Advent Drabblender, Door 13
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At least not in this city, she hastens to explain. All the tourists and newcomers in the streets, all the tinny carols in the shops. Peppermint mochas at Starbucks - there’s no way they’re not made with a hefty shot of Colgate - and roasted chestnuts at every street corner cart that successfully manage to both smell like sugar and taste like shit.
Newcomers aren’t all bad, Nixon lets the tips of his fingers just brush hers. She goes red - red as the merry lights strung across the wall - and snatches back the receipt. I don’t get it, she tells the cash register, punching at buttons and biting her bottom lip; he longs to be biting it instead, hard enough to make her do more than just blush.
I don’t get why everyone thinks Christmas here is some kind of magic.
Isn’t it, though?
His third day in New York, an El Paso boy dipping his big toe in the big city, and luck is one hell of a lady. Just wandering down Pearl Street on a deepening Christmas Eve, this place happens to catch his eye: a cheery flowershop tucked in back - of all things - a cheap liquor store. Crazy city people and their crazy real estate - who the hell wants to buy roses with their rosé? Him, apparently. Maybe he’ll find a cactus. Something to make him forget his new studio looks out at a warehouse wall, something to keep alive by icy daylight and remind him a little bit of home. But instead…instead, he finds her.
His third day in New York, and he doesn’t even know her name. But something about this chanciest sort of meeting makes him think maybe…maybe this could be home, too.
Some kind of magic? Sure. He’s a believer.
That’s a dying breed, you know, she teases as they step outside, and she flips the sign to CLOSED. This city gives you everything. Everything but what you really want.
Nixon’s inclined to disagree, maybe because what he really wants is to take her panties off with his teeth, and his batting average is promising, to say the very least. But he chivalrously refrains from telling her so, settles for holding his new friend - Chia Shrek - strategically over his fly and asking her where she stays. Brooklyn Heights, how about you? Same here, he lies shamelessly. What else can he do in the face of her smile? Well, c’mon, I’ll walk you over. She’s all ladder-long legs and battered boots, flurries falling and powder glittering her lashes like a forest queen. He must be the hundredth guy to try his luck, or maybe the thousandth, and for a moment he wonders why she’s giving him the time of day.
But only for a moment, and then his cocksure grin returns.
The sky’s purple out over the Hudson and the gale’s a slap in the face as they step on the black ice of Brooklyn Bridge. He knows he’s supposed to be looking up, taking in the famous scenery, but instead he’s sneaking glances down. At those Botticelli curls he’d like to tangle and those mulled wine lips he’d like to taste. So what do you really want? Bet you two Colgate mochas I can make it happen. She laughs and pretends to think. My flowers in a bakery instead of a booze joint. But right now? he presses, and she shivers. Warmer hands. Done, he says wolfishly - and dares to seize her hand.
A second later, her soft fingers curl around his palm.
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I want to see the stars.
He doesn’t mean to chuckle, but the chuckle gets away from him nonetheless. Low and slow, developing color like an old-school Polaroid. Nixon knows he’s making her self-conscious, her hand pulling away. He holds on tight and his laugh’s like a foghorn. The stars, huh? he manages, finally. C’mon. Drive a harder bargain. You can keep your Colgate mochas, ‘cause sweetheart, I’ll show you the stars for free.
Big talk - for a small town boy. Nixon likes that, that husky honeyed challenge, that sprinkle of freckles across her reddened nose. And wouldn’t he like to kiss each and every one? To follow that constellation all the way down to its inevitable conclusion? Sure, he was the one to start this conversation, but if he’s a lucky sonofabitch, she’ll be the one to end it. It’s just a shame those aren’t the kind of stars he’s planning on showing her, not quite yet. Uh-huh, you’ll soon be singing a different tune. Not to mention ponying up for our date. Oh, is that what we’re doing right now? Sweetheart, you didn’t notice?
She lets out a peal of laughter, hand coming up to her mouth, puffs of white slipping between. Nixon catches the delighted pink in her cheeks, and then catches his breath. He likes how she forgets to blush, ‘til something he says reminds her. They’ve just about crossed the bridge by now; the rush of strollers and hobo Santas (he’s counted six) has slowed. Humble Brooklyn awaits, all red-cheeked bricks and smoke-filled hearths.
You know we don’t get stars out here, not with all the skyglow, she informs him smugly, and he suddenly stops. You want to see stars, sweetheart? Got to look in the right places. Behind them, as if on cue, the river opens and swallows the orange sun.
For a fraction of a second, suspended between day and night, all of New York goes out.
And at first, it’s just the skyscrapers.
They don’t even look like they’re there, in those jagged dark high rises - until one window, then another glitters into bright being. Then the townhouses and brownstones. The buttery glow of lamps in living rooms and nightlights in nurseries. Like gems tossed openhanded on a swathe of black velvet; a television glows otherworldly blue; a match is struck to a wick. A billboard is lit. A switch is thrown.
Oh, she breathes, and he smiles. Oh.
Manhattan in her majesty rises before them, and extends a queen’s handful of stars.
The Empire State catches light, first red, then white, and finally, brilliant green at the top. He watches her bottle glass eyes flash. Just like a postcard, huh? Mm. Yeah. Crazy how you New Yorkers are always looking at the sidewalk, never at the sky.
She leans back a little, the top of her head connecting but not quite fitting under his chin, and they contemplate the scene in silence. The snow and slush around their feet deaden every sound, the streetlights dim in their view, and the cars rush along beneath their feet, punctuating the night with the occasional perfunctory honk.
Marcela, she murmurs.
What? he blinks, as though coming to.
Marcela, she repeats, and twists out of his loose embrace.
His bushy brows knit together.
Marcela like that Beach Boys song, but with only one L. (718) 222-3332. She tosses the last over her shoulder as she starts walking. Merry Christmas, small town boy.
A grin slowly cracks Nixon’s sunbrowned face, as he stares after her retreating back.
Some kind of magic, huh?
The December wind whips his shout away.
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AND THERE'S MORE FOR ME TO SQUEE AT!!! HA HA HA!!!!
He's from El Paso!! AWW SOUTHERN DRAWL! AND HE HAS A COCKSURE GRIN (which of course he does, but yeah) AND HE WANTS TO BITE HER LIP AND TAKE OFF HER PANTIES WITH HIS TEETH!
And she blushed when their fingers first touched and chia Shrek is hind things!?
REINDEER BALLS?!? AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
God, the descriptions you use...
"Low and slow, developing color like an old-school Polaroid." And the way your describe the city and the stars and and and... screw you, BAMF! If I didn't love you so much I would hate you for your awesome!
WRITE MORE CRAPPY FLUFF! I WILL HAPPILY READ IT AND SQUEE!!
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:P
(I will even try to make one of my drabblender drabbles extra pr0ny for you!)
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This was so insanely perfect! Nixon is very, very sexy indeed...in fact, this was a very sexy read! The line about New Yorkers never looking up at the sky...it was so perfect! I don't blame Marcela for giving him her number because DAAAAMMMMNNNN.
Simply lovely, and I would love to see the rest of gang in New York! I'd imagine they'd be equally colorful characters!
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I think you also hit about 6 other prompts in here :)
Would love to see more of what happens with them!
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