CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Layla
The soup helps more than I want to admit, and by the end of my shift, I’m ready to do more than just go back to the dorms. One of the benefits of sitting in bed for two days is that I’ve actually managed to get ahead on my homework. For once, I have nothing to do before class tomorrow. So even though I should probably go home and rest, I decide to take advantage of the fact that the snow has stopped and walk all the way home.
Walking is probably my favorite part about living in this city. I feel safer in many parts of Manhattan at any time at night than I do on the quieter streets of Seattle, or even the suburb where my parents live. I can walk down Fifth Avenue at one a.m. and not feel scared. There are always people around, always lights on, always cars passing and trains running. One day maybe I’ll get sick of the craziness of it all, but right now, the cacophony is just what I need to drown out the warring arguments in my head.
I hadn’t expected to see Nico today and definitely hadn’t expected him to make me practically combust on the steps of a church less than five minutes after I’d been blessed to start a season of attrition. If God is actually real, He has a messed-up sense of humor. And that moment, when Nico’s lips just barely touched my ear...gah. I wanted nothing more than to grab his ears and pull him in for another soul-searing kiss, the kind that makes me forget all the reasons we probably won’t work out, that makes me forget my own name.
But I made the right decision walking away. He wants to fool around for three more months. It would be fun, but if I feel this strongly now, I can’t imagine what kind of pain I’ll feel when he leaves. By then I’d be one hundred percent in love with him, if I’m not already.
Wait. Hold the phone. Love?
I hug my arms around myself, trying to collect my emotions back into a place where I can manage them. No. You’re not in love with him. It’s not possible. You’re too young for this, and he’s too old for you.
I repeat the words silently, willing my body and my heart to believe them. It doesn’t work.
I think back on the two nights we’ve spent together, the easy hours in each other’s company, where the conversation had come more naturally with him than with anyone else. The way he touched me…like he knew my body better than I did…and now the returning shock that I’m the only one who felt that connection.
I think back to that moment in the kitchen, when Nico came clean about his plans and neatly brushed away any possibility of making things work in other ways. His face drawn in obvious sorrow, with tiny lines I hadn’t noticed before crinkling around his dark eyes. His mouth, chewing ferociously on his lower lip every time he shook his head “no” to one of my suggestions.
He was genuinely sad; none of it smacked of a play to get rid of me. But what do I know? I’m just a naïve nineteen-year-old who’s fallen for a man seven years her senior. A man who’s explained why he has to leave her. Truthfully, I don’t know what I am to him, and that’s only going to lead to heartbreak. It already has.
And yet his words keep floating back. I like you naughty, NYU. I shiver, and not because of the cold. Yeah, I like me naughty too. With him. Naked. Mmmm.
Damn it, Layla, get a hold of yourself. I have to keep repeating the mantra as I turn onto my street and step through the leftover snow drifts. He’s leaving. I just need to keep telling myself that anytime I start getting pulled back into the Nico vortex. He’s leaving. He’s leaving.
He’s…right in front of me?
As I approach my dorm, I find Nico leaning against the side of the brick building, about fifty feet from the entrance, intently watching the students as they come and go. His back is to me, but I would know those shoulders, that cap-covered head, that denim-clad ass anywhere.
He’s hunched over in his leather jacket and a pair of cuffed dark jeans and has replaced his FedEx cap with his favorite, beat-up Yankees hat. His shoulders sag with fatigue, and his head rests lightly against the side of the building. I can tell from the way he keeps rubbing his hands together and shoving them back into his pockets that he’s been standing there a while. Even without seeing his face, I can feel the magnetic attraction between us. He’s here waiting for me, and my body, the traitor, wants to run right to him.
“Hey Layla.”
One of the kids from my dorm greets me as he passes by with a few friends, completely blowing my cover. Nico turns around in surprise, nodding at the kid before resting his dark, searching eyes on me. We stare at each other for a minute, not saying anything.
“Hey,” he finally says. “I was just—”
“Stalking me?” I finish for him.
I walk a few steps closer so that we don’t have to yell over the din of the street. It’s not a busy location, set well off Canal, but this is still New York. There’s no such thing as a quiet street.
He gives me a sheepish half-smile, baring one dimple that I immediately want to nuzzle. Shit. He’s leaving, Layla. He’s going to break your heart.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says. “Quinn said you weren’t home, and she wouldn’t let me up.”
He reaches a hand out to touch my mitten, but I step back. If I let him touch me, I’m as good as gone. I might as well just throw myself into the abyss right now.
He shifts back and forth from foot to foot, like he’s nervous about something. “Listen, Layla. I just wanted to say…ah, I’m not good at this…I, uh…”
Suddenly it’s not hard to keep him at bay. Watching him hem and haw like this is worse than being made into self-imposed star-crossed lovers. At least Romeo actually wanted to be with Juliet. At least he fucking tried to make something happen. Nico wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to fuck me, make me fall in love with him, and leave me after. Well, fuck that. I’m not just going to lay my heart on the pavement for him to run over.
“You know what, don’t worry about it,” I say, stepping widely around him to make my way down the street to the dorm.
I hear his heavy footsteps on the sidewalk as he follows, so I walk faster, hoping he’ll get the hint.
“Come on, baby, please don’t do this.”
“I am not your baby!”
I whirl around, suddenly furious. He has no right to play games with me like this; to fuck me senseless on Saturday, drop me for a job in California on Sunday, then give me a “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” spiel on Tuesday. I know why he has to go; I get it. But I don’t appreciate being treated like a placeholder for what he really wants. A way to kill time until he leaves. It doesn’t matter if he knows the best delis in the city or he’s the kind of guy who will make romantic gestures like waiting for you for possibly hours in the freezing cold.
“You’re leaving,” I seethe. Yes, I can do this. Just as long as he doesn’t touch me. “Sure, it’ll be great for the next three months. I know this is great. You think I don’t know that? I do. But you’re leaving, Nico, so what’s the fucking point?”
“The point is us, Layla!”
He steps back, unable to keep still as he swings his arms out wide, as if trying to expel excess energy and demonstrate just how big “us” really is. When he finally stops and faces me, his expression is determined and his eyes flash under the streetlamp.
“It’s us, baby! You know, just like I do, that I’m not going to be able to stay away from you any more than you’re going to be able to stay away from me. We’ll have to see each other every day until May, and it’s not like this is ever going to fade away. One fuckin’ touch, and you melt in my hands. And you know what? It’s the same for me. All you have to do is pout those beautiful goddamn lips of yours, and I’m ready to hop your desk and do you in front of your whole office!”
“So, you want to fuck me, and I want to fuck you?” I paraphrase cruelly. “Big fucking surprise.”
“Don’t say that,” he orders curtly. “And don’t play dumb. You and I both know it’s more than that.”
“We’ve been on one—no, two, I guess—dates,” I snap. “We’ve known each other for about five fucking minutes. It’s just sex.”
I hate the words as they roll out of my mouth. I hate them because I know them for the lie they are.
“Fuck that. You know it’s way more than sex.”
Nico tears his cap off his head and smacks it irritably against the wall before clapping it back on backward. It makes his dark eyes and brows stand out now that the bill doesn’t cast a shadow over his face. His eyelashes are a thick fringe that only intensifies the frustration painted on his strong features.
“Fine!” I burst out. “So there’s a connection!” My voice falters. I inhale deeply to control myself before continuing. “So what? You’re still leaving.”
“Yeah, I’m leaving!” He shouts it out like he can’t quite believe it himself. Maybe he can’t. “I have to do this, Layla! I have to get the fuck out of this garbage can of a city, at least try, or else I know I’ll never leave, and I’ll be stuck with this same shitty life forever. I’m not going to get into the FDNY, just like every other fuckin’ time I’ve tried. So, I have to…fuck! I have to do something!”
He looks at me, those deep-set brown eyes ripped with fury and pain. I want to look away—I don’t want to feel sorry for him. Sorry means I care, and caring is one more step closer to that L-word I’ve been trying to avoid. But I’m already crying. I’m already here with him, stuck in this abyss. I fell in the second he stepped off that elevator.
“You got your chance, NYU,” Nico says, invoking that nickname that speaks of everything I have, everything he’s trying for. “You’re living it right now. And I wouldn’t take that from you by even letting you consider coming with me. But I gotta take mine, Layla. Don’t you get that?”
The way his voice cracks on that last word practically breaks my heart. He holds my gaze, not letting me look away, forcing me to feel the earnestness, the pain he feels. We stand together for a moment, our breaths heaving, uncertain of anything but the obvious chemistry crackling between us. This is infuriating, wanting him so badly but at the same time knowing I shouldn’t do anything about it.
“Of course I get it,” I say, trying and failing not to let my voice, which is still slightly hoarse, split over the words. “I’m not a monster. But I…I don’t want my heart to be broken in the process. And Nico, you will––you will break my heart.”
There. I’ve finally said it out loud. Now he knows how I feel and how I’m afraid to feel. Maybe now he’ll walk away, because I am steadily losing the strength to do it again.
“I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet, Layla.”
“Just…”
I falter on the words when his eyes glimmer. The way he’s looking at me, I want nothing more than to throw myself into his big arms and tell him we’ll just live in the now, that LA can go to hell, and we’ll deal with his departure when it actually comes.
But I know I won’t be able to do that.
“Just go, Nico,” I finally say, my tone defeated.
I can’t look at him, knowing that with one smile, one flash of his eyes, I’ll be jumping into his arms. I study the texture of the bricks behind him. The way the color of the stone changes when it’s wet with melted snow. I take a deep breath.
“I’ll deal with seeing you at the office. But I can’t do more than that.”
I hate that fate is so unkind as to hand me the most intense connection of my life, and two days later steals it back again. I hate that I can’t even take a last glance at him as I walk away.
“Layla, please.”
I continue to walk slowly toward the dorm, to where I can be protected by the flurry of students loitering around the entrance. My footsteps drag—whether because I’m still a little sick or because underneath it all, I don’t really want to leave him, I don’t know. But it’s got to be what’s best. It’s just got to be.
“Layla, please!”
Just before I reach the street, Nico’s hand catches mine and pulls me back to face him.
“Please,” he says one last time, his voice catching again.
It’s then I make the mistake of looking into his eyes, burning bright with a combination of desire, pain, and obvious…love, maybe? Whatever it is, it’s strong, and he searches my face for something of the same, his eyes drawing hungrily over my face, my lips as he cups my cheeks between his leather-encased palms.
“You’re like a magnet. I can’t just stay away,” he says, and bends down to kiss me.
“Stop,” I whisper just before he touches me. “You’re leaving.”
“I don’t fuckin’ care,” he growls, and kisses me, opening my mouth with his tongue and plundering until every inch of my body practically melts into him.
I succumb, wrapping my arms around his head and pulling him closer, sucking on his bottom lip so hard I wonder if I’ve drawn blood. His hands reach inside my coat, clasping my ass so he can grind his hips into me. Even as I moan into his mouth, I hear a couple of whistles from students passing us, even a “Get a room,” but it’s hard to do much more than register anything when his lips are on mine. Which they won’t be…for long, I realize. Eventually my brain catches up with my body, realizing a clear, important truth: nothing about this situation has changed with that kiss. I still want him, and he is still going to leave me cold.
I am stronger than I thought.
“Stop!”
I shove him back, and we gape at each other, our lips swollen and hungry. The air swirls with the heavy mists of our breath and a few errant snowflakes, and I ignore the curious students who walk around us.
“What?” Nico gasps. “What is it?”
He reaches for me again, but I step out of his grasp, backing farther down the sidewalk.
“I do fucking care,” I huff at him, still trying to catch my breath. “And that doesn’t change the fact that you’re still going to break my heart.”
And with that, before he can whisper another word that will make me stay or surprise me with another kiss that’s sure to paralyze me for good, I turn on the heel of my boot and run the last few steps into the dorm. This time he doesn’t follow, and I force myself not to look back to see if he’s still there.
~