Freaks in the City - Excerpt Only

Freaks in the City - Excerpt Only (Chapter Three)

FREAKS IN THE CITY 

By Maree Anderson

CHAPTER THREE

Great, just great. The elevator was on the fritz. Nessa jogged up the gloomy stairwell. She made it to the fourth floor landing before she had to lean against the handrail to catch her breath. She sucked in a deep breath, and choked. God. Smelled like something had died. She quickly clothes-pegged her nose with her fingers.

As she peered about the dingy landing she noticed an untidy pile lurking in the corner. Garbage bags. Someone must've figured they'd leave 'em here until garbage day rather than have 'em stink up their apartment. Nice.

She resumed climbing, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. One flight. And another. Until there was only one more flight to go. Yay.

She found the right apartment easily enough and paused to knead her burning leg muscles as she planned what she was going to say. Then she thumped the door with her fist, only letting up when she heard faint footsteps from inside.

The door was yanked opened and she copped an eyeful of a skinny, shirtless boy who'd thankfully pulled on sweats—sort of—over his grungy boxers. He yawned and mumbled, "Yeah?"

"Tyler 'round?" she asked.

He blinked like a myopic owl. And then seemed to realize his visitor was female, for he hastily yanked up his half-mast sweats and forked his fingers through his mop of hair. "Heyyy," he drawled. "I'm Pete. And you would be?"

Nessa knew his type. She had to shut him down before he could get too hopeful and think he might have a chance. As if. "Looking for Tyler. Could you get him for me? It's urgent."

Pete failed to hide his disappointment. "Tyler's not here right now. He's at Jaime's."

"His girlfriend, right?" Hope she wasn't a total bitch or this could get tricky.

"Yeah." Pete gave her a second head-to-toer and stared at her chest until Nessa clicked her fingers in his face. "Got an address?"

His expression turned sheepish. "Sorry. Bit slow today. Late night." He turned away to holler for his roommate. "Hey Chandler. Get your butt out here, dude. Some chick needs Jaime's address."

A guy wearing an eyeball-searing purple-and-pink-checked shirt overtop bright blue skinny jeans emerged from the kitchen shoveling something that vaguely resembled a grilled cheese into his mouth. A burned grilled cheese, given the sharp smell staining the air.

Huh. These boys were living in the lap of luxury if they could afford cheese. Nessa had survived on cheap instant noodles when her tips for the week hadn't been as good as she'd hoped. Not that Time-Out customers tended to tip very well at the best of times.

"Just a sec." Chandler flicked through the contacts list on his cell phone. "Here it is. 64 Parkway." He fished a pen and a scrap of paper from his pocket and scrawled the address for her. "'Bout fifteen minutes drive from here. Nice part of town. Want directions?"

"Yes, please."

He gave her easy directions, finishing with a shy smile that still managed to telegraph his appreciation of what he was looking at without being sleazy. Chandler seemed like a real nice guy. Pity about the tragic fashion sense.

"Tyler not answering his cell, huh?"

"I didn't call ahead—it's a surprise visit. I just presumed he'd be here." Nessa shrugged as if to say "More fool me".

"We don't see much of Tyler these days," Chandler said.

Pete gave his sweats another hitch so only four inches of underwear showed instead of six. "If it was me scored a chick with stellar digs and fancy wheels, I'd be out of this shithole in a hot minute, too."