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~CHAPTER ONE: MARGOT~
“Wait!” I say, crouching down and peering through my camera’s viewfinder. We’re on a random side street in Brooklyn, so we’re not in anybody’s way. Both sides of the street are industrial and it’s a definite look. It sparks my creativity. “Hold that pose.”
Pippa rolls her eyes and grins, freezing in place. “Margot, you had better get a few good photos for Insta, at least. I’m only in New York for the weekend and we have soooo many places to go and things to see… boys to meet…”
Her sleek British accent makes her stand out; her outrageously gorgeous good looks are almost enough to make me envious. She should be on a stage somewhere, performing before an enraptured audience.
Instead, she went to NYU and majored in journalism, just like me.
Shaking my head, I sigh. Pippa is pretty boy crazy. She has been since college. I kneel down and frame my shot carefully. It’s late and dark except for the light coming from the streetlamp. But there is something about that light, coming from behind Pippa… illuminating her willowy frame and filtering through her bright red hair…
I take a handful of shots, then stand up. “All right.”
Pursing my lips, I press several buttons on the camera and review what I just shot. Pippa comes over to look over my shoulder. She’s a good four or five inches taller than me so it works. At five foot one, I’m definitely used to being the shortest chick in the room.
“Scroll to the photos of both of us,” she says, nudging me. “The ones that your friend took in the pizza place?”
Bobbing my head, I scroll through the various artsy shots of objects until I get to the pictures she means. The two of us beam at the camera, my petite stature, my black leather jacket, and my shoulder length pink hair seeming silly next to Pippa in her loose white dress.
She doesn’t see it that way, though.
“Oh, we look absolutely smashing! Ugh, I just love your whole aesthetic. I’m all soft pinks and flowy garments and you’re all like…” She gestures to me.
I look down at my RESIST t-shirt, my super short red tartan skirt, my torn fishnets, and my black Converse. I cock a brow. “I look like I’m either a rich kid from Columbia University that’s experimenting with couch surfing or a genuine street rat with a drug problem. But the trouble is that you can’t tell which,” I joke.
Pippa rolls her eyes at my comment. “Yeah right. Everyone wishes they had a tenth of the style that you have and you know it.”
My face heats. I change the subject as I loop my camera strap around my neck again and start moving down the sidewalk. “We’re already going to be arriving at this spot pretty late.”
She shrugs. “Who cares?” She looks up at the night sky, sighing. “That’s one of the things I miss the most since my move to Copenhagen. People there care if you’re late. Here, you just shrug and say that there was a crazy person on the subway. As if that’s even a real excuse for anything.”
I grin. “That is one of the things that is a unique charm of New York.”
She slides me a glance as we hurry across the street and continue down the block. “I guess you’ll just have to get used to it when you follow me to Copenhagen. Seriously, I’ve talked to my editor at Politiken and showed her some of your photographs and articles. She is receptive.”
“Yeah?” I say, raising my brows. “I’ve always wanted to move to Europe for a job… It sounds funny though, just saying it aloud.” I spot the distinctive bright green door ahead of us, standing out from the dreary surrounding buildings. “Oh, that’s the door of the club. They have to move this place pretty often to keep it under wraps, but the door is always a bright color.”
Pippa and I jog up to the door. I lean close, pulling out my phone, and knock on it forcefully. A slot slides open and a pair of eyes appear.
“Password?” a feminine voice asks.
I look at the e-vite on my phone, skimming for the password. “Saluta regi,” I call out.
The slot slides closed with a metal thunk. A few seconds later the door creaks open, the door woman dressed head to toe in skintight black latex. “Come in.”
We step into the tight, dark space. I can hear the thud of music, feel the vibrations coming up through the floor. She opens a second door and we’re immersed in raucous sound and a low blue light.
I walk out into the back of the warehouse turned venue, pausing to look around and get my bearings. To my right is a very crowded, very small bar. To my far left is a stage, a cheering and raging crowd swelling around it. Two singers scream into a single microphone while the rest of the band plays loud post-punk music.
The speakers are shitty but loud, which is always a feature of these shows. Pippa leans close to me. “Want to get a drink?”
“God yes.” I follow her to stand behind some other girls who are decked out in shiny silver lycra. My eyes wander across the stage and to the audience. I recognize some faces at the back; people that I know from Red-Green Party meetings, a socially liberal and anti-monarchal political movement.
The Red-Green party started in Copenhagen but it has since blossomed into a genuine political movement, almost anarchist at its core. The same people that used to show up at the Occupy Wall Street and Dakota Access Pipeline meetings often show up in support of the Red-Green party protests.
There is an energy to it, a grassroots anger about the clenched fist of capitalism that seems to drive the whole scene. I respect and admire any kind of rebellion against the system, so… I’m here for it, basically.
Pippa gets us each a beer and a shot of whiskey, as is the usual. We established this pattern in college of taking turns buying rounds for each other. I take the shot, wincing at the burn, and move out of the line.
I glance at Pippa, seeing her brighten. “Hey, I see some people I know. Come on, let’s say hi.”
She pulls me by the hand toward the opposite wall. There are three extraordinarily tall guys that are propped up against the wall, their heads turned toward the stage. They are probably in their mid twenties, just a few years older than my own twenty three. One of them turns and glances at me briefly. Our gazes snag and hold.
My breath leaves my lungs in a little whoosh. I don’t say that lightly, but…
He is beautiful. Extremely tall, handsome, dark haired, with cheekbones that look like they could cut steel. Wearing a dark t-shirt, low-slung jeans, and dark shoes, he looks like he should be on a fashion runway, not in this grimy pop up club.
His eyes are an intense light blue. They skate over me and toward Pippa, but then come back to me. He frowns just a little, like there is something that he should know but can’t quite figure out.
I step on a beer can and stumble, breaking my gaze away. When I look up again, I realize that the other guys he’s with are equally handsome, one looking so similar to him that I almost can’t tell them apart. The third guy has lighter hair and dark brown eyes. Upon looking closely, he’s just slightly taller than his two friends.
It’s this third guy that catches Pippa’s gaze and stands up straighter. He says something to the other two, who nod. Then he pushes himself off the wall and steps out to greet Pippa.
“Pippa, hey,” he yells. His accent is strange, Norwegian or Swedish or something. “What are you doing here?”
The band onstage stops playing abruptly and the crowd cheers. Pippa clears her throat, pulling me forward. “Hey. I’m just in town for the weekend. This is my friend, Margot. Margot, this is my friend Erik…”
The lighter haired guy nods at me, taking a second to take me in. “Hey. This is Lars,” he points to one brother. “And this is Stellan.”
He points to the other, the one I noticed first. The tall one, with the eyes that could melt steel. I blush under their collective inspection, tossing my hair back.
“Hi. I’m Margot.” That’s all I give them. Luckily Pippa is so extroverted that she just naturally fills in the gaps, making my aloofness seem okay.
God, I’ve missed her so much since she moved.
“Margot, these guys are from Copenhagen,” she says. “They… umm…”
She seems at a loss for how to describe them.
Lars jumps in. “We’re Danish. We are enjoying your city, seeing the sights.”
Ah. I was close when I guessed at their accents, but not quite there. I sip my beer and keep watching all three of the men.
Stellan is silent and still, but I can tell from his keen gaze that he’s drawing all kinds of conclusions. I just don’t know what they might be…
Loud pre-recorded music comes over the speakers. Pippa looks around. “We should go dance!”
She heads off without so much as a glance back, just expecting that we will all follow her. Or maybe it’s not that, maybe it’s just that she knows she will find someone to dance with in the crush of the crowd.
Knowing Pippa, she is probably correct in that assumption.
“Are you staying here?” Erik asks Stellan.
“Ja.” Stellan nods. Erik glances at the dance floor. He clearly wants to go out there. Stellan jerks his head toward where Pippa went. “Go dance.”
“Jeg er lige i nærheden,” Erik says quickly. He looks at me briefly, his gaze narrowing for a second. But then he heads out into the throng, bobbing his head to the music.
I sidle up to the wall beside Stellan, sliding him a gaze as I lean against it. He looks at me too, then shakes his head and looks away.
“What?” I ask. I take a sip of beer.
He shrugs. “I have to go to the bar.” He pauses. “Do you like aquavit?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I have no idea what that is.”
The corners of his lips lift ever so slightly. “It’s like gin, a little.”
His accent makes the way he pronounces the word gin a little funny.
I smirk. “Then I guess so.”
Stellan pushes off the wall and heads toward the momentarily empty bar. “Come on. You’ll like it, I think.”
What makes him think that I, a person that he doesn’t know from Adam, will like it… I do not know. But I follow him, my wariness of him easing for some reason.
It turns out, I don’t hate aquavit. In fact, I kind of like it.
For the next hour we mostly drink and talk a little. We dance at one point. We flirt shamelessly. We dance some more, moving closer and closer together on the dance floor.
“You like this music?” he asks, getting closer to be heard over the music. I inhale his scent; most of the guys I encounter don’t smell incredible like he does. Fresh bread and clean soap mixed with a certain maleness. It’s kind of addictive. It’s also unfair, when you add it to his height, his broad shoulders, his intense blue gaze, and his cheekbones.
I grin up at him, well aware that he’s almost a foot and a half taller than I am. Leaning in so my lips brush his ear, I whisper. “Yes.”
“It sounds like noise,” he says. “There is a melody that is there, but it is under all these… other sounds. Does that make sense?”
My eyes twinkle. “Yes.”
He chuckles. “I’m having a good time.”
“Me too.”
I realize that I’m working up the courage to ask him to come home with me. I have a little sixth floor walkup not far from here. I am drunk and having a good time. And I want to know what his body looks like without those clothes that cling to his muscular frame.
All night the pressure has been building inside me.
Just ask.
He can only say no.
The way he’s looking at me, he won’t say no.
I’m almost drunk enough to loosen my tongue. Is that a good thing? I wonder.
But suddenly Erik appears, whispering intently in Stellan’s ear. Stellan frowns and whispers something back. Then he pulls a pen from the pocket of his jeans.
He grabs my arm, the first time we actually touch. It’s erotic; for a second, I am aware only of the feeling of the current passing between us, of the goosebumps the electricity leaves in its wake.
He scribbles something on my arm, then points to it. “That is my number this weekend. Call us if you get up to anything fun before Sunday, ja?”
Looking up at him with wide eyes, I nod. He releases my arm and turns, following Erik as he heads to the door.
Pippa comes up behind me, a tiny wrinkle of worry set in her brow. “Where are they going?”
Shaking my head, I raise my arm. “I don’t know. But I did get Stellan’s phone number.”
Pippa’s brows jump up almost comically. “Really?”
I nod. “Yeah. He said to let him know what we get up to tomorrow night.”
Her lips twitch. “Well, well. I guess we are going out tomorrow then, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “We’ll see.”
“Come on, let’s get one more drink before we call it a night.” She grabs my arm and steers me away from the door, changing the subject.
My arm still tingles faintly where Stellan touched it.
All right, I can admit it… I’m excited about possibly seeing him tomorrow. And curious about where he went tonight…
Sighing, I stand in line and listen to Pippa talk, only partially paying attention.
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