Downstairs -- Fireplace

[Brook LaRue]

She folded her arms and shook her head, dark curls bouncing around her head. "Mon choux you promised to take me to Tibby's and now you're fooling around? That's not kind.." she tilted her head and watched him with her own dark eyes. They were friends, she wasn't jealous she knew that Specs was just like that.

She felt instantly bad for Piper, did she have any idea that Specs was such a rake? She pouted a little bit, and tilted her head before she blew her hair out of her face. "And Blink is off flirting with some blond we ran into, You both are terrible.."

[bunky]

Piper shot up when she saw Brooke come in and she instantly felt betrayed. She looked down at Specs and then balled her hands up into fists. For one meer second she believed him, not even thinking about Drifter who was good and wonderful to her. She could feel her ears burning and also her cheeks. She smacked him hard across the mouth, feeling the sting in her palm and fingertips.

"Bastard." She replied to Specs and walked away from him in a fast pace. She stopped over near Brook and was going to say something, but nothing came out, only more hot tears. She walked out of the Lodging house and down the street, once again alone. She didn't care anymore, she felt horrible about Drifter and what she did.

[Specs]

"Mon choux you promised to take me to Tibby's and now you're fooling around? That's not kind... And Blink is off flirting with some blond we ran into, You both are terrible.."

Specs just remembered about his promise to Brook. "Oh yeah, yeah. Tibby's. Sorry, doll." He gave her an angelic smile and an innocent shrug. He could charm anyone, anytime, or at least attempt to. "C'mon, let's get outta here..."

"Bastard."

Whoops. Damn it, Brook, if she'd waited about five more minutes...

The slap made his ears ring. He never failed to be surprised by how hard girls could slap. "Sorry, doll," he said to Piper with a shrug, rubbing the sore spot on his jaw. "Nothin' personal. You do got nice hair!" he called as she hurried away. He shrugged and turned his attention to Brook. "C'mon, baby. See if we can't find Blink. He can take you and I'll take that blonde, eh?" he winked as he offered his arm to Brook.

[Brook LaRue]

"I'm starving and--" the sound of the smack echoed and Brook raised a brow at him. Ouch, she frowned a bit and leaned back to let Piper storm off, shaking her head. "Oh Bebe.." she frowned as Specs walked up to her and touched his cheek. "It's gonna be red, she hit you pretty hard. I don't think she knew your reputation, che."

When he offered her his arm she took it and shook her head, "Come on, I'm starving and it was making me grouchy.." when he said he wanted to take the blond she laughed. "You are a rake though and through. It's alright though, I still amo.." she kissed his stinging cheek. "Lets go find Blink before I get more grouchy.."

[Milo]

((New Day))

It was never really quiet in the lodging house during the day what with people coming in and out, talking and playing cards. Even the few times that Milo had been there wheneveryone was out selling ( usually either to get things that he forgot when he was getting ready in the morning or because he finished selling early and didn't have anything else to do for the day ) he could hear Kloppman cleaning or something like that. But somehow he had always thought that it would be quiet at night after he went to bed. It just seemed to him that by midnight it would just be too late for anything to work anymore, not even sound. It was for that reason that he was up right now at two in the morning, lying on his stomach in front of the still-lit fireplace with one of his papes from the day before opened up in front of him.

More than anything being in the workhouse had taught him that he never ever wanted to work in a factory ever again. He figured that, since he couldn't be a Newsie forever (a fact which he had confirmed with a number of the older newsies before moving on in his thinking) and since he never really went to school, he had three choices left for his future. He could keep on doing what he was doing and be a dock worker when he grew up, which he really didn't want do do either since it seemed almost as bad as working in a factory. He could go back to Moravia and take over the family farm that his mama had always told him about when he was really little, but that didn't really sound like a good idea either because he figured that it must've been pretty lousy there if his mama and papa had wanted to leave. Or he could start trying to learn more stuff on his own so he could maybe get a better job here like in a store or a library or something. He thought that this was probably the best choice out of all of them so a few days ago, he had started to bring home one of his papes every day and tried to read every single bit of it. It was hard work, though. The words in the actual stories were harder than the ones in the headlines and it was really hard to figure them out with all of the day to day noise of the lodging house distracting him. So, he had decided to do it really late when there wouldn't be any noise to distract him.

Unfortunately, though, as he had figured out by now, he had been wrong about there not being any noise at night. There were less sounds as many of the older kids had gone to bed. But every single sound that he could hear sounded way louder than usual. Every tick and every tock of the clock and every creak of the stairs as another one of the older kids snuck upstairs only a few hours before they would have be up again to buy their papes for the next day distracted him just as much as the chatter that he was trying to avoid. Letting out a heavy sigh as he realized that he hadn't read a single word in at least ten minutes. "this is too hard" he mutter to himself , resting his head on his small arms which were crossed in front of him. Maybe if he close his eyes for a little, he would be able to figure out the words better when he woke up.