WHO: Lyra, Rosario, Apollo, background fratulence WHEN: Saturday 26th June WHERE: Lyra and Rosario's building, then Alpha Pi Omicron WHAT: One final blowout before the frat boys disappear to their private islands for the summer / Lyra wants a ride in a helicopter / Rosario unknowingly meets her father WARNINGS: TBA but probably nothing dire
There were few things quite like the rush of hanging from the side of a building eighteen stories in the air. Of course it would have been better if it wasn’t eighty nine degrees out, if the sun wasn’t reflecting off every single window right into her eyes, and if she wasn’t saddled with working with Jake for her partner. Ugh, Jake. Jake was in his forties and had been cleaning windows for half of his life and thought he knew everything about scaling buildings and not leaving streaks on the glass. Jake kept bringing up the last woman he worked with and how the safety harness had pinched her tits and how she wouldn’t shut up about it. In fact, it was Jake who wouldn’t shut up about most things.
And yet, washing windows was still a step up (and up and up and up, literally) from being a waitress, not that Lyra wasn’t also doing three shifts at week at Taco Bell. At least washing windows was sort of in the area she wanted to work in. There was scaffolding involved. And buildings. Sure she wasn’t actually creating anything other than clean windows, but at least she was proving she wasn’t going to freak out while dangling a hundred and eighty feet from the ground. That had to be an extra thing to wave at future employers, and in the meantime it gave her a little money to wave at Jocelyn.
And also, Jake might have been washing windows half his life but Lyra had been cleaning with her grandmother for exactly the same number of years. She could remember learning to walk while holding onto a mop. Jake could go fuck himself. Lyra hadn’t left a streak on a window in her life.
Heights weren’t the only thrill her in her life. Tinder (and Bumble, Hinge, Zoosk – whatever) was another. She’d meet up with dates, go out dancing. Some of them would turn into more than dancing but mostly they didn’t. Some were just boring, some were the uncharming kind of awkward, some were too forward or not nearly enough. Some were racist, some blatantly sexist, some were sneakier but still flew all the misogynist red flags. A couple had been full on freaks, and Lyra’s inner warning voice screamed at her to get out. One guy a couple of weeks ago, who she wasn’t totally sure about – he’d been hella charming, but there’d still been something off – had got stuck on the subway on the way to their second date and Lyra figured that was the universe’s way of reminding her to listen to herself.
Of course there was also the horror story of hooking up with someone who’d also hooked up with her mother. That was a thrill Lyra didn’t need to repeat, although it had made for a hilarious story.
Then there were parties. If a date was heading to a house party, she was in. If they were going clubbing, hells yes. She’d totally lied to Rosario when she said it had been ages since she last partied with a horde – you could probably count the people that packed into dance clubs as hordes, in which case, she partied with hordes two or three nights a week.
It wasn’t like Lyra didn’t know she was trying to find something that hit the same high as her time under the fairy hill… she did sort of know. She just didn’t think it was something that needed to be examined. The only harm that came from dancing all night was in how it might effect her daytime job, and it wasn’t like she was going to fall asleep while hanging a hundred feet in the air from a safety harness!
She hadn’t been to a frat party yet though.
She hadn’t had the chance to convince a guy to take her up in his helicopter yet.
Therefore, Lyra was quite certain, she hadn’t lived.
Even though she was a grown woman of twenty three, she still lived at home with her grandmother, which meant some techniques she'd perfected in her teens needed to be employed; Lyra waited with her ear pressed to her bedroom door, listening for the moment Jocelyn stepped into the bathroom, and then bolted out the door with a cheery don't wait up! She knew her grandmother wouldn't approve of a romper that needed tape to stick it to her boobs, and while it wouldn't be forbidden in the way it would have been if Lyra was still a teenage, who needed to start their night with a memory of their grandmother's disapproval in their mind?
Besides, sneaking around heightened the thrill. Lyra grinned, her thumb flying across her screen faster than she could bound down the hall toward Rosario's door.