“What’s your name?”

We sit seventeen stories up from the city’s sticky asphalt streets. The sun sets behind us, casting a shadow onto us from the taller buildings to the west.

A cigarette extends in my direction. “Call me Trick.”

I wave away the cancer stick. “Is that a nickname, or is it short for something?”

“It’s what I’d like you to call me.”

I squint as the flint wheel on the lighter clicks. Once, twice, flame. “Alright.”

The cigarette comes near once more.

“No,” I reply.

“Suit yourself.” A lengthy inhale, a longer exhale.

A leather jacket wraps around narrow shoulders, and studded sleeves reach out to envelop lanky arms. I can smell the leather, this close. It smells old, authentic.

“Why are you in a place like this?” A vague hand wave, a trail of cigarette smoke.

I’m caught off-guard. “This rooftop, the bar downstairs, or this city?”

Another exhale. “Tell me what you want, I hardly know you.”

“I thought the city would have something I wanted,” I reply, pulling my knees upward to my chest.

“Did it?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “but it feels better for me here than where I came from.” The cigarette smells less awful than I expected.

“Want to talk about it?” A pale face, dusted with fading acne-marks turns to mine. Trick’s close-cropped curls catch the falling sunlight, and the dark brown strands glow auburn.

“Not much to say, really.”

“Say as much as you want.” Trick’s eyes are a faded green, like the underside of a leaf.

“I’m from this tiny crapshoot town a few states over, and everyone there wanted me to leave as badly as I did.” I lower my legs over the side of the building once more, and lay back to watch the wispy excuses for clouds float past.

“Why?”

“Misunderstanding, judgments, prejudices.”

“Are you gay?”

“I came up here with you.”

Trick’s laugh is like falling leaves in September. Cool and refreshing in the summer heat, but out of place. “That means nothing.”

“It’s about more than just gay or straight, you know.”

“Oh, I do.” Slender lips tilt to form a smirk, and Trick leans back beside me, and I can hear the rooftop gravel grate against more aluminum studs. The cigarette has burned down to the smallest nub. Trick flicks it up and out into the air over the street.

“That’s littering.”

I’m ignored. “What really matters now, is what you want me to call you,” Trick says, rolling towards me and up onto an elbow. Our eyes meet, inches apart, soft jade green and dark blue, like a coming storm. Trick leans closer, soft lips fitting to the tender skin behind my ear.

It was like a static shock, an unexpected sensation—and more intense than I could have anticipated. Slender piano player fingers run through my hair, while soft lips trace a path from my ear along the curve of my jaw.

“What’s your name?” Trick breathes. The skin on my face tingles, and flushes.

I reach out, threading my fingers into short soft curls. “Call me Ava.”

Our lips meet. Butterflies flutter and burst into flame.

Trick can kiss.

Later, we leave the roof and make our way to the bar. Trick walks closely. Our shoulders repeatedly brush against each other. I’m constantly aware of how close Trick’s hand is to mine.

“Are you going to be doing anything later? When it gets dark?”

Impish green eyes turn to catch me sidelong. “There are things I could be doing, but nothing I have to do.”

I feel myself smile, and my face flushes again. “Can you show me the city?” I will swear on a stack of holy books that Trick knows where to find secrets and beauty.

Trick steps close, and magician’s hands wrap around my hips. “I suppose I could.”

We’re in a market—square canopy tents rest against walls, each is butted up beside the next. In the wide center space, several people were tending to instruments as a crowd gathered.

“What’s special here?” I look to Trick.

“Shh. Wait for the music.”

We find a spot to stand, nestling in a corner gap between two canopy tents. And we wait.

The instruments are eclectic, seemingly composed of what happened to be on hand. A woman with a poppy red mohawk is fiddling with preset beats on an electric keyboard. A middle-aged man with dark skin sits near a couple of battered cymbals on stands and several upended plastic buckets. A teenage boy produces a very old viola from its case. A pregnant woman, wearing a green shawl sits crossed-legged before a pan flute, a harmonica, and a triangle.

The poppy-haired woman settles, content with the beat she has chosen, and begins to play a melody. More people gather around the musicians, and then the man produces a pair of drumsticks and starts to tap out a rhythm. Several people begin to clap along, and the pregnant woman begins to play her panflute. The young boy lifts his viola, and I wait half my life for him to play his first note—and it’s beautiful, drawn out like a sigh.

Another woman appears, wandering in from the crowd. Her hair is thick and black, and when she opens her mouth to sing, there’s nothing else but the music. Her voice is haunting and unusual, not a smooth, clear note like anyone from the Top 40s List, but all the more memorable and enchanting for it.

I don’t recognize the words—but I only speak my own ignorant tongue.

Trick extends a hand and pulls me into the crowd to dance. Gentle hands are on my hips, showing me a swaying beat. Soft lips touch the curve of my neck, once. Trick’s head remains bowed into my shoulder, and we stay like that, swaying to the playful music of this city, for the rest of time.

The song becomes another, and our spell breaks. We pull apart.

“That was beautiful.”

Trick remains silent, green eyes on the singing woman.

“You’ll kiss me, and dance with me, but you won’t talk to me?”

Trick’s eyes fly to me. “What use are words? They complicate things.”

“I’d say they clarify things.” The distance between us outgrows the inches from Trick’s lips to mine.

“Which felt more true?” I never knew that fire could be jade green. “The moment I told you I wanted to know you, downstairs in that bar, or when we danced, just now?”

I purse my lips.

“Actions and words. One is louder, and one is just messy. Enjoy the music, and your night.”

Soft lips brush against my cheek, and I watch Trick walk away.