Title: Smile A Smile For Me (Chapter 3/16)
Author: Arielle honestys_easy
Rating: PG-13...for now ;)
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't know. Don't even own the concept. Some places and events are accurate, but the rest is all story. Even the shamrocks are fake. :)
Summary: For New York City rookie police officer Chris Richardson, the annual St. Patrick's Day parade marks a day of professional and personal turmoil. For activist Blake Lewis it’s a chance to try to end intolerance and sway public opinion. They never imagined that it would be a beginning…
Author's Notes: I will say this until the day I die: this is all dreamerren's and _kittenheels's faults. :-P After visiting the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City this past March, the idea for this fic, loosely based on the long-standing issue of who is allowed to march and, more controversially, who is not. The suggesting and prodding by these two turned into a plot idea, which turned into an AU drabble, which turned into a multi-chaptered epic. Never underestimate just how far I'll go to avoid writing term papers.
Huge thanks and much love to my beta, dreamerren! :-D



Chapter 3


Chris smoothed the front of his button-down shirt for the sixth time between train stops and fretted about how many drinks it would take for him to admit he yearned to get Blake Lewis’s clothes off.

It hadn’t been the decision to go to the Cake Shop that night that unsettled him – that had been on his mind ever since he abruptly left Blake on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral that afternoon; he made that decision the moment his eyes tore away from the charming, strong-willed man. It was the preparation into going that solidified the fact he was following up on an attractive chance encounter with another man. He had Googled the minuscule music venue the moment he got into his apartment and stripped off his uniform, the neatly fitting suit and navy hat feeling restrictive and tight ever since he arrived back in Brooklyn. Finding the directions to the bar, dressing and undressing countless times trying to find the most satisfactory outfit that was both stylish and attractive but didn’t reek of trying too hard. It all spoke of premeditation, of thought and care behind this, and that idea both thrilled and scared Chris.

He liked Blake; even the most macho part of him, the part that inhaled beer and nachos while watching football and scratching himself would allow himself to say that Blake Lewis was certainly someone the officer should get to know a little better. Every other part of him, particularly the parts underneath the coarse denim of his jeans, was urging Chris on to the Cake Shop for more than stimulating conversation.

Chris had never felt an attraction so strong, like a magnetic pull drawing him towards the other man. This feeling inside of him, the yearning mixed with jealousy as he watched men walk down the street, proudly hand-in-hand, while he was on duty…it was easier to repress and ignore than he thought. But when it came to this man, his sly little smile and compassionate, golden eyes…Chris couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop from reaching out and grazing Blake’s chest in the throng of people. Blake made all these emotions Chris avoided rise out of the depths of his mind; he made Chris want to kiss him in front of that news camera instead of fleeing.

Emerging out of the subway tunnel entrance into the cool air of a night on the verge of spring, Chris acclimated himself to his surroundings; the lost, bewildered feeling he used to get when first getting off of a train in the city was fading every day. The Cake Shop was tucked into a corner of the Lower East Side, between a dilapidated bodega and an imposing, new condo building, two markers of the neighborhood’s past and future. The area wasn’t well-known for its accessibility, and even after transferring trains Chris found himself walking a fair distance to Ludlow Street, his heart pounding harder in his ears with every step. Was he actually following through with this?

The boisterous, drunken festivities of St. Patrick’s Day in New York never really ended with the parade: tourists and locals alike streamed into any bar they could find in Midtown to begin drinking, or to continue their buzz from earlier in the day. Around his fiercely Irish-Italian neighborhood in Bay Ridge, Chris had seen lines outside the doors of every pub and bar with Guinness on tap, rowdy groups of college kids and retirees alike looking to celebrate.

A pale young woman staggered in front of him, raven hair striping her face, happy Irish lilting laugh indicating that she was in no danger or trouble. She and the friends closely following her across Houston Street were the only St. Patrick’s Day merrymakers Chris saw in the neighborhood here: the Lower East Side was a strange mix of immigrant families and up-and-coming hipsters, two groups of New Yorkers not typically found inside the corner sports bar or Irish pub. The streets were free of those festivities down here, and he doubted the Cake Shop would have any seasonal decorations up at all.

He could hear the distant, dulled sounds of an electric guitar as he rounded Ludlow Street; the nightly show had already begun. Chris wondered if the neighbors complained constantly about the noise or the young, impetuous crowd it must attract. He could think of a dozen or so quality of life violations as he approached the entrance, a cheery wooden sandwich board welcoming him, but he was off-duty until noon the next day, and he surely wasn’t going to issue tickets to his new friend’s place of work.

The thought stalled in his chest. Was Blake Lewis as just a friend what he really wanted?

To Chris’s surprise, the Cake Shop was ornately ready for the holiday: green foil shamrocks dotted the wood-paneled walls, the low light of table votives causing them to flicker and dance. Bright green garlands were strung onto the ceiling and the modest bar, among yellowed and faded posters of the rock gods of yesteryear. Shamrock fairy lights swung atop the tables and in the far corner of the narrow café, where a small but inviting collection of LPs and 45s sat in the dim light of the room.

But the first thing to really catch his eyes in the café was him. Standing behind the bar, not looking up and barely moving, his fingers tapping an unknown beat against the wooden countertop out of habit. His hair was softer now than the gelled spikes he had that morning, blond streaks shining through even in the dim light. The rainbow pin and Irish green carnation were still pinned on his chest, but instead of the modest black shirt he wore a white shirt stretching tightly over his defined shoulders and chest. The outline of a few brightly-colored tattoos peeked through the thin, light material, but the words “Fuck Me, I’m Irish” in bold green letters across his chest seemed to be getting the most attention.

Chris thought seeing Blake again would stir up some emotion in him, but nothing like this, the sudden desire to wipe away the bar, the bad indie music, everything except for just the two men. He didn’t expect to feel his heart swell and his gut throb at the simple act of Blake tapping his fingers against the bar, wanting those fingers to be dancing along his skin instead. He didn’t expect Blake to have such an effect on him; that the whole world would seem to fall away when Chris set eyes on him.

When Chris stepped into the threshold of the Cake Shop and Blake’s head shot up to greet the new patron, unaware of the visitor’s identity, an entirely different feeling washed over Chris. The slight red bruising on Blake’s right cheek had blossomed into a full-on bruise, the raw purple marring the strong beauty of his face. The bruise also brought Chris's thoughts back to the morning, back to the drunken, angry bigots that turned a peaceful protest into a street fight. A flicker of anger rose up in Chris, burning with the need to track down that one man in eight million that did such a thing to Blake’s face and pay him back for it tenfold. Make sure he’d never look in the mirror again without thinking of the man he attacked, and of the officer’s rage.

A flash of shock crossed over Blake’s face at the sight of Chris in the doorway of the shop; at first Chris thought his presence unwelcome, and started chiding himself immediately, cursing the thought that he should have ever come here. But then a broad smile spread over Blake’s face, a grin that lit up the entire room. It made Chris almost wish he could walk out the door and enter again, just to see that dawning of glee on the activist’s face once more.

Chris noticed Blake’s fingers tapping out a very different beat than before as he approached the old wooden bar; there was more of a purpose to the drumming, more anxiousness and excitement than a tapping for the sake of noise. A roar of an electric guitar, louder and closer than when he had heard back on the street, erupted from below the bar. Considering the tiny confines of the café itself and the small number of customers milling about, Chris gathered that the concert venue, as well as the rest of the Cake Shop’s clientèle, were downstairs in a much larger basement. On any other night Chris would have wanted to go downstairs in a heartbeat, catch a glimpse of the sound system and the venue space, feel and see the concert instead of being detached from it, metaphorically and physically above it.

But this wasn’t any other night, and Chris’s heartbeat was pounding on for something else.

“Never thought I’d be catching sight of you again,” the man behind the bar could barely mask his excitement as Chris eased himself down on an empty vinyl barstool, hoping the bar lights hid the fact that he was blushing. “Officer Richardson.”

Holding up his hands in quick resignation, Chris ducked his head, anxious little teeth biting down onto his lower lip. “No badge tonight,” he admitted; he still had it of course, his precinct shield more important to hold onto than wallet or keys, but unlike this morning it wouldn’t be a different kind of shield to hide behind. “No uniform. None of that officer stuff…just Chris tonight.” He looked up at Blake with a smile on his face, equally shocked and thrilled to see Blake’s golden brown eyes staring into him the whole time.

“Just Chris,” Blake repeated, eyes alight with interest and something Chris didn’t want to call lust because he wasn’t about to unduly get his hopes up.

Taking a daring step forward but far too sober to actually reach out and touch Blake once again, Chris pointed at the bright lettering on the older man’s shirt. “Isn’t it supposed to be ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’?” he asked with a smirk.

Blake smiled slowly, corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly as flirtatious instinct kicked in. “Well, that’s setting my standards a little low, isn’t it?” Chris quirked an eyebrow as Blake rested his hands against the bar, spreading his arms wide; claiming his territory in front of Chris. “I mean, ‘Kiss Me, I’m Welsh,’ but for being Irish I’d hope to get a little more than a silly peck.”

Chris chose to ignore the rise in Blake’s eyebrows and the pursing of his lips into a smug little smirk, and the fact that the older man was openly requesting some compensation for the Irish in his blood to his face. He didn’t think he could take it if he dwelled upon it further. “So you’re really Irish, then?” he quickly steered the subject away from all things concerning kissing and fucking Blake Lewis. “Full-blooded?”

“Nah,” Blake waved his hand at the question dismissively, breaking eye contact with Chris briefly to pour a tall, handsome man with a thick mane of hair a refill at the tap. “I’m one of those Western European mutts…you know, Irish, German…I’ve even got a little Norwegian thrown in there, which completely explains my lifelong dream to become a Viking.” More tapping on the bar; this time, however, it was an indication towards Chris, accenting Blake’s own question to the officer. “You?”

“About a quarter,” replied Chris. “Mostly English, I think…” The topic of genealogy wasn’t something Chris thought was high on the list of bar small talk, but he liked finding out more about this man that intrigued him right from the start, and letting him in turn know a bit about Chris. And it wasn’t like the young officer was going to grow tired of Blake’s voice any time soon. “And some Belgian. Born there, too.”

“Like the waffles.” There came the smirk again, and suddenly Chris wished he had already ordered a drink to hide behind. The alluring glint in the bartender’s eyes felt like it was hypnotizing Chris, making him think that Blake Lewis talking about Belgian waffles was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. Almost intuitively, Blake cocked his head to the side slightly, questioning Chris in a soft voice. “What you drinking tonight?”

Now this was something Chris didn’t need to be anxious about: he held up his hand matter-of-factly, growing more and more comfortable under Blake’s golden stare by the minute. “Guinness,” he replied; did Blake even have to ask? “Nothing less will do on St. Pat’s.”

The smirk on Blake’s face, the one that in just the right light hid the tiny cut on his lip from the fight earlier that day, diminished; his brows knit together and he sighed, as if he had been sighing the same way all shift. “Yeah, well it’s gonna have to,” he said in a defeated tone; his expression gave off the feeling that he was breaking the news of Chris’s grandmother’s death to him rather than the absence of a particular beer. No one was that upset over alcohol…Chris had the sneaking suspicion that Blake was hoping not to disappoint the officer enough to leave. “No Guinness.”

“No wonder you’re the only bar in Manhattan without a line outside the door.”

“It’s the owner,” explained Blake, and Chris found himself nodding in spite of himself. He didn’t know the Cake Shop’s proprietor by a long shot, but it would figure that anyone who considered the eclectic tastes of vegan pastries, classic David Bowie LPs and wood paneling on the walls would have some moral opposition to Guinness. “British guy – would rather the Cake Shop burn to the ground than stock an Irish beer.” Blake shrugged; the slow business on this, one of the busiest nights of the year for bars all over the city, had hit him hard in terms of tips. But ever since Chris had walked in the door, the issue hadn’t even crossed his mind. “At least his partner convinced him to string up the decorations to bring in a little business for the holiday.”

“Partner? You mean like business partner?”

It took a beat for Blake to gauge the younger man’s sincerity in the comment, and after a quick deliberation in his head he realized Chris wasn’t being sarcastic. “Um…” This time it was Blake’s turn to quirk his mouth to the side; he would have bit his lip to hold back any cynical remarks, but it could have opened up the healing wound on his mouth, and he’d be damned if he bled on a white shirt in front of this man. “…Sure.” Preferring to not speak about his boss’s personal life with a man he had just met earlier in the day, Blake quickly changed the subject. “We’ve got Brooklyn Brewery stout,” he suggested, pointing to one of the tap faucets attached to the bar.

A smile broke out over Chris’s face; though the small strains of Irish blood in him were outraged at the absence, he wasn’t planning on leaving this stool, and this bar, for quite a while. “Stout it is,” he agreed.

As Blake moved over to the tap, upending an empty pilsner glass and filling it with the dark amber liquid, Chris noticed the older man’s demeanor change, from friendly and just a bit flirty to serious, and inquisitive. “So,” Blake started, suddenly deeply engrossed in pouring Chris’s beer and how the frothy carbonation seemed to waterfall down through the glass. “What brings a quarter-Irish, mostly English, slightly Belgian cop into my little corner of the city?”

Blake knew the answer to this question; Chris knew Blake knew the answer to this question. But even so Blake wanted the officer to say it aloud, to make that vague, nebulous feeling between them solid, and out in the open. But to Chris Richardson, the words “Blake Lewis” and “out in the open” were too large right now, too imposing to consider. He froze: he knew Blake wanted to hear those words, the admission that Chris had only come to the Cake Shop for him, but he just couldn’t…not yet.

His reprieve came in the form of a creaking basement door to the side of the bar, nearly wallpapered with years of band stickers and flyers, swinging open and releasing a dissonant blast of music from the venue downstairs. A figure emerged, rather jovial despite the increasingly unintelligible music from the band, carrying in his arms a milk crate full of empty glasses, ruby red lipstick smears and remnants of foam caked onto their surfaces. “Blakey!” he crooned, wide smile aimed at the blonde behind the bar.

“Cookie!” Blake shouted back, grin going wide as he set the full glass of stout at Chris’s elbow. He slapped the other man on the back as he set down the milk crate full of glasses to be washed.

With a free hand the other man wiped a sleeve over his hairline, forehead slick with sweat. “Midnight, man,” he said to Blake with a relieved expression on his face. “Your shift’s on for the stage bar. And good fuckin’ luck down there, it’s like a damn oven and none of those kids know the meaning of the word ‘passable ID’.”

A sudden shot of fear and disappointment ran through Chris’s body, shivering through him like a sudden winter wind. No matter how benign a conversation about family lineage might have been, Chris was still deeply engaged in talking with Blake, hearing the sound of his voice as he chuckled under his breath. None of that could be had if Blake moved down to the basement, closer to the crowd and away from the hum of excitement underneath Chris’s skin. He saw the look strike through Blake’s face as well, similar to a pouting child requesting five more minutes of sleep until the school bus arrives.

But in just a moment that look was gone, replaced with a confident composure Chris was getting quite used to; it was a quality about Blake that he admired, envied. “Chris, this is Cook,” Blake introduced the other man with a wave. “He’s the other bartender here; also makes all the great food for the café, though I wish he’d lay off all the vegan shit.” Blake pointed to the far end of the bar, where a large assortment of dense chocolate cakes, bricks of walnut loaf and cookies the size of Chris’s palm resided near the cappuccino machine. The pastries and coffee seemed to be the Cake Shop’s appearance by day, the storefront equivalent of a superhero: mild-mannered café and restaurant by day, maverick music venue by night. Considering the different roles Chris already knew its bartender had, he found it strangely fitting.

The man aptly named Cook smiled and gave a nod in Chris’s direction; Chris raised his glass in acknowledgment, finding it rather interesting that this man kept his distance when it came to physical contact, whereas earlier in the day Blake had been more than eager to shake Chris’s hand. “Real name’s David, but Blake apparently knows too many of those so it got cut down to Cook.”

“Good thing your name’s not David Rockstar, then.”

When Blake began to introduce Chris to Cook the officer had to admit even to himself that he was on the edge of his barstool about this. Just waiting to hear if Blake introduced him as a friend or something else, something less or even more, to know where exactly he stood in the activist’s mind. Blake’s entire attitude changed, from that of confidence and self-esteem to something Chris recognized far more in himself, a gentle kind of insecurity. Chris wondered if Blake was thinking the same things about the nuances behind this introduction that Chris had been. “Cook, this is Chris,” he said, though his eyes were on the other bartender with a hidden kind of pleading behind them. “We…met this morning.”

“At the parade?” Cook gave a scrutinizing look in Chris’s direction, and the officer took a drought of his beer, feeling uncomfortable under the inspecting eye. He knew what Cook was thinking, could see the wheels turning in his head; it was that silent judging that Chris feared so much, the feeling he could never get used to. But the look quickly passed with Cook’s attention coming back to Blake, the looks the blonde was giving him almost like little laser beams demanding Cook’s attention. Cook seemed to get the message being relayed by Blake’s eyes; he gave the tiniest of nods to Blake, a knowing smile never missing a beat.

“You know what, dude?” Cook gave Blake a friendly pat on the back, then reached down behind the bar for a fresh crate of glasses. “Let me take stage bar duty from you. Better tips down there, anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Blake was going through the motions, Chris could tell: deny the offer first, compliment the generosity of the friend before accepting and inevitably getting what you had wanted in the first place. “You don’t have to, man, I know it’s hell down there –“

“Consider it a St. Patty’s gift.” Cook gave another quick nod in Chris’s direction, and Chris swore the other man had winked. “Nice meeting you, Chris,” were his parting words, and Cook returned to the basement, to the grueling and unpleasant job Blake should have been doing…but instead, Blake was up on the main floor of the Cake Shop, with Chris, fingers happily tapping out their beat.

The question that Blake had asked before the interruption – before Cook had given him his reprieve and allowed him these lazy yet blissful hours with Chris at the bar, filling the occasional drink order but being otherwise undisturbed – was left unanswered for the rest of the night. Though the answer was unspoken between the two men, it was clear to any of the café regulars that there was a definitive and obvious reason Chris Richardson had made the arduous trek to the Lower East Side that night, to a noticeably un-Irish bar on St. Patrick’s Day, and it wasn’t for the vegan fruitcake.

All through the night their conversation meandered and progressed though it felt like no time had passed at all, and Chris soon felt like he had known Blake Lewis his entire life, like a childhood friend, or familiar second shadow. He learned about the origins of the Cake Shop – once a sleepy coffee bar for British expatriates from Bleecker Street, it had new life breathed into it with the addition of the basement venue and the eclectic yet widely popular LPs sold in the back. The two men had bonded over their equal amounts of artistic lust for a high-priced import of Their Satanic Majesties Request, but fell into a quick and heated squabble between the superiority of Diamond Dogs against The Ghost of Tom Joad – the merits and downfalls of each album came into light but neither was considered to win over the other. Blake said Chris would have to listen to them both to get the full impact of the issue; Chris wondered if this was Blake’s invitation to buy the records or to listen to them with him.

And Chris learned about Blake’s life, making the alluring and charming activist more than just a caricature and a fantasy in Chris’s mind. Blake was born and raised in Seattle, a different kind of city than New York but a metropolis nonetheless. Chris bit his bottom lip to hold back the comment that mass transportation in his hometown was carpooling in your father’s pickup truck, and the most exotic cuisine to be found was Taco Bell. The activist had visited his friend’s sister in Brooklyn one summer in high school; he saw the chaos of Midtown mixed with the serenity of Central Park, smelled the seaport and the hot dog carts alike, and fell into deep love with Manhattan.

“After I came back from Ireland with my youth choir –“ that, apparently, was another story Blake had yet to tell Chris, but it was thrilling to hear it from him and know, deep in the officer’s mind, that there would be plenty of time in his encounters with Blake Lewis to hear it. “- I had the choice of going back home, studying in a community college and going down a path that just was never meant for me…or to come here.” He sighed happily; it was written all over his face, in that secret little smile Chris was falling in love with, that Blake had made the right choice all those years ago. “My parents were heartbroken about it at first – only child leaving the nest and all – but I call often, visit when I can, and as long as I keep my mom knee-deep in Serendipity chocolates she wouldn’t care if I moved to Mars.”

Chris and Blake were both transplants to the Big Apple, it seemed, though the older man’s transition was far less jarring than the officer’s. He could remember the perplexed looks on the faces of his friends and family when he announced he would be taking his humble local college degree to a police academy, to the police academy in New York of all places. He still felt his sister’s palpable confusion over him admitting he needed to find himself in a place larger than their quaint Virginian town, and felt the strength in his mother’s arms when she hugged him goodbye.

The thing was, Blake already seemed like he found the person inside that he was searching for when he came to New York: he was strong and confident, with friends and supporters at every turn. Chris felt like he was still searching for that something in New York that would bring him the same kind of clarity, that understanding.

“You can’t tell me you don’t drink coffee,” Chris rolled his eyes as he sloshed the dark amber liquid around in his half-full pilsner. He had stopped counting the number of times Blake surreptitiously refilled his glass throughout the night; it was more difficult to keep track of one’s tab when the bartender kept flashing you a winning smile and murmuring in your ear not to worry about the bill. “You work in a coffee shop. You’re never three blocks away from a Starbucks in this city. Christ, you’re from Seattle!”

“I work in a music venue, thank you,” Blake didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by Chris’s line of questioning – in fact, with the alcohol in his own system from the night and the built-up, heated charge between the two men, Chris could accuse Blake of Satanism and he’d still blush coyly and shake his head. “And just because I’m from Seattle doesn’t mean I have java running through my veins. I mean, you’re from Virginia, you don’t love –“ Blake waved his hand out into the air, his fingers extending and weaving through the café like thoughts running through his mind. Chris couldn’t help but chuckle at the concentrated look on Blake’s face. “- country ham.”

The officer tried to hide his grin behind the pilsner glass, but failed to remember the level of beer in the glass and ended up grinning through the clear vessel straight at Blake. “Oh fuck me, you do love ham, don’t you.” The uttered phrase finally broke down Chris’s guard: he reared his head back into a full belly laugh, faintest indications of crow’s feet inching into the corners of his eyes, pearl-white rows of teeth displayed proudly and broadly for Blake to see. The older man’s smile faded, softened; opened up into a mix of serenity and awe as he looked on at the laughing officer like he was the second coming, like a god had graced the threshold of the Cake Shop and chose to drink with him on this night.

“My God,” Blake breathed out, almost in a whisper, as Chris’s laugh died down, leaving only the contented smile behind. “You have…the most amazing smile I think I’ve ever seen.”

Chris didn’t know what to do with this compliment, spoken hushed across the bar through Blake’s lips like a prayer. It was the most forward either man had been the entire night, preferring to ask deep, honest questions about each other’s lives instead of empty flirtations reserved for others. There was a nakedness in Blake’s eyes when he spoke the words, something raw and beautiful that made Chris want to leap across the bar and take him right there. Issues of propriety alone and the nagging worry that he might break something kept Chris decidedly seated on his barstool.

Blake cleared his throat, looking down at the bar, a bit embarrassed that he wasn’t able to hold that observation in, keep it to himself. “Another round?” he asked, fingers wrapping themselves around the slender neck of a bottle of Irish whiskey, the same one Blake had been pouring shots out of the entire night for the pair. “I’m buying.” And when he poured out two shot glasses of the stuff, sliding one across the polished wood of the bar to the officer, he made a point to hold onto the glass, fingers gripping the sides, so that Chris’s touch would graze against them when he went to take the shot.

He relinquished his hold on the shot glass long enough for Chris to raise the drink to eye level, waiting patiently for Blake to do the same. They toasted, tiny glasses tinkling as crystal connected, the two men’s eyes linked together in a stare that went far beyond a toasting tradition. There was promise in the stare, something deep and carnal that suggested to Chris he wasn’t taking his long train ride back to Bay Ridge that night. After they drained the shot glasses, slamming them back down onto the bar, Chris twirled the glass around in his fingers, toying anxiously with both the glass and the thoughts in his head, until Blake reached out a hand to cover over Chris’s, stilling its movements, and he had no intention of letting go.

The question about Chris’s intentions in coming to the Cake Shop that night wasn’t brought up again until the end of the night, when the young crowd streamed out of the basement concert and Cook looked impatient to turn the house lights on the two men, who were oblivious to the hour. It had been glossed over the entire night in lieu of more pressing matters, like Chris wanting more and more to smooth away the scar on Blake’s mouth with his tongue, or Blake discovering the exact ways to make Chris smile wide, like summer sunshine in Virginia. But now that the evening was winding down and the two were finding fewer reasons to avoid it, Blake asked again, eyes full of honesty and yearning.

“Why’d you come here tonight, Chris?”

Chris licked his lips before pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, secretly pleased with himself when he saw how the act made Blake shiver. “Isn’t it obvious?” he replied, and bravely touched the curves of his inner thigh, but this time not out of nervousness.

He didn’t even need to think of an obscure reason why he didn’t want to take the long and lonely train ride back to Brooklyn; Blake had resolved to take the officer home with him the second he walked in the door.






Notes:
The Lower East Side is a neighborhood in Manhattan that's close to the Williamsburg Bridge; much like other neighborhoods in the city, it developed as tenements and homes for immigrant families and has recently become an area for starving artists and hipsters. It's a weird mix but it seems to be working, and everyone just eats at Katz's Deli, anyway ;-)

Blake works at The Cake Shop, which really IS a cafe/bar/record store/indie music venue in the Lower East Side. I tried to get the descriptions down as accurately as possible, though I fibbed a few things to fit with the story (like there's only a bar in the basement, but the ground floor DOES have lots of yummy cakes in the dessert display.) I really can't say enough about this place, the vibe is just so indie yet not pretentiously so. Plus David Cook their baker makes a mean pumpkin nut loaf. :-P

Brooklyn Brewery is a local beer brewery located in...well, Brooklyn (duh). They're best known for their ales, but they also brew lagers, stouts and a few flavored seasonal beers. They're big all around the city, but can also be found in a large number of other states (particularly on the East Coast) and in Canada.

Blake's mom is in love with gourmet chocolates from Serendipity 3, a small yet famous sweet shop and cafe just outside of the 59th Street Bridge. Nowadays you can actually buy their famous chocolate bars and frozen hot chocolate mixes online, but I have a feeling it means more to Dinah that her son send it over himself.

And I apologize now for the level of fail at the albums listed in the record store...alas, I am really not as well-versed in epically classic rock as lillijulianne, my idea of a rare import is a European version of Backstreet Boys :-P