“Yep,” Rowan tucked her hands into her pockets and rocked on her heels.
“You got it.” He placed six varied cannoli in a white box and tied it off with red and white twine.
“Gino’s the owner.”
“Been selling cannoli for thirty years. Then my parents before that. On the house.” He patted the box.
Rowan reached for her wallet in resistance. “No, let me pay, please.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s a nice night to enjoy somedessertwith a pretty girl.”
He slid the box into a bag, handed it to a blushing Rowan, and they were back on the street again. At the end of the block, Rowan grasped Juniper’s hand and pulled her into the alcove of a brick apartment building.
Rowan set the bag on a small table beside the door. She threaded her fingers together with Juniper, and raised Juniper’s hands above her head against the side wall of the alcove. She melded their bodies together as she kissed her eagerly. Every swipe of her tongue felt like writing a new language, or perhaps reviving an ancient one with new life breathed into it. She slowed her pace but deepened it at the same time, and Juniper chased every movement.
Juniper hooked a leg behind Rowan’s knee to nudge it toward her body. Rowan took the hint and shifted her knee between Juniper’s thighs and pressed up against her and pressed her deeper against the wall.
Juniper laid her head back against it. “Fuck,” she whispered through jagged breaths.
Rowan released Juniper’s hands and slid her fingers down the outer curves of her body to land on the soft thickness of her hips.
“You are the most beautiful woman, Juniper.”
Rowan attempted to drop her knee.
“Don’t you dare move, Birdsong.”
Rowan moved back up the inch she’d dropped and added a couple more for good measure. With her chest rising and falling, Juniper pressed down against Rowan’s knee and groaned. She wanted to be taken right then and there. Over and over again. Forever.
She shook her head languorously against the wall and huffed out a short laugh. “What if someone opens the door?”
Rowan leaned back and smiled. “We’re going up. This is where I used to live.”
Juniper’s excitement was palpable. “Really?”
“Manny still lives here, so let’s hope he still uses the same code.” Rowan typed four numbers onto the metal keypad, and the door buzzed as it unlocked. “Success!”
Juniper followed Rowan into the elevator. Rowan pressed the sixth floor button and the rickety elevator lurched them slowly to the top floor of the building. They walked down a dim hallway with a threadbare, red carpet runner until they reached a door. The night breeze pulled the door open as Rowan turned the knob.
“Wait ‘til you see,” Rowan nodded to behind Juniper. “Manny and I are location snobs.”
Without turning around, Juniper chuckled. “I wonder what he’d think of the Rez.”
Rowan passed the bag to Juniper so she could grab the two folding chairs sitting against the side of the access door structure. With bag in hand and eyes wide, Juniper walked straight to the ledge of the rooftop and stared. Bursting across the dusky horizon in front of her was the Manhattan skyline. Towering skyscrapers of steel and glass; testaments to the ceaseless energy of human advancement.
She felt Rowan take the bag from her and then wrap her arms around her waist.
“You look like you’re gazing out over your Queendom.”
Juniper smiled and pulled her in closer. “It’s like a living, breathing entity. Forged from all of these complex connections between human and environment.”
Rowan hummed in agreement. “Many of the skyscrapers were built by Native ironworkers who came from the Six Nations reservations up north. There’s a lot of Indigenous history in this city.”
“Wasn’t there that myth that Manhattan was sold for $20?”
“Manahatta, the Lenape call it. The Dutch were meant to share the grass, not take the land.”
Juniper shook her head against Rowan’s shoulder. “Same story, different place.”
