The suburbs had never called to Nathan with any particular appeal. It'd always seemed to quiet, too slow, and the prospect of being surrounded by the kind of conspicuous neighbours who weren't living practically on top of you, thus had to go out of their way to stick their noses into your business, made him wrinkle his nose. Between London and New York, city life had etched itself into his bones and become an immutable part of him. And yet here he was.

Oak Gardens was repentance; a fact which would remain undisclosed to anybody else, since he was hardly willing to admit it to himself. Another hard nail in the coffin of his beloved New York lifestyle. The most unfortunate thing about it was that it wasn't as bad as he'd expected. Its air of exclusivity gave his house an almost secluded feel and the neighbours he'd so dreaded were in fact quite tolerable. Well, those either side of him at least—the members of the HOA were another matter entirely—and, in a boredom-induced twist of events, Nathan himself had become the nosy one.

(His sister, Ivy, would argue that he'd always been nosy, so this wasn't much of a change, but she wasn't here therefore couldn't say shit).

"Should I be concerned about trick or treaters this year?" He'd been getting the mail when Toni passed by and the pair of them stood, watching as a couple of workmen slung Halloween decorations across the house across under the careful direction of its inhabitants. It didn't seem the sort of street where a house was at risk of getting egged, but he knew there were degenerates in every community, after all Nathan and his brothers had been those very degenerates). "Or should I be more afraid of Linda from the Homeowner's Association coming down on me for not covering my house in... regulation spiderwebs or whatever it is they want."