They Was Queens

[This story takes place in 2023 and the latter half of 2016. Everyone's 18 or older.]

The water's not even boiling yet.

Carina Marie Delvecchio watches the cheap-ass pot, elbow on the counter, chin in her hand. The shitty little burner on the shitty little stove clicks and hisses, working harder than it should for a twenty-five-cent meal.

She should've stolen something better.

But that was then.

Before Gianna moved out. Before Zach. Before it was just her and Mom Angie, who was never fucking here anyway.

The house is too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes your brain pull old sounds back up just to fill the space.

And that's when she goes back.

Back a few years.

Back to when she was royalty.

It was her, Adelina Graziano, Mona Lisa Rossi, and Prisca Mazzi.

They ran South Street like it was theirs.

Not in a tough-guy, mafia way. Not like the boys. They weren't tryna throw hands over corners or rep some block that didn't even know their names. No, they were smarter.

They ran scams.

They watched tourists, caught them with the kind of petty shit that worked because people wanna believe. They'd hit 'em outside of Jim's Steaks, down by the record shops, near the guy selling bootleg t-shirts with misspelled band names.

That little rockabilly princess Prisca would be the lookout. Hot and skinny Mona Lisa had the act.

Adelina? Adelina was the one who sealed the deal.

And Carrie?

Carrie was everywhere at once.

Sometimes the distraction, sometimes the plant, sometimes the one making out with some idiot with a wallet too fat for his own good.

And when the job was done?

They were queens.

Smoking bummed cigarettes in the alley behind Lorenzo's. Laughing. Loud. Wild. Stupid. Drunk on their own invincibility.

They stole shit they didn't need. Lip gloss, sunglasses, lighters. Just to prove they could.

Mona Lisa could talk anybody into anything. Prisca had a switchblade she never used but flashed when it counted.

And Adelina?

Adelina had balls.

Carrie still remembers the night she swiped a whole purse off a Main Line girl and they ran, laughing their fucking asses off, breathless from the thrill.

They were gods back then.

Untouchable.

They're breathless by the time they get inside.

Carrie shoves the door shut behind them, back against it, laughing into a stolen candy bar. Adelina's grinning so hard she looks drunk on it, hands in her jacket pockets like she's still got the goods tucked away, like the weight of it is making her buzz.

Mom Angie ain't home--of course she ain't. They had all the time in the world.

They bolt up the stairs, two at a time, laughing, shoving, giggling like kids who just got away with murder.

Carrie's room is a mess--clothes on the floor, a half-empty can of Pepsi next to the bed, a lighter she definitely stole off somebody's table--but it don't matter.

They spill onto the bed like it's a throne, like this is ritual.

The take gets dumped.

Lip gloss, a pack of Marlboros, a pair of sunglasses that cost way too much for what they are. A necklace Adelina snatched when some rich girl turned her back. A couple of loose bills, crumpled, stolen from a bar counter when some guy wasn't looking.

Carrie rips open the candy bar and bites down, still grinning. "We're so fucking cool," she says, mouth full.

Adelina flops onto her back, arms stretched overhead, laughing like it's the funniest thing in the world. "They'll never catch us."

And they won't.

Because this is theirs. This stupid, wild, untouchable thing. This glow, this rush.

Adelina's looking at her now.

Still grinning, but softer.

Carrie sees it.

Feels it.

The shift in the air. The way Adelina's fingers twitch against the sheets, like she wants to reach for something.

Carrie licks chocolate off her thumb, too slow.

Adelina notices.

And then she's moving.

She pushes up, shifts onto her elbows, gets closer. Not fast, not rushed--like she's testing something.

The heat of it builds between them.

Carrie should say something.

She doesn't.

Because fuck it.

Because why not?

Because they're queens.

Because the world is theirs and right now, right here, nothing else fucking matters.

The candy bar falls somewhere into the mess--between the stolen necklace, the Marlboros, the sunglasses that never belonged to them.

Carrie doesn't care.

Because Adelina is right there.

Close enough that she can see the gold in her brown eyes, the way her lips part like she's got something to say but forgot what it was.

It's stupid. This is stupid.

But so was running through the streets, pockets full of stolen things, hearts hammering like they owned the whole damn city.

So was every dumbass thing they ever did together. Every cigarette they bummed. Every dollar they lifted. Every half-scammed tourist who walked away just a little lighter.

This? This is just one more thing.

One more piece of South Street history.

Carrie leans in first.

Not a big thing, just barely closing the space between them, like she's daring Adelina to meet her halfway.

And she does.

Slow.

Gentle.

Fingers brushing against fabric, the warmth of skin through stolen denim.

Carrie sinks into it.

The bed shifts beneath them.

Scattered bills crumple under her palm as she moves, presses closer, mouth warm, breath uneven.

She tastes like chocolate and adrenaline. Like sweat and laughter and stolen time.

Adelina sighs against her lips--soft, shaky, half a laugh, half something else.

And just like that, they stop pretending this is a joke.

Carrie's hands slip beneath Adelina's jacket, pushing it back, pushing it away.

Adelina tugs at Carrie's shirt in return, slow, deliberate, like she wants to remember every inch.

The city is still moving outside.

Cars rolling down South Street, voices drifting up from the sidewalks. None of it touches them.

Here, now, there's only this.

The heat of her breath.

The weight of her body.

The press of fingers over stolen things, forgotten in the sheets.

They laugh into each other's mouths, breathless.

They make South Street history.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The water boils over.

Carrie snaps back. Stirs the noodles.

The kitchen is still quiet. No laughter, no shouting, no cigarette smoke.

Prisca's married now.

Mona Lisa? Works at a salon in Jersey.

Adelina?

Adelina's in prison.

Carrie doesn't think about that part.

Not right now.

Not when the ramen's ready, and there's nothing left but steam, silence, and memory.