Please note this story was originally titled "Flirting the Fence" but has since been changed to "Day and Night".
This was one of my first stories, when I was still learning how to write, build worlds, and craft complex characters. Now, I look back and cringe, but my readers don't. So this is for the readers who fell in love with these characters. It's lightly edited, but the heart remains the same.
Rosi
***
"God, I'm so stupid," Beth muttered, walking quickly down the street while she shifted her eyes. She'd always loved hitting the town, seeing the new nightclubs, visiting the hottest restaurants, and taking advantage of the New York City nightlife. Of course when she did this she was usually surrounded by friends and people she trusted, not out alone at three in the morning like she was now.
It's all his fault.
She burrowed further into the fur-lining of her leather jacket, listening for any sounds other than her three inch heels hitting the pavement. The reason Beth had gone out tonight was to celebrate. She'd just broken up with her fiancé of two years. Truthfully, she hadn't even liked him, let alone loved the guy. Beth planned to marry him as a business deal, a mutually beneficial contract for both of them.
Jason Brucksworth II had money, influence, and a last name known around the world. Beth was an up-and-coming criminal attorney from a farming town in Iowa that never really fit her. He wanted the pretty little wife who cooked and cleaned and she wanted his last name.
Everything had been going as planned until she came back from her friend Ty's birthday bash a bit early and found Jason screwing her best friend on the kitchen table. Well... ex-best friend.
It was all so cliche. So played out. Of course Simone had fucked Jason and of course it had been on the kitchen island where—had they actually gone through with the marriage—Beth would have spent most of her life. Instead of reacting with hysterics, Beth calmly closed the door and left, hailed a cab at the corner, and gone to the Black Flamingo on the East Side.
The restaurant and club suited her mood. The drinks were spicy, waiters friendly, and atmosphere a mix of safe, sexy, and friendly. While she'd grinded on a few men to some of the more risque songs, she'd also danced her ass off and laughed to the more upbeat tempo jams with a group of forty year olds out on the town. It was exactly what she needed, not drowning her sorrows but celebrating her liberation.
Too bad for her celebrating liberation went hand in hand with indulging in libations. Beth's taco-to-ginger caipirinha ratio had been a bit skewed. Closing time flashed with the bar lights, and made her actually aware of the melting sensation across her face where her makeup had been earlier in the night, and the blisters quickly making themselves known on her feet.
But home was a dirty kitchen island, fuckboi fiancés, and slutty former-best friend. A hotel was one option, but it wasn't the right one. Beth knew she needed to go home, but freedom called to her in the form of a still active city. So instead of taking one of the dozen or so cabs near the club, she walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Walked until sights became unrecognizable, streetlights dimmered, and sidewalks heavily littered with trash. Bars popped up on windows, not unusual for the city, but these were at awkward angles as if people had tried to pass them.
She looked up as she hit a corner, an intersection of Gates Avenue and Grand Ave. New York didn't always have numbers marking the street and when they weren't Beth was acutely aware of her small town routes with only a few hundred streets to memorize in the hole of the town. Most of them so old, their posts weren't even there to mark them but you knew all the same.
"Fuck," Beth cursed, making a snap decision to take Grand in the hopes it would lead to a street laden with signiture yellow cabs. "I can't believe I'm lost."
***
Day watched the redhead in a designer jacket better suited to Manhattan hurry down the street. He decided she must be either lost or really stupid to walk in his neighborhood at this time. Alone.
Brian, his son, had woken him not more than two minutes ago because he had heard some funny noises. Though noises turned out to be four adolescent boys making obscene comments about a woman. With the window partially open to the alleyway Brian's room faced, it hadn't been hard to smell the alcohol below. All of which boiled down to a very bad mix.
"Go to the guest room, son," Day urged, closing the window and escorting the little boy across the small apartment. The fact they even had a guest room was a miracle with New York prices.
Once Brian was situated, Day went into the living room to look through the windows there. He had seen the redhead keeping her head on a swivel.
Smart move, but with those shoes she has on...
It didn't take him long to figure out what would happen if he didn't step in. Alcohol, hormones, and group mentality made stupid, reckless boys do horrible, henious things. Of course her could ignore it, blame the woman, but that wasn't who he was. Bad things happened, but they didn't always have to.
It took less than a minute to squish his feet into a pair of old tennis shoes. He grabbed Brian's baseball bat and his keys then headed out the door, taking the stairs two at a time.
***
Beth was about half way down the street when she heard footsteps behind her. Following the footsteps were crude hoots and hollers, along the lines of "Damn baby!" and "Why don't you bring that white ass over here?"
Beth picked up her pace, almost running, while simultaneously looking over her shoulder. She heard laughing and someone say, "Baby, why you runnin'? Why you runnin'?"
She was nearing the end of the street, turning and looking over her shoulder when she slammed into a wall. Losing her balance, Beth began to teeter on her heels. Before she could fall a hand reached out and steadied her. It was only then that Beth realized it was a man and not a wall. But with his build, it was an easy mistake to make.
In the seconds that followed him grabbing and steadying her, it seemed that fear was a living breathing thing in her body. Before she could scream or think to scream, she was behind the man-wall staring at a grey t-shirt covering wide shoulders.
"I got you," the man-wall said as the footsteps and hooting come to a stop.
Instinctively, Beth took a step closer to the man. Perhaps something in her DNA recognized him as one of the decent guys, maybe she was just really cold and he was giving off some serious body heat, or maybe she was just still super drunk. Beth thought the later, even though she'd had her last drink sometime after midnight and had danced most, if not all of it, off.
"Yo, Day. What you doin' out here at this time?" She could hear one of the guys who had been following her ask. "Real dangerous. You get me?"
Day?
Curiously or maybe stupidly, Beth peeked around the man's shoulders, seeing four guys with glazed eyes, weaving where they stood. Only one looked sober. He stood slightly in front of the group, head tilted with such a relaxed expression she wondered if he was on drugs.
"Shouldn't be dangerous at all. Should be able to go out any time I want to handle my business, Marcus," man-wall replied in a voice that belied the tension straining his back. Beth shivered at his voice, so deep and raspy, like he'd just woken up.
"Nah, see, that ain't right. Any business you gotta handle at this time goes through me." He spit off to the side. "'Sides, what's that kid gonna think of his pops fuckin' round with drugs?"
Drugs?
"If your mother heard you talk like that she'd beat the black outta you," man-wall growled, taking a menacing step toward the group. "Now let me make myself clear,
boy
