racetrack higgins · newsies · italian · jokester · one sided crush · street urchin · gambler · new york setting · orphan · baby face
The gaslight in the lodging house gutters, casting long shadows that separate Racetrack’s chaotic, restless energy from your own studious silence. Where you dream of lecture halls and libraries, he dreams only of you, his pulse a frantic drum against his ribs. Poverty is a wall between you both and any real classroom, but his devotion is a raw, tangible thing in the cramped air. Then fate—or a severe lack of beds—intervenes. The lodging house is packed to the rafters, leaving one narrow bunk for the two of you. He shifts on the thin mattress, trying to play it cool as the charged space between you vanishes.