Against the Wall: The Subway Series, #1

By Pippa Glencoe

Miriam Perlman's new neighbor is an absolute nightmare.

Sexually insatiable and devastatingly handsome, the guy seems to be on a mission to seduce half of New York City. Every night, Miriam is forced to endure the sounds of the most casual of sex through the thinnest of walls that separate their apartments. The nightly decathlons are ruining her sleep, impacting her social life (well, whatever is left of it, anyway), and making life completely impossible.

As if that weren't bad enough, he alternates between playfully flirting with her—even going so far as to bring her daily homemade baked goods—and acting like she's invisible. Half the time he pursues her; the other half of the time he finds her about as compelling as a crack in the sidewalk. She has no idea what to make of him, or of the fact that whenever he smiles at her, she wants to be the one he takes home. It's a confusing game, and it's pushing her to the brink.

If there's one thing Miriam Perlman knows, it's that her womanizing next-door neighbor is definitely not the guy for her.

...Right?

Pippa Glencoe's contemporary romance, Against the Wall, explores the hilariously disastrous effects of assuming you know everything about your neighbors—no matter how thin the walls between you might be.

Against the Wall is the first book in The Subway Series, a collection of standalones about a group of friends searching (or not) for their HEA in New York City.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pippa Glencoe
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201892128

Pippa Glencoe

Pippa Glencoe is a writer, editor, and recovering wedding photographer. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, she now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, daughter, and “ferocious” pit bull, who tries every single day to murder her with kisses. When she isn’t writing, she’s dreaming about it. And when she isn’t dreaming, she’s scheming. 

In the Pines is her first novel.

Book preview

Chapter One

He moved in on a Saturday morning at the asscrack of dawn.

It was the grunting that woke her up, some strange man’s voice barking things like pivot! and higher and no, no, you go first from the narrow hallway outside her apartment. Miriam rubbed the crust from her eyes, impatiently gouging her index finger into each corner, and laid there, tangled in her sleep-rumpled sheets, grimacing from the commotion in the hall. A small army, by the sound of it, was hauling furniture into the empty apartment next door. She could hear them calling each other by their names—Maguire, Jasper, and Dareon—and, although it was bad form to judge people by the sound of their voices, she had the distinct impression that the brothers of Delta Tau Chi were moving into sweet Agatha’s old apartment.

She missed her former neighbor already, the afternoon invitations to tea (that Miriam never accepted but appreciated all the same) and the peace and order of the hours the elderly woman kept. She even missed the smell of the mothballs, although, in the scorching heat of summer, she could still detect traces of it baking its way out of the pores of the walls. When Agatha had passed away and her apartment was put up for rent, Miriam had hoped that the faded floral wallpaper and the spare room that had been earmarked for Agatha’s porcelain doll collection would be a magnet for another sweet old lady.

No such luck, it turned out. That was the downside to living in a rent-stabilized building in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood—the invasion of the casually affluent hipsters and frat boys who saw an affordable apartment in a working-class neighborhood as an opportunity to gain street cred while still living a short commute from their cushy jobs and the glitzy shops and Michelin-starred restaurants downtown.

Climbing out of bed, she slipped on her robe and wrapped it around her like body armor, tiptoeing over to her front door. Resisting the urge to peek through the peephole, she instead pressed her ear lightly to the wood, curious to glean whatever information she could about the new tenants in apartment 9G.

Maguire, one of the men huffed, so help me God, this better be the last time your ass moves.

She heard a quiet, rumbling chuckle, followed by a breathless sort of pant. The answering voice sounded as strained as the man who had just spoken, but his voice had a softer, gentler timbre. Well, this definitely isn’t a permanent situation, he said. I think—

His voice broke off as a loud crash reverberated through the hallway, so loud it shook the floorboards where Miriam was standing. She pinched the bridge of her nose and bit the inside of her cheek, bitterly regretting the bottle of cheap red wine she’d split with her friend Sloane the night before.

"Shit. Jas, are you okay?"

I’ll live. But if I break something helping you move and can’t work Fashion Week next month, I might actually kill you.

You better watch it, the third man, Dareon, said in a low bass—he had a singer’s voice, the kind of voice you needed in a male R&B group to mumble all the sexy shit—as he passed dangerously close to her door, no doubt squeezing by the other two men in the hall to make his way back down to the street. Zoolander’s gonna whip you to death with his G-string, bro.

Oh yeah? Is that something you see a lot of in the precinct, homicide by G-string? the man named Jasper quipped.

In NYC? Hell, at least one a week, Dareon-with-the-low-voice replied, the three men breaking out into laughter, oblivious to the fact that the tenants all around them had been, until now, blissfully sleeping off their Friday nights.

Okay, the softer voiced man—he must have been the one named Maguire—said after a few moments, still chuckling. Dareon, you head on down and make sure the truck hasn’t been picked clean or towed. Jasper and I’ll tackle this monster. All right, bud, on the count of three, lift again. One, two, three— He grunted as he hoisted up whatever furniture had just fallen, and Miriam couldn’t help but appreciate the vaguely pornographic quality to it. As I was saying, he continued, I think you’ll understand how this is less than an ideal living situation.

She tried not to let his words sting. Sure, the neighborhood was far from pretty. The streets were riddled with potholes, the buildings were covered in spray paint and flyers, and the residents barked at each other in languages no one else around them seemed to understand, a ceaseless babble of fuck yous and saco de weas and hatichat harahs, but it was her neighborhood. She didn’t want to see it through the eyes of a stranger, someone who thought the street urchins would pick him clean the minute he turned his back (even if, okay, someone probably would). It might be far from an ideal living situation, but it was what was real, a vibrant and authentic, diverse community—something that was getting harder and harder to find here in the city, where the order of the day was to homogenize and corporatize everything.

The voices grew fainter as the men shuffled down the hall and toward the apartment next door. No, no, no—I’m deciding it, the man named Jasper said. You’re stuck here forever. Because there’s no way I’m hauling all this crap down however many flights of stairs those are again.

Fair enough, the other man conceded. Or I might just decide to burn it all. There's no telling what’s going to happen on this couch, you know?

Miriam shot a resentful glance toward her own couch—there was nothing to tell about what had happened on it because nothing ever had. That’s what beds were for, she reasoned, although that piece of furniture didn’t exactly have very many grand stories to tell either.

She waited until the heavy footsteps were well past her door before she hazarded a peek out into the dimly lit hallway. The two men were working to maneuver a black leather couch that screamed tacky bachelor pad around the corner and into the apartment. The tall, copper-haired one disappeared from sight as they rotated the couch, but she had several moments to take a hard look at the other one. From where she stood, she could see the muscular planes of his back through the translucent fabric of his sweat-soaked shirt. He was wearing a Mets baseball cap—another strike against him—over a mop of shaggy, sweaty, dirty-dishwater-blond hair.

Jas, can you move a couple inches over that way? I can almost fit, Mets said to Ginger.

So that one’s Maguire.

She had to admit that, despite the disruption to her sleep schedule that he had caused, his apparent provincialism, and his tragic taste in sports teams, she didn’t have a bad view from behind.

No. There was no doubt about it: the guy had a great ass.

The view got even better as he turned, hoisting the couch up higher using one of his thick thighs. From the side she could appreciate the sharp cut of his jaw, balanced by the gradual slope of his nose. The toned bicep of his left arm strained as he firmly but gently pushed the couch through the narrow door frame, careful so that it wouldn’t nick the wood molding.

He looked like an Abercrombie model, wholesome and fresh-faced and built and irritatingly boyish. At the thought, something ignited in her stomach, an inconvenient and uncomfortable sensation she didn’t have the time or energy to consider. It spread throughout her body, an uncontained fire, and made her shaky and weak. She silently closed the apartment door behind her, leaning against the wood, and used the sleeve of her robe to wipe at the beads of sweat that had already begun to form on her brow in the humid morning air.

She eyed her couch and exhaled heavily, missing her old neighbor for reasons she thought best to leave unnamed.

They started fucking on Monday night, the guy next door and the stilettoed, scantily clad blonde he’d brought home with him from some bar.

She could tell they were shitfaced. She’d heard them get off the elevator, the woman’s vapid laughter some grotesque parody of Janice from Friends that carried over the calming, ethereal tones of the Joanna Newsom record that Miriam had been listening to. The woman’s heels clacked noisily and unevenly on the tile in the hallway, and when a large thud hit the wall across from her door, Miriam crept over to it and glanced through the peephole to see what all the ruckus was about.

It was Maguire pinning the blonde to the wall and swaying as he ground his pelvis against hers. From this angle, all Miriam could see was his back and broad shoulders, his hand pressed against the wall to steady himself, one of the woman’s bare legs hitched up and wound tightly around his ass (slightly less glorious than she had remembered from moving day), and the blonde’s hair as she buried her face in his shoulder, her rat’s nest of a bouffant looking like it reeked of Aqua Net, cigarettes, and despair.

His hand traced the contour of the woman’s calf, smoothly working its way upward along her thigh to hike her sequined minidress over her waist, and disappearing in the narrow space between their bodies. Miriam didn’t need to guess what his hand was doing; the woman’s head fell backward against the wall, her eyes shut and mouth forming an o of ecstasy.

Fucking perfect.

Glitter—as Miriam decided to christen her, since the woman was covered in the stuff, along with all the sequins and a drag queen’s closet worth of sparkling costume jewelry—wasn’t just a loudmouth. She was a moaner.

Oh my gawd, yes, she pleaded in abandon, bucking her hips. At the friction, Maguire leaned forward, suckling roughly on the exposed skin of her shoulder and dragging his tongue greedily along the column of her slender neck like she was a melting popsicle.

Shit, baby, you’re so wet, he groaned, his voice reverberating through the empty hall. From this angle, Miriam could see the muscles of his triceps flexing as his fingers worked her, roughly pumping in and out of her over and over, a furious rhythm that had both of them crying out to the night.

Great. He’s a moaner too. She clenched her teeth in annoyance and her thighs in desire. The hunger that was coursing through her veins, heating her, annoyed her even more than the careless show taking place outside her apartment. It had been a while since a man had touched her like that—possibly never, if she was being frank—and she didn’t need to be reminded that her hymen had probably found a way to regenerate itself.

She was considering whether to open her door to bitch at the couple or simply to yell through it when a girl who lived down the hall, a savagely beautiful bombshell Miriam only knew as 9A, swung open her door and staggered up to them, glowering viciously. She hovered close to them like some sort of zombie, her face pale and her long hair matted and gnarled from sleep, looking like she’d like nothing better than to rip their mouths off their faces with her bare teeth.

The man turned his head slowly toward 9A, looking her up and down as if he didn’t know he had another woman’s crotch pressed up to his. Care ta’join? he asked, his voice thick and slurred from booze. Well, the guy’s got a type, Miriam thought wryly: big boobs and blond hair. Through the distorted glass of the peephole, Miriam could only make out the familiar line of his jaw. It had looked sharp on Saturday; tonight it looked cutting.

Give me a break, 9A snapped, already backing away from the leering man. Just take it inside already, will ya? Some of us gotta work in the morning.

Fine, fine. Have it your way. He held his hands up in surrender, Glitter’s leg falling from his waist and down to the floor with a heavy, unceremonious clomp. The woman tugged her dress back down over her ass, looking completely unfazed by the interruption to their foreplay. After 9A retreated back into her apartment, Maguire turned to Glitter. "Remind me not to ask her for a cup ‘a sugar ‘sanytime noon."

Glitter barked out a loud, caustic sound that must have been a laugh and playfully swatted at his shoulder, missing it completely—a feat, since his shoulders were massive.

C’mon, baby. He grabbed her arm and steered her down the hall, out of sight of Miriam's door. She could hear the jangling of his keys, the way they clattered to the floor, his head hitting the door as he bent to retrieve them, their laughter as he cussed under his breath, the clicking of his apartment door as it shut behind them.

After a moment of pregnant silence, standing stock-still as she waited for the next disruption, Miriam exhaled heavily. Well, that should be an end to it, she thought gratefully. She shot a look at her textbooks scattered across her kitchen table and picked up the book closest to her, Principles of Accounting. She’d been working doubles at the restaurant in addition to taking twelve credits this semester to try to wrap up her associate’s, and even though she was beyond exhausted, she’d been sleeping like shit. Her dreams, if they came at all, were populated with the same nightmares she’d been having for years, ever since the accident: fire, smoke, and ash, the way the flock of blackbirds looked flying away into the hazy sky, all the twisted metal, and the blood. Aya’s blood. So much of it, pools and rivulets that fanned out and spread into the cracks of the pavement.

Here was to hoping that accounting’s principles were enough to knock her out.

She’d just drifted off, the open book still pressed to her chest, when a heavy knock on the wall jolted her awake. It was followed rapidly by another; it sounded like furniture on the other side, in her neighbor's apartment, being shoved against the wall.

The motherfuckin’ headboard.

It was hard to say what started first: the moaning, low and deep and guttural, a man’s voice begging, Yeah, baby, just like that. Your mouth feels so good on my cock, or the headboard knocking against the wall as the person fellating him rocked in a steady, repetitive motion.

You’ve got to be kidding me. She laid there, staring at the water-stained ceiling, hating this Maguire guy and everything else in the world, even though there was nothing she could do about any of it.

At some point, the sucking turned to fucking, and Glitter the Groaner began to pant his name: Ryan. Like a warped record trapped in the same groove, a constant string of Ryans filled the thick, balmy night air. Harder, Ryan. Faster, Ryan. Right there, Ryan. Oh yeah, Ryan. Yes, Ryan. Oh yes, Ryan. Yes. Yes. Ryyyyyyyyyyannnnnnn.

It wasn’t long before he was moaning with her, his voice lower and raspier than she remembered it from the other day, like he’d suddenly developed a two-pack-a-day habit and a penchant for whiskey.

It went on for hours, one orgasm after another, the headboard pummeling the wall the entire time, Glitter’s pants turning into shrieks as they made their way through what must have been the whole of the Kama Sutra.

In the early hours of the morning, Miriam finally fell asleep, her dreams filled with Aya’s final screams and accompanied by the howls of the people on the other side of the wall.

A girl’s voice, soft and wistful, was singing about borrowed bones and the stars. The voice was so sweet Miriam couldn’t bear to hate it. It made her think of Aya, of little hands—childlike claws—scrabbling and clutching at her ribs, tickling her until she’d opened her eyes one by one, squinting against the harsh glare of the light filtering in through the crooked, bent blinds in their bedroom. "Miriam, wake up. It’s morning," Aya would say, her voice filled with wonder, like the Earth might one day stop on its axis, oblivious in her childish innocence to the fact that it does stop, eventually, for each one of us.

When Miriam opened her eyes, she was alone in her apartment, the fading strains of the Joanna Newsom song she’d set as her alarm swallowed by the rumble of the early morning traffic down on the street. She rolled out of bed, achy from lack of sleep, and stumbled into the shower. Finally, at the tender hour of 4 a.m., the sex decathlon next door had ceased. When she turned off the water, she could hear him lumbering around his apartment, his heavy tread taking him from room to room. She didn’t know how he could be awake after last night, much less standing. Certainly he’d be chafed. Saddle sore. Hobbled with a broken back. Half of her had wondered if he’d been fucked to death; the other half had just hoped it.

Her shift at the diner started at five, and since she didn’t have the time or energy to fuss with her frizzy mop of hair, she left it wet, opting to comb it with her fingers and pull it back into a simple ponytail. She shimmied into her work uniform, a tight plaid dress that accentuated the one or two curves she had. It was meant to look mid-century retro—she worked at a 50s diner in Midtown, the one where you had to sing for your chump change, in addition to slinging greasy food—but she thought it made her look like a vintage hussy, someone who’d sell you cigarettes out of a tray in some gaudy speakeasy, not someone you wanted singing Summer Nights to your children as they slurped down chocolate shakes.

She shambled out the door, viciously stabbing the elevator call button, and waited for the elevator to arrive. The cables whirred in the shaft, the tired elevator pinging as it ascended from the lobby at a crawl. Ping. Ping. Ping. Shiiiiit.

Down the hall a door opened, followed by the familiar clacking of heels as someone stepped over the threshold and into the hallway. Miriam didn’t have to look to know who was approaching; the sound was from the same direction as her apartment. Or, rather, his apartment next door.

She’d see soon enough what the walk of shame looked like on Glitter the Groaner. A second set of footsteps accompanied her, the same heavy tread she’d heard through the walls. It was loud and liable to wake the entire floor beneath them, but it sounded like he was purposely walking well behind the blonde. Oh, how the light of day changes things, Miriam thought to herself, feeling more than slightly smug about this grotesque parody of human intimacy gone awry.

When the elevator arrived, she stepped into it hastily and considered repeatedly jamming her finger on the door close button in the futile hope that maybe, just maybe, something in this world would cooperate with her for once. After last night, there was nothing and no one she felt up to dealing with today. She reconsidered when she realized, after all, that she sort of wanted to see this trainwreck of a morning after and how it played out when people realized they’d just slept with the walking embodiment of a Disney villain.

Cruella stepped on first, lipstick traces still smudged across her lips and cheeks, her hair a matted mess loosely gathered into a bun that did nothing to tame the strands sticking out in every direction on each side of her head. Her face was puffy from lack of sleep, her skin a sickly shade of gray from the hangover already wracking her brain. She teetered into the back corner, kitty-corner to Miriam, and leaned heavily against the rail that spanned the back wall of the elevator. Her dress was so short that, as she leaned, Miriam could see Glitter had lost her underwear last night somewhere between the hallway and her neighbor’s bedroom.

Then the man himself, Gaston, stepped on. His eyes darted up, meeting hers briefly, and flitted away. They were blue, shockingly blue, as bright as the wretched Mets cap he was wearing again this morning. She hadn’t expected him to have eyes that color—they almost made him look guileless. He stood across the elevator from Miriam, several feet in front of Glitter, and avoided looking at the beaver show by staring awkwardly ahead of him, clutching a hunter green polo shirt in both of his hands, wringing the fabric like the cotton had done something to royally piss him off. Aside from the purple rings beneath his eyes, he gave no indication that he’d gone on a bender the night before or had spent the night giving out free dick rides to the woman behind him. His hair looked freshly washed, his khakis pressed and clean. He looked so put together and normal, nothing like the manwhore sex demon who’d tormented her last night.

He was the devil trying to kill her. Miriam knew it. She could feel it in her bones.

...But he didn’t look that bad.

She swallowed and jammed the door close button, even though the doors had already begun to groan shut, because the air in the elevator was charged with tension and she found she didn’t want to be any part of it. Let them figure out how to handle their goodbyes and the insincere promises to call each other. This wasn’t her scene.

So… you’re off to work now? he asked in a hoarse voice, clearing his throat.

Miriam crossed her arms under her breasts, staring at the lights on the elevator panel, and waited for Glitter’s reply. If Glitter was going to work dressed like that, then maybe she was a stripper after all. Couldn't say she’d be surprised.

The elevator pinged twice, but when Glitter still hadn’t replied, she chanced a look toward him. Her heart jumped—irrationally, maddeningly—when she turned and saw that he wasn’t speaking to Glitter. He was speaking to her. A flush had crept onto his face, and as she looked at him, silently appraising him, it darkened, staining the tips of his ears.

She wanted to ask him who he thought he was, trying to make conversation with her like they were old friends and not total strangers—strangers aside from the inconvenient fact that she knew what sounds he made as he came. Excuse me? she challenged, unable to keep the incredulity out of her tone.

I… uh… wanted to know if you were off to work too. He held up his polo shirt by way of explanation, and even bunched up in his hand, Miriam could see the scripted font embroidered on it: Farm-to-Table Bagels.

So the pretty boy worked at—and probably owned—some sort of chichi bagel shop. How charming. At least his ass got up early in the morning along with the plebes, which was the only credit she was willing to grant him.

No, she deadpanned. I’m on my way to 1955. Just gotta hop in the DeLorean first.

He smiled, the right corner of his mouth hitching up a fraction of a second before the left. She’d heard somewhere that tic made someone right-handed. Or right-brained. She couldn’t remember, except she knew it made him anything but right for her. She pulled at the hem of her uniform, wishing it covered more of her ass.

Let me guess, he said, you work at the Starlight Diner.

The elevator pinged another floor, and Miriam shifted her weight from one foot to the other, anxious to get off as soon as possible. The way he was looking at her, speaking to her—like he was interested in her—it was all wrong.

You an actress? he asked, scratching his forearm. She hated that he made the gesture look sexy, that broad hand moving over a broad arm. Right in front of the broad he just fucked.

No, she muttered, not offering additional explanation. She could sing, yes. That’s how she got the job in the first place. But unlike every other member of the waitstaff—thirsty, ambitious people who would stab their own mothers in the back to land a gig on Broadway—the job was always just means to an end for her. So she sucked it up and sang The Leader of the Pack and walked away at the end of the night, pocketing her tips and dreaming about a day when life might mean something a little more than this.

Well, you must be very talented, to work there.

As the elevator reached the ground floor, she tore her gaze away from him and stepped toward the door, in a hurry to walk away, to create some space between them. Because there was no actual fucking way this man had spent the entirety of last night screwing the blonde’s brains out just to try to make conversation with some other woman right in front of her. Did guys really do that—pick up on other women right in front of their… their… conquests?

She couldn’t believe his chutzpah.

The doors slid open and she stepped out, not bothering to look back.

She could hear his voice behind her, quietly saying, Have a nice day, but she didn’t know if he was saying it to her or to the blonde.

She told herself she didn’t care. That the guy was a total dick. And that she didn’t have time for his games.

Chapter Two

It was never the same girl twice.

Some of them were buxom—endowed with melon-like breasts and curvy, child-bearing hips—brunettes that looked like Bettie Page and bottled blondes who thought they were Marilyn Monroe. And others