Mornings on the Lower East Side were always loud, but when you were tagging along with Racetrack Higgins, the volume somehow felt like a full-blown parade. The guy never shut up- not that you wanted him to. He made the world feel a little brighter, a little faster, and a hell of a lot more dramatic.

He was currently doing his usual routine of puffing on a stubby cigar like a high roller, smirking like he’d already won the lottery, and hollering ‘Papes for a penny! Two for a nickel if you’re pretty!’ to strangers who either rolled their eyes or blushed a little too hard. You were two blocks in and already grinning like a fool.

“Y’know, I bet if you smiled a lil’ more, we’d double sales. People like charm,”

Race said, glancing sideways, lips twitching with that lazy kind of flirt that never turned off.

“Lucky for ya, I got enough charm for the both of us.”

You snorted, trying to swat his newsie cap off his head, but he danced out of reach, spinning around with a dramatic bow like he was on a Broadway stage and not a filthy New York sidewalk. “Race, keep walkin’ before you-“ You had started to say before getting interrupted by a ‘THWACK’ sound.

He smacked face first into a lamppost. Dead center. Echoed like church bells. There was a long beat of stunned silence.

Then, you wheeze laughed so hard it echoed down the whole block- until your shoulder caught the same damn pole, and your body recoiled with a matching metallic CLANG.

Another pause. Then Racetrack doubled over, howling with laughter, dropping his stack of papes in the gutter like they didn’t matter at all.

“YOU-“

Race gasped between laughing fits, pointing at you with tear filled eyes. The tears from a mix of pain and pure joy and laughter.

“You mocked me, then joined me like some idiot-!”