âIâm okay, I was distracted tooâ Bel replied coldly, standing up from the floor and reaching out first for her phone, then for her Ipad. She dusted her jeans and composed herself before realizing there was something wrong with her tablet âthis thing on the other handâŠâ she muttered, letting out a frustrated sigh at the sight of the now shattered screen of her Ipad.Â
She cursed herself for having taken its protection off that same morning; she knew going around New York with an Ipad at hand was dangerous enough -sheâd had her fair share of stolen cellphones ever since she arrived in the city all those years ago, but she hadnât calculated crashing into a stranger and now having to pay a few hundred dollars to have the Ipad fixed. Great. Just in time for Christmas. âWhereâs the penâŠI just bought it last weekâ she commented, quickly looking around the sidewalk to see if there was any sight of the pen she used to draw on her ipad, âIs that folder yours?â Bel asked as she reached out for the folder, still looking for her pencil.
Jude winced slightly as he realised just how much damage heâd done - not just to the woman in front of him, but the things she was holding too. The iPad alone looked pretty expensive and he was internally cursing himself for not just looking where he was going. âShit...â He muttered aloud, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. âDid I break it like that? Like - It was fine before I fuckinâ... Knocked you over?â He asked guiltily, running a hand through his hair.
The man didnât do too badly for himself, but he couldnât imagine having the kind of money to be able to splash out on a new iPad a couple of days before Christmas without worrying about it and he had to imagine that others were the same. âPen?â He repeated blankly, gaze darting to the floor and scanning the space around them until he saw what Bel seemed to be looking for. âThis?â He asked, holding it up and then out to the woman. âYeah, thatâs uh... Thatâs mine.â He nodded, sighing as he bent down to pick it up and realised that the pages were all skewiff. âLook, I really am sorry. Iâm an idiot. Iâll look where Iâm going next time.â
OPEN STARTER.
âȘ at any bar of your choice
âȘ @enycstartersâ
it wasnât every day that lauren got out of the office in time for a night out these days. while she loved a good chat and a couple of beers with friends, it was usually a casual and spontaneous decision. the act of going in a bar with the prospect of a fine cocktail, a couple of shots or even too many beers (tipsy lauren starts to forget about manners, after all) was not an every day decision. tonight was different. âyou know, if youâre gonna stand there, you might as well buy me another.â she lifted the bottle of beer to indicate what she was drinking at the moment. âor if you prefer to wait for the tequila shots,â with her foot, she pushed the stool so the person would sit, âtheyâre on their way.â and just like that, she flashed the other a smile.
It wasnât unusual for Jude to head to the bar with a couple of co-workers when theyâd finished their day; work was long and it could be pretty stressful, sometimes they definitely needed a little wind down at the end of the day. That was the case today, especially - he was already a little buzzed, a couple of beers went hard on an empty stomach and so he couldnât even begin to stop the laughter that tumbled out of his mouth as he heard the girl next to him speaking. âImpatient, arenât we?â He grinned, shaking his head playfully. His eyes widened slightly at the mention of tequila shots, though. âOkay well, now I know that theyâre on the table...â He pulled out the stool next to the girl and sat down, a grin on his face. âHow about we do both? Iâll get you another of whatever that is and you provide the tequila?â
chris had made it a habit to get a workout in everyday but with his schedule the only time he was able to do it earlier than most would deem normal. every morning he got up to his first alarm, threw on his workout clothes, grabbed a breakfast bar, keys, texted his wife heâd be back soon incase she woke up, and headed out of the penthouse to the streets of manhattan. when he told others about his typical routine he tended to get the same look as he did when he told his family he wanted to be a doctor. it was a look as if he was insane. though, arguably he was but it was one of his favorite parts of the day. it helped prepare for the day he was about to have. this morning was no different the man did the same routine.Â
chris had just finished his run when he was stopped on the sidewalk taking a moment to respond to a text and emails that were sent to him. after a short moment he realized that the doctor was blocking the way of somebody else. â usually no one is out here at this time. my bad. â the brunette said promptly moving out of the way letting a small laugh escape his lips.
@enycstartersââ
If you asked him to pick between early bird or night owl, Jude would choose the latter every time. He was just the kind of person who worked better at night; sinking endless cups of coffee, scrawling notes like a madman in the light of the screen from his laptop -- but he was an adult, a grown up and sometimes, he knew he just had to bite the bullet and get up early and today was one of those days. Heâd been meeting a key-witness, somebody imperative to a story he was writing and they were only prepared to meet him early enough that nobody else would be around - theyâd met in a tiny coffee shop, somewhere Jude had never been before and he was only just heading home, tiredly rubbing his eyes when he realised somebody was standing dead in his way.Â
âFor gods sake...â He muttered with a sigh, trying to dart around them but realising the sidewalk was far too small. The man shook his head as the other apologised though, shrugging it off. âYouâre fine, itâs not like any sane person makes a habit of being out at this time, is it?â He laughed, raising an eyebrow.
location Ⱡan restaurant somewhere in manhattan
@enycstarters Ⱡopen.
âAm I really that much of a bitch for saying I donât want my husbandâs fucking ex wife at our Christmas dinner? Am I really asking for too much?â Margot inquired manically, lit cigarette perched between two fingers. Sheâd had enough of hearing about lonely, single Nicola and those stupid, meddling children of hers that were trying to hijack the magnificent party sheâd been organising for months. âI cannot stress how much of a nightmare she is, and she has this incessant need to try to outdo me with everything.â She took a deep breath out, it felt good to get that weight off her shoulders, itâd been bugging her for weeks and been the cause of disagreements with her man. âWhat do you think?â
Jude listened with curious interest as Margot spilled the details of her Christmas party to him, eyebrow slightly raised - he couldnât help but find all of this the littlest bit funny, just because it was so different to the life he lived and the problems he imagined having. âI mean, I donât think it makes you a bitch.â He laughed, shrugging his shoulders. âWhy does your husband want her there in the first place? Thatâs what I donât get.â He finished the cigarette in his hand and put it out in the ashtray, habitually lighting up another and taking a long drag before he started to speak again. âHave you told him how much itâs gettinâ to you?â
With his ear pressed to his shoulder in an attempt not to let the phone he was currently speaking on fall and his hands full, the left with a steaming hot cup of coffee and the right with his laptop, files and notebook, Jude really didnât have many faculties left to actually begin to concentrate on anything else going on around him. Heâd been at the office, trying to get a headstart on meeting his deadline before he really had to start panicking, but it was one of those days where nothing was clicking... Call it writer's block, call it the fact that heâd had one too many drinks last night at a Christmas party or call it the fact that his coworker had been there making too much noise for him to even hear himself think, but heâd decided to just make his way home and see if he could pick back up where he left off when he got there.Â
He wasnât focusing on where he was going whatsoever; heâd lived in New York for long enough to know his route home exactly, even factoring in the fact that he had to weave in and out of people that had apparently forgotten how to walk... But he regretted that only moments later, when he crashed straight into another pedestrian coming the opposite way, dropping pretty much everything in his hands and splattering the contents of his coffee cup. âFuck,â He muttered, looking around at everything that had just happened as though his brain was trying to figure out exactly what he was supposed to do, before he shook off the confusion and held his hand out to the person to help them up. âSorry, I wasnât fuckinâ concentrating and I... Well, yeah. You can see that.â He laughed awkwardly, raising an eyebrow. He leaned down to pick up his laptop and the multitude of papers heâd dropped, shaking his head at what an idiot heâd been. He looked over the person in front of him again once he stood up though, suddenly realising he hadnât even asked the most important - and the most polite - question. âYou okay?â
Not everyone can say theyâve been to the Big Apple, but  [JUDE MORLEY], a [27] year-old [MALE] has lived in [BROOKLYN] for [5 YEARS]. This is the city of dreams and [HE] knows it, because they came to NYC to be a [REPORTER]. Well, that and as a [CO-WORKER] to [CARLOS KANE]. Living in the city means they meet all kinds of people, but everyone always seems to think they look like [DACRE MONTGOMERY]. They even got away with free cab fare once because of it!Â
THE BASICS -Â
FULL NAME: Jude Thomas MorleyÂ
DOB/AGE: 12/11/1994
BIRTHPLACE: Phoenix, ArizonaÂ
RESIDENCE: Brooklyn, New York City
SEXUALITY: HETEROSEXUAL
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him
OCCUPATION: Reporter for the New York Times
FAMILY: Edie Howard, restaurant manager (forty seven years old, mother), Simon Howard, English teacher (fifty years old, stepfather), Olivia Howard, drama student (19 years old, half sister.) Father estranged.
BIO -Â
Edie Morley was only twenty when she fell pregnant with her first child; she was still in college, had only been with her boyfriend for five months and she had no idea what to do. She had always been the kind of person who was a little naive to the world around here, she believed people when they told her she could trust them. She was a party girl, somebody who liked a lot of fun and so everybody was massively surprised when she announced that she was going to keep her baby - most of all her boyfriend. He promised to stand by her, though. He said he was going to do what it took to be there for the both of them. They agreed that Edie would drop out of college; she would pick her studies back up when the baby was old enough and her boyfriend would continue his studies so that heâd be able to provide for them. It seemed perfect, but the agreement was over before Jude was even born; once Edie moved back home to be with her parents, it only took a month before her boyfriend had found somebody else and told her that he didnât want a baby, he wasnât ready for that life. It was too late for Edie to change her mind - she was going to have to do this on her own.
Because of this, Jude has grown up pretty protective of his mother; before she met the man that went on to be Oliviaâs father, it was just the two of them for seven years and they have a very close bond. Heâs always felt a little bit of guilt about being the reason she could never complete her education, the reason that (in his eyes) sheâs had to settle for what she has now. He thinks his mother is incredible and couldâve been whatever she wanted. Thatâs why he worked so hard to achieve the career he has now - he wanted to make her proud and he knew that him working hard to make something of himself would make up for everything his mother missed out on. Heâd always been interested in writing - when he was younger, he would sit on his stepfathers lap and read the newspaper with him, asking a thousand questions. It was short stories scrawled in little notebooks or typed up on his mother's old computer... As he got older, he started to write properly and his teachers realised he had a real talent for it. He started writing for the school newspaper and that was when he realised that journalism was something he had a real passion for. He was accepted into NYU to study Journalism when he was eighteen and just never left. He knew as soon as he stepped foot in it that New York was the city for him.
He had a lot of fun in college - lots of parties, lots of relationships, lots of friends. He still worked hard, though; he had enough about him to know that if he worked hard, he could really be something special. Straight out of college Jude was offered a job writing for a smaller magazine -- he didnât hesitate before taking it. Heâd always been told to take whatever opportunities presented themselves. He loved writing for a living, he loved getting stuck in and making something out of what might seem like nothing to another person. He had a bigger goal, though - something he was working towards; Jude wanted to write for the New York Times. Heâd set his sights on it back when he was in college, but it had seemed almost unachievable when he was so young. Now he was older, now he was actually working towards it... He felt as though it could happen - and when he was twenty two years old, it did. A job opening came up and although he was unsure of himself, Jude applied -- successfully. It gave him the security he needed to leave the apartment he still shared with his college roommates and move into an apartment in Brooklyn, on his own.
Jude is massively family orientated - although he lives in a different city to his family, he calls them at least every other day and heâs the type of person who looks for family wherever he is. In New York, Judeâs friends are absolutely his family and he treats them as such; heâd do anything for the people he cares about, although he might grumble a little bit about it or act as though heâs not really trying... He is. Heâs a real laugh, always up for some fun and now that heâs gotten where he wants to be heâs not as much of a stress head about work as he used to be. Writing is still everything to him, though. Heâs always got a notebook in his pocket, or the Notes app open on his face. Because of how into his job he is, he finds it hard to commit to relationships - heâs been in quite a lot of them, but none have ever lasted for longer than a year and none have been all that serious. Jude thinks itâs because of the job he does and how young he has, that he doesnât actually want to settle down, but his father leaving his mother so quickly and in such a devastating situation has definitely left him with some trust issues he hasnât quite addressed yet.Â