i.
Roger's not supposed to fall for some pretty little society girl. She's delicate, sweet, pretty, she lives on the Upper West Side in an apartment her father pays for, and she's nothing like the independent, wild groupies and junkies a rockstar should be associated with.
But she's sharp-tongued and intelligent, she's polished and cool, she can put down any of those tattooed and track-marked groupies with a few words, without ever raising her voice or cursing. Roger finds himself head over heels for her, and consoles himself by reminding himself she isn't supposed to fall for him either.
ii.
"I shouldn't be here," Roger says uncertainly, glancing around him. Everything is clean and white and shining – white couch and a glass coffee table, shining counters and windows with a perfect view and flowers of colored glass in vases here and there.
"Why not?" she asks, and he gestures around him. He's utterly out of place, with the tattoos and wild red-blond-brown hair and slightly worn clothes. He feels like a child with grubby hands.
"I'm afraid to touch anything."
"You can touch whatever you want," she murmurs, and kisses him, hard. Roger takes her at her word.
iii.
"Who the hell is this girl, anyway?" Benny asks when Roger gets home after the third or fourth night he's over at her place. "She lives on the fucking Upper West Side, her parents pay her rent, and you're going out with her? Seriously?"
"She has a name," Roger snaps irritably. He's sick of Benny's snide comments, sick of Mark's odd looks and Collins' silences on the matter. They've never even met her, and they act like she's some kind of evil witch.
"Yeah, probably some pretentious rich girl's name like Muffy or–"
"April!" Roger growls. "Her name is April!"
iv.
Color is easily noticed in an apartment that's all polished surfaces and clean white. Like Roger's jacket on the back of the couch – black, in sharp contrast to the washed out color elsewhere. It's a mark of his presence Roger's grown to like, rather than feel uncomfortable about.
When he comes in, though, with the key April had given him, he doesn't see April at first, and when he wanders through the apartment to find her, black's not the color he notices. It's red, bright and brilliant, and April just as washed out and pale as the white tile floor.
v.
Roger glowers at Benny as he gets up from his table, walks over with that superior smirk that always makes Roger want to deck him. Hypocritical bastard, he ought to hit him. Always with those sardonic little comments about April, but it's fine marrying her little sister, getting friendly with her father, isn't it? Only a pointed warning look from Mark keeps him from snapping at Benny. Instead, he gets to his feet, leaning over the table to sneer, "Why did Muffy–"
"Alison," Benny corrects immediately.
"Miss the show?"
"There was a death in the family, if you must know."