was this distinction she made between the stage and off-stage; that she was or could be sexy there, but that ordinarily when she wasn’t performing, she wasn’t.  I don’t think she knew how to turn it off.  Or at least, that’s the way she seemed to me.  It didn’t matter what she was doing, I found it sexy.  The way her body moved and the sort of rough delicateness that poured out of her, was so appealing.  She bounced around that kitchen, and I loved that I had a part in that, that something she was doing with me was bringing that much happiness to her face.  It just pervaded everything.  Transformative.  

I watched until she put the first pancake in the pan and then couldn’t stop the compulsion to touch her again.  She was way too hard on herself after she smacked me with the pancake flipper.  Because she was so unguarded, I should have known better.  I should have realized that coming at her that way, when she was unprotected, wouldn’t go well.  But there had to be a lot of shit in her past for her to be that defensive.  It made me irrationally angry at everyone she’d ever encountered to make her feel that way in her own place-that it was still her first reaction, and I immediately decided I’d never be the cause of that again.  

Sometimes it felt like there were all these speed bumps in the road we were on; but we kept moving after we drove over them, and I was determined that we’d just keep doing it.  I also refused to let Jordan be one of the bumps.  I don’t know when I’d pissed on her Corn Flakes, but she’d taken a dislike to me, and I had no idea why.  

So, forgetting Jordan.  After the awesome breakfast complete with bacon, there was the shower.  This shower looked like something that belonged in a camper instead of an apartment.  It was the smallest fucking shower I’d ever seen in my life.  It basically was concealed behind the bathroom door, and even when I’d had the door closed, I still hadn’t noticed it was there.  It was triangular in shape and the door was that old-looking frosted kind of glass.  The only good thing about it being so tiny was the fact that it meant I basically got to be pressed up against her for the duration of the shower.  So, in that respect, her shower was pure fucking win.  

I liked that she was becoming familiar with me, and comfortable with everything from the proximity of me to her, to the ways I touched her, and the little side affections I peppered her with.  Intimacy was something that it was quite obvious at first that she never really had with anyone before me—at least not in a healthy way, and part of me really wanted to just ask during those times, but I knew it would close her off, and I liked this openness far better.  I wanted her to be able to tell me anything, but be able to have something with me that could be both sexual and intimate, and that didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.  She needed to know that intimacy wasn’t just sex or physical.  I sorta failed at that in the shower, I think, but because I went slow and washed her—I hoped she understood it, too.  

I think I unknowingly or unintentionally forced things sometimes—like asking her to close her eyes before I washed her—it was really me asking for her trust.  And I imagine some of those things I asked were probably unsettling for her, but she did them anyway, and that seemed to me always a really huge step.  Just that she was able to trust me that much.  Her skin was unbelievably smooth under my soapy fingers.  And if I really thought about it, I wasn’t normally this gentle or affectionate with women.  I mean, I wasn’t an asshole, but it was just different when it was a one-night stand in a bar, and we were both half drunk.  Things were naturally more physical.  Rougher.  It had no meaning beyond just that.  It was just sex.  I didn’t want that for her.  I wanted her to feel everything—to experience it—to make up for all the losers she met in the past and erase their carelessness, erase whatever they’d done to make her this way.  

When she copied all my motions from washing and massaging her, it told me that she liked it, and she wanted me to feel that, too.  It’d been a long time since it felt like that with anyone—like it wasn’t just physical for them, too.  It’d been a long time since it felt like anyone gave a shit, and it made wanting all of that for her even easier.  Loving her was exceedingly easy.  

~ ~ ~

I have no idea how long I napped, but I didn’t think it could have been very long.  No blowjob wake-up this time, but my head was still in her lap.  Her hands were unfortunately also missing, but she was leaning back on them instead, her head turned up towards the sun.  She really looked beautiful.  Happiness suited her; made her look less jaded.  She hadn’t noticed I was awake yet, and I was getting more opportunities to observe her today than I normally did.  

Her face was turned up towards the sun and she looked incredibly happy.  “You seem peaceful up here,” I said quietly.

She didn’t jump or seem shocked, she just turned her head down to me. “I do, huh?”

“Mmhmm.  Is it just a roof thing?”

She shrugged, taking a deep breath. “I think so.  I just like being up high.”

“So you like being up really high, or just this high?”

She laughed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, like, Empire State Building high or is this a good level?”

She thought a minute, “I guess, I mean, I like being up high, but you can’t really appreciate things the same way when you’re Empire State high.”

“You ever been?”

“To Empire State?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah, we went to a few things when we first moved here, but never made it there.”  

“But normal buildings, high is good.”

“Yeah.” She nodded.  “I think I’d rather look up than down.”

“What’s up there?” I pointed to the building that was connected to hers, that had an extra floor and a higher roof.

“The roof of the next building, dumbass,” she threw back at me with a grin.

“Yeah, but that’s higher.  Why don’t you go up there?  There’s a ladder.” I jerked my thumb at it.  “Are you just too short to reach?”

She flipped me off.  “Because that’s not our building.”

“Yeah, and you follow all the rules like a good girl?”

Oh, pursed lips.  “We went up there until the fuckers basically threw us off.  Their building isn’t a total shithole like this one.  They didn’t want us up there using their shit.  They don’t have the same feeling about sharing like we do over here.  They’re assholes.”

“Well, I think we should educate them in the sprit of community.”

She barked out a laugh.  “It’s just easier to ignore them.  Less hassle.”

“You want to be up high.  I want you to be up high.  That’s higher.  Let’s go hang out up there and steal some of their shit.”

“They do have better lawn chairs.”

“Well what are we waiting for then?”

“Huh,” she said; her face unreadable.

“What?”

“I dunno, I just didn’t peg you as a thief.  You don’t scream ‘criminal’ to me.”

“Do you not recall our unofficial first date?”

Her brows pulled down. “You mean the Chinese restaurant?”

I shook my head. “Before that.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“When we met, our first unofficial date, I got you arrested.  Do you not remember?”

She burst out laughing.  “You got me arrested?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Uh, no,” she said, in the same exact tone I had said it to her.  “I got myself arrested.”

I shrugged. “Same difference.  It was because of me.”

“Pfffft.  Yeah, ok.  No.  But ok.”

“So you mean to tell me that you would have gotten arrested if I hadn’t been there that night?”

“Well…”

“Right, so I got you arrested.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, just because you got arrested one time doesn’t make you a badass, Tyler.  And it sure doesn’t make you a criminal.”

I smirked. “I never said that was the first time I was arrested.”

She smirked back. “How many times have you been arrested?”

I shrugged. “A few.”  I cocked my head. “How many times have you been arrested?”

Oh, now were back to shiftiness.  She was trying to figure out how to avoid my question.  

I snickered. “Seriously?  How many?”

She shrugged, sighing.  “Probably more than you’d think.”

“For what?”

She shrugged again. “Lots of shit.  We got into all sorts of shit in the group home in Florida.”

“Who’s ‘we?’” I asked.

“This girl that I was friends with there.  We got into a lot of shit.  It was all juvy shit; they couldn’t really hold us for long, and none of it went on record… but we did,” she blew out a breath, “a lot of really stupid shit.”  She wasn’t looking at me when she said the next part. “But they separated us then, and it all ended.  I ran away after that.”

“And your juvenile delinquent past ended there?”

She shook her head. “Nope.  That was just the start.”

I didn’t say anything, but she wasn’t elaborating either.  

We spent a few minutes in relative silence again.  She was looking off at the city when she said, “I used to take shit a lot.  Here and there, wherever I went, I’d take a piece of it with me.  Sorta just became a habit after a while, I think.”

“So, what you’re saying, is that grand-theft lawn furniture is not new and exciting to you?”

She turned to smile at me. “Well, I can say I don’t think I’ve ever stolen lawn furniture before, no.  That will be a new first.”

“Excellent.  Because I wouldn’t want our life of crime to get boring.  If you can’t get the rush out of it, then what’s the point?”

She looked at me for a really long minute before she did one of those congenial head bobs with a smile.  And it occurred to me that what I’d said could have been taken the wrong way.  And I don’t think she’d misunderstood me and thought I’d meant our relationship.  Because I didn’t.  I meant the stupid shit like getting us arrested.  And there was probably was more truth there than it was teasing, and it was quite fucking obvious that she knew that, too.  

“I’ve always wanted one of those umbrella things that go in the middle of the table…” she said, leaving it open ended.

I nodded, pointing. “I bet those assholes have one.”

“They do.”  She nodded.

“Then let’s go get you a table with an umbrella.”

And thus began our descent into the world of patio pilferage.  Obstacle number one occurred with the ladder itself.  It was old, slightly rickety and rather high.  I could reach it fine, but Allison was another matter.  So I looked back at her as I assessed things from below.  “So… we can do this one of two ways, I figure.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I can climb up there and hand shit down to you, but you’re tiny, and that probably wouldn’t work as well, nor would you be picking out your new furniture.  Or, I can boost you up and we can both go.”

“Yeah, that one.” She nodded.

This probably would have been much more awkward had we not totally been fucking around.  I made a vague motion with my hands to get her to move over to me, and then looked back at the ladder and then back to her, and then back to the ladder, totally thinking about all the ways I could do this, and how many potential ass grabs were involved in each one.  

“Jesus Christ, Tyler, it’s just a ladder.  Fucking lean over and I’ll get on your shoulders.”  She’d thrown her arms up during the middle of that like it as completely obvious.

And, well, that made a lot of sense, I suppose, and I couldn’t really come up with anything better.  This just had way less ass grabbing.  So instead of trying to come up with a sarcastic remark, I just squatted so she could climb on.  

Except, yeah, that lasted all of a few seconds.  “I was only trying to come up with the way that gave me the most ass contact, but you had to go and ruin it.”

I probably should have waited to say that until I’d fully stood up, but I didn’t, and she almost lost her balance laughing.  She wound up smacking the top of my head when I was standing up, holding onto her legs so she was steadier.  I moved closer to the wall and basically just waited until I could feel her grab the ladder and start to pull herself up.  I ducked under when she started up, and narrowly avoided a foot to the head that I don’t think would have been completely accidental; but once I looked up, watching her crawl up the ladder more than made up for that.  I didn’t start up until she was to the top because I didn’t think there was a reason to test the limits of the well-worn ladder, plus it was a decent show.  

She peered over the side as I pulled myself up to climb, and I couldn’t resist. “You have a great ass, you know.”

“If you want to make it up to this rooftop, you should watch your mouth.”

I chuckled and climbed the rest of the way in silence.  A raised pair of eyebrows greeted me when I launched over the side.  “What?” I asked innocently.  “It’s a nice ass!”

She put her hands on her hip., “Seriously?  That’s the best you can do?” She challenged, “You think that’s the first time I’ve heard that?”

“Well, no.  But mine’s sincere.”

“I’m sure a lot of others were sincere.”

I scowled. “How many is ‘a lot?’  ‘Cause… I don’t think I like that.”

Something between a scoff and a laugh came out. “You have a lot of competition.  And a lot to learn.”

“What?!  Since when?!”

She shrugged, grinning.

I was about to say something else; I could feel the tension starting to mount as I formed some lame argument about her telling me she didn’t date, and it was actually quite lengthy for on the spot, but I deflated after the grin kept widening.  “Ugh, you are such a bitch.”

She giggled. “God, you are SO easy.  And yeah, but this bitch has a great ass.”  She totally threw that at me as she walked away, starting to look over the contents of the roof, her ass purposely swinging.  

I hated, but secretly loved, how easily she could do that to me.  And I wasn’t sure of the reason.  I wasn’t particularly gullible or easily led, but for some reason, when she was using her serious voice, she could make me believe anything.  And it usually only ended when she gave it away.  I wondered if I was just that fucking earnest when it came to her, or if it was because I was already that afraid of losing this.

She was already half done casing the roof while I struggled to regain enough of my male dignity to move my feet.  She just kept grinning at me, too.  I obviously had to devise some revenge.  Fast.  

“What about this one?” She called out, pointing.  

I moved over to where she was, not really noticing any particular furniture yet because I was one step behind her on the whole teasing part, and my brain was only working on that one level.  Focusing on anything but her ass was already difficult at the moment.  Revenge would have to wait if I was supposed to concentrate on actual furniture.  

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

“Better’n the shit chairs we got down there.”

I nodded.

“I want it,” she said, her tone something between petulant and demanding.  

I snickered. “Ok.” And took it over by the ladder.  When I turned, she’d moved on to another part of the roof.  And I couldn’t stop snickering as I made my way back to her.

“What?”

I waved her off.

“What?!” She demanded.

“Nothing.  It’s just… I think we just picked out our first relationship chair.  Or… rather, in typical fashion, you picked it out and I nodded appropriately.”

She was looking at me sideways.  

“Awww!” I added.

She shook her head before cracking a smile. “Actually, we just stole our first chair, dipshit.  I’m not sure what that says about us.”

I shrugged, gesturing. “It’s basically shopping.”

She shook her head again. “It’s no wonder you get arrested a lot.  You’re shit at being sneaky.  You’re probably totally gonna get us busted with all of your fucking romantic relationship bullshit.”

“But you’ll have all sorts of new furniture.”

“Not if we get busted.”

“I’ll say I forced you up here.  Forced you to steal your neighbor’s furniture.”

She turned to me, hands on her hips again, completely incredulous. “What cop, even the fucknuts that run this city, would believe that?”

I sidled up close to her, resting my hands on her hips and pulling her into me. “I can be very persuasive.”

She shoved me away and I chuckled.  “You can be very stupid is more like it.  You’ll probably grab some cop again and get your head split open.”  She started walking again, talking to me sideways, “And then I’ll be forced to jump in there again and we’ll be sharing a fucking cell.”

“Well, drop the soap works better in jail,” I threw at her. “And HA!  See!  I did get you arrested!”

She smirked and rolled her eyes, but she didn’t answer me or confirm.  Which, basically meant, I won.  Instead, “Dude!  That one’s got a fucking thing to put your feet on!  I want it!” came out.

I smiled. “It’s nice, yeah.  They got two?  That way you don’t have to fight me for it.”

She scoffed. “Figured.  I find the good shit and you want to steal it before I’ve even finished stealing it.”

“Slow your roll, thief, there are two.”  I pointed. “Otherwise you could have just sat on my lap.”

“Jesus, did you wake up with an ass obsession?  It’s just ass, ass, ass all of a sudden.”

I shrugged. “I’m preoccupied apparently.”

She turned to me.  “I don’t do anal, Tyler.”

And abruptly, our teasing was over because she was really fucking serious with that statement, her body getting all tense.  My eyebrows pulled down. “I don’t remember me saying I wanted to.”

She gave me a half-shrug, losing some of the rigidness. “Just so we’re clear.”

And then she broke off and moved to the polar opposite side of the roof.  So… what was I to do with this exactly?  Because when she thought she reacted to something strangely or prematurely in the past, she usually followed it up with a needless apology; but not this time.  It was sort of like fitting puzzles together—continuous small puzzles that kept making a bigger one; one that was never finished.  Where did this fit exactly?  And what the fuck was I supposed to say now?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to dwell on the subject honestly, because it wasn’t likely I’d get a straight answer, and my imagination tended to fuck me over if I let it run too wild.  So what made this different?  I could ignore the whole thing took place, but that probably wasn’t smart.  For whatever reason, it was set in this different category, and ignoring it might make her think that I wasn’t taking her seriously.  So there was only one option then.  I just had to figure out what the fuck I was gonna say about it before I got to the other side of the roof.  

I wasn’t surprised when I got to her.  She was basically staring off at the city instead of looking at other shit to gank.  I settled next to her, leaning on the ledge, and let myself get lost in the hugeness of New York for a few minutes.  When I turned my attention back to her, she was throwing sideways glances like she wanted to start it, too, but had no more idea what the fuck to say than I really did.  

“So… exactly what just happened there?” I decided on.  Brilliant and well thought out, Tyler.  If I could have facepalm-ed myself without losing cred, I would have.

The enormous sigh she let out wasn’t exactly a surprise to me either.  She shrugged after a few seconds.  “A hang up, I guess?”

I nodded slowly.  “Ok.”

She laughed humorlessly. “One of my millions.”  

“Mmm.”

She was chewing her lip to shreds, her gaze down at the brick on the ledge, finger tracing some pattern that wasn’t really there.  

“You wanna talk about it?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no.”

I nodded back. “Ok.”

I got the sense that the needless apology was coming, because she was getting fidgety along with her lip-chewing, so I pushed off the ledge before she could start.  “Wanna steal an umbrella?”

She gave me a genuinely appreciative smile and nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

~ ~ ~

We hadn’t nicked a ton of shit; three chairs, a table and umbrella, a few tiki torches that I insisted were necessary, and we were just about ready to head down, admiring our handiwork when she asked, “Tyler?”

“Yeah?”

There was a pause where she looked over the stuff. “How do we get this shit down?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, appraising the looted items. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, well… I mean, I can lower shit down to you.”

She blinked at me. “How the fuck are you going to lower a table to me?”

I opened my mouth to answer, and then realized I didn’t really have one.  

“It’s not like I can just pass it off to you, either.  It’s too heavy.”

I let a beat pass where she was just looking at me.  “Yeah.  That is a problem,” I finally said.

She burst out laughing. “You are a shit criminal.”

“No, no, just the table won’t go down.  The rest I think I can hand off to you.”

“I think you’re full of shit.  I think we’re gonna have a fucking umbrella with no table and that’s about it.”

I shrugged. “We’ll get a table later.”

She snorted, shaking her head.  “Well?”

“What?”

“Put the fucking table back.  It’s pretty goddamn obvious who stole the other shit if we leave it here.”

“That is a very good point.”

She clucked her tongue, still shaking her head at me as I started to move the table. “Yep, that’s my boyfriend, master thief.”

I wasn’t sure what made me smile more, the fact that she was teasing me so quickly again or the fact she’d just verbally called me her boyfriend.  Obviously, the latter.

She was looking at me strangely when I came back, grinning like a complete fool.  “God, what now?  You don’t have more ideas, do you?  Because we’re already getting arrested for this shit.”

I shook my head and stepped close, holding her face in my hands and kissed her softly.  If it was possible to smile through an entire kiss, I would have accomplished it, because she hooked her fingers in my belt loops and sought me out when I started to pull back.  When we parted, her tongue darted out to lick her lips, and I really could have cared less about the fucking patio furniture.

I sighed. “C’mon, let’s get this shit down before I do something really stupid up here.”

She giggled. “That’s probably the smartest thing you’ve said today.”

I scoffed. “Says the one arrested more than I’ve been.”

She flipped me off as she went over the side on the ladder.  

“You gonna be ok getting down from the ladder?”

She looked up at me, smiling. “Yeah, it’s not that big of a drop.”

Most of the stuff I had to sort of angle and drop; only the umbrella was actually long enough for me to hang onto and actually pass off, which was rather amusing all things considered.  When I made it down, she was chewing her thumbnail.  “We have another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“Where are we gonna put it?  If we leave it out, all they’d have to do is look over the side and they’ll know who took it, and I don’t think the umbrella will fit in the storage space.”

“Well we can hide the chairs in there and the torches.  The umbrella though, I have no idea.”

She looked at it a minute.  “You think they’d notice it if we just put it against the wall there?”

“If they look down, probably.”

“Not if we put it close to the wall.  You know how when you look down on something, you’re not really looking straight against the wall…”

I smirked. “You have a very criminal mind.”

She shrugged.  “Good thing, cause you’re shit at being a criminal.”

I laughed, “It’s actually really sexy.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Put the umbrella over there.  Hopefully they’re stupid and they won’t notice.”

“We should grill,” I announced.

She laughed. “We don’t have a grill.”

“We should get one.  I could totally get in touch with my inner George Foreman.  We could go look for one.”

She smiled. “I have to work tonight.”

I sighed heavily. “And here I had an evening of scouring for loot-able grills all planned.  We could have tried to buy one off the back of a van.  I’m sure there are plenty of shady vans around here in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Yeah, there are, but we’ll have to save that mission for another night.  Because if you go alone, you’ll probably get caught.”

“You work tomorrow night?”

She shook her head. “No, tomorrow’s available for more theft.”

“Excellent.”  I helped her put the mattress away before we started heading for the door.  I kind of hated to leave the roof.  “I work until six, tomorrow.”

She smirked at me over her shoulder. “And you just assume that I have nothing else going on, huh?”

“Well, if you had a hot date or something, I’d be more than happy to step aside.”

She chuckled. “I could make you dinner.”

I groaned. “I love dinner.”

She laughed, pushing the door to the hallway open. “I know you do.”  

“Dinner would be great,” I said sincerely as we made our way down the hall.

“I’ll have it ready for, like, 6:30; does that work?”

“Yeah, totally.”

She nodded and then turned and stood in front of her door.  “You gotta go.”

My brows pulled down. “Right now?”

“Yeah, I gotta get ready for work.”

“I can’t stay while you get ready?”

“No.” She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll be late then.”

I snorted. “And why is that?”

“Because we’ll get in the apartment and I won’t want to stop kissing you and then it’ll lead to other shit and I’ll be late.”

I smiled; happily surprised that was her answer. “Oh.  Ok.”  I shifted closer. “So… do I get a goodbye kiss at least?”

She smirked back and held up a finger. “Just one.”

I shrugged. “I can make one last.”

“I’m sure you—” was all she got out before I pressed my mouth to hers.  The rest was lost in the kiss, and her hand scrambled to cup the back of my neck as I pushed my tongue in her mouth.  Her other hand was gripping at the bottom of my tee shirt as my hands circled around her and pulled her closer to me.  I wasn’t particularly forceful, but my intent was there.  When I pulled back, she leaned into me and I steadied her before backing up.

She cleared her throat, wiping her mouth with the back of one hand.  “Well, then.”

I smirked. “I’ll, uh, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Yeah, good, ok.”

I turned and started towards the stairs, then backtracked a few steps. “I’ll try to wait until mid-morning ‘cause you work, but I might not make it.  I have to work at nine.”

She laughed. “Ok, well if I’m a bitch, it’s because I busted my ass all night, and you woke me up.”

I deliberated for a second, moving my head back and forth. “I’ll shoot for lunch.”

“Good plan.”

“Night, Allison.”

“Night, Tyler.”

I may have somehow managed to saunter and dance down the stairs at the same time.  And I knew I’d have a hard time not using the phone until lunch tomorrow.





One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) |   Two   |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |  Six  |  Seven  |  Eight  |  Nine  |  Ten  |  Eleven  |  Twelve  |  Thirteen  |  Fourteen  |  Fifteen  |  Sixteen  |  Seventeen  |  Eighteen  |  Nineteen  |  Twenty  |