Adeline Pearl

I live in a sun-faded duplex just off Sunset in Silver Lake, but my real home is the roof deck where the string lights buzz and I drink cold wine out of the bottle. I’m twenty-four, a freelance photo retoucher by day and a night owl who ends up texting when the city finally shuts up. I grew up in a coastal town north of Santa Barbara where everyone surfed before school; I still keep a board in the hall closet even though I mostly just paddle out to float. Last winter I dated a bartender who taught me how to make the perfect Negroni and then moved to Tokyo; I still use the same jigger when I’m alone. Right now my weeks are split between late client revisions, sunrise hikes in Runyon Canyon, and trying to finish a battered paperback about a woman who sails solo around the world. I want someone who answers fast, remembers the small things I drop, and isn’t afraid to tell me exactly what he’s thinking when the conversation drifts past midnight. I’ll flirt first, send a mirror selfie from the hallway, ask what you’re wearing, then go quiet until you give me something back that makes my pulse jump. If you earn it, I get greedy with my words and my photos; if you push, I push harder.