#they literally live like fifteen minutes downtown from me and I have a standing invitation

[neverendingford]

.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Don't Be Late

Summary- 3.7k Ransom Drysdale x Kitten. Ransom invites you to Blood Like Wine, having something he wants to tell you in person. Of course when visiting Ransom, it's never quite just to talk and today he seems like he has a need for something only you can give him.

Warnings- This is a cheater fic. Oral sex, male receiving. This is an 18+ Blog only. Walt verbally abusing Ransom.

A/N- dedicated to @what-is-your-plan-today because she really wanted this particular scenario to happen, with a special line from Walt. Dividers made by @firefly-graphics

Masterlist

You sat on the opposite end of the couch as Neil. He had some of his court documents spread around while half watching Netflix with you. You had tried your hardest to get him to pick something to watch, hoping that perhaps you two could literally Netflix and chill if Neil made the effort to choose something to relax to.

But he pressed a friendly kiss to your forehead and declined, leaving it up to you to pick. Like always, because Neil wouldn't really pay attention to you or the television. The space between you was littered with files and him absently chewing on a pen while you stared at the screen seeing David complain about being dragged off into the woods on a hike by Patrick on Schitts Creek.

You've seen it a hundred times and some vindictive part of you chose it because Neil disliked this show. You happened to love it. It didn’t matter because Neil hardly looked up at the screen to give it much thought.

These nights you felt a bit more alone, isolated. It made you yearn for Ellie who would drop by with a bottle of wine and crash on your couch when you lived in Boston.

It made you crave even more for Ransom who would insist you be right next to him, trying to distract you from the show's story or if he was really into it, would be rambling right along with the television in his own version of commentary.

You glanced at Neil again and frowned slightly at yourself. This case was important to him and maybe he just needed a bit more encouragement then Ransom did. Maybe Neil just isn't picking up your signals to spend time with him. He was a busy man, busier than Ransom usually was.

Pushing up from the couch, you approached him and ran your hands over his shoulder till he tore his eyes away from the document. “Hey, how about you take a break?” You ask with a raised brow and you move to straddle his lap. “I miss you.”

He gave you a puzzled look. “I'm right here baby, so… But I really need to finish this.” He lifted the file he had been studying and you gave it another shot, leaning in and kissing him softly.

“No Neil… I really miss you.”

“I know baby, but I really got to do this. I promise to take care of you later, before bed.” He grasped your hips lightly to push you back to a stand. “I just got to be ready for tomorrow. How about you finish your show and I will go to my office so I can concentrate.”

You quickly blinked back a few tears, curling your arms around yourself. It was hard not to feel rejected right now.

“Um- sure, sorry Neil. I will be in bed in another hour or so.” You said with a quick smile as you plopped down on the couch and watched as he scooped his files up and tucked them under his arm to leave you all alone.

Naturally you turned to your phone, searching out for a connection. Ellie as always was down for a bitch fest.

Couldn’t even give you fifteen minutes? Bitch, I will be down there and rock your world. Teach him how to treat you.

I know El, I mean I didn't think it was asking for much.

Drop him 🙄 Then move back home. You can come stay with me till you find a place.

You hovered on Ellie's message a moment when you scrolled past her last one to Ransom.

Hey, what are you doing tonight?

Downtown Boston tonight, but Ronnie has me hanging with the dumbest fucks ever. What are you doing, Kitten?

Netflix and wine.

Should be Netflix and fuck Kitten.

Nope, not tonight.

It was several minutes before Ransom typed back. How about you come by Blood like Wine tomorrow? I'm going to be there all day and would love a break from having to listen to Walt bitch. Besides, I have to ask you something.

Oh? What would that be?

Surprise Kitten. Sit and spin on what it might be tonight.

Not even a hint?

Nope. Let me have my fun. I promise you will like it though.

Fine, what time.

230 Kitten, don't be late. 😉🍆

Smooth Ransom. You should scoff at his hint, but it has you biting your bottom lip excitedly.

You know you love it.

Setting your phone aside, you turn back to the tv, wondering what Ransom could possibly have to tell you and forgetting about Neil’s rejection. When you went to bed that night, you didn't even bother poking your head in Neils study and were fast asleep when he finally joined you in bed hours later.

Ransom was at his desk, currently going over a manuscript of Harlan's current work. In true fashion, Ransom knew that it would be a hit. His grandfather had a way with words that drew in any audience. Walt currently was pacing back and forth on the other side, nit-picking it apart.

“Dad always does this though, it's getting too predictable and he is going to lose readers.”

Ransom rolled his eyes and chose to ignore noting that particular comment in his notes. “Fuck Walt, Harlan is as renowned for his best sellers as other writers in his genre. He's not going to fucking lose readers. Besides, this killer is completely unpredictable and if you say otherwise, I’m calling you a fucking liar.”

Walt snapped his attention to Ransom lounging behind the desk. “Don't even start with me about this, you are wet behind the ears spoiled brat who knows nothing. I’ve been managing Dad's books for years.”

Ransom cocked his head, shrugging as he lazily leaned back in his chair. “Seems I know something since Granddad wanted me to come on to partner with you, as an equal.”

“Cause Dad felt sorry for you Ransom. Poor little Hugh who has no life skills. I let you come work here, make no mistake about that. I felt pity for you.”

It was just Ransom’s eyes that showed how pissed he was. His mask was cool, his smirk coy while he watched Walt, who was the opposite. Walt on the other hand was unable to hide his feelings, anger was apparent all over his face, the color rising along his neck and heated his face. “Sure you did Walt, you would have gotten this company up 20 percent in sales for hardcovers, worldwide. Wait… no, my connections got that, not yours. How about you keep trying to convince Harlan on that Netflix deal and sell out everything Grandad stands for. Harlan might be sick of listening to you and give in.” Ransom said dismissively while glancing at the time on his computer. “Now can you fuck off Walt? I have an appointment who will be here in a few minutes.”

“I'm your boss, you can't-”

“No you really fucking are not.” Ransom planted his hands on his desk and rose slowly, his tone turning darker with a warning. “Now get the fuck out…” Walt cowered slightly as he took a step back. “Before I fucking remove your gimp ass myself.”

Walt puffed his chest like a ridiculous ape, flicking a hand through his mop of curls to hide his discomfort at his nephew. “You can't-”

“I just did.”

“Whatever, we are not finished though Ransom.”

“Course we aren't.” A sneer curled Ransom's upper lip as he watched his uncle stumble out of the door.

After a few minutes of peace finally, having spent a whole morning with Walt, Ransom went back to the manuscript they had been going over when a gentle tentative knock sounded on his door.

“It’s unlocked.” He called out, making sure to save his work when he glanced up to see you slip in. His eyes softened when he saw you, slipping off your jacket and setting your bag in the chair nearby. “You are a sight for sore eyes, Kitten.” He rumbled out slightly as he pushed back his chair while you circled around his desk.

He wasted no time grasping the back of your thighs and pulling you in closer, making you stumble between his legs, your hands falling to his shoulders. “Whoa Ransom, what's got you in a rush.” You teased, your hands flexing against his shoulders and sweeping up to his neck to slide onto his cheeks to feel the smooth just shaved sensation he preferred.

Maybe it was Walt's insult earlier hitting Ransom harder than he thought. As much as he hated his family, besides Harlan and Great Nana, they all could fuck off for good. But there was still a part of him that hurt, the disgust they had for him somehow still managed to be a barb in him that was festering. He couldn't pull the infected hook out completely, he tried.

It also pissed him off.

“Do I need a reason?” He countered as his hands slid up the back of your skirt and cupped your bare ass, making him arch a brow. His worries start to fade in the background as you get a sly look, biting on your lip as he makes this discovery. “Kitten, you being a little slut for me today?”

“Maybe.” You pop your lips and lean in close to brush ruby red lips against his mouth. “How about I paint your cock today? Will that make you feel better?”

Your lips stretched around his cock? That would absolutely make him feel better, having you on your knees worshipping his cock really gave him a rush. Ransom immediately pushed down on your hips for you to fall to your knees between his spread thighs, his pants stretched to the max. Your hands fell to his buckle and started to unwind the leather from where it was clasped through the belt loop. Already he had tented slacks and a throbbing hard-on for you. “It always does, Kitten.”

Ransom let his eyes slide close, if there was anything he could enjoy and turn his brain off from the fuckery that was in his life, it was you. You with your perfect fuckable mouth and big eyes staring up at him like he was the greatest goddamn thing in the world. He wondered if you even know what that did to him. The way it made him feel like he was actually worth something. Even if it was only for a few minutes till life got in the way and you were yet again walking away.

Your hands circled his cock and eased him out, the relief of it made him take a deep breath while his hand rubbed on his thighs, for now, letting you do as you wanted before he took over and properly fucking your mouth like he knew you liked. The way you would slobber all over, those groans and gags that made your eyes water, well fuck he had a couple pictures on his phone of just how pretty you looked. He might need to take another one today, one of you under his desk sucking him off, probably make it his new lock screen.

A kitten lick along the underside of his shaft snapped Ransom back to attention, crealuen blue eyes looking down at you while you run the tip of your nose along his cock, inhaling his musky essence before your tongue flattened against him, trailing the thick throbbing vein to the tip where you purred swirling your tongue around him. One hand wrapped around the base, holding him in place, and the other rubbed at the inside of a roped thigh, teasing your way down to cup his balls.

Ransom knew your games, you always liked to tease, slap his cock off your lips before sucking him off, but today he was impatient, his hand fisting in your hair, and a single warning fell from him. “Open.” You didn't defy him, you didn't struggle or try to make him bend to your will.

You widened those pretty eyes at him and popped your mouth open, tongue hanging over the edge of your bottom lip to help guide him in. Your moan was sinful the way it came out of you with the way your lips stretched around him as he fed you his cock, flutters of your tongue encouraged him to continue while your hands wrapped around him to rub up and down him, stimulating him to thrust further into your mouth.

Fingers tightened in your hair, messing it up while he pressed you in closer. The hollowing of your cheeks squeezed your mouth around him, encasing him in a tight warmth that could almost be as good as your cunt squeezing and milking him. For whatever reason, he was gentle, even through the moment you felt him at the back of your throat when you gagged. It made you glare up at him.

You didn't want him to be gentle, you wanted Ransom to pound his frustrations out on your mouth and you sucked desperately on his cock as he pulled out of your wet mouth, hoping your look would let him know that was what you were expecting.

The sensation of sucking on his cock made him study you, your needy whine, and shuffle on your knees as you brought yourself closer to him. “Needing me to fuck your mouth hard Kitten?” He rumbled out and you nodded as much as possible with your mouth full of him.

Hands cupped your face and Ransom no longer let himself ease into you, instead, he made you his toy, making you take his cock down your throat while you hung onto his thighs, burying your nose into the trimmed curls at the base of his cock and moaning around him with demanding hums till you started to sputter when he held you on him till your lungs made you slap at him to pull back. “You are gonna fucking take it, Kitten. He groaned, the noises rising from him while he jerked you on and off him started to fill his office like some pornographic video. “Fuck this mouth is just perfect for fucking.”

His cock swelled, so wanting to release thick streams of cum down your throat, but he rather be buried in your pussy for that. Yanking you off of him, he pulled you up. “C’mere, need to be in that cunt.”

You scrambled to keep up, reaching to pull your skirt up around your hips while straddling Ransom's lap. It wasn't an ease into you sort of situation, and you hissed at the way he so suddenly lined himself up and buried into you. His mouth attached to your neck, and you were bucking on him almost immediately with your own lewd moans to add to the sound of his body fucking up into you. The desk chair you two occupied precariously rolled back, crashing into a shelf of Harlan's books behind you two, toppling down around the two of you while you both furiously fucked.

Hands grabbed at one another, yours pulled at Ransom's hair while you pulled yourself up and down on his cock, Ransom shoved your shirt up and buried his face in your breasts, kissing and biting on them as they were shoved in his face, he traveled up your collarbone to latch onto your neck while his hands had a tight grasp on your jutting hips, pulling you back down harshly while he angled his cock just right.

The gasp falling from you while your cunt clenched around him so tight, fisting velvet walls around him to hold onto him let him know that he was hitting you just right. “Fuck Ransom, yes… fuckfuckfuck!”

A pounding cut through the haze of you two wrapped in one another. A heavy thudding on the door while a silhouette pressed against the fogged glass trying to look in. Walts’ voice was a jarring nuisance in your lust-filled symphony that Ransom literally growled against your lips hearing it. “Ransom, what the hell is going on in there? We can hear you out here.”

“Ignore him.” You gasped against his mouth before your tongue plunged in, the kiss a messy gasp between you two.

“What the fuck Ransom?! OPEN THE DOOR.” The handle jiggled, Ransom was counting his blessings that you had snapped the lock when you came in. Another set of pounds interrupted you and Ransom pried himself away from your chasing lips, slamming you on him one last time with a grunt from both of you.

“Fuck off Walt, I’m in my fucking meeting!”

“What kind of meeting is this?”

You started to suck kisses on Ransom's neck, biting at the tense tendons flexing there as he tried to focus on you and answer his bastard uncle at the same time.

“The kind you get your dick sucked off Walt, FUCK OFF.” Ransom fisted his hand in your hair, yanking your head back so he could see your desperate face, the one that had you begging him to finish you. Your eyes fluttered back in your skull as your hips bucked on his cock. “Just like that Kitten?”

“Fuck Ransom, I’m gonna cum so hard on your cock.” You didn't even try to hide what you were saying while Walt started screaming on the other side of the door.

“This is a place of business Ransom! Not for you to fuck whores.”

Your eyes screwed shut, the incessant screaming of Walt driving you mad while you tried chasing your ending. “Oh god Ransom, I’m gonna cum!” The chair slammed back once more, crashing more books off the shelf falling around you two while you screamed Ransom's name.

“I'm going to call the cops, I’m dialing right now.”

This made you scream while Ransom still pounded himself in you, your head turning to look over your shoulder. “Call them Walt and I will make you regret that. Get the fuck out of here. This is my time to get some dick!” It ended up being you who scared him off this time.

There was a sputtering of curses that faded away till all you could hear was Ransom chasing his own ending, puffs of air and curses falling from him as you felt his cum fill your cunt and you both sagged in the chair. Your head buried against his shoulder and panting slightly to catch your breath.

Before you knew it you started giggling, hiding your face while Ransom snorted in a similar fashion, tilting his head back to look down at you. “Your time to get some dick?”

“I was your fucking meeting, are we making that an actual thing now?” you teased back while burying your nose in closer to him, still enjoying the high of your orgasm.

“When pussy is this good, fuck yes.” Ransom pressed a kiss to your forehead, obviously his words had more meaning than that, but you didn't ask for them. You knew just as much as he did. So you two let the silence wash over you. Ransom tracing patterns up your back till you shifted to sit up, making him groan at your pussy flexing around his soft dick. “Could just stay inside of you.”

“Tempting Ransom.” You smirked and cupped his face, to admire his features, your eyes falling to perfect pink lips that you knew tasted of sinful ideas and back up to bright blue eyes that seemed hopeful. You closed the gap and let yourself kiss him slowly, perfectly. “Was this what you wanted to tell me?”

His arms circled around your waist, keeping you there among the mess you two had made of his office. “Harlan wanted me to extend you an invite. He is having a small get together to celebrate the launch of his new book. He wants you there.”

You hummed at his words while fixing Ransom's hair from where you had gripped at it while riding him. “I’m surprised he asked for me to come? Course I will be there, what day is it?” The way he smiled made your heart clench, knowing it was making him happy that you would be coming to the party.

“Well I happened to mention you the other day while I was having lunch with him and he insisted on inviting you to come to his party.”

It was a couple hours when Ransom had you leave out the back way from his office, not wanting you to have to deal with Walt, who the both of you had heard stalking back and forth the front of his office in his gimping shuffle.

He let his uncle simmer for another hour before he opened his office door, it wasn't long after Ransom was back to reading the manuscript when Walt darkened his doorway, the anger coming from him filling the small space like a coil tightened too far, about to snap.

“I don't know what you think this is Ransom, but this is your grandfather's legacy that you are just fucking around on. Who the hell was that? Your whore? You know the reputation you have bringing a bitch like that around here. Just to get your dick wet? Do it in your own time.” Walt sneered.

Ransom ignored him for now, flipping to the next page and continuing reading the manuscript while Walt came closer, leaning down to yell in Ransom's ear. “DO YOU HEAR ME YOU FUCKING WASTE OF SPACE?!”

A toss of the manuscript had Ransom surging to a stand, making Walt stumble back into the doorway nearby in surprise, a cock of Ransom's head made him look intimidating as his eyes narrowed at Walt. “Loud and clear Walt… me getting pussy seems to really bother you. I assume you are not getting enough from your wife?”

"Be careful what you say boy, that is your aunt." Walt once more puffed up, his own gaze narrowing at him. “How much do you pay for it, Ransom? The only way you ever get anyone over here, she bring you your latest bunch of designer drugs so you can get high here as well? As soon as Dad hears about this, you're done. Proving what a waste you really are, draining the family resources.”

Ransom braced his hand against the door to his office, the words that hours ago would have stung and put him in a rage had no effect on him right now. His time spent with you put him back in a better mind space, able to deal with the daily shit his family dealt on him. “Best pussy you will never ever get Walt, how about you go beg your wife to have some pity on that limp dick of yours. Oh, and eat shit.” With that, he snapped the door shut in his uncle's face.

Walt sputtered on the other side, the best comeback he had was flung at the shut door, his words muffled as he screamed them from the other side.

“I’m not eating one iota of shit Ransom!”

[savoies]

i don't know you yet - anthony beauvillier.

summary: soulmates. they exist right? y/n and tito live their daily lives doing activities thinking if the right person will ever come.

word count: 2k.

warnings: maybe a few bad words. hopefully angst. 

a/n: i think this might be my first "angst" so please let me know what you think. i am so proud of this work and honestly probably one of my bests. loosely inspired by idk yet by alexander 23. thank you so much to @puckbuddies for all the help, love ya!

taglist + tagging a few folks: @quintnsbyfield @vincecdunn @bigboigritty @ana-maa @puckshitbitch @alxvlasic @stfukie @laurenairay @damn-dunner-29 @kaitieskidmore1 @thelionkingpw @aria253264 @hartsyhart @boesxr @mitch-slap @frostythegoalman @teenagekook @barzysthighs

tagging some lovely folks: @laurenairay @konecny-s @bestestbenn @vinceduhn @folkloreflyers .

(*credit to gif owner.*)

Many people imagine their dream person or think of the person they want to date or marry from a young age. Y/N remembered going to sleepovers and her friends talking about how they wanted a boyfriend with blue eyes and blonde hair or brown hair and brown eyes. But when Y/N's turn came around she always said the same thing "I don't care what they look like as long as they are the right person for me." And that's when the game would end. Because twelve year olds could not fathom that everyone had their person and at some point they'd meet and everything would work out. Her mindset was set as growing up her mom would always tell her the same story. When I met your dad I just knew she'd say.

Tito had dated his fair share of girls. Blonde, brown haired, a red head, and a spontaneous colored haired girl here and there. But none caught his attention. Not that they weren't pretty or anything but Tito was not really one to date and dump. He liked forming connections and really getting to know them. But being a hockey player was not really quite helpful. They'd be invited to a party here and there and of course Mat begged Tito to go with him because he needed a wingman and Tito could not really say no to his best friend.

~~~~

Y/N had believed she had met her special person her second year into college. A tall lanky boy with brown hair. They had both met in the library when they reached for the same book. Might seem cheesy but she took it as a hint. After "considently" bumping into eachother in the library many more times he had asked her out. Most of their dates were pretty basic just like her. Maybe that's why she enjoyed them so much. Two years. Two years is how long she dated him for. But sadly people fall out of love. She had heard about that happening only in movies. Never really thinking that it could happen to her. But then she heard some of the worst words anyone could ever hear. "I don't love you anymore." 

Her heart was sad. Her first real relationship. Who she believed was the one. But she understood. This wasn't her fairytale. But she was broken. Her still being in love. Thoughts invading her mind. What did she do wrong? What could she have done better? So after that it took her time to open up again, to bring those walls down to handsome looking strangers. She wasn't one just to date for fun. So she rarely did bring them down. Sometimes she'd sit in her dark room late at night letting her thoughts consume her. How maybe she'd never find the one, how she was unlovable, how she had way too high of expectations to believe there was someone for everyone. 

~~~~~

Every Monday morning Y/N would go to the same coffee shop and get the same order, a medium coffee with sugar and cream. To her it was a nice way to start the week. She had been doing it since she moved to Brooklyn in 2016. 

Tito had been begging Mat to go with him to this coffee shop in Brooklyn that apparently had great coffee. Tito was what you could call a food and drinks connoisseur. Having cooked many times for his teammates and best friend.

" Come on Mat, Grace and Anders said it the best they've had and they've lived here much longer than us. Plus you owe me for getting you that girls number last week, don't forget to call her." Tito wasn't one to get acquainted with Mat's hookups but he did feel bad when the next morning Mat was kicking them out before sunrise.

Mat finally agreed and here they were on a Monday morning way too early for Mat's liking for a straight black coffee that was "rich in flavor" according to Tito. It was quite busy for it being Monday but they patiently waited in line.

Y/N gathered her stuff and exited the crowded coffee shop, careful not to bump into anyone and headed her way to work.

After waiting for about fifteen minutes they ordered two medium coffees and headed out to the busy New York streets.

She had walked about ten minutes away from the coffee shop before she realized that she forgot her phone. Y/N checked her watch and noticed that if she was gonna make it on time she had only five minutes to retrieve her phone. So she quickly but carefully dogged through people as she made her way back to the coffee shop.

Tito and Mat were casually walking back to the car having parked it a few blocks down when they saw someone running their way. Tito wasn't paying much attention due to savoring his cup of coffee which to him was totally worth the twenty minute drive and six dollars.

"Dude she's hot." Mat turned around and checked out the girl that somewhat seemed like she was running away from something instead of for something. 

"Mat that's gross. You literally didn't even see her face and are labelling her hot just by seeing her ass, I understand why you need a wingman now."

"Hey!" Mat slapped his best friend's shoulder as Tito drank his coffee trying to stifle a laugh (which he failed) since Mathew knew it was true.

~~~

Y/N had heard it many times from her friends, family, and probably even a few strangers. It was time to get a date. She wasn't desperate to really get anywhere. She was a 22 year old living in one of the most populated states in the country. She has time right? Deep down she knew that if she didn't get out there her person would probably not come by themselves. Which brings her to present day staring at her  phone screen at 1am. Earlier in the day Y/N's friend texted her that she knew someone who deemed specific qualities the young romantic wanted. 

~~~

Y/N met Grace in the coffee shop. She had come in a little bit later due to having the day off and sleeping in. Grace and Ruby sat in one of the corners of the small spaced coffee shop and Y/N sat next to them trying to stay in her own space but finding it quite difficult when there was a cute baby trying to get her attention a few feet away. After Grace apologizing for invading her space and Y/N saying it was really no problem they continued to meet in the coffee shop every once in a while. And a friendship blossomed later having exchanged numbers.

Grace was great. She listened to Y/N's tall tales of soulmates and love and she even told her about how she found her love (which she referred to as anders, y/n never having met him before) and how they had a beautiful baby girl together. She knew Y/N wanted someone who was sweet and kind and liked forming deeper connections so when she had an encounter with Tito she knew she should text her.

~~~

It was a late Friday night and the boys were celebrating a win in a rowdy club somewhere in downtown Brooklyn. The single guys trying to get the attention of some girls by buying them drinks. Grace had been standing at the bar with some of the other girls when she saw that Tito sat alone at the booth that occupied their stuff.

"Seems like our stuff doesn't really need a bodyguard, why aren't you out there buying a girl a drink or dancing?" She spoke somewhat loudly due to the pounding music and shouting of people.

"Not really my thing." He smiled softly back at his captain's wife. Tito was not fond of clubs or bars. He felt as though it was way too loud to actually have a proper conversation with someone. That's when it clicked. Of all the times the team had gone out not once had Tito really smiled or joked around with a girl. Grace connected the dots and decided to text Y/N in the morning.

~~~

A simple message was displayed across Y/N's screen. Simply reading "hey i know dates aren't your thing but i know someone who i think you might like."

After sleeping on it for quite a few more hours than she needed to, she decided to bite the bullet and text Grace back. "Why the hell not." 

Not even two minutes later Y/N's phone dinged indicating a response. "Perfect, I'll let him know."

There she sat on her bed over thinking if this was really a good idea.

~~

Tito was way over his head. Grace had texted him that she knew of a girl who was quite exactly Tito's type. At least she loosely stated it that way. He had agreed only on the condition that Mat was having a girl over later tonight and he wanted to be as far away from that as possible since they did have pretty thin walls. So exactly five hours later here he stood outside the infamous coffee shop which held the secret ingredient to the best coffee he had. Grace didn't tell him much other than her hair color which was quite difficult to find in New York since every once in a while a sea of same colored haired girls would come by. He waited outside deeming it more on the gentlemenier side. Whatever that meant. Ten minutes later wrapping his coat on tighter and checking his watch for what seemed to be the five time. Maybe she stood him up. I mean he didn't have too many redeeming qualities. I mean hell he lived in New York and didn't like clubs, parties, and sometimes hated big crowds which were what seemed to be a big part of where he lived. Rocking on the back of his heels he decided to wait a bit longer thinking that hopefully she was just running late.

~~~ 

Indeed she had been running quite late. Her cousin had pleaded her to take care of her baby because she had some errands to run. She didn't mind at all since she did in fact love babies. But when four thirty rolled around and still no sign of her cousin she began to worry. She didn't have this mystery dudes number (which Grace referred to him as Anthony) so she couldn't really text him that she was gonna be a bit late. She really hoped he would wait because all throughout the day her excitement grew more and more. Finally five rolled around and Y/N quickly handed off the baby and changed into something more date worthy rushing out the door in the cold breeze of the afternoon. She rushed to the coffee shop and as she arrived she could see a tall stranger looking down at the ground presumably freezing since it was pretty cold. She dodged a few people hoping that this was indeed her date.

"Hi uhm are you Anthony." She spoke up and she stood awkwardly pulling the sleeves of her sweaters. "Gosh please be Anthony or im just gonna look like an idiot." She whispered.

Tito turned around at a soft voice and was faced with one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. Her baby hairs were sticking out and her nose and cheeks were red from the cold, she seemed to be somewhat out of breath.

Y/N looked up and caught sight of some of the most memorizing eyes she had ever seen. This handsome stranger who she presumed  as Anthony had amazing features.

Tito cleared his throat and reached out his hand. "Hi uhm yeah im Anthony but you can call me Tito, or at least that's what my friends call me." He began to ramble.

"Nice to meet you im y/n." They shook hands and a soft electric shock was felt between the two. They both glanced up and she knew it was too soon to tell since she had just met him but she felt an extra special connection with him.

[xerxia31]

I wish you would write a fic where Katniss and Peeta are both single parents

Ahhh this took me forever, but I’m plodding my way through the prompts I’ve received, slowly but surely :) So this is a strange little bit of fluff.

Small World

rated T

In the small town where Peeta Mellark grew up, he was used to seeing the same people everywhere he turned. It was expected, really, that you’d bump into at least five neighbours, or teachers, or coworkers every trip to the grocery store. That’s how small towns worked.

But this wasn’t his small town. And in the bustling metropolis of just under a million people where he’d moved a year after the divorce, he’d been pretty much anonymous.

Until now.

Of course he’d noticed Archer Everdeen’s mother at meet the teacher night. The raven-haired beauty was hard to miss, with her silver eyes and incredible ass. But sticking his toes back into the dating pool definitely didn’t include the parents of his kindergarten students, however single they might be. (And according to Archer’s file, she was very single).

But Archer was a great kid, friendly and intelligent, hard-working and polite. There wasn’t going to be much need to speak to his mama. Which was a good thing, Peeta reminded himself.

o-o-o

Charlotte needed an afterschool activity, something more active than the arts-and-crafts program the school board offered. And living in the big city, Peeta thought his daughter might benefit from learning a martial art for self-defence, in spite of what his ex-wife thought of the idea (or maybe because of what Delly thought, if he was honest with himself.)

On the first night of karate classes, he met the dojo owner… Ms. Everdeen. She smiled in recognition as he took his seat with the other parents.

Watching her put Charlotte and the rest of the group of pseudo pyjama-clad six- and seven-year-olds through their paces did nothing to diminish his attraction to her. Still, it was nothing more than a coincidence, a consequence of there only being a single dojo in the west end of the city. A pleasant coincidence, to be sure. But nothing more.

o-o-o

But then he arrived for Charlotte’s semi-annual dental cleaning to find Ms. Everdeen and Archer sitting in the waiting room. “I’m starting to think you’re a stalker,” she laughed, her voice richer and more melodic than he remembered. And he grinned back. For five fabulous minutes, he found himself chatting with Katniss, as she insisted he call her, about the strangeness of giant small towns, before they got called away.

o-o-o

Of the thousands of parks in the city, how was it possible that they frequented the same one? Yet there they were, Archer in the swing, squealing in delight as Katniss pushed him. And Katniss, beautiful Katniss was there, dressed casually in jeans that highlighted that ass so much better than her karate gi did, and a hooded sweater in his favourite colour. Katniss who was rapidly becoming utterly irresistible to him. A stranger, a literal one-in-a-million in this city, but someone he kept seeing everywhere.

In five minute spurts between chasing their respective children, he learned more about her. And damn did like what he learned.

o-o-o

“Charlotte!” a little voice rang through the aquarium, where Peeta - and possibly half the city - had come to avoid the cold November rains. Peeta and his daughter both turned in tandem, twin blue eyes searching the crowd. A mop of ebony hair over silver eyes and a giant gap-toothed grin burst through the mob, waving wildly.

“Archer,” an exhausted Katniss chased after him, reprimand in her voice. “What did I tell you about running off?”

“But it’s Charlotte, mama, and Mr. Mellark. They’re not a strangers.”

o-o-o

“Now which one of us is the stalker?” Peeta smirked from his table at the little cafe where he liked to sketch every other Sunday afternoon, when he was waiting for Delly to bring Charlotte home from her court-mandated visitation. Katniss glanced over at the sound of his voice, her face lighting up.

“Well hello, Peeta,” she said, grabbing her cup and Archer’s from the barista and crossing the few steps to stand before him. Her black hair was loose today, partially covered by a red knit cap, and her cheeks were flushed from the cold. “Come here often?”

“I do,” he admitted, and she wrinkled her nose.

“Huh. My uncle owns this place,” she said, confusion in her voice. “Archer and I come here at least a couple of times a week.”

“No way,” he laughed. “What are the odds?”

Katniss regarded him thoughtfully. “With us,” she said, softly enough that he had to strain to hear her. “Seems like the odds are always in our favour.”

o-o-o

“Somehow I knew I’d see you here,” Katniss laughed, standing with a fidgeting Archer in the slowly-snaking line to see the mall Santa. There were eleven shopping centres in the city that had a Santa display, and three more weeks until Christmas. That she’d be at the one he chose seemed impossible. And yet…

“Well everyone knows that the Bayshore Santa is the only real Santa,” he drawled, moving seamlessly into line beside her. Katniss knelt to greet Charlotte who twirled, showing off her new Christmas dress. Katniss threw back her head, laughing at something Charlotte whispered to her. Peeta was transfixed. Watching his beautiful friend interact with his daughter made something long-dormant flare in Peeta’s gut. Something suspiciously like hope.

o-o-o

It had been a long time since Peeta had last gone to Christmas Eve Mass. But Delly had Charlotte until noon Christmas day (and not a minute later, damn it), and he was lonely and restless, not even certain what he was looking for.

The cathedral downtown was a marvel of Baroque styling, tall and graceful, and it was even more incredible decorated for Christmas with boughs of holly and evergreen, and tall candles flickering. He settled into a crowded pew and let the beauty of it all wash over him.

When the choir took their places to the side of the altar, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. There she was, robed in regal burgundy, just one face in the large group, but the one face that drew him like a magnet. Katniss. He didn’t hear any of the sermon, repeated the prayers by rote, all of his attention focussed only on her. And then she sang a solo.

The sound of her soulful voice crooning Mary Did You Know struck the congregation silent. Her voice and her words wrapped around his heart, freeing it from its stubborn confines, fluttering foolishly, laid bare.

And he knew, in that moment, that he was a goner.

o-o-o

“Fancy seeing you here,” he smirked, holding the door open for Katniss. She slapped his chest gently with the back of her hand.

“You invited me, doofus,” she laughed, levering up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

“That I did,” he said, ushering her into his modest apartment. “Where’s Archer tonight?” he asked, though he knew already.

“With my mother,” she grinned. “Until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Delly has Charlotte until four,” he murmured, toying with the strap of her sleek silver top. Despite seeing each other everywhere all of the time, despite having had playdates and family dates and one-child-or-the-other-had-to-come-at-the-last-minute dates, it had taken five, ten, fifteen weeks to arrange a date with neither child present. Though strange coincidences might have pushed them together, attempting to find alone time had left them all but star-crossed.

Until now.

“Nineteen hours,” Katniss sighed, leaning into him. “Let’s not waste a minute of it.” Peeta kissed his agreement into the warm skin of her throat.

Peeta wasn’t sure he believed in fate or providence or serendipity, couldn’t imagine that some giant celestial hand had picked their names from a big glass bowl. But he knew he believed in Katniss, and believed that what was developing between them was real.

And that was good enough for him.

I wish you would write a fic where…

[seokjingiggles]

Fashionably Late

genre: fluff

member: seokjin

words: 1037

“Not now, doll. We are so fashionably late.”

eeeeeee I didn’t wanna post this but since I’m heckin busy this week I’ll just upload stuff that’s been aging in my cluttered drafts. Enjoy!

“Y/N, are you ready yet? It’s time to go!” Seokjin whined from the living room.

“Just a minute, hun! I’m almost done!” you replied, hastily applying eyeliner.

“Dinner will start soon and we can’t be late! Y/N, can you hear my stomach growling? It feels like my belly’s gnawing at my insides. I’m pretty much dying over here!”

“I know...for once it’s not you that’s making us late,” you retorted, still rushing in front of the vanity.

Spritzing a little perfume on your skin, you turned to the side and analyzed your outfit. You were wearing a new baby pink satin two-piece. The skirt hugged your curves ever so gently as to cover just enough for the public, but the top was skimpy enough to tease your boyfriend. Seokjin thoroughly enjoyed flaunting himself and his girlfriend in public, but when it came to dresses and other fancy attire, he made sure to trap you in the house unless you were wearing something he bought and approved for you. He was obsessed with taking you shopping and bringing you home for a little fashion show. He would pour some wine and allow you to strut around the house in his findings. He would cheer you on and compliment everything about you, always looking for more ways to boost your confidence. To put it mildly, Seokjin was a very confident person.

Earlier this month, you were walking downtown with him when you came across an incredible sunset. Jin asked an elderly couple to take a picture with his phone. You stepped into frame to be in the snap with him but he playfully pushed you away, claiming that he didn’t have enough storage to fit two people on his screen. Afterwards, you revengefully sent the members a naked picture of him as a baby in a bathtub. Taehyung printed out several copies of the image and hung them around the studio. To say the least, Jin wasn’t very amused. He refused to step inside the building until every image was taken down and shredded. Namjoon managed to preserve one, which he framed and is currently hidden in a bathroom cabinet for “strength and confidence.” Embarrassing him was the best way to keep his cockiness in check.

You, on the other hand, were not a confident person at all. In large crowds, you always hid behind Seokjin and allowed him to do the talking. His shoulders were a blessing and a very effective shield mechanism. He hated that you were so shy and insecure. Sometimes, he would even get frustrated with you when you complained about your appearance.

“Jagi, what are you even talking about? I adore your hair! It’s supposed to be poofy! I love the way that one curl twists opposite of the rest, like it wants to stand out and be noticed. I want you to be noticed. I want people to stop and stare as you pass by. I want them to think, What did I do in my past life to be graced by her beauty?!”

Seokjin would put a lot of effort into trying to make you feel beautiful. He wanted you to see yourself the way he does, as the intelligent, caring, and stunning goddess that you truly are. That’s why he was ecstatic when he heard the news that Namjoon was hosting a fancy dinner tonight. When Seokjin got the invitation, he immediately took you shopping for the perfect outfit. And apparently, it really was the most beautiful set.

With you hair, makeup, and nails done, you already felt gorgeous. Not to mention how the finely crafted outfit he hand-picked for you was glorifying you from every angle. The pastel color was doing wonders for your skin tone. It fit your body to mask what you wanted to conceal and flaunt everything you wanted to be seen. Your confidence skyrocketed within the past fifteen minutes. Seokjin was a damn good boyfriend and a damn good fashionista.

“Y/N!!! Let me see you! If we’re gonna miss the party I might as well see what you’ve been doing that’s been taking so long!” your boyfriend shouted. You could hear his footsteps nearing the bathroom.

The two of you opened the door simultaneously and you nearly fell down because of the force Seokjin exerted when he yanked on the door.

You straightened out your dress and beamed at him. You haven’t felt this beautiful in a long time.

Seokjin gulped hard and shoved his hands in his pockets. “God, I have never seen anything more angelic than this. Are you even real?” he gushed as he grazed your arms with his hands. “I could stand here and stare at you forever. The longer I look the more I fall in love with you. Shit, I think my heart's gonna explode.”

He moved one hand to cup your burning red cheek. You nuzzled into his palm and closed your eyes. You wished this moment would last forever. It almost did until Seokjin’s watch beeped.

You opened your eyes and glanced at the clock on his watch. “Holy shit. Jinnie, we should probably go now...I’m sure everyone’s already seated. Namjoon is definitely worried about us.”

“Wait! I haven’t shown you your shoes yet! I wanted to keep this part a secret.” He scurried to the closet and came back with a white Chanel box. You glared at him for spending so much money as you undid the ribbon keeping the box closed. What you saw in front of you made your jaw drop. You ran shaking fingers over the soft, black velvet. You literally moaned at the detailed floral embroidering. The colors matched perfectly with the rest of your outfit and you were dying to feel the luxurious shoes hug your feet. To say you were a shoe fanatic would be an understatement.

Your boyfriend kneeled down and helped you slide into your new heels. He held your hand and helped you stand. Your eyes darted down to your feet and then back to his plump lips. You leaned in for a kiss but felt his index finger press against your tender flesh instead.

“Not now, doll. We are so fashionably late.”

Again, sorry I’m not as active! My tennis tournament is wearing me out. (｡•́︿•̀｡)

Thank you for reading + I hope you enjoyed it! Requests are open! :)

[klstheword]

Rebecca Hall made her New York stage début, in 2005, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, playing Rosalind in “As You Like It,” and if you were lucky enough to see her in the role it is unlikely that you have forgotten the experience. Hall, who was twenty-three at the time, exquisitely conveyed the sometimes tremulous combination of knowingness and naïveté that characterizes Rosalind, Shakespeare’s most winning comic heroine. Hall’s performance felt perfectly naturalistic—her Rosalind was absolutely real and present—and, at the same time, her delivery showed an adept grasp of Shakespearean verse: if you knew and loved Rosalind’s lines, it was thrilling to hear the subtlety with which Hall delivered them. It also did not hurt that Hall looked perfect for the part: like Rosalind, Hall is “more than common tall,” which meant that she was able to stand eye to eye and equal to equal with Orlando, her eventual beloved, played by a promising newcomer named Dan Stevens.

The production also showed the mastery of its director, Sir Peter Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the former head of London’s National Theatre, and Rebecca Hall’s father. Given Shakespeare’s dramatic fascination with the relations between fathers and their offspring, and with the complicated questions of lineage and inheritance, the casting choice looked less like nepotism and more like a fruitful artistic convergence. “My father was a real Shakespearean fascist, in that he had a view about how it should be done, in terms of how you speak the verse,” Hall recalled recently. “But, at the same time, he taught me that, instead of being restrictive, understanding how to play the verse gives up the meaning. Like, if you have a breath at the end of a line and the sentence isn’t complete, then you’ve got to find a reason why there’s a pause for thought there. And your reason is what gives you interpretation. So within those parameters, he gave me complete freedom.” Hall’s key to unlocking the character of Rosalind was in identifying the character’s trepidation—the fear experienced by someone who is cognizant of the demands entailed by the complexity of adult love, and finds herself on the brink of it for the first time. “Isn’t that, on some level, the experience of first love, and isn’t that what the whole play is about—how terrifying it all is?” Hall said.

More than a dozen years after that arrival in Brooklyn, Hall, who turned thirty-five this spring, is now a full-time resident of the borough: she lives in Brooklyn Heights, with the actor Morgan Spector, her husband of nearly two years, and the couple’s two cats, whom Hall can sometimes be seen walking with along the neighborhood’s leafy streets. One of them is leash-trained, and will pad down the sidewalk wearing a harness. The other prefers to be carried in a Japanese hoodie designed specifically for toting a pet, with a kangaroo pouch in front and pointy ears on the hood—a gift from Stevens, who is now a Brooklyn neighbor. “I’m very aware that it’s sort of an eccentric thing to do, and I love the eccentricity of it,” Hall told me. Hall and I spoke not in Brooklyn but sequestered in the aseptic luxury of a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Manhattan—rented for the day by the producers of “The Dinner,” a promising-on-paper, forgettable-in-actuality movie that was released last month. Hall was awaiting a “glam squad”—movie parlance for a hair-and-makeup team—to prepare her for television interviews later that afternoon.

She was not, it is worth pointing out, entirely lacking in glamour even before the squad arrived, as she poured the fussy cucumber-flavored bottled water with which the room had been supplied, made an ironical face, and sat cross-legged on the couch in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Hall has become best known to American audiences not for her work on the stage but on the screen—the kind of work that gets you a glam squad and a Manhattan suite for the afternoon. (Though not, as Hall noted with some chagrin, for an overnight stay). Last year, she won acclaim for her performance in the title role in “Christine,” a drama about Christine Chubbuck, the television reporter who took her own life on camera, in 1974. She was nominated for a Golden Globe, in 2008, for her winning turn in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” Woody Allen’s Catalan comedy. In between, she’s appeared in a wide variety of roles, in movies ranging from excellent (“Frost/Nixon,” in which she played Caroline Cushing, David Frost’s girlfriend) to mediocre (like “Transcendence,” in which she played the wife of an artificial-intelligence expert enacted by Johnny Depp). Writing in the Times of her performance, Manohla Dargis called Hall “one of those actresses who always seem smart even in dumb roles.” Hall acknowledges the hazards of casting. “It’s not easy to get roles that are satisfying,” she said. “And, even when you get ones that you think are going to be satisfying, there is no guarantee that they are going to continue to be satisfying throughout the film, and indeed then when you see the film.”

This month, she returns to the New York stage—a perhaps slightly more predictable environment—in a production of a new play, “Animal,” by the British writer Claire Lizzimore. It would be spoiling the plot to say much more than that Hall plays a woman who fears she may be losing her mind. It’s a demanding role: Hall is onstage for the entirety of its ninety-minute length, and the part requires her to course along a wide emotional range, from playfulness to supplication to anger. It’s the first time that Hall has performed in New York since 2014, when she made her Broadway début, in a revival of Sophie Treadwell’s “Machinal.” (She met Spector in that production; he played her lover.) “Animal” is, she says, “a short, sharp shock of a play.” When we spoke, she was about to go into rehearsals. “She’s a very idiosyncratic character,” Hall went on. “She is very mentally dexterous, and she is also full of rage, and it is also a real expression of female rage, which I find quite potent. I think it’s going to be hard.”

Hall grew up in the theatre, often quite literally. Her mother, Maria Ewing, is an internationally known opera singer. When Hall was born, her father had been the director of Britain’s National Theatre for almost a decade, overseeing its controversial move from the Old Vic into its current home, on London’s South Bank. “There’s a very funny picture of my father trying to do what looks like change my nappy on the desk of the National Theatre, while being on the phone dealing with all that—the strikes, and all the criticism,” Hall said. Sir Peter, who is eighty-six, is now ailing from dementia. To celebrate his eightieth birthday, the National invited him to direct “Twelfth Night,” in which Rebecca took the role of Viola. While Hall had strenuously tried to be just another actor for her father in “As You Like It,” performing in his “Twelfth Night” was a very different story. “That was totally about doing something that I knew he really wanted to do, and it was very emotional as a result,” she said. The usual question that might be asked of the creative person—did you always know you wanted to do this?—does not even apply in Hall’s case. “I know that’s the privilege of the family I was born into,” she said. “It’s not a question of ‘Oh, I would really love to do that,’ it’s more a question of ‘I am one of those people. I am that, too, so I am going to do that, too.’ The relationship to the dream is much more simple.”

As a child, Hall lived in the shadow of her parents’ lives on the stage. “I remember being taken to dinner parties when I was very small, and being allowed to stay up very late just to sit and listen to people,” she said. “I remember sitting in rehearsal rooms and going to performances, and I remember noticing the way people looked at my father and mother, and noticing there was a sort of a level of importance or gravitas—that the energy changed when they walked into the room.”  She was frequently backstage when her mother was performing. “I often had free rein when she was onstage, and if I was in the theatre I would run around in the foyers and then run into the auditorium and peek to see where they were,” she said.

Hall’s parents divorced when she was seven or eight, but not before Sir Peter had directed Ewing in a daring production of “Salome,” a role Ewing would continue to perform for a decade. “I couldn’t not watch the last three minutes of that, where she gets smashed to death,” Hall told me. “The way it was choreographed was that soldiers would all run together in a circle, and she would be in the middle, and she would jump up through the middle and contort her body, so it looked precisely like she was being crushed to death. Every night, I forced myself to watch. You know the way you have childlike superstitions: if I don’t watch it, that would be the moment when she actually gets hurt.” The production was also notable for the fact that Ewing’s Dance of the Seven Veils ended in complete nudity: “She said it would be vulgar if you put on a bikini, and that what is not vulgar is the female form.”

Hall’s upbringing was bohemian and somewhat chaotic: “Like, how’s she getting to school, has she been to the dentist, has she done her homework—that kind of stuff. I don’t think either of my parents ever asked me that,” she said. Her older siblings—there were four of them, from Peter Hall’s two earlier marriages—had all gone to arty boarding schools, but, because Roedean was conveniently located close to her mother’s home, Hall went at the age of fifteen to that institution, favored by aristocrats and the conservative élite. Ultimately, she became head girl. The school “was very sure of its place in raising young girls to go out and be great career women; and then there was this other side of it,” she recalled. One Speech Day—an annual end-of-year ceremony, with distinguished guests and prizes for the best students—a teacher stopped Hall in the corridor. “She said, ‘You’ve got to stop looking so sloppy, pull your socks up. This will be the most important day of your life, apart from your wedding day.’ ” Other teachers gave better advice that still resonates, particularly about the need to read ambitiously. “There was one who said, ‘There is nothing wrong with being pretentious. Pretentious is often the place you have to start if you want to get somewhere else,’ ” Hall said.

Surrounded by titled young ladies, Hall was something of a class oddity. Though her father was knighted in the nineteen-seventies, for his services to the theatre, he came from more humble circumstances: his own father was a stationmaster. Her mother grew up in a working-class family in Detroit, discovering her gift for opera by singing along as her father played piano. Ewing’s father, a doorman at a hotel, was African-American and possibly Sioux, and married to a woman of Dutch descent; it appears that he passed as white when Hall’s mother was a girl, living in a working-class white neighborhood. (He died when Hall’s mother was sixteen.) “She catapulted herself out of a biracial, impoverished, confusing situation, into this high-art world, as my father did on some level,” Hall said. “And I sort of feel that in me. Neither of them fit into some sort of class mold. When I did hang out with these people who did operate in those worlds, I did feel slightly observational. I don’t know where me and my family fit in.”

In her teens, Hall flirted with not being an actor—she thought of following a career in the visual arts, and remains an adept painter, as is occasionally evidenced by her Instagram feed. “My husband laughs at me, because I have to be doing several things to incubate one thing,” she said. “There’s a sort of trail between my desk, where I think about things, and the piano, where there will be some open music, and another area, where I will have some drawing up, and I will dock between those three things.” But there was never really any doubt that she would act. Hall did not go to drama school: she already knew how a rehearsal room worked, and needed no help finding an agent or making contacts in the world of the theatre. She’d already worked as a professional actor, at the age of ten, in a television drama, “The Camomile Lawn,” which her father directed. “And I didn’t want to be given a system of coping mechanisms to deal with how awful it all is,” she said. “My father was a huge influence in that respect. He always said to me, ‘If you want to be a good actor, acting holds everything.’ It’s the art form of interpreting human behavior. So one of the things that will strengthen that ability to do that is engaging with your mind. That means reading books, that means looking at art, that means interpreting the world analytically and having an analytic involvement with life.”

She enrolled at Cambridge University to study English Literature, in which she had specialized in high school. As a wedding gift, she gave Spector a trousseau of canonical British books that he had never had occasion to read: “The End of the Affair,” “Sons and Lovers,” “The Rainbow,” “Persuasion,” and George Eliot’s “Middlemarch”—the fact that he had failed to read the last, she said with a laugh, “nearly derailed my marriage.” When I told Hall that she would have been the ideal actress to play Dorothea Brooke, the serious, ardent heroine of “Middlemarch,” she told me I am not the only one with that notion: Sam Mendes, with whom she was in a relationship for several years before marrying Spector, had hoped to adapt the novel to the screen. There had even been a script that she’d read, but for one reason or another it never came together. “I went through my twenties praying that someone would make a ‘Middlemarch’ film,” she said. “And now I am too old, probably. I would have loved it.” (Mendes did direct her onstage, in “The Cherry Orchard” and “The Winter’s Tale,” which played in an ambitious double bill at the Old Vic in London, and at bam, in 2009.)

At Cambridge, Hall spent much of her time in student theatrical productions—she first met Dan Stevens when she was cast opposite him in “Macbeth”—but left Cambridge two years into her three-year degree. “The trajectory of ‘head girl from Roedean School, degree from Cambridge’ suddenly felt really undesirable,” she said. “I thought, If I can buck this and walk away from this, then, A), I will have no other option—that I will have to be an actor, in other words. And B), I won’t have a sort of shorthand calling card that proves my intelligence. I thought that, if I have the strength to walk away from this thing that everybody wants, and is so wonderful, maybe I will have the strength to make those bold decisions for the rest of my life.” Not having a Cambridge degree, she says, provides her with an impetus to keep learning. It leaves her with something still to prove.

These days, Hall is attempting to expand her artistic horizons: “I feel I am coming into my own in lots of ways, and that I can step beyond just doing the acting, and feeling more confident showing the world that I can write, and thinking about directing,” she says. She is working on an original script, and has recently tried to write a play. She’s also adapted as a screenplay the novella “Passing,” by Nella Larsen, the Harlem Renaissance writer, and is shopping it around with the hope of directing it, in part as a way of exploring her maternal grandfather’s life and her own racial heritage. “Spending any time in this country, and living here, you just think, This question of race is so integral to the very heart and soul of everything this country is built upon,” she says. “It’s huge. And so I find myself thinking about it increasingly and wanting to engage with that history, whatever it is.” She expresses a perhaps surprising desire to be on the show “Who Do You Think You Are?,” in which celebrities have their genes publicly analyzed. “It seems like a fascinating story that doesn’t benefit from being hidden,” she says.

Marriage has granted her a kind of peace of mind, she says, and an expansion of her creative capacities. As a “well-educated child of divorce,” she thought that she would never marry; she certainly thought she would never marry another actor. “And then it came up, and it felt, like, absolutely that’s what I want,” she said. “If you are born of things that are disparate, and you are a bit nomadic and your life is a hodge-podge of beautiful, loving chaos, you can end up going through a large chunk of your life thinking that’s what you need, or that is what makes you comfortable. And I feel really lucky that I had some sort of realization that, actually, I needed an anchor. And I got married, and I realized this is what I have been craving.”

Spector plays Hall’s husband in “Animal,” and before the show started previews, at the Atlantic Theatre Company’s stage on Twentieth Street, the company rehearsed a few blocks away, on an upper floor of the Google building. I stopped by one afternoon to watch them work. At first, Spector, who is bearded, with dark curly hair and saturnine features, was doing stretches on the floor in a corner, while Hall worked on a scene with another actor. Then they worked on a scene together: an intense confrontation, in which Hall was fey and fickle and furious by turns, while Spector stood on in helpless frustration. When a break was called, they leaned fondly against each other for a moment.

For the role, Hall had to switch between high heels and flat shoes. I had noticed when we’d talked in the hotel suite that on her ankle is a small tattoo: an inscription, she explained, in her own handwriting. It reads, “This above all:”—a fragment of a line from “Hamlet,” spoken by Polonius, the pedantic adviser to the King, to his son, Laertes. (The rest of the line is more famous: “To thine own self be true.”) “It’s a useful reminder for me for a lot of reasons,” Hall told me later, in an e-mail. The ink has blurred, and Hall said that she has thought of having it removed and redone. “Tattoos seem to be a good exercise in living with regret,” she said. “But I love them, actually. I love the regret factor, too.”

[greathotshave]

Reverie on Commuting

For nigh on twenty years, my daily ride into Chicago on the Metra West line has included a most singular and blatant lie: “Next stop: Ogilvie Transportation Center.” Within twenty seconds of this canned announcement, the train would stop in a railroad yard well outside of Chicago and let off some workers. It’s a terrible way to enlist trust, but there are also worse things I can imagine. I have great memories of my forty-plus years of commuting. I’d like to share it if you would indulge me.

When Jessie and I first moved to Chicago in 1974, we lived in Hyde Park. Once I’d given up on grad school, we rode the Illinois Central (IC) downtown. Back then, you could open the windows on some of those cars, and a good thing, since people could smoke on the train! I would get off before the main stop at Randolph and walk down Jackson Blvd to an old building that was across the street from the Willis Tower (Sears Tower, back in the last century). I was at a training session on 550 W. Jackson a few weeks ago, a few blocks west of where I worked so long ago, and saw Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant where my colleagues at Nelson-Hall Publishing would have breakfast for lunch.

When we moved to East Rogers Park, I caught the Howard (Red Line now) train and changed at Belmont Avenue to a train that would go elevated to let me off west on Madison. Nelson-Hall moved to Canal Street, so the walk was much shorter than from the Michigan Avenue IC Station. 

The CTA was quite the cattle car experience:

A woman sitting next to me on a crowded car had passengers of the six-legged variety

Afternoons in the summer would have a fair share of happy, drunken Cub fans

A late night ride I sat motionless while an angry man vented at me, taking three stops before he was escorted from the train by CTA police

The urinal smell of stairwells in and out of CTA stations

Long, very cold stands in the winter waiting for delayed trains and watching full ones roll by “express”

A job change put us both at the John Hancock Center for a couple of years, so we drove Sheridan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive. It could be a very hairy drive in the winter. During better weather it was all a matter of minutes getting ahead of the eventual slowdown that meant being fifteen minutes early or twenty minutes late. The Magnificent Mile was quite a change from the southwestern corner of the Loop! But it didn’t last.

My next job took me to Lake and Michigan, Contemporary Books. Back to taking the Howard L, but all the way to the Randolph stop, I believe, and a short walk to CB. When we moved to West Rogers Park, I had choices of taking a Touhy bus to the Howard Station or a different bus down Western to the elevated CTA station in Lincoln Square. With the variety of ways to travel, I was immersed in the diversity of the City of Chicago. I loved it.

After nineteen years and with two pre-teens in tow, we moved to the western suburbs and Glen Ellyn. I could walk or ride my bike to the Metra station there and always get a roomy seat on a train similar to one my father used to ride into the city from Downers Grove. Only when there was a Championship celebration of one sort or another, were the trains ever packed beyond seating capacity. Delays were rare but all-the-more annoying because unlike the CTA, there was a schedule, and the next train, particularly at night, could be an hour away. I also was on a train that ran over someone, sad to report, and that was an automatic 90-minute delay while the police and EMT people handled the terrible situation.

Rare occurrence: note the blue engine. A West Line Metra train stalled, so our train pushed it into the station. Not all the cars of the pushing train aligned with the platform, so we had to march through a few cars to get out.

The biggest contrast, of course, was the change in fragrance: urine in the CTA exits, honeysuckle getting off the Metra. (I do believe the CTA has addressed this issue in the intervening 20 years; feel free to correct me on this.)

From the Ogilvie Transportation Center (OTC), to get to the River North area of Chicago where I worked at the American Library Association, you crossed the river twice, either walking or taking the 125 bus. Not sure when, but halfway through my tenure there, I discovered the Chicago Water Taxi (CWT) run by Wendella Boats. What a treat to walk down Michigan Avenue and catch the boat to ride downriver to a dock near OTC. (This was well before FitBit took over my commuting decisions.) The service was wonderful; a real treat on a foggy morning. One summer their Christmas in July event brought forth kazoos for all riders along with no charge.

Sometimes, getting off at Clark Street from the Chicago Water Taxi included dealing with River Roast’s hostility toward commuters in the form of barriers.

When I returned to the workforce in 2012, I was walking again, mainly following Wacker Drive along the river to the American Bar Association, which was just across the Clark Street bridge. Just the right distance for walking to and from work. On rainy days, the water taxi had a dock on the north side of the river between Clark and LaSalle, so I could avoid most downpours. And the building’s ID was recognized by Wendella for riding without needing a ticket! One of my fellow staffers loved the taxi so much, she invited everyone to celebrate her birthday with pizza and ice cream on the boat, ferrying down to Michigan, back past Clark to OTC dock and finally to Clark. Very nice on a warm sunny day on the boat’s upper deck.

A Photo Essay on the Chicago River Experience

Construction at the river bend: 155 Riverside (right of center) and 444 River Point (right and completed, below).

Above, the longest section (The Boardwalk) at the end of what allows a continuous walk from Navy Pier has a ramp winding down to a lane along a hill of grass. Below are piers and floating gardens of The Jetty under construction.

Completed in November 2016, you could walk it with a strong feeling of ownership because not many others made the effort (Jetty shown above). Below, shooting through a tree planted along the ramps of The River Theater.

No stopping for traffic as you walk under the bridges.

The final piece of the walk to and from work is the plaza at 155 Riverside: two levels of walking along the river after it turns south. It has (below) a seating area for watching river traffic and maybe concerts. They actually planted grass so you could take off your shoes at lunch and commune with nature. The second photo below shows an accessible ramp way with plenty of greenery to an upper plaza.

My last year for walking to work has been the best. For two years, riding the CWT, I’ve been watching the construction of the river walk between State and Lake Streets (going along Wacker, the river curves so this is literally true even though the streets are perpendicular at State and Lake). Furthermore, the construction along the bend in the river has been spectacular. When I finally began walking it starting in November, I couldn’t get over the difference: no street crossings and the sounds of the streets muted. No visual movements of cars and other vehicles, no exhaust smell. A real feeling of peace along with the water despite getting close and personal with the abundance of debris in the water is the reward for taking the long way home.

With Spring, the route is becoming more popular to commuters and not just the occasional runner. There are trees and plants, a fountain, and ramps. The final course toward OTC takes one over the bridge between the new towers at 444 River Point and 155 Riverside, where you can continue along the riverside. The plaza is so inviting with trees and plants everywhere. It beats walking along Canal Street lined with pathetic trees attempting to overcome the watering of various pets in the vicinity.

Over all these years, the one consistent aspect of these daily hikes is the vast community of people going every which way to their own destinations. I am sure you can score the migratory-like movement to something like Darth Vader’s March (Imperial Attack?) but I tend to feel the Ode to Joy animating us as we walk. Yes, today many are hunched over cell phones, making quite a difference in the way people perform this ritual than when I first ventured forth. Many are listening to their own soundtracks, too. But I’m content to listen to the sounds of the city, smell the chocolate when the breeze blows in the right direction, and look around like a tourist at the rise of so many walls of glass, steel and stone.

I would be remiss to overlook the major change from forty years ago: Richie Daley’s emphasis on greening the streets of Chicago as well as the gentrification of the downtown area have had an incredibly positive impact on being downtown.. 

I still prefer hikes in the green and blue of mountains and hills. Someday I will miss walking the great city of Chicago; the myriad memories I have are cherished beyond mere words.