Chapter Text
Getting ready for a night out was an event in and of itself with your friends. The clashing scents of hairspray and perfumes swirled in the air, combining with the cigarette smoke into your very own New York smog. Pink-and-green tubes of mascara were passed around like candy, swapped for frosty eyeshadows and bright lipsticks. You had finished getting ready a while ago, and were flipping through an Avon catalogue that had been so generously left by your saleswoman aunt. You had bought a bottle of Moonwind from her a few months ago to be nice, and while you liked the woodsy scent, you weren’t a fan of the pushy sales tactics.
Laying beside you on the bed, one of your friends hooked a wooden coat hanger through the zip of her wet jeans and struggled to pull the fly closed. She swore by the method of stretching the denim, and you had to admit the results were phenomenal, even if the seams would leave red dents in her legs for days. You preferred clothes you could dance freely in.
“Hey babe, have I missed any spots?” Another friend called out from the vanity, her mother’s Beautymatic hot comb in hand. She spun her head around, revealing a small lock of curls at the very back that had escaped her wrath.
“Yeah, let me get that for you,” you offered as you set the magazine down. She murmured her thanks as you tamed the last of her hair, smoothing it out as carefully as you could to keep it from frying. She’d just grown back the length she burned off with the clothes iron last year, and despite her best attempts at rocking a pixie cut, she was no Liza Minelli.
Together with your friends you called yourselves a ‘girl gang’, but you knew you were being generous with the term. You had matching jackets, deep teal leather with the word ‘SIRENS’ proudly embroidered across the shoulders. You rode your motorbikes around Queens with reckless abandon, cussing out any men who whistled at you… or whistling back, if they were hunky enough. You kept a butterfly knife in one boot and a switch-comb in the other, smoked like a chimney, drank like sailors. It was all for show, however, like a king snake mimicking the colour of something far deadlier. There was safety in numbers and refuge in audacity. A gaggle of dainty young women made a much more tempting target than a gang of loud-mouthed leather-clad ‘ladies’, after all.
And here, in your best friend’s riverside apartment in Astoria, you transformed into the sirens you declared yourselves to be.
SoHo was the place to be for nightlife, and the drive was almost decent at this late an hour. Your friends planned the operation in advance: head to the Groove Move first, then the Shakes if the dude situation was a dud, maybe head for a diner if you stayed out late enough to get hungry. You were the designated driver for the evening unfortunately, but your friends plied you with the promise of paying for your midnight pancakes, so you parked as close to the club as you could get away with.
Sure, it wasn’t the Gallery; they were still moving from 22nd Street to their new spot on Mercer. But what the Groove Move lacked in style, they made up for with short lines and a shortsighted bouncer. Your ID could have had googly eyes and glitter, and you’d still be ushered in with a smile. You weren’t using a fake these days; the drinking age had been lowered to 18 back in ‘71. But even at your age, a bouncer staring you down over the top of your licence could get intimidating.
You were nearly at the front of the line, ready to offer the squinting security your ID, when you heard a commotion from inside. Soon after, a dark-haired man was thrown out onto the street in front of you with a grunt and a curse, face down on the pavement. You couldn’t help but laugh at the poor bastard, your friends laughing along.
“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up…” he grumbled with a voice that sounded like he gargled gravel. The man was three sheets to the wind, swaying as he struggled to sit upright. He was wet with what looked like someone’s vodka cranberry. As he ran his hand down his face he glanced over towards you and your friends, and you hadn’t noticed you were staring until you made eye contact.
He looked like a kicked dog. A square-jawed, broad-shouldered kicked dog, with his shirt half unbuttoned. And Lord, you’d always been a dog person.
“ID?” The bored voice of the bouncer brought your focus back to your night out. You looked down at the card in your hand, then to the man on the ground, and finally back to your friends. Well, it’s not as if you were known for your great taste in men.
“Hey, how about you guys go on without me? I’ll catch up later.”
Your friends were confused, reluctant at first, but as you hopped out of the line of impatient clubbers they gave up. You told them to have fun and promised to meet them at Shakes, then stepped over to the sad sack on the curb.
“What’s your story, morning glory?” You bent at the waist to address him, hands resting on your knees. He looked up at you, brow furrowed with confusion, squinting up at your face.
“... You an angel?” He tilted his head a little. “Yer head’s glowing.”
With a quick glance behind you, you let out a chuckle. “Nope, that’s a streetlight, buddy.”
“Eh… I still reckon yer an angel.”
He had a thick Jersey accent, made thicker with inebriation, and an easy smirk that curled up under his moustache like a satisfied cat. He looked like he was trying to be Burt Reynolds, but he couldn’t have been much older than you. A few years, maybe, give or take some rough living.
“Okay then, can you give an angel a light?” you asked, sitting on the curb next to him and pulling out your cigarette case.
“Only if she’s sharing,” he reached into the breast pocket of his shirt for a lighter. It was one of those Scripto things, with a clear body and two tiny dice inside. Tacky as all hell, but it had fuel. You offered him a cigarette, and he mumbled a ‘thank you’ as he lit yours first.
“What’s your name, Casanova?”
“Sta… Steve. It’s Steve.” He frowned as he took a drag, too drunk to keep his fake name straight. Whatever his name was, it definitely wasn’t Steve. “Yours?” You told him yours with no such compunctions, and he murmured it so softly, like he was tasting the shape it made in his mouth.
You did your best to blow a smoke ring, but you couldn’t quite manage it. You’d get the hang of it someday. “So, Sta-Steve, what-”
He cut you off with a bark of laughter, the sound so sudden it startled you. He laughed almost hard enough to fall backwards, but you managed to reach out a hand to steady him. “Hah! Sta-Steve! I love it! I… I gotta use that one… Maybe next time. You’ll let me use it, yeah? I don’t gotta cut you no royalties?”
Next time? Royalties? This guy was far out. Your joke hadn’t even been that funny. “Yeah, you can use it, dude. It’s cool.”
“Really are an angel, aintcha?” Sta-Steve chuckled out the last of his laughter, letting out a satisfied sigh. “So… where’re we headed next?”
“We?”
“Yeah, where’s the next bar?”
“Nuh-uh. You are going home,” you shook your head at him. He looked scandalized.
“What?! But I’m- I’m practically sober. Gimme… uh… gimme ‘til I’m finished with this smoke, and I’m good for the rest of the night. Scout’s honour.”
You highly doubted he was ever a scout, considering he gave you a Vulcan salute by mistake. Maybe you could convince him…
“How about I drive you home, handsome?” You laid it on thick and fluttered your eyelashes. If the way his Adam’s apple hitched in his throat was anything to go by, he took the bait.
“You… yeah? Yeah, we can… do that.” He nodded slowly, dumbstruck, watching as you stood up. You offered an arm to help him up, and he took it without question. His hands were even bigger than you’d realized, covered in dark hair from his scarred knuckles all the way to his rolled-up, struggling sleeves. The more you looked, the bigger he got. Muscled arms, wide shoulders, a barrel chest with a matching keg of a tummy.
He might have been going for Burt Reynolds, but he was built like Al Capone. It looked good on him.
Sta-Steve leaned heavily on you as you walked him down the street to your car. He smelled mostly of cranberry and cigarettes, but you could detect a hint of sweat and cologne somewhere under there. You wondered idly if it was wafting up from his open shirt, somewhere among the rug of chest hair. Was it as soft as it looked? You leaned down to unlock your car, and your thoughts were interrupted when he whistled, too sharp and too loud for your close proximity to his face.
“Hot Belgian waffles, this is your car?”
He traced his hand over the bottle-green paint of your Buick Century. You’d saved up for it with every paycheck of your high school job, and your parents agreed to pay half as your 18th birthday present. You loved that thing more than anything in the world, even more than your cousin’s old motorbike that you were ‘borrowing’ while he was at West Coast Tech.
“Sure is. Lemme get that for you…” You opened the door for him, and he practically drooled at the sight.
“Figure yerself a real Kojak, huh?” Sta-Steve gave you a smirk, pointed a fingergun at you, and in his best Telly Savalas impression, he gave you the classic. “Who loves ya, baby?”
You couldn’t help but laugh, even if it was just at the absurdity of the situation. This Sta-Steve was a charismatic son of a bitch, even when he was wasted and covered in someone else’s drink. Normally you would never have let a strange man in your car, but here you were, holding the door for him as he slid in. He didn’t even lean back in the seat, perhaps trying not to stain the white leather with any residual cranberry. How considerate
Once you had gotten around to the driver’s seat, you turned to face him. “Where am I driving you?”
He paused to think about it for a minute, then lit up as he reached into his pocket for a business card to hand to you. The ink had bled slightly, but the address was still visible; The Down ‘N Out Motel. Yikes.
“So she says ‘my eyes are up here’, right?” Sta-Steve gestured wide with his arms, almost hitting you in the face. “And I says to her, ‘I know that, I’m trying to look at your tits!’”
“And that’s when she-”
“That’s when she threw her drink at me.”
You couldn’t help but chuckle. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking she had a great rack!” He laughed so brightly that you could nearly forget how much of a dog he was. You’d always been a dog person. “Too bad they didn’t come with a sense of humour.”
“I don’t think most women appreciate being stared at like that,” you offered your common sense, wrapped as politely as possible.
He just scoffed at that. “She was staring at mine first…”
That was easy enough to believe, you thought, as you spotted the flickering neon sign for the Down N’ Out. The motel looked nearly abandoned, save for two cars in the parking lot. One of them probably belonged to a staff member, the other to Sta-Steve. You doubted the Cadillac was his, if he had to stay at a place like this. You pulled into an empty space and parked, climbing out into the cool night air with a sigh. “Alright, you got your room key?”
“Yeah, yeah it’s… where’s the fuckin… Here.” He pulled out a small key with a beat-up plastic tag attached, following you out and showing it to you. The number was barely legible, but it was probably a 6 or an 8.
“Reckon you can unlock the door yourself?”
“Watch it, I could unlock any door here if I wanted,” he frowned, poking you in the shoulder with an accusatory finger. “I’m a master pickler… locker picker… I’m real fuckin’ good at opening shit.”
You nearly laughed, but managed to play it off as an impressed gasp. “Well why didn’t you say so! Show me how the pros do it.”
Sta-Steve grumbled to himself as he fumbled with the key, struggling to get it in the lock for a minute or so. While he tried his best to use basic motor skills, you spotted his wallet hanging halfway out of his back pocket. It must have come loose when he took out the key…
This wouldn’t be the first wallet you’d stolen, not by a long shot, but it would probably be the saddest. You took a deep breath and gently eased it out of his jeans, promising yourself that you wouldn’t take much. But before you had a chance to rifle through it, the door swung open. You’re not sure if that’s because he actually unlocked it, if he forgot to lock it before he left, or if the lock was just broken.
He turned to face you with a flourish, and you hid your hand behind your back. “Ta-dah!”
“Bravo, bravo,” you smiled as he bowed, swaying on his feet. He made for quite the showman. Maybe he was an actor?
“Thank you, I’m here all week,” he winked, gesturing into the motel room. “May I… offer you a nightcap?”
“Oh, well, I told my friends I’d meet up with them…”
“Yeah, yeah of course. Drive safe an’ all,” he slurred softly, leaning against the door frame, “but gimme my wallet back first.” You flinched. There was no malice in his tone. He almost sounded resigned, as if he was expecting you to run off with it. That just made it feel worse.
You pull your arm back around in front of you, sighing as you flip the wallet open. Huh. His ID really did say Steve Pinington. It also said he was from Rhode Island, which… well, that had to have been as fake as his name. He watched as you reached into the billfold to pull out a note. “Just… taking my cab fare.”
“Ugh, ten bucks?! You’re killing me, toots!” He ran a hand up through his hair, grumbling something about beautiful women and extortion. There was something in his expression, as inebriated as it was, that settled funny in your stomach. He looked tired, beyond just the drinks. Like this was just another in a long line of disappointments that he’d grown accustomed to.
You looked past him, scanning the room, and smiled as you spotted a pen.
“Tell you what, Sta-Steve…” You stepped through to retrieve it, turning back to face him. He looked shocked at the sudden turn of events, doubly so when you took his hand. You wrote your name on the inside of his forearm, alongside the words ‘Mike’s Diner on 31st St, noon’. You added a heart for good measure, and you could hear him gulp as you drew it. “Call the ten bucks a down payment. You’re paying ahead for lunch tomorrow.”
“You… Really?” His voice was quiet, uncertain. “You mean it, angel?”
“As long as you don’t stand me up,” you smile, breezing past him and out the door. “I’ve gotta catch up to my girls, and you’ve gotta get some sleep. I don’t wanna be going to lunch with a hungover bum.”
Sta-Steve straightened up at that, nodding quickly - too quickly, as he winced at the sudden head-spin. “I-I’ll be there!”
You waved as you headed back to your car, and he stood in the doorway to watch you go. As you went to pull out of the parking lot, you noticed what looked like a motel staff member rifling through the trunk of the less-impressive car in the lot. That left Sta-Steve as the owner of that pretty red convertible… with the vanity licence plate ‘STNLYMBL’.
Rolling down your window, you stuck your head out to yell. “See you tomorrow, Stanley!”
You watched his jaw drop in the rear view mirror, as if you were some kind of psychic. You laughed all the way back to the club.