Re: Louis' apartment: Iris, Sam, Cris
[It was fifty degrees in the city and that meant spring, sprigs and bulbs and green. The soft buffeting of wind off the ocean, combed through buildings, tossing anything loose into a jumble, but everyone was in too good a mood to care—sunshine came down early in the day under marquee of spic and span blue. Wild-haired boys and girls came on bikes, running over your feet on the sidewalk, men talked fast in Cantonese, arguing about something, elbows going wide, as you tried to tote groceries from the bodega, and Chinese from Big Wong King, down the street to your car, and someone unbothered by the spikes of sunshine glancing off of his BMW laid on the horn as you cut in front of him to cross the narrow, shuddered street, shouldering his irritation like it was nothing—because it was.
And even when night burnt out the blue, the city felt warm. Cris wasn't in the mood. He'd taken Teresa to the park earlier, and they'd spent a couple hours out on waterlogged, long-dead grass, tossing a ball back and forth, and that'd been good. It got the blood moving in ice-picked veins. But even then, even after getting her off to her mom's, talking about Big Bird and whether he was a good guy, even after he got home with the groceries and food, he shut the windows against the warmth. He went for a long run. He changed into heathered gray sweater and jeans, no tie, and he waited to hear from Sam.
He went to Louis'place, deep in the heart of the Upper West Side, a place as foreign as Europe to someone like Cris—he'd worked places like it, but to sit in it alone...? Presenting his badge, talking some talk about a welfare check, he got in. They'd need to get a key to the place, but he didn't worry about that right now. Cris put the Chinese in the oven, closed the door, and sat on the overly white sofa—not even comfortable—staring at the MIG that was as outta place as he was.
He felt like he was on some faraway planet. He felt cold.
He'd been looking forward to spending the evening with Sam. Alone. Doing something "normal," as she called it. And dancing—he liked dancing. It'd been a long time—since back in November?—that he'd done something like that, and with Sam, and then this. Iris and her kid, and another man with a grudge and bloodlust that he inflicted like it was nothing but a smile. He needed a break. Something small. Hell, one night even, and he couldn't even catch that.
But, for the kid, for Sam, he opened that door when the time came—old hotel breathing into the clean, hardlined and modern space of Louis'. He opened the door, and he saw Sam in leggings pricked with stars and yellow shoes, and blonde—ella se veía mejo, like maybe she'd slept—, and he saw Iris, her kid. The air felt heavy, not only with dust, but with words blunt, unsaid, like no one had spoken before the knob turned and the door pulled inward, and he'd walked into the middle of things.
Cris wasn't subtle and it didn't occur to him that maybe Sam minded things like touching in front of other people. He reached for her, hand out, some small smile there, warm. Maybe his mood had tanked, but he was still happy to see her. He touched a pigtail, and if she came close enough, placed a kiss on the top of her head.] Hey, mami. I like the hair. [He looked over to her sister, her nephew, with most of his attention on the latter. He waved at the kid, squatted some against Sam's leg, if she was there, holding a hand out to him when he was close enough to shake it.] Hey, I'm Cris. What's your name?