Ocean's Velvet

part one: the doorbell

The moon lay high in the sky, casting a sweet luster of light down onto New York City; lighting rooms with a soft glow, and giving everything that magical air only found under a full moon. Everything was quiet, the city was sleeping- no cars in the streets, no city hustle, just silence. Blissful silence.

Deborah Ocean gazed out the window of her small, Upper East Side apartment, windows wide open to let in a cool winters breeze, which swept throughout the four small rooms, only to exit through the open balcony doors to start the cycle again. The only noise was the dull ticking of a clock, and the scratch of a pen as Debbie started to write in her notebook. It was the same notebook she had recorded the heist in; page after page of scrawled handwriting, some of it looping and perfect, other pages sharp and angrily worded- barely legible. She flipped to a new page, only to find it wasn't blank. She flipped pages and pages, each one filled with a new scripture, smooth glossy penmanship, a font she couldn't recognize for the the life of her. Long words, small sketches, drawings, even stamps. Debbie flipped to the last page  and gasped at the signature imprinted at the end of the notebook. Louise Miller.

A look of shock travelled across her brow and she bit her lip. No, no, this wasn't right. Lou shouldn't have even had access to this book during the heist, but here it was, covered in her notes! Things like this drove Debbie insane, Lou had no permission to do this- sure, they were partners in crime, and maybe she hadn't made an effort to visit in months, but this was the future, this was now! She didn't have time for people from her past, no matter how good looking, or how much they had... well. Clicked.

She shook her head. Past is in the past, Deborah. She couldn't get back into this again, however naïve that might sound! She glanced at the antique phone on her desk, and contemplated it. Contemplated calling Lou, calling her over, having dinner, messing around, being what they were during the heist. Tam-Tam had once referred to them as "heist wives", and as accurate that may have once been, Debbie wasn't ready. She'd never be ready. After Claude, trusting people was hell on earth, no one could be trusted, friends, romantics- gone, gone, gone! After all. If she hadn't trusted Claude, she wouldn't have had five years in jail...

The phone chimed, it's thick, heavy tone filling Debbie's head with noise. As old as the phone was, caller ID didn't exist, and she sighed loudly. There was only one way to find out who was calling, and that was to pick up the phone. She fiddled with her necklace and looked at the phone, the ringing loud and incessant, mindnumblingly loud and horrible. She grabbed it off the cradle just to stop the noise, and held it to her ear.
"You've reached Deborah Ocean." She said monotonously, biting her lip and looking out the window to where rain had started to fall.
"So you didn't change your number then?" A familiar Australian voice filled her ears, and her mind filled with flashbacks- the car, that house, the meals together.
"No." She said absent mindedly,
"I didn't. What do you need, Louise."
A laugh came down the line, and suddenly, Debbie smiled. She'd missed Lou, even if she didn't admit it to herself, she'd really missed her.
"Nothing much. If you're still living in that bloody awful apartment, I'm outside. Figured you'd have found the journal by now!"
Debbie laughed and then stopped.
"You're where?"
Within a second the call had disconnected and the line was silent. Debbie felt the phone slip out of her hand, and fall to the floor. She missed Lou, she missed Lou badly, so badly.
The doorbell chimed, and Debbie raised an eyebrow. If that was... she stopped herself. Maybe it was? She shook her head, it was raining, there was no cover over her doorway- maybe she should just... check.

Debbie got up and anxiously went to the door. That's right, she thought to herself. I'll just check...

[aaah hello friends and welcome to my first proper fic! I'm super excited to write this and I hope y'all like it :) Sending you love!]