The Promises I Made • •

[Ulysses Arthur Dante Proctor]

There was never a quiet night in New York City and that was exactly how Ulysses liked it. Even when he had to stay in to catch up on sleep or to study for exams and assignments, he still liked to hear the traffic below, the sirens and the mix of accents shouting through the night. It was one of the greatest appeals of the city, in his opinion, and he had said as much to his friends whenever the chance had come about. On the evenings when he wasn’t losing himself in a bar crowd or flirting with some devilish girl in a short skirt in a nightclub, he put on the apron and spent his hours in the kitchen at WD-50. He wasn’t a chef by any means, but they needed assistants and the pay was fairly reasonable for the running around he did behind the closed doors of the restaurant. He didn’t have to put on the polite smile and look presentable at all times like the waiting staff; he got to hang out behind the curtain and laugh with his colleagues and try not to annoy the chefs who were prone to exploding if you pushed the right combination of buttons.

The job kept his textbooks on the shelves and his rent paid up to date. The only thing Ulysses had learnt was that the work never got easier. He always wrapped up a shift feeling exhausted and usually just wanting his bed and nothing else. There had been a few times when he had needed to return to the library after his shift to complete an essay and those trips had felt like a form of torture to him weary mind and body. Even now he knew he would still have to take Rufus on a quick walk around the block before he could strip out of his clothes and pass out under the sheets. The dog was the roommate who didn’t contribute to the bills but who would eat all the food and make a mess given half the chance. Ulysses had a feeling that there was more fur on him than what was on the docile dog most days. It took half an hour of cleaning and brushing in the morning to make sure he didn’t look like he’d slept on a pile of fur coats.

Finishing his shift, Ulysses detoured into the tiny “staff room” which was more of a glorified broom cupboard and changed into his comfier clothes that didn’t smell like food. He took a moment to make plans with one of his work buddies and then he slipped out of the back door, coming out onto a side alley that was usually deserted. The law student was busy checking his phone and scrolling through the messages from his friends and sister that he didn’t see the person sitting on the stoop at first. It was only after he had swiped his thumb across the screen to send a quick reply to Arcadia that he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and turned fully to look. Seeing the person sitting there, his eyebrow arched and he stepped down closer. “Hey, are you okay? Are you waiting for someone?”

[/color] Perhaps they were meeting one of the other staff members, but normally those people came inside and ordered a drink to make their presence known.
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• • •

TAGGED! Open!
WORDS! 568!
OUTFIT! Handsome Hunk!
LYRICS! Faster Than My Angels Can Fly - - - Eric Church
NOTES! <3