The womanâs deteriorating height, a product of age and unyielding scoliosis, stiffened when one of the newer tenants commented on her appearance. Maybe inwardly she welled with strange pride, but her near black eyes twitched at his cry for attention. At least, thatâs how she saw it. Adam picked up on it straight away, sagging in his seat with his knees wide and his hands folded between them. A satisfied smirk beset slightly dried lips only to briefly flash a pair of canines. Elise Furman narrowed her gaze, briefly touching a hand to silver hair by her ear as she waited for the evident amusement in her audience to fade away. She was by no means humored by tawdry young men that lived in the complex. But they all paid their rent on time, which only left her to remind them of their place in the world, rules and common courtesy.
Adam tilted his head at the mirth escaping a nearby femmeâs throat. This widened his gratified smile, but he looked straight ahead to maintain at least a sense of false attention. He knew her. Juliet. Platinum hair framed her round face and unceasingly blue eyes that peered out like toxin dripping away from shadows. She probably looked down on him; a girl who regularly worked behind a bar and dealt with shit slinging from junkies and alcoholics might not have the tolerance for his type. On top of his less than admirable ways, he was a new tenant. A young one at that. He already knew most of the other residents thought he was brazen. He couldnât be fucked to give a damn about any of them - with a slivering exclusion where tail was involved. Luckily for Adam, he didnât have a type. He just liked women. And the building was full of them. Beautiful, all of them. None of them a day over twenty five. But there were always those few diamonds in the rough. The ones that meant or shone a little more than the others. Truly, he had trouble identifying if anyone from Empire Heights fit into that tier, but he never necessarily bothered trying to find out either. Life had become less of a romantic conquest and more of a crooked hustle.
Or, life had never yielded any real romance to begin with.
After sweeping his gaze shamelessly over the girl next to him, Moni - something or another, Amil, and Juliet once again, Adam smugly tuned into Furmanâs speech. It droned. Furman stood, a curving spine making her look ready to drop like a fly. She fought the urge to take a seat as she paced across the anterior of the room. Her creaking voice stuck to stoic walls, causing the uninterested turnout to groan and shift in their chairs like sophomores listening to scientific theory.
âI know weâve been talking renovations for months but in a few days painters are coming in to fix up the main foyers. Some drywall construction will follow, so Iâll need you all to be patient with the noise and temporary chaos. As per usual youâre expected to abide by EH regulations, your leasesâŠâ
A distinct shuffling noise was heard as Spitz grabbed his snapback and twisted it in his hands, rocking on his chair. Theyâd all grown bored. Behind Spitz, the diva from the seventh floor hung her head back and closed her catlike eyes. Her arm was rested behind Monroeâs neck who was equally as passionless about the meeting as anyone else. Adam slipped away from his position in the back and crept towards the couple, making his presence known once he threw himself between them, half on each of their laps. Furman finally rolled her eyes and threw her hands up, âJust pay your rent okay?â
Before they could throw him off, he grabbed both of their faces and smeared a sloppy kiss on their cheeks, âBeautiful couple. Really.â With a mock tipoff, he turned his focus to Jaylene whose cheeks had significantly drawn in with disapproval. âSo, Jasmine, what kind of treats you got planned for me and my friends tonight? Iâm sure good old Monroe will help you fix everything up real nice.â
âItâs Jaylene, moron.â She sighed.
âJaylene Monroe you said? See thatâs what I thought I heard.â
âSoon to be.â She countered, batting long lashes at Elliot with mock adoration.
âGo getting married to strangers you find in the big city and you might end up on dateline. You never really know anyone.â Adam messed up Elliotâs hair and got to his feet again.
âJust be at Manhattan Tower around nine, thatâs when shit will get real, so to speak.â Jaylene drawled, interest lost on whatever Adam had to ramble about.
âShould I wear a tux to compliment your Dior, barbie?â
âYouâd have to know what Dior is in order to compliment it, grease monkey.â
âIâll keep that in mind when your BMW needs a tune up.â
The blond shrugged, playfully rubbing at Monroeâs shoulder before she stretched her long legs and slithered away from Adam. All the while she still wore this convincing smile as though she were talking her way through a business meeting and not a cat-and-mouse conversation. She made quick work of scuttling towards the front of the room, straightening her unduly large cardigan and wrapping it around herself for a moment. Adam raised his brows, ultramarine eyes feigning interest. He glimpsed towards Monroe, âYouâre fucked up, b. Leading a pretty thing on like that. She has no idea what sheâs gotten into.â Clownishly the young man showed a few teeth to signify slim sarcasm. Spitz and Adam had a bad habit of heckling the guy, but if Monroe knew anything, he knew that they meant no harm. If anything they had his back.
Adam dug his hands into the pockets of his khakis. His weight rocked back and forth from his knees as he peered toward Jaylene and then back down at her consort, nodding in preparation to roam lazily back to Spitz. Heâd only looked over his shoulder once or twice in delay to glance at the selection of femmes in the room.
It wasnât long before the room filled. Amil was already present, bantering with Patrick which made the slumlord at the head of her EH circus sighed with irritation. Spitz sympathized with the senescent woman. She bit off maybe more than she could chew, welcoming a swarm of young adults with the gleaming luxury of no background checks. All in all, the old broad wasnât so bad. She was subtly maternal. She gave homes to the desperate and the crestfallen. When her speech concluded, sheâd risen her white flag with her arthritic hands and disappeared.
Finally he let out a yawn that heâd been squashing for the past hour. New breath stretched in his sternum and was just in the midst of encouraging him to stand up when Jaylene was evidently preparing for a small speech. So, Spitz adjusted his posture even if only a little and gave her his full attention while Banksy shamelessly yanked a metal chair across the floor and plopped into it beside his partner in crime. Giving him a sideways look of fraud disapproval, Spitz mumbled, âAinât you got manners homie?â In response, glassy blue eyes narrowed and Banksy just shrugged looking out of his mind.
Despite wanting to take a better inspection of the room and its inhabitants, only because he expected Kaleb to exit as soon as he saw Jaylene prepared to talk to EH leaseholders, Spitz stayed in place and maintained focus. He still got guilty pleasure out of watching men squirm around his homegirl he met back in Canada. It was funny theyâd all bumped heads in a sort of lamentable coincidence. Sheâd grown significantly since then but Spitz was always a maddening reminder of what she used to be, do, and play. He respected that she was a strictly business type anymore, but he knew how fiends were even after some time off. Underneath they were just dying for a hit. Thinking about it, Spitz grinned and lowered his eyes as she started to speak, itching at his braids.
Alexandra had taken a seat far from the EH crew, blatantly occupying the last couch and claiming it as her own. One of the new tenants Spitz regretfully didnât know too well took a seat betwixt other residents. Corey, was his name. He seemed perplexed most times, or intrigued. Something in Spitzâ intuition screamed, âRed flag!â every time he saw him though. But he was willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
Faintly drifting off he contemplated potential risks of the night. Heâd have to worry about undercovers who were always trailing him in some way. To date none of them quite caught on. Rookies from the local department would get close, find some contacts, but never get to the overlord, so to speak. The cycle was unending and fruitless for law enforcement. Spitz was a proud, cocky man at times. But he wasnât stupid, and he stopped leaving his tracks a long time ago. He could pawn off a lot of business as friendships effortlessly anymore. They could try as hard as they wanted, that shit always went cold.
When Jaylene finished, he became vertical and called out loudly, âBring your girls, bring your girlâs girlfriends. Lessssss be honnnnest. Weâll treat yâall real good.â The feedback he got was under-the-breath laughs and a few of his neighbors blushing and beaming.
âCome on, we wouldn't want to be late."
Though Jaylene picked up on the apparent dismay in Elliotâs face at the thought of having to âworkâ on his one day off, he didnât have to be wooed too meticulously. At least not when it came to her. She could chalk it up to her charming personality if she was feeling narcissistic but⊠She wasnât going to give herself that much credit. And if anyone knew that the young woman wasnât so truly charming and well-mannered, it was Elliot. Indicting the young woman with being a maneater was a knee-slapper. In fact sometimes she felt more than a little rusty at the dating game. Of course rumors circulated. But she hadnât taken anyone home in a long time. The truth of the matter was, Elliot was her second self. People could believe what they wanted and, at the end of the day, the two were just great friends who had trouble saying no to each other. Being worn on his arm gave her a sense of pride and vindication.
Throughout their wait during the elevatorâs descent, Jaylene flexed her fingers with disappointment. Her joints were sore. Mildly she muttered, âIâm catching up with Furman.â She drew in deep breaths through the nostrils of her straight nose, trying to work with what caffeine was in her body.
A somehow pleasant âding!â welcomed the duo to the second floor. The pleasantry however was vastly overshadowed by the frayed subject matter that would be vomited onto EH renterâs in just a few moments. But by this time, Elliot and Jaylene were regular equerries of Elise Furman and almost like teacherâs pets. Theyâd held up their ends, kept tidy, didnât complain and stayed to themselves for the most part. Jaylene couldnât necessarily speak for her friend, but she knew that she hardly mingled with her neighbors. Quiet and observant suited her best. In addition to less than kind vices, she wasnât just going to dive headfirst back into her history. It was an ongoing battle within herself. Maybe it was better to be looked at as the stuckup bitch than the coke whore? She almost laughed when the designations resounded in her head. Nope, she wasnât going back to that persona any time soon. Clean for four years, give or take. Soda Pop was a ghost. A memory floating in Belleville, Canada. Where teens were so bored that they hit lines endlessly, fucked the friends theyâd grown up alongside, and shot cops that tried to tell them they had a substance problem.
Jaylene strolled into the cafeteria area, towards the side of the room that was designated for gatherings. The poise she corroborated with Elliot was almost laughable considering the two were by no means a couple or nimble. Spitz was already seated a few rows ahead, and the seizure of plush seating was clutched by the pretty alternative model, Amil, and Patrick. The way the two got on kind of reminded Jaylene of Elliot and herself but tweaked in more ways than one. As expected the last couch was snagged by Alexandra, a young beautiful woman. Jaylene commonly recognized her as the blond head that bobbed down the hallways with Beats in her ears.
The walls were painfully bare, an uncanny reflection of the color in nearly every apartment in the building. Because of the size of the room, the air was a little more brisk than anywhere else in Empire Heights. Jaylene wrapped herself in the cardigan as she took a seat beside Elliot. After a while, she sluggishly slung her arm around his shoulder and zeroed in on Furmanâs diction. It all pulped up after a while, it was all the same. So far the Sullivan girl had no problem following the rules and keeping her land lady happy, so she confidently let the meeting fade from emphasis.
Its conclusion was ungracefully brought to hand when Adam, a prior delinquent, fell right into Jaylene and Elliotâs lap. His Supreme hoodie was thick with the scent of body spray. He rambled about Jaylene being Elliotâs fiancee, the event at Manhattan Tower, and some other completely insignificant shit that the young woman didnât care to read into. She batted her dark lashes, rolled her green eyes and affirmed the time and the place to Spitzâ protege. Shortly thereafter she politely excused herself, wearing a twinkle that could fool Americaâs greatest conartist. Before anyone could escape she cleared her throat and slid into place at the head of the room. She could feel the irritation of bored and exasperated young adults, but what she had to say, she felt, was worth it for them to stay.
âHey, guys,â she began, her voice pygmy in the room, âIâm Jaylene. Seventh floor.â Her eyes grazed the audience and skittered over Kaleb which made her swing her focus back onto anyone else. âI usually donât do this kind of thing, but Iâm busting open a huge deal for my agency and weâre having a banger at Manhattan Tower tonight. Everyone has to pay a cover charge but Iâll let you all in for free because honestly, Iâd just love not to be surrounded by anorexic models all night. And, Elliot is going to be helping with the catering - heâs a great chef as some of you may already know. Listen, if nothing else, the bar will be loaded and youâll get party favors. Everyone is seriously welcome. Like I mentioned, your cover charge is on me. Just come out and have a good time. Oh and Hudson, we would kill for a live act. Iâd pay you. So, yeah. Thanks.â
Awkwardly she side stepped, ran a hand through her wavy blond hair and weaved her way back to Elliot. With a groan she continued, âJesus Christ, the way some of them looked at me youâd think they wanted me dead.â She screwed up her face, squinting over her shoulder at Corey and then Lee. The two were so unearthly and quiet. Rolling her shoulders, she looked at Elliot and proposed, âShall we?â