luckie street

chapter 7 »

"An apartment complex?" Riley asked, expecting a little more of a surprise.

Vincenzo looked in Riley's general direction, laughing. He was fidgety, excited.

Riley watched his movements closely. He was sweating slightly but for no cause. Traffic was light that day, and he seemed very relaxed not but five minutes past. Suddenly, his behavior shifted once more. He scratched at the back of his neck, then at his elbows, then back at his neck, this time more intensely. He noticed her noticing and grew paranoid. He looked away.

"How are you feeling?" Riley asked his question from earlier. 

Vincenzo took her hand and begun leading her up the concrete and rusting metal stairs. "There's someone I want you to make your acquaintance with."

Two flights up and three doors down, they approached apartment 27C. It already seemed suspicious. Vincenzo knocked in a very distinctive pattern four times and stepped back a bit. Riley memorized the pattern and pretended to be preoccupied with her hair. A few footsteps and a sliding clink sound of the lock later, the sun-faded green door swung open with force. 

A half buttoned, blue shirt with one sleeve rolled up and one left to dangle, the cuffs undone on both arms, black jeans set inches below his actual waist, a beer bottle and a cigarette in one hand and the door knob in the other, man stood looking bewildered between a shaking Vincenzo and a dumbfounded Riley. 

No amount of time or immortality or riches could bribe Riley from snatching her eyes away from this messy, beautiful human. He didn't come with a six pack or dirty blonde hair with streaks of sexy implanted into his DNA, but God he was beautiful.

The man stepped back and let his two guests in without letting his eyes off of Riley. Vincenzo took no sight of their mutual staring as he made his way inward. 

"I don't know how to work the scale," He said to Vincenzo, watching Riley walk past him and trailing the new interest. 

What greeted Riley on the other side of the threshold of 27C immediately elevated her heart rate and sent a wave of intense anxiety and fear over her whole being from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She stumbled back automatically and tripped over a corner of loose carpet, but the mysterious, intrigued stranger who greeted her with silence caught her while spilling a little of his beer. 

He didn't take his hands off of her lower back and shoulder as he got a better look at her, beginning to chuckle. The man followed Riley's fear-filled gaze to his coffee table.

"What? You've never seen a few mounds of cocaine before?" He blinked.

-

Looking around in severe discomfort, Riley let her sense take over. The corners of the apartment were littered with all kinds of junk, from cans to plastic bags to old lighters in need of fluid. Two doors on either side of the television setup were cracked at different angles, and from the looks of it, they weren't very spacious.

Most of the smell was coming from the kitchen area, and Riley took notice of the Tupperware containers full of steamy food on the counters the man was wrestling with.

"God, Steve acts like I'm going to eat all of his precious food if he doesn't tighten the fuck outta these things." He grunted to Vincenzo.

"Let's not act all proper in front of the beaut, alright," Vincenzo started as he fiddled with a few swtiched on his scale, "Randy here could eat three cows and then some all by himself."

Riley nodded with a forced smile, trying not to focus on the illegal power covering the entire surface of the small table in little triagular mounds.

"What do ya call yourself?"

"Riley." Her short, impersonable response came out more like a question.

Randy stared for a moment, trying to figure out why she hadn't gotten used to her surroundings by now.

"A very mal-adaptive one, aren't ya?" He huffed in concern.