Novel Upper West Side Novels & Stories

I cut in. He studies my face, confused by the intensity. “She’s someone I've known in New York for a while now. We used to fuck around till I had to move here.” New York. Pregnant. Messy. Fuck around with. This same Julia. My breathing becomes uneven. “Where in New York?” I press. He frowns slightly. “Upper East Side mostly. Why?” Upper East Side. My throat closes. “What’s her full name?” I ask. Now he’s really looking at me.

I took the usual shortcut home through the park. Typically, it was always a bad idea to travel alone through Central Park, but it was the middle of the day and I had nothing to worry about except my own clumsy feet getting stuck in the snow. To state this very clearly, I am a klutz. Floors and walls are my greatest enemies. The building I go to was directly off of Central Park West, actually known as the West Apartments. The outside of the building was rustic but elegant, and if you were a full paying tenant of the building you’d also experience luxury internal designs year-round. But I was not a full paying tenant, and technically I didn’t actually live in the building, but behind it, above

The doorman didn’t ask questions. That was part of why Dorian had chosen this place. Upper West Side. Twenty-second floor. No cameras in the hallway. Keypad entry, biometric override, and a name on the lease that wasn’t hers. Vivienne Blake now Celeste Vaughn stood in the middle of her new apartment with one suitcase and a shoebox full of burned memories. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city. It sparkled like a postcard, a world she hadn’t walked in freely for over a year. The living room was blank, sterile clean lines, ash-gray furniture, untouched marble countertops.

Her fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard, efficient and precise. Once the reservation was confirmed, she forwarded the address to Mirena, then leaned back in her chair and slowly spun around, letting her gaze drift across her apartment. Compared to Mirena and the other elites, she lived in a modest three-bedroom penthouse on the Upper East Side of New York. It wasn’t small by any normal standard, yet it wasn’t anywhere near the level of luxury Mirena enjoyed. Still—she loved it. Because Mirena had helped her find this very place.

I mean, if you have a maid, I guess that's part of her job description. Justin's abode reminded me of Gossip 's posh residence Girl . When we had N*****x nights, she would make me watch a few episodes before her and she used to make fun of how realistic the show was, but now I believe her. As far as the Upper East Side of Manhattan is concerned, it was an accurate representation. In the meantime, we stayed with Justin's mother until his father arrived. He was dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase and appeared to be a Wall Street trader.

Zara’s POV Fifth Avenue was a canyon of broken glass and expensive shadows. Without the rhythmic pulse of the traffic lights or the neon glow of the designer storefronts, the street felt ancient, like a Roman road reclaimed by a silent, predatory wilderness. The blacked-out Upper East Side didn't roar with the chaos of the Bronx or the fires of Hell’s Kitchen; it simmered with a cold, aristocratic terror. Here, the looters were fewer, but the private security details were twitchy, their flashlights cutting through the mist like erratic searchlights from a watchtower.

Emma offered to come down to Willowmere and use the opportunity to visit home again, but Jade insisted she would come to the Upper East Side instead so they could explore the streets and talk. “I’ve never visited the big city before,” Jade said, a spark of excitement in her voice. “You know it’s always been my dream, Emma. So how about this meeting being an opportunity? You don’t have to stress yourself coming down to Willowmere.” Of course. Jade had always loved the idea of the big city, its noise, its lights. They both had the same dream once ever since they heard stories from people who had visited that place to work for the rich, but Upper East Side could only be visited if you had money

he paused, something in the pause that wasn’t quite an explanation, “in the area.” I looked at him. His building was on the Upper East Side. I was in Brooklyn. Nobody was in the area. I stepped back from the door. “Do you want coffee?” A beat. “Yes.” I wasn’t sure which of us was more surprised by the answer. He came in. I watched him take in my apartment the way he took in everything, quickly and without making a production of the looking, and I saw it briefly through his eyes, the mismatched bookshelves and the good lamp I’d splurged on three years ago and the kitchen table with the ring from a coffee cup that I kept meaning to sand out and never did.

Spiked high heels clicked impatiently on the wooden floor as Bridget Madison, Paxton’s realtor, pointed out the many charms of the truly lovely apartment he wanted her to move into. “Well, what do you think?” Bridget asked. “I don’t know…” “You already live in the neighborhood, so you know how wonderful the Upper West Side is. The people in this building are all young, hardworking professionals like yourself. Paxton wants you to have the apartment so badly he’s willing to meet the seller’s first price.”

The door was open. And somewhere in the city, in an apartment on the Upper West Side, two men who had started as strangers held each other in the dark and learned, still learning, what it meant to stay.