by Aria Cole
What had surprised me was that he was the Park Avenue Punk, a silly name Page Six had taken to calling him. Now the coffee shop idiots in Brooklyn had already made a Warhol-inspired poster of one of the first works of graffiti attributed to him—a giant silver ring, easily two stories tall, and where the sparkling diamond would normally be nestled, a smiling poop emoji sat in its place.
The worst part?
He’d painted his sparkling poop emoji ring on the front side of the white wall of Tiffany’s.
The Tiffany’s.
He’d caused quite a scene the next morning. I still remembered seeing the local news crews when I’d walked by that morning to meet my dad for one of his radiation sessions. He’d cracked a smile when I’d told him I’d seen the ridiculous piece of street art firsthand, and then he’d dozed off in his chair, tubes and wires attached to him in every direction.
I’d had to laugh then or I’d cry.
Pretty much the same way I felt now.
I flopped back on my pillow, watching the silver moonlight chase the dark shadow from the corners of my room. Sighing, I rolled over, salty tears wetting my pillow.
I missed my dad so much, mostly because it felt like he was the only one in my family who’d ever understood me, maybe the only person who ever would.
Before I could cry any more tears, I rolled back out of bed, swiping my phone off the table and heading for the bathtub. I may not be getting any sleep the night before my father’s visitation, but I could at least soak in the bathtub and relax a little with some friendly online stalking.
I had Jameson Styles on my mind.
Chapter 3
Jameson
The entire walk home, my fists were clenched to my sides, the cool air doing nothing to alleviate the hot rage pumping in my veins.
It’d been five years since I’d last seen her. She still looked as beautiful and just as shallow. Deven Fairchild, the poster girl for the perfect-looking New York City socialite. Queen Fucking Bee. I hated her and everything that world stood for. I couldn’t shake it, but I also couldn’t shake her.
The stench of the subway assaulted my senses as I sat in the empty car. Not too long ago, I’d had a limo and a driver taking me where I wanted, when I wanted. At one time, I was what I hated most in the world, but those days were gone.
This time of night, the subway wasn’t that long of a ride. In thirty minutes, I was home. Good old Brooklyn. I laughed at the jokes Deven made, not realizing I wasn’t the Park Avenue boy she remembered all those years ago.
I turned the key to our twostory brownstone, walking quietly not to wake up my mother or sister. Lori, my sister, hadn’t gotten used to our new way of living. She’d started taking jobs watching rich old men’s homes or their bratty kids. A young, glorified nanny. She was going to end up with some old man, a trophy wife on his arm, spending his fortune, chasing something that she’d always longed for: status.
My mom started working five years ago after it all happened. She mourned my dad for all of ten seconds, picked herself up, and moved us out of our twenty-million-dollar apartment into the brownstone. I hated her for it all then, but now…now I understand. That life was poison, and it was taking everything away from her, and she didn’t want it to win. Lori didn’t understand the decision, but I knew it saved me. I see those guys now who were my best friends, all of them now slaves to the almighty dollar. Thinking the way they are told to think, dating the right girl, joining the right organizations. They were machines, robots, mindlessly roaming the earth until they died in a pool of their own wealth. I didn’t want anything to do with any of it.
“Where have you been?” my mother coldly and softly spoke from the corner of the dark living room. She turned on the lamp beside the old leather . In the darkness, I could still see the black smudges under her eyes. She looked tired, absolutely worn out, and I hated it. Every day, she was a reminder of how my father had ruined our lives and turned everything upside down.
“I was just out with some friends. Studying.”
She nodded her head as she got up and walked toward me and placed her palm on my face. “You’re such a good man. Nothing like him. Thank God.” She grabbed me in an embrace, her arms feeling light and airy. “You’re the only good thing that came out of that old life. My sweet boy. My angel.” She sounded off, but I just chalked it up to maybe too many nightcaps while she waited for me to come home.
“I love you too, Mom.” I kissed her frail, withered cheek. “Go to bed,” I ordered, adding, “Please.”
She nodded and walked up the stairs.
I went to the fridge and took out a beer before sitting on the couch. My head fell back, and I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. The usual rush I normally felt after spreading my artwork through those rich neighborhoods not present.
Instead, my mind went back to the pretty blonde with the amber eyes. I still felt the burn of her touch in my hand. Years ago, I would have wrapped her in my arms, kissing her pretty pink lipstick until she was flushed and putty in my palms. In a different life, she was my world and I was hers.
I would have done anything for her, but shit happens and life gets complicated. None of it was her fault, but when I looked at her, I saw the one person in the world I hated more than anyone else.
I wanted Deven to suffer. I wanted her to fall, desperate and pathetic, to the floor. I wanted her to whither and be ruined. I wanted her to feel the pain my mother felt because of hers.
But I also wanted to fuck her until she was drunk with my name on her sweet pink lips.
Chapter 4
Deven – Five Years Ago
“What are you always doing in that notebook?” I asked Jameson as his hands danced, hidden behind a large leather-bound sketch pad.
“Tryin’ to capture beauty on paper,” he said, eyes still glued on the page, but his lips formed into that sly smile I loved so much. His hair fell down, a curl bouncing on his forehead that was furrowed in concentration.
I took off my top and crawled onto his lap, one leg on either side of his thighs. Pushing him back, I wanted to grab that sketch pad, but I also knew he would lose his mind. In our two whole years together, he’d never shown me the contents of that book. I knew he liked to draw, but he was always so private about it.
“You know I can’t concentrate with those fantastic tits bouncing in my face.” This time his glance was on me. He licked his lips, and his eyes zeroed in on my own. He placed the pad on the nightstand before balancing his weight on his elbows.
I crawled up to him, placing my lips right up to his and whispering, “I know.”
He grabbed my face, crushing his lips to mine. He tasted like happiness mixed with lust. I could have kissed him for a thousand years and never tired of the feeling. His hand unhooked my bra from behind, letting it fall between us, leaving my breasts exposed to his hot touch and the cool air. My nipples hardened as he took them in his hands and started to tweak them. A moan escaped my lips.
“You are so fuckin’ hot,” he whispered before bending his head and taking one nipple into his mouth, his teeth grazing gently.
“Jameson,” I panted, desperate for more.
He pulled the two of us, straightening us as his hands roamed down to my yoga pants. He dipped his hand inside, feeling my heat.
“You’re soaked, babe,” he said before flipping us around, me now lying on my back on the bed, him above me. He peeled off my pants, his hands sliding down my bare legs as he pushed them off. He looked at me, bare to him other than my white lace panties.
“Good enough to eat,” he whispered, his voice husky before he bent his head to my panties, moving them aside but not taking them off. He slid his tongue up and down my slit, making me moan in ecstasy as I clung to my one-thousand-thread-count sheets.
“Fuck this.” he said before ripping my panties completely off. “Those things were just gettin' in the way.” He grabbed my clit between his fingers, rolling it and causing my body to jerk in delicious response.
“Deven, you home?” my mother called from the hallway, a pair of heels tracking on the marble floor. I pushed Jameson off me, diving for my pants and shirt, putting them on right before she opened the door. It was obvious that the two of us were up to no good, but it didn’t even phase my mother. She smiled at us, her fake socialite smile.
“Oh hello, Jameson. Are you staying for dinner?”
“No, thank you. Mrs. Fairchild. I have to be going,” he said, his hand working its way through his hair nervously.
“Well, okay then. Deven, dinner will be served in thirty minutes. Please say hello to your father,” my mom said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
“Does she ever knock?” Jameson asked once she left. “I was scared she’d smell your pussy if she came any closer.”
I hit his arm, and he burst into a roar of laughter.
“Do you have to be so crass?” I asked, burying my head in my hands, embarrassment now setting in. I still hadn’t gotten used to having sex. It might have been my upbringing, but all the women in my world seemed like they were so uptight and reserved, I thought there was something wrong about enjoying what Jameson and I did together.
“Baby, stop that,” he said, peeling my hands from my face. “I love you. I love being with you. You are so fuckin’ amazing. I just wish you would be more free when your clothing is on.” He kissed my lips, and I tasted myself on him, something I had experienced many times. It was one of the ways Jameson tried to get my inhibitions to drop. He liked to spread my own arousal on my lips, asking me to lick it off. Usually when we were in the middle of sex, I loved it, relished in it, but now I felt like I was doing something wrong. “Stop it, Deven. You’re my girl. You will always be my girl. My girl has to know that she is fuckin’ amazing.” He kissed me again, this time a sweet, chaste kiss. “I love you,” he whispered on my lips.
“I love you, too.”
“I’m gonna get going. My mom made dinner tonight—sounded important. I’ll text you later.” He smiled as he grabbed my panties off the floor, bringing them to his nose, winking at me as he put them in his pocket. “I’m gonna need these later when I jerk off.” He winked and walked out.
That was the second to last time I saw him. A week later, he broke up with me, leaving me heartbroken and angry.
Chapter 5
Jameson
I went back the next day to the wall.
Only, I didn’t get to check on the progress of my artwork, just the takedown, as city workers scrubbed a section of my tag off before a second crew followed up with white paint rollers.
All that fresh paint made my fingertips itch to tag it in something colorful again.
I swallowed, edging to the corner of the brick building across the street, eyes following a line of penthouse windows at the top of a limestone building. Dozens of black iron balconies in a row, so pretty and perfect, itching for my handiwork.
The real reason I was here was her. I hardly wanted to admit it to myself. I always checked up on my work after I finished a piece—I liked the temporary nature of what I did—but now instead of focusing on the graffiti, I was focused on the girl who lived in one of these buildings upstairs like a Park Avenue princess.
I frowned, counting the windows along the top row of apartments obsessively. Twenty-four, all equally spaced. Some with heavy drapes, some wide-open eyes into the lives of their owners. Which one was hers?
I strolled down the street, eyes searching the sidewalk at the base of the building as a doorman helped patrons in and out of fancy black cars. I kept walking, moving closer to the glow of amber lights as the ants wrapped in designer furs bustled in and out of the building, smiles on their polished Park Avenue faces.
I hated them so much. I could taste their greed, my feet carrying me closer as I watched the coming and going of the prestigious apartment building. I shoved my hands in my pockets, eyes taking in the porter helping one aging socialite through the glass doors with mounds of shopping bags in a luggage cart at her side.
I imagined tripping her, hearing the satisfying thud of her stupid head against the marble tile at her feet and make off with her shopping bags full of shit to donate to the nearest homeless shelter I could find.
Injustice made me angry, and it’d been my experience that anyone with wealth big enough to live in a posh place like that had either bribed and dick-sucked their way to the top or would be willing to if shit hit the fan.
And shit always hit the fan with these people.
“Hey, no loitering, bum. Don’t make me call security,” the doorman called, waving an angry finger at me.
I only smiled, taking my time as I walked to him, grin growing.
“Back off, you little punk. Get out of here.” His voice was growing shrill, and I didn’t blame him. The dark hood and crazy look in my eye was part of my schtick to keep people fearing me. It gave me the privacy I craved so fucking desperately in this city.
“He’s fine, Arthur.” Deven stepped out of one of the dark cars idling at the valet. She was dressed head to toe in black, a conservative turtleneck dress and black tights right down to her sensible black heels.
I wore all black to scare people off. She wore it and looked devastating.
Deven tucked her sparkly clutch bag in her elbow and laced her fingers in my right hand, shooting the doorman a smile as if to prove I wasn’t the criminal he thought I was. That I wasn’t anything to fear.
Wrong on both counts, assholes.
I shook my hand from her grip, and she shot me an annoyed glare before gliding on those high heels toward the revolving glass doors of her building. “Well, you coming?”
I tipped my chin to her, about to tell her to go fuck herself, before I thought better of it—the desire to see what was behind just one of those twenty-four balcony-lined windows too powerful.
Research, I decided, and followed after her, flipping Arthur the doorman my middle finger and a smile as I did. Deven didn’t see me do it. I’m pretty sure her bleeding heart for people would have kicked me right out on my ass for being so rude, but then again…her bleeding heart for broken things was probably more powerful.
I was the walking, talking proof.
I scanned the elegant lobby as we entered, creamy handwoven wallpaper decorating the walls that begged for my fingers to mark it. I resisted the urge, eyes turning up to find a hand-painted masterpiece on the domed cathedral ceilings, crystal-drop chandelier hanging from the center.
It was more opulent than any theater I’d ever been to, and my mom had dragged me to a ton of Broadway performances as a kid. I still cringed, remembering all the times we’d walked the red carpet at a Broadway premier and she reminded me to straighten my back and smile like you've got a secret for the cameras. The camera loved a secret, she always cooed in gentle reminder.
“Never been to the penthouse before.” I watched her profile as she punched the button for the top floor.
“It’s nothing impressive.”
“Seen one penthouse, seen ’em all?” I huffed, hardly able to stand the stench of wealth that dripped from her unimpressed tone. She may have grown more beautiful in the years since we’d known each other, but she’d also grown more spoiled.
“Something like that.” Her tone was flat as the elevator doors dinged open and we stepped inside. Alone and quiet, we rode to the top.
When the doors dinged open again, she walked out without a word, slipping both of her heels off and tucking them under her arm as she touched the keypad to unlock her door.
I heard the soft snick of the deadbolt, and then she pushed the door wide. Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated the entire wall, from kitchen to living room to the hallway that led to the bedroom and the rest of the apartment—the city night lit up like fireflies in the darkness, the blanket of black that was Central Park almost mesmerizing in the sea of stars.
“Eighteen through twenty-two.” I hummed, walking past her, drawn to the windows like a moth. I could see my next piece da
ncing before my eyes already, the soft swirls of navy mixed with amber. Like a modern starry night, the yellow orbs of Park Avenue humming to life as far as the eyes could see.
“Excuse me?” She tossed her shoes onto the white sofa, padding to the open concept kitchen, with white cupboards flanked in white marble counters with white swirls of tile underneath. It was modern luxury, understated and minimalist, and somehow fit her perfectly.
“Your balconies. There’s twenty-four of them across the facade of your building. You are eighteen through twenty-two,” I offered, gaze finally settling on hers. She was coming at me, two freshly poured glasses of red wine in hand, one held out to me.
“Okay, I guess I never thought of that. Your brain looks at life in such a different way from mine.” She sat down on the couch, her all-black ensemble in stark contrast to the pure white sofa. “I always loved that about you.”
I nearly crushed the glass in my hand with her words. I hated that she had the ability to show me kindness when I didn’t even feel kind enough to help an old lady with her shopping bags.
“Don’t say that,” I gritted, sitting opposite her, stiff and painfully aware of how wrong I was in her space. How much I stood out, and how right Arthur was when he'd tried to shoo me off the property like a bum.
“I’ve had a shit day, okay, Jameson? I’m cool to hang for a while. I could use the distraction. I won’t even ask why you were lingering outside of my building tonight, because all I can think about is this glass of wine and forgetting that this day ever happened. Or week.” She paused, swirling her glass before tears filled her eyes and she glanced out the window. “Maybe the last two years.”
“The last two years? What could be that bad?” I asked the question just because I liked to hear her talk.
Her eyes cut back to mine. She shifted once and then took another swallow of wine. “Today I buried my dad.”
