~1:00 am, Thursday, January 5, 2017 ~

Reaching blindly across her pillows to get another tissue from her bedside table, Sigyn turned the page in her newest book purchase. This was it—the last page of Starboy.  In the next twenty seconds, the thrill of the first readthrough would be over. Sitting cross-legged here on her bed at one in the morning when she should be sleeping, she would finish Loki’s first novel, and it would absolutely crush her.

“Ugh, I’m not ready,” she whined, grabbing the whole box because one measly tissue would not suffice. She yanked it angrily through the thin plastic opening, frowning down at the now empty container.

Apparently, after shelling out fifty bucks of hard-earned cash for the gorgeous hardcover copy in the village yesterday, she should have swung by the CVS on Mulberry Street to buy another Kleenex box. Swiping the back of her hand across her wet cheeks, Sigyn tossed the useless empty thing haphazardly over her shoulder, then returned her eyes to the legitimately tear-stained page. Voice shaking, she read the written words aloud.

“I learned to lower my expectations to null quite some time ago, and now I don’t risk disappointment,” she paused, rubbing her watery eyes to clear her blurry vision, then took a deep breath. “It’s the best thing I ever did.  I still do it.  It’s called being present.  And presently, I want to find that girl.” Sniffle, wipe nose, deep breaths, get it together. “She may be right under my nose,” she continued, imagining Loki’s voice speaking the words, “or she might be on the other side of this train. Maybe her stop is Canal Street, just like mine.”  She paused again, her face crumpling.

Could one cry in little hearts instead of tears?  She felt like a damn cartoon character— an animated parody of a girl gone stupid for a boy.  Each word born from this unreal man was another piece of lead blasting through her chest, turning her heart and lungs into a bloody mess for him.

Wiping her eyes again, Sigyn continued reading, “Never doubt the beauty of smoke.  It hides a myriad of ugly flaws…”

She trailed off and put her face in her hands, her voice too hoarse from crying to read aloud anymore. Loki had used this “smoke” metaphor throughout the book. She was convinced this meant that the lead character’s existence was all smoke and mirrors, an apt illustration for this man who, 310 pages later, Loki still hadn’t given a name. He seemed almost like…a specter. A ghost of himself. A nameless starboy. A dying star.

Talk about a haunting theme; she wouldn’t even get the closure of knowing what name would go on the headstone. Lifting her head again, she ran both hands through her hair, tempted to pull it out from the extreme frustration. She just wanted to hear this guy say that his name was Loki, for hell’s sake.

Chest heaving, she sighed heavily.  When she had the pleasure of seeing Loki again eons from now on Saturday night, she would ask him what the guy’s name was.  Otherwise, she would continue literally reading into this starboy fellow, and seeing him as this smoky, vaporous shadow-self of the author. Setting her elbows on her knees, she leaned her weight on them, then picked the book up and flipped it over.

“Fuck, I love the way he writes,” she said, gazing at his picture on the back cover, unaware that she was biting her lip. This book had made her massive crush on him so much more unbearable.

Shaking her head, she flipped it over again, and silently read the last two paragraphs— 

Foot on the gas, sixth gear, 0 to 60, heart rate through that moonroof, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, but… Feel like burning rubber with me, gorgeous girl?  I caught you biting your lip when I pulled up to your building in these blacked out, ultra-expensive, custom-made wheels.  I’m a mess, but I swear you’ll love me.  I’ll take you on the ride of your life.  You’re too smart and far too well-read for me to teach you much of anything, but if you will just get in this goddamn car, I’ll show you how to live fast and die right.

“Oh, my word, Loki Odinson, you did not end it like that!” Sigyn shouted at her bedroom walls, slamming the book shut and bending forward to bury her face in her pillow. She needed moooore. How dare he ask her to get in the car, and just…just…leave the rest to her imagination?! “Oh, fuck no, boy.”

Growling like an extra deranged 28-year-old gremlin, she grabbed her phone and pulled up her previous messages with him.  She furiously tapped out a quick text and sent it without hesitation.

Sigyn:  Listen up, hotshot, this is an emergency situation. Starboy just gave me SERIOUS lady blue balls. Loki Odinson, you are literally the devil.

She doubted he would respond any time soon.  It was absurdly late, and presumably he was smart enough to silence his phone before bed.  However, if he had left the sound on for some highly irrational reason, then he deserved to be woken up from his precious slumber because he’d done this to her.

Angrily switching her lamp off, she flopped back onto the bed and groaned, too amped up to sleep. Certainly, scrolling through Instagram would just stimulate her brain further, but if her thoughts were already running 90 miles an hour to a certain writer’s apartment, then why not just moon over him on his @Lokiswriting account? There were several pics from inside his place, so even though she hadn’t been there in real life, she had a pretty good idea of the floorplan; it thrilled her architect brain to no end. His place was almost as gorgeous as him. Almost. 

After a few minutes of starry-eyed gawking, she checked her text screen again because she couldn’t help herself. She scowled at the screen. The message had been delivered, but unsurprisingly, he hadn’t read it.

Rolling her eyes, she sighed, annoyed with herself for letting even a sliver of hope wiggle its way into her head. She set her thumb on the power button to shut the whole thing down because it had let her down, but then something positively glorious appeared beneath her text.

Read 1:22 AM

Instantly, her lungs forgot how to breathe. Her jaw dropped, gaping at the screen like a dehydrated desert-traveler who’d just spotted running water for the first time in two days. Curling into a ball, she shoved her face into the pillow to stifle a dramatic whine.

So, he’d read her text—not exactly a star-aligning event. He’d only checked his messages because he’d forgotten to silence his phone, and thought someone had a legit emergency, only to discover it was just some crazy girl being weird as hell. Face still in her pillow, she whined again, this time from sheer embarrassment. Guaranteed, she would be left on read for several hours, which was so much worse. Despite herself, Sigyn lifted her head to look at the screen again…just in case.

Loki:  ...

“EEEEK!” she shrieked, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.  She shot upright and jumped off her bed, launching into a preemptive victory dance. 

“Calm down, calm down, calm down,” she hissed at herself, bouncing on her toes.

She threw her free hand over her mouth.  Her neighbors probably hated her for being so bloody loud tonight, what with all the whining and extremely vocal book commentary.  Never had a simple ellipsis sent her serotonin through the roof.  They’d gone out twice—Twice! —yet here he was, reading her dumbass text at an ungodly hour and not even making her wait three minutes for a reply?!  How he was able to pull this off without coming across as overeager, she would never know. Guys did not behave like this unless sex was a guaranteed outcome. She looked sideways then.

Wait a second, what if he thought my text was just the longer version of DTF?

Her lips pursing, she raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t meant it that way, but…sure, that too. She checked the screen again.

Loki:  …

Gritting her teeth, she growled under her breath, “For the love of everything, stop teasing me!”

Her patience idled at paper thin levels even at the best of times; this waiting game might genuinely break her brain.  His reply appeared in the conversation window that second, sparing her from a spontaneous accidental lobotomy, and her mouth fell into an open smile as she read through his long response, complete with full sentences, correct spelling, and everything. 

Loki:  Well hell. Look who it is. Sigyn Elena Frey. I was overjoyed to see your name on my phone. Emphasis on the word WAS. Listen, I will not stand for these unjust accusations. I do not recall FORCING you to read my book. Were you unaware of the associated risks? Critics suggested the FDA should’ve slapped a black box warning on the cover due to the overwhelmingly high rate of lethal blows that Starboy… ahem… thrusted…upon readers’ reproductive systems. All things considered, I’m glad you read it, and thank you for the impassioned review. Oh, and one more thing- did you intend to say that I am literally a *handsome* devil? Surely, you simply forgot to type that extremely relevant qualifying adjective? Oh, gorgeous girl, were you too flustered by your emergency situation to express yourself properly?

“If he calls me gorgeous girl one more time, he’s paying for my funeral,” Sigyn sighed, shivers shooting down her spine as her mind rocketed to heights far above a neon-lit concrete jungle.  Hands shaking as though she’d downed five espresso shots in one minute, she barely managed to type a reply.

Sigyn:  I didn’t expect you to be awake.

Loki:  I wasn’t. You woke me up, ma’am.

“Ma’am?” she snorted, oddly hearing his voice say that in an American southern accent.

Sigyn:  You could have put your phone on silent, SIR.

Loki: …

The ellipses disappeared, then reappeared, then disappeared again. She chewed her lip, the back and forth screwing with her head.  Maybe her tone had been too sarcastic.  Maybe she should call him instead.  Or facetime? 

Loki:  Okay, you can’t just throw that word around.

Head tilting, she pursed her lips, slightly confused.

Sigyn:  Which word?

Loki:  Please avoid calling me “sir” outside of extremely specific contexts.

A slow smirk spread across her face. “Ohhhhh, kink plot twist,” she cooed, more than a little interested to get the details concerning his specific contexts.  

Sigyn:  please elaborate

“You have the right to remain silent, sir,” she said, still smirking, “because everything you disclose from this point forward can and will be used against you in a bedroom, sir.”  

Loki:  And give you the upper hand? I think bloody not.

“Dammit,” she sighed, clucking her tongue, “plan foiled.”

Sigyn:  smart boy

Loki:  Obviously.

Sigyn:  With one exception...you don’t silence your phone at night.

Loki:  Of course, I silence my phone, woman. I still get alerts from favorite contacts.

Her eyes widened for a split second before becoming unbelievably heavy.  She blinked slowly, glowing from the inside out, floating above her body in a drug-like haze.

Sigyn:  You added me to your favorites list? I feel so special.

Loki:  Maybe I lied. Maybe I’m not even awake. Maybe I’m just sleep-texting. 

Squinting at the words, she raised an eyebrow. “Do what?” She read it again, then laughed out loud.

Sigyn:  My dyslexic brain read that as leep sexting.

Loki:  Sexting? After only two dates? That would indeed be quite a leap.

“For the love, stop being so cute,” she whispered, smiling at her phone.

Sigyn:  Nice pun. Perhaps “leep” sexting is an actual thing.

Loki:  I believe that’s called Tinder, gorgeous girl.

“There he goes again,” she sighed, the warm glow in her stomach getting warmer, turning her insides to liquid sunshine. “Shit, I am literally getting high off of this man.” 

Sigyn:  Okay I REALLY need you to stop calling me that 

Loki:  Hell no, woman. This is clearly a winning strategy.

Closing her eyes, she grinned, unsure which type of high best described her present reality. Drunk? Doped up? Rolling? Tripping? Post-climax oxytocin rush? All five at once? No matter what, the FDA should slap a black box warning on Loki himself— 

WARNING: ADDICTION.

Sigyn:  you can stop because you already won. Congratulations

Loki:  Is that so? Does it then follow that I’ll receive an award?

She bit into a smile, practically feeling the horns sprouting from the top of her head.

Sigyn:  Depends. What do you want? A hug?

Loki:  You must be joking. Call me greedy, but I would prefer that you offer more than the ONLY thing we’ve already done, Sig.

Seeing him shorten her name like that, she let out a quiet little whine, imagining his voice saying it right now. No one else had ever called her Sig. It had slipped from his mouth at Fanelli’s, and it sounded so…right. Given that he had not switched back to her full name since then, he must have sensed that she really liked it. Climbing back onto her bed, she sat on her ankles, and stared out her window, thinking of the way Sig rolled off his tongue.

Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t help but fixate on that “rolled off his tongue” phrase. It was downright criminal that his tongue still hadn’t rolled against hers. Her ego was trapped in cope mode, pointing out that he grabbed her hand at each turn, and that his hugs were basically foreplay, for god’s sake, forcing her to arch her spine and mold herself against him for at least ten seconds. He’d even slid his hand up into her hair when he hugged her last night after their dinner date, and if that move wasn’t erotic, she didn’t know what was.  Her phone buzzed in her palm, and she dropped her eyes to the new message in their conversation.

Loki:  Fair warning- what I want necessarily requires extremely close physical contact.

Mouth falling open, Sigyn’s heart took off faster than a formula-one car. She stared at the screen, waiting for the details. However, ten seconds passed and still nothing, not even an ellipsis. Making a face, she flung up her hands. That was it? Really? She bent forward, banging her forehead softly into the bedcover.

“Evil man,” she growled through her teeth, then sat up and gathered her hair in one hand to pull it up off her neck. Someone must have cranked the radiator to the eternal-lake-of-fire setting.  She should expect nothing less while texting with a self-proclaimed handsome devil.

Sigyn:  Well what is it?

“Guess this is what it means to sweat like a sinner in church,” she complained, hurrying to her window to crack it. When she set her chin on the sill, reveling in the heaven-sent cold air, his answer appeared.

Loki:  I’ll tell you on Saturday, gorgeous girl.

“WHAT?!” she scoffed at the screen, angrily typing a reply as the excited butterflies in her stomach turned into a swarm of unbearably thirsty, buzzing bees.

Sigyn:  WRITERS AND THEIR GODDAMN CLIFFHANGERS

Dragging both hands down her face, she groaned.

Loki:  Sweet dreams, Sig. x

Rolling her eyes, she turned her phone off and threw it on her bed.  She would not dignify his devious little teasing game with a response.

---

~ 9:27 am, Saturday, January 7, 2017 ~

One hand on the strap of his gym bag that he’d slung over his shoulder, Loki breezed through the glass doors of Falcon Fitness on the corner of Grand and Thompson.  The young woman behind the post-workout juice bar on his right looked up from her phone and flashed a bright smile as he walked past her.

“Killin it with the wayfarers as always, Prince Lo,” she half-mumbled, teeth still biting the straw in her green drink. “Sam and Bucky started without you ten minutes ago, just so you know.”

Spinning on his heel, Loki pulled his sunglasses down just enough to look at her over the bridge and walked backwards toward the weight racks where his friends—more like one friend and one trainer—were alternating bench presses.

“For the thousandth time, Chloe,” he sighed, shooting a playful glare at her, “I have a first name.” He pushed his glasses back up, then turned around and called to her over his shoulder, “Use it.”

“My bad, LO,” she said, waving a flippant hand at him before slurping loudly through the straw and focusing on her phone once more.

Loki rolled his eyes, walking toward the locker room door just beyond his gym mates.

“Nice work, JB,” he said, giving a thumbs up to Bucky who appeared to be dying on the bench while attempting to press an extremely heavy bar up off his chest.

“Hey…Lo…” Bucky grunted in response, barely managing to get the bar back onto the rack. He sat up, red-faced and breathing hard. “Sam’s ready to murder you.”

“Twenty. Seven. Damn. Minutes. Late.” Sam pointed out, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat off the bench. He gestured for Bucky to get up so he could take his place. “This starboy right here-” he pointed to Loki “-is my only client who gets to pull this shit with me. Everyone else gets the boot.”

Pausing by the locker room entrance, Loki pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. “I wonder if your generosity of spirit has anything to do with my uniquely generous financial support.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Probably unrelated. Be out in two.”

Laughing quietly, he disappeared into the locker room to put away his bag and jacket. He set his sunglasses on the top shelf in his locker, peeled his hooded sweatshirt over his head, and sank down on the teak bench between the rows of lockers, his back bowing as he set his elbows on his knees. His heels couldn’t stop bouncing for two bloody seconds, but sitting still was an impossible pipe dream this morning.  He was just far too amped up about seeing Sig tonight, every muscle and nerve ending twitching like he’d OD’ed on RedBull.

He could not get the specific image of his head between her legs out of his mind. If he closed his eyes, he could practically feel her fingers threading through his hair.

“Fuck,” he said through his teeth, putting his face in his hands.

His joggers were in no shape to handle those highly graphic images in public right now, and yet here he was, stupidly putting them in this unnecessary situation.  He’d almost called the gym to say that he wouldn’t make it today, and he highly regretted vetoing that decision just to appease the voice in his head telling him that missing a gym session “because anxiety” was objectively weak.

He hadn’t seen Sig since Tuesday because his sister Hela had come down from Boston for a few days. Fine fine fine. Four days between dates wasn’t anything to cry about.  Except of course for the near-nauseating building tension in his texts and short phone calls with this incredible new woman. To say that he ached to get his hands on her again, would literally be accurate.

He had not been mentally prepared to handle the days-long break from Sig. Hela had given him a 3-week heads up that she would be in town and staying with their folks down in Tribeca. Great! No problem! Sig would be at work anyway, so he could simply go to his parents’ place to hang out with his sister during the day, maybe grab lunch, or visit MOMA or something. Then he could still go out with gorgeous girl in the evening. Or if Hela wanted to get dinner, then he could possibly see Sig during her lunch break. It would have worked out just fine. However, his sister called him Tuesday night and begged to camp out at his place instead.

Serious family drama starring dad, as usual.  

He’d been at The Dutch up on Sullivan, jokingly arguing with Sig about paying for dinner again when suddenly Hela had just sprung this on him—calling him from the entrance of his building, crying over the phone and asking to come up to his apartment. Of course, he’d said a quick goodnight to his stunning date and hurried back to his place because that’s what any good brother would do.

Not that he didn’t love his sister, but she’d swept in to occupy his space when he’d planned to ask Sigyn to come back to his place. He wouldn’t have slept with Sig because that would have been a massive leap from point A to point Z, but good god, he wanted to kiss the hell out of her, and he couldn’t exactly do that inside the restaurant. The most he could have done was a peck on the lips.  Maintain decorum, closed mouths, three seconds max, absolutely no hip-touching.

“Not my style,” Loki mumbled to himself, lifting his head from his hands.

The locker room door swung open behind him then, its squeaky hinges pulling him from the edgy confines of his mind, and he turned to see Bucky walking in.

“Sam had to take a call,” Bucky said, gesturing at the door behind him, “and you passed your ‘be out in two’ time limit.  Everythin’ okay, man?”

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki looked away. “You know how you felt back in November when you first hooked up with Lewis?”

“Hooked up?” Bucky repeated, walking over to sit down on the opposite bench. “Darcy’s my girlfriend, not some fuck buddy.”

Loki gave him a withering look. “Thus, my use of the qualifying adverb first,” he droned.

Rolling his eyes, Bucky yanked his backwards ball cap off his head and whacked Loki’s knee with it. “Your qualifyin’ adverbs can go to hell,” he laughed, then put his hat on again. “You seein’ someone?”

Loki grinned slightly. “It’s still really early, but the connection is unreal.”

“You must be hallucinatin’ again.”

“If I am, then this is the best psychotic break of my life,” Loki answered, smiling when his friend snorted. “Honest to god dream girl.”

“Dream girl? Man, keep your crazy head on your shoulders,” Bucky said, then held his hands up. “Sorry. No offense about the crazy thing,” he added when Loki gave him an unimpressed look.

“I don’t recall asking for advice,” Loki said, the crease between his eyebrows reaching Mariana Trench depths.

“Not givin’ advice,” Bucky replied, shaking his head. “Wanna hear my personal dating philosophy?”

“No.”

“Great! I’m tellin’ it to you anyway,” Bucky said, not missing a beat. “I remind myself that everyone is only human. It’s the only thing that grounds me when I start to put someone on a pedestal ‘cause they’re doin’ all the right things to make me feel good about myself.  Eventually they’ll do or say something that makes me feel like shit, and it all starts to go to hell real quick.”

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki squinted at the man, slightly distracted by that ridiculous backwards ball cap. “You expect the worst to avoid disappointment.”

“Yup.”

“Hmm.” Loki scratched the back of his neck, eyeing Bucky from under his brow. “Really need to put on my thinking cap for that deeply profound take right there,” he said, tapping his head, “otherwise, I might mistake your personal philosophy for what the kids these days refer to as basic pessimism.”

Bucky lifted his chin, responding in a mock British accent. “Oh, go ahead, and call me a pessimist, not to be confused with NIHILIST-” he made air quotes “-if you want.  That’s fine.  I learned to lower my expectations to null quite some time ago, and now I don’t risk disappointment.  It’s the best-”

“-best thing I ever did,” Loki finished the sentence for him, his eyes rolling. “You are literally just repeating a paragraph from my book now, and I don’t know if I should feel insulted or proud. Shit impression of my voice by the way.”

“I still do it,” Bucky continued the quote, smiling broadly. “It’s called being present, and presently, I want to-”

“-to find that girl,” Loki said the last few words in unison with him. “Yes, yes, I know. Piss off, JB.”

The conversation with his friend calmed Loki’s nerves just enough to deal with the next two hours of anaerobic metabolic hell that Sam had planned for them.  Admittedly, there was that one set of shoulder presses when Loki almost thrust the 90-pound barbell at his trainer, but aside from that near-fatal burst of testosterone-fueled anger, it had been a decent gym session.  Sliding his sunglasses on, Loki waved goodbye to Chloe at the front desk around 11:30, anxious to get home and get out of his sweat-soaked clothes.  His tired muscles had earned a long hot shower.  Especially since he intended to put them through another workout tonight.

---

~ 7:32 PM, Sigyn’s apartment, 159 Prince Street #8 ~

Phone in hand, Sigyn pulled her bedroom curtain aside to look out her window, her teeth digging into her bottom lip as she focused on the intersection of Prince and Thompson Street, one block west of her building. The knots in her stomach could not get any tighter. Loki lived on Thompson, and he would round that corner any second now. She’d gotten a text from him ten minutes ago asking if he could just come to her place and order in rather than go out for dinner, and she’d damn near lost her mind on the spot. 

She could have texted “Be my guest, Loki. No, seriously, be my overnight guest. I’ll even give you my bed” but she went with a less horny “sure, just text me when you get here” response instead, forgetting that he didn’t even know her address. Whoops—forgive her for thinking he knew everything about her, including her constant GPS location, since he now lived rent free in her brain.

Squinting her eyes, she looked from person to person walking on the surprisingly crowded, wet pavement three stories below.  She pushed up onto her toes, annoyed with the umbrellas obstructing her view. She didn’t appreciate having to strain her neck to see the street corner better. Sighing, she dropped her heels to the floor again and checked her phone.

7:36 PM. No new texts or missed calls.

She returned her eyes to the pavement below. “Where are you, Loki?”

Chest pounding, she chewed her bottom lip as the umbrellas finally moved aside at the exact second a tall, black-haired figure in a leather jacket, slim dark trousers, and boots came around the corner of Thomspon and Prince. She blinked slowly, admiring his gait, which could only be described as a god-like strut, as he neared her building. She saw him pull his phone from his pocket, presumably texting her, and she took off toward her front door.

“Cool it!” she whisper-shouted to herself, slowing her pace down the stairs.  She eyed the new text on her phone.

Loki: I’m standing outside your building, and oh god, please come down here NOW to let me in, Sig. I left my place sans umbrella (because I am a highly intelligent man), and this rain is causing GREAT harm to my defenseless leather jacket. x

Chuckling at the image of a poor defenseless leather jacket, she grabbed the door handle and yanked hard, the door swinging open and accidentally banging into the wall behind it.

Startled by the sudden clang of metal on brick, Loki jumped, his eyes blowing wide.

“Son of a…” he gasped, blinking rapidly, “I wasn’t ready for a jump scare.”

“Welcome to my haunted house of horrors,” Sigyn joked, sweeping her arm out dramatically, smiling wide and trying not to laugh at his mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.

She stepped back, holding the door open for him. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” she said, her cheeks flushing deep red. Talk about a Freudian slip. “Wet jacket. I meant to say jacket. Sorry.”

“I know what you meant, Sig,” Loki replied, giving her a dark look, the dim light from the juice store window next door casting shadows on the tightening muscles in his jaw.

He stepped into her building, spinning around to face her as she let the door close behind her. She met his gaze again, struggling to keep it together because if looks could kill, she would drop dead at his feet when her vital organs spontaneously combusted from the heat in those intense emerald eyes. If that didn’t do the trick, then the carbon dioxide poisoning from excessive heavy breathing would—he’d stolen all the available oxygen in the hall away from her.

A decent man would share some of that air in his lungs by giving her mouth to mouth.  An exceptionally decent man would do so with his tongue.  Paramedics of course referred to this as French CPR.  Speaking of mouths, he was looking at hers, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, though not in a lascivious manner.  No, if someone asked her to name the expression on his face, she would go with…fiercely pensive.

And I am fiercely into it.

Stunned speechless by the head rush she was experiencing from just looking at him, Sigyn moved away from the door and leaned back against the wall for support. She needed a moment before attempting to climb three flights of stairs. Actually, now would be a great time for Loki to prove that he could carry her up there. She bit her lip, her gaze traveling down his body, unconsciously gauging just how much power those long, lean legs could generate.

Good lord, woman, stop ogling his crotch!

Cheeks burning, her eyes shot back up to his face. He still had that same lethal look in his eyes, and oh god, it was just too much. Sure, a clock might claim only fifteen seconds had passed since the no doubt expensive designer soles of Loki’s boots first met the tile floor under their feet, but time was relative when having an hours-long staring contest with him. Desperate to break the tense silence before that silence broke her brain, she cleared her throat. The harsh, guttural sound reverberated all around them, violently bouncing back and forth off the brick walls, tile floors, wood steps, and doors.  Perhaps she was imagining things, but she would have sworn that the wall behind her back was shaking.

Pushing off the wall, she threw up her hands helplessly. “Where are my manners? Up to number eight on floor three, we go,” she chimed, forcing an airy tone while setting her foot on the first stair and gesturing for him to follow.

Looking up at her from under his brow, Loki watched her start up the steps. The seconds moved forward, keeping time with the heels of Sigyn’s ballet flats ascending the stairs, along with the blood rushing through his ears, and the hiss of his own breaths in and out of his parted lips. 

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH…

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH…

Tick… TAP… whirr… SWISH… 

Nostrils flaring, he exhaled long and slow through his mouth, pissed that he couldn’t bloody move. Sig was up there, and he was down here, frozen to the tile floor like an ice statue all because the driving staccato beats from spontaneous percussive echos in the stairwell-turned-concert-hall were pressing in on him from all sides and triggering a disastrous claustrophobic brain malfunction. The building door swung open behind him then, and he nearly jumped out of skin.

“Jesus,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose as the person who had just entered the building walked around him. Would there also be a third jump scare coming soon?

“Sorry, dude,” the person said, nodding to Loki then hurrying up the stairs past Sigyn, shouting at her over their shoulder, “Looking good, Sigyn.”

“Thanks, Sterling, you too,” she responded, twisting to look at Loki, her eyebrows raising in question. “Why so jumpy? I promise the house of haunted horrors thing was just a joke.” She beamed at his responding raspy laugh.

“I’m just a bit on edge for reasons unrelated to ghosts,” he admitted, looking her up and down, suddenly highly aware of her marvelously revealing outfit—a short, out of season black, off the shoulder t-shirt sporting a large purple lipstick print across her chest, and possibly illegal short red cutoffs.

Jaw clenching, he lifted his eyes to hers again as an adult content bomb detonated in his head, blasting every conscious thought with explicit scenes starring himself and that legs-for-days woman standing above him. Now the walls weren’t pressing in on him— just the dark denim below his belt. Running both hands through his hair, he walked to the base of the stairs, and crooked his forefinger at her, motioning for her to come back down to him.

 “You texted me several nights ago,” he said, darkly watching her descend the steps achingly slowly, “and I promised to tell you what I want tonight. I want to tell you now, if that’s alright with you.” 

Sigyn nodded, white knuckling the railing like a steering wheel in the hands of a driver getting pulled over by a traffic cop. That “I’ll tell you Saturday” text had occupied far too much space in her head this week. He was probably a sorcerer, and those four words were a sex spell. If not, then she was just weak as hell for him, which was fine, so long as he was just as weak for her. She finally came face to face with him, her stomach somersaulting itself into a dizzy mess, but rather than join him on the floor, she stopped on the bottom step to give herself a bit of height.

I need to keep SOME semblance of power in this…sort of…relationship…thing.

Loki glanced at their feet, then he returned his eyes to her face, giving her a knowing look when she lifted her chin. Such a smart girl—literally not giving him an inch. 

“So,” Sigyn said, clearing her throat, “what do you want?”

“I want to carry you up three flights of stairs to your apartment right now,” he responded firmly and without hesitation, keeping his eyes on hers.

Jaw dropping, her eyes shot wide open.

OH MY GOD, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

Barely managing to reel her jaw up off the floor, she stammered, “You mean…like the thing I said when we were at-”

“Fanelli, yes,” he cut her off, setting his hands on her hips just below her shirt and slipping his thumbs underneath the fabric, “and I’m not talking about that over-the-threshold nonsense.”

Sigyn blinked lazily, feeling that gravelly timbre rumbling deep in her bones as surely as she felt the scorch marks from his thumbs dragging across her lower stomach. How could a man know her for only one week and have the audacity to already brand his name into her skin? Her mind supplied the answer.

Because you’re letting him, hon.

She opened her mouth to give him a classy “fuck yes” response to his request, but Loki shook his head and put a finger to his lips. 

“If we do this, we’re doing it my way,” he rasped, tightening his grip, “with your legs around my waist and your arms around my shoulders.”  

She nodded, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Understood.”

Gritting his teeth behind closed lips, Loki exhaled sharply, and got straight to it. He ran his hands down her hips and around to her backside, watching her carefully, his heart racing out the gate when her eyebrows knitted together. If he didn’t know better, he might think she was in pain, but the little gasp escaping from her parted lips spoke louder. That wasn’t a look of pain. It was a look of impatience.

Me too, Sig.

Growling softly under his breath, he gripped her ass and hoisted her up against his stomach, smirking at the sight of her teeth scraping over her bottom lip. He started up the stairs, one foot after the other, climbing higher and higher with her in his arms. This was the no holds barred physical contact that he’d been aching for—his splayed fingers sliding underneath the back of her shorts that had ridden up when he’d lifted her, dragging the denim aside to expose more of that stunning curve. His hands were so happy, clinging to her as she clung to his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. He groaned as her grip tightened.

Consider my hair kink triggered.

He was tempted to stop here on the second-floor landing and just make out against the wall, but that wouldn’t be fun with his ego incessantly screaming “ABSOLUTELY not!” at him. Hefting her higher up his body, the front of her shorts pressed directly against the fly of his jeans, and he hissed sharply.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

Twelve stairs later, he set his boot on the third floor. “Which one is yours?” he asked, gripping her thighs more tightly when she started to relax them.

“Number 8,” she answered shakily, pointing behind him, and he swiveled toward the door with a gold number 8 on it. “You don’t need to take me all the way into-”

“Key?” He spoke over her, completely breathless.

Dropping one hand from his shoulders, she pulled her key from her back pocket, shoved it in the lock, and twisted the doorknob. Putting her arm around his shoulders again, she clung to him as he walked in and kicked the door closed behind him. Her mouth fell open when it slammed behind her. Was she in a goddamn movie right now? This was officially the hottest moment of her life thus far.

Loki walked straight to her studio couch, then carefully set her down on the back of it.  She relaxed her legs, unlocking her ankles from behind his back and dropping her feet to the floor. Arms still around his shoulders, she pulled him closer, and he grinned down at her.

“Told you I could do it,” he said, angling his face to avoid bumping her nose.

“You said you could do it easily, but you’re panting like you just finished a marathon,” Sigyn teased him, pushing his poor defenseless wet leather jacket over his shoulders and helping him shrug out of the sleeves, “which means you only passed half the test of manhood.”

Eyeing her narrowly, he draped his jacket over the back of the couch next to her. “I’m breathing hard because your legs took advantage of my crotch on those stairs.”

“Oh, you literally asked me to!” she scoffed.

“Sure, just blame the victim.”

“Did I force you to grab my ass?”

“No, gravity forced me. You see, Sig, there’s this technique called leverage-”

“Shut up,” she said on an exhale, trying to get her own heart rate back down from the tachycardic cloud nine high that Loki had given her.

He grinned crookedly. “So…what now? Netflix?”

Biting into a smile, she shrugged and reached for her PS4 controller behind her on the cushions below. “Genre preference?”

Before she got a hold of it, Loki grabbed her hips and flipped her backwards onto the cushions.

“Jesus!” she gasped, landing with a thud, her eyes popping as he literally hurled his body over the back of the couch after her.

Landing on his knees at her feet, he smirked and crawled up her body, his hips settling between her thighs. She reached up to hold his face, her thumbs running along his jaw as her mouth fell open in wonder. He moved fast then, closing his eyes and swooping down to catch her parted lips with his. Sliding her tongue under his on impact, Sigyn moaned into his mouth. Fireworks shot off a dozen at a time inside his chest, the explosions rippling out in all directions up and down his body as she arched up into him. Beneath his chest, he felt her heart pounding faster, catching up to his at breakneck speed.

Heart rate through that moonroof, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, Sig…

Then, Sigyn slid her hands up into his hair, and moved her mouth to his ear. “This is me getting in the goddamn car.”

Eyes slamming shut, Loki pulled her mouth to his for another kiss, even more heated than before.

And this is me putting my foot on the gas, gorgeous girl…

~Sunday, January 1, 2017, 7:52AM, Manhattan, NYC~

“Almost…home,” Loki muttered between heavy breaths as he slowed his pace from a run to a jog and finally came to a stop at the corner of Church and Canal Street.

Slamming his left palm into the crosswalk button, he whipped his phone out of his right jacket pocket, and switched hands, yanking his right glove off with his teeth to use the touchscreen.  He was on the latter half of his daily lap around the lower west side, and despite listening to his supposedly motivational running playlist, he felt like sinking to the ground, putting his head between his knees, and staying there until someone called 911 out of concern for the absurdly sexy, though apparently catatonic human icicle on the sidewalk.  He bent down, trying to shield his phone from the drizzle as he scrolled through his playlist, hoping one of the tracks would stand out as a decent candidate.  Scroll, scroll, scroll—dull, blah, meh, ugh, eh, no, no, pass, oh HARD pass.  

“Dammit,” Loki hissed, glancing up at the cross-traffic light.  He scowled at the thing.

Evil, purposefully inconvenient machine, how are you STILL green??

Annoyed to no end, he returned his gaze to his phone, clouds of breath escaping his mouth and fogging up the cold screen.  Naturally, this turned the words into indecipherable blurry-lettered blobs.

Eyes rolling, he unzipped his jacket just enough to slide his phone inside, then rubbed it in circles on his shirt to dry off the screen.  He removed it once more, careful to not breathe directly on it this time, and resumed scrolling.  He frowned at the song titles.

Love is a Suicide?  Something to Die For?  Leave a Trace?  Love Without Tragedy?  Point of No Return?  Burn the Witch?  Wasted Youth?

Sucking in his cheeks, he looked sideways.

I’m sensing a pattern here, he mused, his lips pursing.

Usually, he interpreted the sounds blasting through his Air Pods as “the love, the hate, two sides, same coin, so…what the hell…might as well just put it in drive and see where I end up because it’s better than staying in one spot for fear of doing something wrong when it’s all a neutral coin toss.”  But today? —not so much.  No, the thumping bass in his ears only magnified a dreadful sense of urgency more along the lines of “my life is a ticking time bomb, my body has an expiration date, and dear god, not knowing the date scares the hell out of me.”  Would it be next year?  A few decades from now?  What was the average life expectancy?  75?  80?  If he made it that far, he’d be 80-years old in…um…wait…

Eyebrows pulling together, he scratched the back of his neck.

How old am I again? 33? I think? I lost count…goddammit, what year is this now? 2017?

Shoulders slumping at his ineptitude with numbers, he groaned softly.  Once again, he was allowing New Year’s Day to screw with his head.  This hyper self-critical analysis of the previous year was a beloved annual tradition that brought with it as much joy as the forced familial civility at his parents’ holiday dinner.   Happy Christmas, and god bless us all for not giving in to that hour-long desire to stab each other with our fancy forks.  Now get out of here because someone’s unaddressed daddy issues are two seconds from turning this place into a bloodbath.  Loki closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as his 2016 mental scrapbook flipped through the pages of its own accord.

That near-fatal split with his ex from the inside of a NYPD precinct jail cell in March had been such fun.  Sheer joy.  All treats, no tricks.  The best. 

Also in March, he’d survived that slightly less anxiety-laden moment in his editor’s office while awaiting her response to Starboy, his first and hopefully not last novel.  He’d been in a panic, positively terrified that the oft-terrifying Ms. Sharon Seder would rip the red pen out of the pen holder on her desk, draw one huge X across the front page, and throw the whole thing back in his face.  However, she’d looked him in the eye and said what every man in the world wanted to hear —

“My verdict? STUNNING.”

Even now, nearly a year later while waiting for this streetlight to change, Loki still felt a bit of weight lifting from his shoulders at the memory of those words.  He smirked a little, recalling what he’d said to her after she’d offered her verdict.

“I get that a lot, Sharon, though you’re the first to say it in an office setting.”

He stared dead-eyed at the crosswalk sign across the street. “Brilliant, expertly-timed innuendo,” he chuckled—a gravelly, unamused sound—under his breath. “My one superpower.”

Dropping his unseeing gaze once more to his playlist, he rolled his thumb up and down the screen, staring pointlessly at the song titles.  He shrugged his shoulders, preoccupied with analyzing the snapshots popping up on the inside wall of his skull as he clicked through the “LO in 2016” slides housed safely in a closely-guarded imaginary projector.

Starboy was a memoir that no one on the planet should have given two shits about.  New Yorkers might have known the name Loki Odinson, but certainly not the entire country, much less the world at large.  Even though his real-estate savvy father (dubbed “King Odin” by some insipid Bloomberg writer) had given the Manhattan elite 80 million reasons to know anyone with the Odinson name—reasons that were dispersed across multiple banks and accounts and capital assets—that hardly meant any of them would want to read a fictional novel about the youngest Odinson’s bad boy antics.  Loki had assumed that it would be written off immediately as 300 pages of narcissistic waxing poetic about the “struggles” faced by yet another angsty white male living in New York. He’d been wrong.  So wrong.

Somehow, in spite of his almost entirely unrelatable lifestyle, he’d successfully highlighted the relatable human struggles amidst the absurdity of fast cars, rock stars, rooftop bars, and sex-laden boudoirs—namely, a lifetime of hiding his ugliest scars. He’d started writing it two summers ago in a…near…final…moment of desperation, and he’d been transparent about that humbling moment during his press tour before his novel hit the bookstore shelves last July.

“Starboy saved my life, and I mean that in every sense of the word, because if I hadn’t started writing it…um…” Loki had paused, carefully considering his next words during that GMA interview last June, “God, I don’t want to trigger anyone here, especially not on a morning show, so, let’s just say that summer 2015 was the lowest point of my life.”

Loki’s novel was released with near-unanimous praise from every lit-crit on the planet, and come September 2016, it had scored the coveted #1 newcomer spot on the NYT-bestseller list.  His 2016 success compounded rapidly from there.  Blue-check verified @LokisWriting on Twitter and Instagram earned 100K new followers.  GQ magazine made “Star Boy Novel Style: Loki Odinson” the cover article in their November issue.

Also in November, he’d purchased that gorgeous 8th floor Soho apartment with sweeping floor to ceiling views of the city that he’d been salivating over for three years.  Ultimately, he’d earned just under a million USD, putting his net worth somewhere around nine and a half million, and thank goodness for it—he’d been running low on disposable income to buy shit he didn’t need. 

“So grateful, aren’t we,” he scoffed to himself.

Demonic ex-girlfriend situation notwithstanding, he should feel liberated and justified by his massive achievements of the last year. But no.  He still needed to do more.  He needed to be more.  More, more, more.  What “more” he needed to do or be, Loki didn’t know.  He only knew that writing a bestseller didn’t cut it.  More money in the bank didn’t cut it either.  The new apartment didn’t cut it.  The fame status leveling up didn’t cut it.  Sweet as most of them were, stans blowing up his mentions didn’t cut it.  Increasing numbers of “hot” socialites and influencers crowding him any time he took part in the lower west side nightlife absolutely did not cut it.

God, please no—I already had enough trendsetting, plastic dolls trying to get in my trousers BEFORE Starboy.

He rolled his eyes, knowing the thoughts running 90 miles an hour through his head right now would earn him zero victim points and possibly get him thrown in Twitter jail for calling women “plastic dolls” —hashtag NOT ALL! Listen up, Tweeps, many of those plastics were of the male persuasion, so, perhaps the internet cancel party attendees should check themselves for making heteronormative assumptions concerning his overly-privileged, insane takes.

But honestly, setting aside the pinpoint accuracy of any accusation of “insanity” aimed at him, he doubted that he would ever get over his “never satisfied with ANYTHING” attitude.  Apparently, no amount of “success” would ever give him the permission to take a break from his constant pursuit of identity.  

Quietly groaning under his breath, Loki stared daggers at the passing cars. The light was still green, and he still hadn’t landed on the right song.  There were too many choices!  It was for this reason that he always stared stupidly at waiters after listening to them list twenty different salad dressings.  Just…just forget it.  Bring out a plate of plain greens or whatever.  He should probably appreciate the fact that he could quite literally afford to overthink his first-world problems.

Oh look.  I am ruminating again.  Shocking.

As though his head wasn’t already in a vice thanks to this post-New-Year’s hangover, he also just had to continue this months-long spiral into the darker side of madness.  He made a face then.

Did I just say…the darker side of madness?  

Jaw tightening, he scoffed, “Stars above, I need help.” More help than even his shrink could provide.  The good doctor no doubt questioned her ability to help Loki at every appointment, especially that first one four years ago.  He’d seen it all over her face—wide-eyed, one eyebrow comically raised—while reading over his intake form.

Last Name: Odinson.  First Name: Loki.  Middle (optional): Oh, this one is optional?  Then, it won’t matter if I just make up an answer.  My middle name is Mischief.
DOB: 17 Feb 1983.  Age: Uh, 30? I wrote my birthdate, so YOU do the math.
Today’s date: Give me a moment to check my phone.  It claims that today is 22 Feb 2013. Thrilling information.
Street Address: 118 Spring Street #3 *this will not be my address for long because I MUST move somewhere with a view. I’m looking at 55 Thompson, and I WILL have it by the end of the Obama era, mark my words.  City: New York. State: NY. Zip: 10012.  Phone: (212) 864-3387. Consider yourself lucky to get my digits.
Height: 6’2. That’s code for “perfect” by the way.  Weight: Not sure why this matters, unless you’re trying to gather how difficult it would be to drag me to a padded room.  Last I checked, I was 180. So...fairly difficult.
Marital Status: I’ve received dozens of marriage proposals, four of which were deadly serious, and I am proud to say that I refused all of them.
Sex: GOD-LIKE MALE. (capitalized for extreme emphasis). *If this question was code for “sex or Nah?” my answer is “you wish, peasant”.
Sexual orientation (optional): Maybe I should say “straight” because I’m a man who is not attracted to men(at least those who my brain interprets as “men” upon a quick glance), but I don't really know, and I don’t even care. Is orientation based on attraction to sex or gender or both? Whatever. My answer to this one: N/A.
Gender Identity (optional): I sort of answered this in the previous section, didn’t I?  Well, to clarify, I’m a man, and I sometimes paint my nails black when I can’t sleep.  The monotony of the action quiets my mind. That, and the fumes make my head spin like I just popped four Xans.  NOW you can properly psychoanalyze me.
Occupation: Day job(eh): Contributing Editor/writer for 12 literary journals/magazines (Harpers and The New Yorker are probably the only ones you know) I’d prefer to be an author of a legitimate full-length published standalone novel, but that would require actually finishing one of the dozens of half-completed stories on my hard drive. *TLDR: FAILSON.
Highest education level: Oh, see this is where my need to be the smartest in the room propels me to list every academic achievement of my life, of which there are many.  For your sake, however, I’ll follow the instructions and only provide the highest level, which is a Masters degree. *summa cum laude from Harvard, by the way. See what I did there?  I subverted the system and got a bit...smart...with you.
Known chronic mood/mental disorders (provide the name of the prescribing MD and the date/s of diagnosis): Type 1 Bipolar Disorder (I know you’re shocked by that one) and Attention Deficit Disorder (I think it should be renamed “painfully creative disorder”...but that’s just me).  Both were diagnosed by the wonderful Dr. Louise Schneider, attending MD at Mount Sinai.  BPD in May 2011 and ADD in October 2012.
Reason for your visit today: I was scheduled for an insanity-check...sorry… “quarterly check-up” with my previous psychiatrist, the aforementioned Dr. Schneider, but she died in a car accident two weeks ago at only 48 years old.  I feel blindsided.  I know it’s possible to die “before one’s time” (what time is that? how is it determined?) but… Schneider?—My mind had me convinced that she was immortal. It’s disconcerting on another level.  As you can see, I have a talent for taking someone else’s tragedy and turning it into something about me. I imagine her children are beside themselves with grief, but the only real victim is me because it inconveniences me to search for a new doctor. Well, lucky for you, I’m here to interview you for the job.  Hope you’re cut out for it; as you can see, I’m quite the headcase.  But don’t let that scare you off.  I pay handsomely.  As in, I hand over my credit card every time we meet, and I’m incredibly good-looking while doing so.  You’re welcome.

((Admin only: Asked Loki if his answers on this intake form were meant to be satirical; his response was “those answers are more genuine than your hair color, doctor.” I am ashamed to admit that I laughed out loud at that.))

He might have snuck a peek at her open screen to look at the “admin only” notes on the way out of her office after that initial visit.  That had been the moment he’d decided to hire her for the job.  Perhaps at the next visit she could add “client explains his ‘darker side of madness’, exhibiting symptoms of POE-ESQUE TORTURED SOUL LARPING DISORDER” to her notes.

Well, perhaps he should complete the goth aesthetic and throw a black-market legit absinthe party at some point this year.  Perhaps the Green Fairy was calling his name.  Perhaps he would paint everything in shades of green and black, barely visible under flickering gaslights diffused by pain-numbing opium pipe smoke.

Sucking in his cheeks, Loki raised an eyebrow—huh, he genuinely might do that this October 31st.  Forget dancing to fun creepy classics like Thriller and I Put a Spell on You.  No, instead, his friends would be subjected to moody bass, dark guitars, excessively angsty lyrics, likely written on tear-stained papers, and sung by a person who started wearing black eyeliner at age 3—that kind of thing.  The Marilyn Manson cover of Sweet Dreams would fit perfectly in that scene.

Eh.  October was light years away.  He just needed to focus on right now.  January 1.  Cold, wet, sad, alone.

Great idea—focusing on my CURRENT feelings will truly improve my quality of life.

Still scrolling, he frowned at the Antigravity playlist tracks, increasingly annoyed with the options until, thankfully, he reached the last song on the list—Starboy by the incomparable artist The Weeknd.  

“Oh, that one’s perfect,” he muttered, tapping the title.

Was there a better way to reaffirm the vapid, meaningless status of his existence than hearing another man sing “we don’t pray for love, we just pray for cars”?  Considering most of this phenomenal artist’s work was pretty goddamn dark, it was a perfect match for the day at hand.  Though, this new album didn’t crush Loki’s soul as thoroughly as the previous one had, which was probably a good thing.  It would help cure the Poe-Esque Tortured Soul Larping Disorder currently infecting his brain.

The cross traffic finally stopped behind the newly turned red light, and he ran through the crosswalk at a pace just this side of sprinting.  He wanted to go home.  Now.

He was freezing his tail off, and the mostly empty streets were a little too reminiscent of The Walking Dead for his liking.  New Year’s Day or not, New York was not supposed to sleep.  Goddamn, a hot shower would be phenomenal.  So much for these gloves—useless things—his fingers were probably getting frostbite.

He pushed harder, his legs protesting the extra effort in the cold by increasing the burning sensation in his quads.  Runner’s high should have kicked in by now, but apparently, his body wasn’t in the mood to pump a few endorphins into his system.  2017 was off to a great start.

Should’ve stayed in bed…or at least bothered to chase ten goddamn aspirin with two litres of water before this moronic run.

God, he despised the forced revelry of December 31st.  Why should he celebrate “moving on” into the next arbitrary year that would follow the same pattern as every one prior to it?  He was still Loki Odinson.  He was still wrecked by the same slightly volatile “might roll/might crash” problem in the space between his ears.  Still traumatized by that…thing…that happened when he was 17.  Still had a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend because that woman was still the Antichrist (and he wasn’t even religious!).  Still a disappointment to his father.  Still trying to prove that he could do something of value.

Running a hand through his hair, angry at the mere thought of his father, Loki picked up his pace.  He pushed more aggravating hair off his face, ignoring any further self-deprecating words in favor of simply listening to the song playing in his AirPods.  Trapped inside his sluggish, self-obsessed post-liquor brain, he made a wrong turn onto Canal Street.

Of course, he did not realize this for several minutes.  He groaned, beyond pissed with his legs for dragging him up Greene Street instead of Thompson several blocks west.  Though, perhaps he should cut himself a bit of slack—he’d only run this route a thousand times, so this directional confusion was long overdue.

Nostrils flaring, he ground his teeth together.  Right now, he ought to feel the sweet warm relief of his building lobby’s central heating system, but no no no, that would have been too merciful for 2017.  Imagine his shock that the first day of a new year had literally taken a turn for the worse, forcing him to spend another ten minutes brooding in this cold, wet weather.

Par for the course, at this point—fuck, I hate January.

Once again, the new year was entirely dead on arrival.  No turning new leaves over for him…for 30 consecutive years.  The only silver lines in sight were those awful things trying to sneak in between the far superior black hair on his head, which he’d plucked out angrily with a pair of tweezers this morning. 

“It is 38 degrees and raining, and I took a goddamn detour,” he growled under his breath, shooting a look at the clouds above.

He could hear the forecast now—“Well, folks, looks like Mother Nature won’t be wishing New Yorkers a happy new year today (ha ha ha laugh laugh *slaps knee*) because it’s going to be nothing but grey skies for the foreseeable future.  We’ll be looking for that sunlight and let you know as soon as it’s on the way!”—Ugh, what absolute vomit.

Losing interest in the silent, sad attempts at humor in his mind, he focused on the Spring Street sign up ahead, squinting into the misty rain that had started up again.  Phenomenal.  He wasn’t just feeling “down” anymore.  No no no, that wasn’t good enough.  The universe needed to add another layer of flavor—something bitter, perhaps—to the negativity cocktail shaker in his skull.  And the winner was (drumroll, please) sheer anger aimed at those low hanging, flat clouds that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be rain clouds or not.

He wanted to scream at the clouds—Enough with the back-and-forth freezing drizzle!  

They weren’t giving his body a chance to adjust to one or the other.  Every moment he’d caught up to the stinging of cold-water droplets hitting his face, those goddamn clouds would pull back, thereby confusing the hell out of his senses with five minutes of dry air.  Then BOOM —more rain.  Why hadn’t he put on a ball cap to at least shield his face from the heavier raindrops?  He’d only worn a measly hooded pullover, and it was useless in this weather.

Not as useless as my should-be “smartest in the room” head, which apparently, needs a forecast to tell me that it is WINTER.

“If only Spring street was actual spring,” he muttered, rounding the corner so quickly he nearly slipped on the wet concrete, barely avoiding skinning his calf on one of the dead Christmas trees on the pavement waiting to be picked up by the city.   

Cursing under his breath, he bobbed his head with each word coming through his Air Pods—”girls get loose when they hear this song, 100 on the dash get me close to God, We don’t pray for love, we just pray for cars”—then hooked a left onto West Broadway.

He ran maybe twenty feet before skidding to a stop abruptly, his Nikes squeaking on the soaked pavement just in time to hear a woman shriek “JESUS!” while grabbing his arms.  Eyes blowing wide at the “oh no” sensation of tilting too far forward to keep his balance, he instinctively caught her by the waist and shifted his weight onto his heels to correct the unfortunate gravity situation.  He blinked rapidly, his retinas struggling to adjust their focus from a wide-frame image of a full lower west side block to this sudden new face close-up about two inches from his nose.

Loki did a quick scan of her features.  She had silvery eyes with legitimately iridescent sunbursts around the pupils, which were looking up at him through long dark eyelashes blinking as quickly as his own.  Her cheeks were somewhat pink, probably partly from the cold, but mostly from embarrassment.  Deep purple shadows filled the hollows beneath her high cheekbones and under her jaw.  Silver eyes, pink cheeks, purple shadows, and last, but definitely not least, were a pair of dark red lips, slightly parted with little puffs of breath escaping between them in time with the rapid rising and falling of her chest.

Dear gods…who IS this gorgeous girl?

LO, pick your jaw up from the ground, and say something, you idiot.

Reluctantly letting go of her waist, he slowly reached up to remove his earbuds and produced a small grin.

“Where’s the fire, darling?” he asked, one eyebrow raising a bit.

There was a tense second wherein everything just…sort of…stopped.  Time itself froze, the clock gears grinding to a halt as this stunner of a girl pressed her pretty lips together while participating in this unintentional staring contest with him.  Fuck, he hoped she didn’t hate him for calling her “darling” like some entitled pick-up artist coming on to her at a bar.  It had been an honest slip.  Her hands were still on his arms, and it made him feel warm and stupid and a bit whoozy actually, so of course he’d unironically said some lame line.  Just as he opened his mouth to apologize all over himself, a laugh burst through her tightly sealed lips, her head falling back from the force of it.

“I’m…s-s-sorry,” she sputtered, clearly trying to regain her composure. Looking up at him again, she sighed, still chuckling quietly. “That was amazing.”

Head tilting, his grin grew into a full blown smile. “What was amazing?”

Surely, she didn’t mean that stupid “darling” line was amazing.  No no no, that was a mathematical impossibility.  This gorgeous creature must have been using the word “amazing” in a purely mocking manner.  No way in hell was she laughing because he’d managed to charm her with those words.

“This whole situation is amazing,” she croaked, starting to lose it again. “Nearly fell on my backside, and I damn near took you with me!  I mean, come on, imagine seeing that from across the street or something.  My god, I am such a fail meme.”

Loki snorted quietly under his breath as the visual flashed across his mind.  Hopefully, she hadn’t heard it.  Not that it really mattered, since her smile hadn’t faded from her face.  He stared at her pretty teeth for a few seconds, the words “radiant” and “warmth” and “sunlight” flitting through his mind.

Sunlight, indeed—the dreary, bone-aching cold had completely disappeared from his body in the last two minutes, replaced by a warm, glowy feeling deep in his stomach.  He’d collided with summer incarnate, apparently, and it made him feel giddy as a teenage boy with a crush.  Her voice, her face, the sensation of her hands through his sleeves—all of it excited him far more than it should have.

Wow, bad day to go commando.

He would do well to take about ten steps back from her because someone with this overly magnetic effect on him could shatter him, but his track record of future-minded self-preservation wasn’t exactly…great.  His headspace was already in shambles, so why bother trying to preserve it?  He wanted to stay with this girl, if she allowed him to do so, and he hadn’t truly wanted anyone or anything for quite awhile.  For years now, he’d only wanted to escape, to run away, not toward anyone or anything.  Now, in the course of five minutes, he wanted to hit the gas, pedal to the metal, and speed through every goddamn yellow light to get to her as fast as possible.

“Well,” he paused, trying to come up with a witty response to her self-deprecating fail meme remark, “nothing is more beloved across all demographics than fail videos.  Perhaps you should just go with it.”

She scoffed, though the grin on her face betrayed her obviously feigned offense.  Well, if nothing else came of this interaction, at least he could say that she appreciated well-executed banter.  That said, considering she hadn’t broken their eye contact yet, nor let go of his arms, he had a feeling something else would arise from this lucky chance meeting.  Her thumbs rubbed circles on his sleeves, and he glanced down at her hands.  The glossy black polish on her neatly-trimmed nails had a mirror-like effect, reflecting the diffused daylight behind the clouds.  

He smirked a little, surprisingly pleased that they weren’t some demure pinkish color.  It was of no consequence, but god, he truly loved black nails—it was after all, such a sexy color, second only to genuinely emerald green because he had yet to move beyond the goth-god persona of his youth.  They weren’t long, barely past her fingertips, and hell, at that perfect length, she could drag those nails down his back without drawing blood.  

Would she be upset if he grabbed her waist and pulled her flush against him?  Because come on, she still hadn’t let go of him.  Licking his lips, he swallowed, anxious to get her name, her number, and her signature on the “please let me love you” contract he was currently drawing up in his head.

LOVE??  You’re insane, LO.

Can’t argue with that, but it’s less offensive than a “please let me fuck you” contract.

Fair enough, but nonetheless, take it down a notch, LO.

I would take it down, but I swear I’m getting drunk off this girl.

“Good thing I wasn’t holding hot coffee,” she said, her eyes flicking down to his mouth when he unconsciously licked his lips again.

Fucking hell, if she didn’t let go of his arms in the next five seconds, his brain cells would abandon their collective purpose to avoid getting slapped and/or kicked in the crotch by a female and resort to prehistoric displays of “mating suitability” such as, but not limited to, picking fights and showing his teeth to the first unfortunate additional male-presenting character in this scene or “unintentionally” mentioning his height—“Even if you HAD been holding hot coffee, darling, at least it wouldn’t have scalded my face since I’m all the way up here in the stratosphere, and you barely reach my shoulders.  That would have been funnier if I were unusually tall, but I’m only 6 foot 2.”

He bit the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn’t say that shit out loud.  Oh, he was growing stupid.  Gravity was dragging his IQ to the pavement to balance out the absurd rising situation in his joggers.  All this from five minutes with this (so far) nameless woman.

“Sorry,” she said, dropping her eyes and laughing nervously as she removed her hands from him and stepped back to put a socially acceptable distance between them.

As she pushed loose strands of gorgeous dark hair behind her ears, he watched her carefully for any signs of discomfort in addition to what he hoped was just nervous excitement.  His eyebrows pulled together of their own accord, forcing his facial muscles into a deep frown because the distance between them physically hurt him.

Good god, his reaction to her was completely irrational.  He didn’t even know her name.  He knew that she was absolutely gorgeous, that her voice was sexy as hell, and considering the accent, that she was from the UK.  A Londoner, maybe?  Maybe she was from Oxford like him?  Fuck, he hoped she wasn’t just visiting an American friend or something and would go back home in a few days.

Please be an expat like me.  Please be an expat like me.

It occurred to him then that he hadn’t responded to her apology.  What was she apologizing for?  Putting her hands on him?  Ha.  She ought to apologize for letting go.  Shaking his head, a barely there movement of his neck muscles, he produced another crooked grin.

“No need to apologize, gor-…” he stopped himself before saying “gorgeous girl” like the desperate fool he was.  He turned his head away and faked a cough into the crook of his arm, giving his brain a few seconds to recover from almost overselling himself.  

Clearing his throat, he gestured to the dreadful, low-hanging, never ending blah clouds. “Gorgeous…day…would have been the end of that thought.  Obviously.”

She eyed the sky, then lowered her gaze to meet his eyes once more and smiled. “Obviously, you are completely mental if you call this a gorgeous day.”

“Obviously, I was aiming for humor.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, pursing her lips, “I gathered.  It wasn’t a bullseye, but you landed on the board at least.”

He raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed. “Did you write a script prior to this conversation?  You’re too quick-thinking.  You must have practiced ahead of time.”

“Or,” she held up a finger, “now try to keep up with this, slow boy… I simply have a quick wit.”

“Slow boy?” He repeated, unable to control the laugh bubbling up in his chest.

If anyone else had called him that, he would have immediately and smoothly produced a snarky comeback.  Coming from her, though?  Pfft—he might actually compliment her for being so damn brilliant on the fly.  Oh, what he wouldn’t give to shove this girl’s back up against that brick wall behind her, hook his elbow under her knee, and get a proper taste of her sharp tongue for at least an hour straight.  

Covering her mouth, she laughed into her palm. “Yes.  I did call you a slow boy, and I feel a bit bad for it.  Did I go too far?  I’m genuinely sorry.  I swear I was just kidding.” Giving him a sheepish look, she tilted her head to one shoulder. “You know…just wordplay.”

He tilted his head, mirroring her stance, and smirked. “I assure you, I can handle wordplay.”

And foreplay.

“I’m a writer,” he added, “so, you know…kind of my specialty.”

Her eyes widened a touch, and she looked him up and down a couple times, clearly trying to recall if she recognized him.

“A writer?” she asked, squinting at him as he nodded. “As in, novels or editorials or…?”

“Novels.  Well,” he paused, holding up a finger, “one novel, that is.  But it’s done well enough.  It was released last summer.”

“Have I heard of it?”

“Possibly,” he replied, shrugging one shoulder.

Raising her eyebrows, she stared at him, likely waiting for him to give more details.  When he only continued smirking at her silently, she chuckled and threw her hands up.

“Well, what’s the title?”

He pocketed his hands, somewhat anxious now.  If she hadn’t heard of it, he would be pathetically disappointed.  Or maybe she had heard of it, and had been so unimpressed with the reviews that she hadn’t bothered to read it.  Millions of possibilities, none of which were good.  

“It’s called Starboy,” he said, forcing a casual tone despite the sinking feeling in his stomach.

It took her a moment, but when the name registered, her eyes blew wide. “Holy…oh my god, you wrote that?  Loki Odinson, right?  My best friend is going to die when I tell her I met you.  She’s read it like seven times now.  Admittedly, I haven’t read it, but…wow.  Maybe I should.  Jesus.  I mean,” she paused, giving him another once over and nodding, “wow.”

Well, that was a much better response than he’d expected.  He couldn’t help but smile at the look on her face, her jaw nearly unhinging.  The tension in his shoulders relaxed, his previous anxiety flying straight out the proverbial window to make room for a clever confidence that had become synonymous with his newly-minted “Loki STARBOY Odinson” persona.

“I realize that I’m not as handsome as my picture on the back cover of the book,” he said, trying to keep a straight face when she rolled her eyes, “but in my defense, you caught me on the last few minutes of an hour-long run, which isn’t my best look.  Also, I’m a bit hungover, and this damn rain and cold has added a lovely clammy quality to the sweat, you know?” He gestured to himself. “I no doubt resemble a drowned rat right now.”

She scoffed. “If you’re a drowned rat, then I am half-eaten roadkill.”

Pursing his lips, he raised an eyebrow. “Was that a compliment?”

“For you, it was.” She laughed. “Jesus Christ.  When Darce said not to google the Starboy author because he was-” she made air quotes “-annoyingly attractive, she wasn’t lying.”

His eyes widened for a split-second before the smile spreading across his face crinkled them.

Bloody hell, she shouldn’t say that to me.

“Oh god, don’t encourage my vanity,” he groaned, reaching up to rub his temples. “My head will explode.”

“That would be a shame.  You have a lovely head.  Specifically, your hair.  She did not mention your hair, and for the life of me, I do not know why she would keep such important information from me.”

“Who is this ‘she’ person?” Loki asked, smiling as he scratched the back of his neck. “And do you mean the color or the length?”

“Uh…both.  Every boy I crushed on at school had that same thing going on,” she said, pointing to the strands hanging in his face, “though to be fair, I think most of them dyed their hair that color to make the goth girls weak, you know?  Granted, I can’t actually see how long yours is, but if it’s long enough to pull back in a hair tie like you’ve done, that’s good enough for me.”

Grinning so widely it hurt his cheeks, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, he inched closer. “As in, good enough to make you weak?”

She snickered, dragging a hand down her face. “Well, I did nearly fall over when I first saw you, soooo…I guess so.”

“Wow, I’d just assumed you were unfathomably clumsy.”

“Thank you for that,” she said, straight-faced.

“You’re welcome,” he replied without hesitation, smiling wider than the goddamn Cheshire Cat.

“I can’t believe I ran into… you know,” she said, gesturing up and down his torso, “a sort of… famous person.”

He leaned down, bending his head toward her while locking eyes with her from under his brow. “And I can’t believe that you still haven’t told me your name.”

“Oh, my apologies,” she cleared her throat, offering her hand to him as a bright smile split her face. “Sigyn Frey, architect and stand up comedian.”

One eyebrow shooting to his hairline, he reached out to shake her hand. “You do stand up?”

“Well, I try to,” she sighed, pushing her free hand through her hair, “but I’m much better at falling down.”

“OH MY GOD,” he burst out loud, releasing her hand to instead pull his hands down his face and laugh loudly behind them.  Son of a bitch, this girl was legitimately hilarious.

“Okay, I lied,” she chuckled, her shoulders shaking, “I’m only an architect, not a comedian.”

“Oh, I beg to differ, Sigyn Frey,” he croaked, rubbing his eyes. “Look at me.  I’ve been reduced to tears.” Seriously, this woman was amazing.  Every second with her was increasing his quality of life.

“Welcome to my perpetually crying world, Loki Odinson.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I am the king of Perpetual Crying.”

She held up a hand, wiggling her fingers at his face.  “No no no, I remember hearing somewhere that people call you-”

“Prince Lo,” he spoke over her, rolling his eyes at the moniker, “yes, I know.  Believe me, I know.”

She hadn’t yet dropped her hand, which left her fingers about two inches from his mouth, and he deserved a gold medal for not leaning forward to catch those fingers between his teeth.  What a low bar—the lowest gold “standard” ever.

“Oh dear,” she said, making a classic cringe face, “Sounds like you might not be fond of that name.”

“Definitely not.”

“Understood.  I won’t call you that.  What about when people call you Starboy?”

“I at least prefer it over Slow Boy,” he said, giving her a pointed look.

“Fair enough,” she laughed quietly.

He smiled, thrilled by the genuinely happy, light-hearted sound of Sigyn’s laughter.  It was such a departure from his ex’s evil cackles, which had grated on his ears worse than nails on a chalkboard.  Jesus, that woman had always guffawed like a Disney villain.  The slightest hint of thunder rolled in the distance, and he instinctively looked up at the clouds, his eyes slamming shut when an exceptionally heavy raindrop landed right smack between them, bouncing off the bridge of his nose and splattering into both of his eyes.

“Ouch,” he hissed, reaching up to shield his eyes from further raindrop attacks. “Here’s the thing, Sigyn, I’d love to talk more, but would you be amenable to doing so some other time when I’m not sweaty or suffering the aftereffects of excessive alcohol?” He winced as the clouds turned on him, switching from sporadic droplets to sustained rain.

Sigyn pulled her jacket hood up, then pocketed her hands, raising her voice over the increasingly loud rain. “Not to mention the good soaking we’re about to get.  God, your hood is drenched!  Yeah, you definitely need to go home so you don’t catch a cold or anything!  When do you want to meet up again?”

Bouncing on his heels—a weak attempt to warm up—he grinned, then stepped closer. “Tomorrow morning?”

“You want to get together in the morning?”  she asked, her face lighting up like a Christmas tree—like New Years fireworks. “Wow, usually I make them take me to dinner first.”

He forced a laugh to (hopefully) disguise the extra blood rushing to his cheeks at her insinuation. “Well, you see, I’m rather hoping that you won’t mind if I skip over the traditional steps because, despite your name-calling, I’m definitely not a slow boy.”

One corner of her mouth turned down, transforming her blinding sunshine smile into a crooked little grin that should come with an adult content disclaimer.

WARNING: VIXEN.  AVOID PROLONGED EYE CONTACT, AND MAINTAIN A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 3 FEET, OR DANGEROUSLY EXCESSIVE HORNINESS MAY OCCUR.

Apparently, he would have to turn his shower faucet to cold if he wanted to live after discovering this woman who had been under his nose for god only knew how long.  She’d lowered her head because of the rain, forcing her to look up at him through those long, dark lashes, and the heart-racing effect was maddening.  For the love, what eye color was listed on her driver’s license?—fucking SILVER?  Maybe the rain had distorted his vision, or maybe those starry flecks glittering in her irises only existed in contrast to her jet-black mascara.  Either way, no way in hell would he be the first to look away.  Ten thousand seconds of hard breathing later, she finally responded to his “I’m definitely not a slow boy” comment.

“Let me guess,” she said, taking a step closer, “despite living in a city with thousands of taxis, easy access on every corner to mass transit, where one can walk anywhere… you own a fast car, don’t you?  Probably some hot little, expensive, 2-door, European sports car.”

Why the hell had she moved this close to him?  Was she trying to make him stupid?  Somehow, he produced a quick, clever(ish) answer.

“For practical purposes only,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Again, her face lit up. “Nailed it.”

“It’s not an outlandish Maclaren or anything,” he clarified, keeping his tone playful despite feeling a bit defensive. “It’s just an F-type.”

Her mouth fell open. “You mean a Jaguar F-Type?”

Eyebrows knitting crookedly, he held her wide-eyed stare. “Yes?”

She looked downright offended by his words.  Alright, maybe not offended, but certainly shocked by this new information.  Come on, even though he adored F-Types, they weren’t that impressive.  Sure, he turned heads in it, but one needn’t be a multi-millionaire to afford them.  Was that a wildly out of touch take?

Shaking her head, she flung up a hand and chuckled. “Just an F-type, he says unironically.”

He reached up to push annoying loose strands of wet hair behind his ears.  Feeling genuinely defensive now, he blew out a breath.

“I meant ‘just’ only as in comparison to…” he trailed off as the absurdity of his ivory tower defense hit him right between the eyes.  Oh, that he could press the rewind button on this conversation, and dub over his last two more-money-than-sense comments with something a bit less brainless, but alas, life wasn’t a damn cassette tape.  Despising the heat flooding his cheeks, he pushed more hair off his face, and growled softly under his breath.

He sighed heavily. “Bloody hell, please forget everything I just said.  I will now check my privilege at the door lest my body ends up at the bottom of the Hudson, weighed down by gold bricks in my pockets.”

Sigyn tilted her head, her eyes boring a hole into his as she hesitantly set her hand on his shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “I swear I won’t let your body end up at the bottom of the Hudson,” she said, a slow smile spreading across her face.

He looked down at her hand, then lifted his gaze to meet hers again, replaying her words— I swear I won’t let your body end up at the bottom of the Hudson.  God, that was…that was an intense thing to say to him.  She couldn’t possibly know how much he’d needed to hear that today.  This woman was, for all intents and purposes, a complete stranger, yet here he stood, feeling like he knew her.  Really knew her.

Chest aching, he eyed the Ground Support Cafe glass door. “Will you meet me here tomorrow morning?  Same time?”

Without hesitation, she said, “Absolutely, I will. Now go home, wherever that is, and get warm, alright?” She gave him a small wave and a big smile that warmed him more than the sun in July, then she turned around, and hurried up West Broadway.

Grinning (probably stupidly), he stayed glued to his spot on the pavement, watching her run across the road, the puddles splashing up onto her jeans, as she disappeared behind a corner building on Prince Street.  Was her building on Prince?  Perhaps Prince was just part of the route home, a means to the end, to her real destination.  If she didn’t live on Prince Street, it was replaceable to her.  It was a “just passing through” street somewhere in her neighborhood—not what she really needed; she could take it or leave it.  Or…or…or…

Or…maybe I could stop conflating Prince Street with Prince LO because everything isn’t a goddamn METAPHOR.

Eyes rolling, he turned up his music, then spun on his heel, and ran down West Broadway, grinning all the way to his building.