Zico’s guys were thorough. By the time they were through, it was impossible to tell someone had been shot in my living room. Aside from the rug being gone, the room looked exactly the same. It didn’t feel the same though. For days afterward, I couldn’t walk into my apartment without jumping, without seeing shadows where there were none, and hearing Gary’s voice in my ear. Feeling his breath on my neck.
Zico must have seen the change in me, because I came home from running errands one day to see Zico standing out front, leaning against his care like he was Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, pulling my coat tightly around me to fight off the wind.
Winter had officially settled in, and a cold front was moving through. The weather channel was predicting a foot or more of snow. Zico, of course, was still wearing nothing but a T-shirt and his leather jacket.
“It’s freezing. Why don’t you have a coat?” I asked.
“I don’t get cold,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes and repeated my first question. “What are you doing here?”
Zico reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
I looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Are you giving me your car?”
He looked horrified. “No. Absolutely not. No offense, but you’re never getting my car. Ever. She’s my baby.”
He patted the roof of the car, and I laughed. “Okay, then what are those for?”
“These are the keys for… your brand-new apartment!” he said in his best impersonation of a game show host.
“My new apartment?”
He nodded, a smile breaking across his face.
“You got me an apartment?” I asked.
He nodded even more ferociously, his eyes brightening.
“Why?”
“You know why,” he said, growing serious. “You don’t feel safe here anymore. You never will again. You’re miserable, and every minute you stay in this house is another minute of your life you’ve wasted. You need to leave the past in the past. Move on. Get a fresh start.”
“Are you my therapist now?” I asked, teasing him.
Though, in truth, he made a lot of sense. I never felt at ease anymore. At work, I was paranoid someone would find out what had really happened to Gary. At the moment, everyone assumed he posted bail and then bolted because he was guilty. And assuming Zico’s friends had hidden the body as well as they claimed they had, people would keep believing Gary had run away.
However, that didn’t make me feel any less guilty. Each time I came home, the paranoia set in. I’d been waking up four or more times per night to check the locks on the front door and the windows. I’d changed the locks three times in the last month. My morning cup of coffee had changed to two cups and then three, and was currently at an all-time high of five. The caffeine helped with the fatigue but was terrible for my anxiety. All around, I was falling apart.
“Just look at it before you say no,” he said, pressing his palms together and making an exaggerated frowning face. “Please?”
“Fine,” I said, walking around his car and sliding into the passenger seat. “But if you’ve bought me a penthouse or an apartment with a tiger skin rug, I’m never speaking to you again.”
He winced. “What about a zebra skin?”
I slapped his arm playfully, and he pretended to be hurt, but he winked at me before we pulled away from the curb.
The apartment was on the complete opposite side of town with all of the hipster bars and the boutique clothing shops and the used bookstores.
“You have something against the suburbs?” I asked, looking around, trying to imagine myself living in one of the brick apartment buildings.
“We’re young and wild and free. We shouldn’t be in the suburbs.”
“You sound like a country music song,” I joked.
“Whatever. Oh,” he said, pointing up and pulling into a metered parking space. “There it is.”
The brick building took up over half the block. It looked as though it had once been a factory of some sort, but had only recently been converted into lofts. Through some of the windows that were open, I saw cats lazing in the wintery sunshine, candles, and plants sitting on the sills.
“Come on,” he urged when I didn’t open my door right away.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
Zico was buzzing with excitement as he led me into the building, which had a large, minimalistic lobby. A wall of mailboxes separated the front office space from a small lounge area, with gray rectangular sofas and chairs filling the room, and a white furry rug in the middle of it all.
“If that’s a polar bear rug, so help me…”
Zico laughed. “Do you really think any of these hipsters are killing polar bears for décor? They probably go to Save the Polar Bears rallies every weekend.”
The young woman at the front desk nodded and smiled at Zico as if she knew him, and I couldn’t help but notice how long her eyes lingered on him. When she saw me, she gave me a curt smile and then turned back to her computer. Zico pressed the button for the elevator, and I wrapped my arm through his. He seemed surprised but smiled down at me.
My plan had always been to cut Zico loose after the Gary plan was over. Of course, my plan had also been for Gary to be in prison, not buried under ten feet of concrete somewhere. However, Zico was harder to quit than I’d imagined. Even with everything I knew about him and his lifestyle, I couldn’t help but like him. I missed him when he wasn’t around, and I barely slept if he wasn’t sleeping next to me. At this point, I couldn’t imagine my life without him.
The elevator doors opened to a quiet hallway, and Zico led me to the left and all the way to the end of the hall. We stopped in front of apartment number 313.
“Here it is,” he said.
I stared straight ahead at the door. “It looks lovely,” I joked.
He groaned. “You are such a brat.”
He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open slowly, and then stepping aside so I could walk in first. Immediately, I loved it. But then, as I looked around, I realized I recognized all of the furniture.
“This is my furniture!”
I turned to look at him, my eyes wide, and he was smiling guiltily at me, shrugging his shoulders.
“I took a risk,” he said. “I knew you’d love it, so I had your stuff moved in this morning.”
“You moved my entire apartment this morning while I was getting a manicure?”
I kept spinning around, taking everything in, my brain still unable to fathom how he had managed to do all of this without me realizing. And how he had done it all so quickly. The bookshelves on either side of the couch were filled with books and photographs. The open concept allowed a clear shot into the kitchen where I saw my pots and pans hanging from hooks on the wall. There was even a large abstract painting I’d done in college hanging above the dining room table.
“I had a little help, but yeah,” he said, smiling at me, his eyes nervous. “Do you like it?”
I took a deep breath and tried to look beyond the fact that all of my furniture was already in the apartment. Large windows covered one wall allowing for significantly more sunlight than my last place. The hardwood floors were stained dark, which looked great with the white walls. It was my dream apartment. It was the apartment I’d imagined living in when I’d first moved to the city. It was perfect.
I walked over to him, trying to keep my face neutral, wanting him to squirm for a little bit longer before I let him off the hook for breaking into my apartment—AGAIN—and moving me into a new place without permission.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and looked up at him. “It’s perfect.”
He pumped one fist in the air. “Yes! I knew it. I knew you’d love it.”
“You think you know everything.”
“That’s because I so often do.” He bent down and kissed the tip of my nose.
When he pulled away, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him back down to me, kissing him. It began like any other kiss, but slowly we both began to sink into it, our lips becoming more urgent, our hands grabbing and tugging at each other.
I slid his leather jacket off of him as he unzipped my coat, both of them falling to the floor. Zico pressed into me, grabbing at my lower back, so our bodies were touching everywhere. Then, he grabbed the hem of my sweater and pulled it over my head. After throwing it on the floor, he swept my hair back away from my face and paused to kiss my forehead, the bridge of my nose, my chin.
“I love you,” he whispered, his forehead pressed against mine.
We’d never said that to one another for many different reasons. I froze, unsure what to do, what to say.
“You’re only saying that because I’m about to sleep with you,” I said, joking, trying to lighten the mood.
He pulled me away, his hands firmly on either side of my face. “I’ve had sex with a lot of women,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, and he laughed.
“I’m not trying to brag; I’m trying to help you understand. I’ve had sex with a lot of women, and I’ve never once told any of them I loved them. Even when we were about to have sex.”
I stared up at him. Did I love Zico? I think part of me knew I did, but another part of me—perhaps, a larger part—didn’t want to. It was too complicated. We still weren’t going out in public together because of my job and his mafia connections. How could I love someone I couldn’t even be seen with?
“I love you, too,” I replied. The words were out before I could reel them back in.
Zico’s eyes widened in surprise, and then he kissed me, his lips crashing down on mine. He picked me up and carried me over to the couch, laying me down and crawling over me. He trailed kisses down my stomach and kissed the tops of each of my thighs before he unzipped my jeans. I lifted my hips so he could pull them down, and he tossed them on the floor and ran his hands up my thighs as he crawled over me, stopping at my waist.
Suddenly, he was kissing me, his tongue brushing me up and down. I threw my head back on the couch, my arms tangled in my air, and sighed. He alternated between licking and sucking, and my hips began lifting to meet his mouth, eager for more, more, more. My chest heaved as uncontrollable tremors worked up my body and down my arms and legs.
It felt as if he were slowly taking me apart, dismantling me piece by piece. I placed my hand on the back of his head and held him to me, and he responded by plunging his tongue into me. I moaned and bucked against his mouth. He did it over and over, penetrating me with his tongue until my legs, which were draped over each of his shoulders, began to tremble.
“Zico,” I whispered, nearly delirious with pleasure. “Zico, don’t stop.”
His tongue flicked at my nub once. Twice. Three times. And I exploded. Warmth flooded out from my center, waves of it washing over me again and again as I shook apart beneath him. I moaned, my voice echoing off the high ceilings, and I wondered whether my neighbors could hear me.
Then, I realized I didn’t care. I threw my head back and moaned even louder. Finally, my body began to go quiet, and Zico crawled over me, straddling my hips with his knees.
“You love me?” he asked.
I’d nearly forgotten about the words I’d spoken that had preceded what we’d just done. I smiled up at me, my eyes drooping as if I were drunk. I nodded.
“And you love me?” I asked.
He grinned. “Didn’t I just prove that?”
“Say it again,” I said, reaching up to brush my finger down the smooth bridge of his nose and across his lips. His skin was perfectly smooth and tan, with small freckles dotting his cheekbones, and I wanted to trace them all with my finger, draw lines between them until I found the constellations there.
He kissed my fingertip. “I love you.”
I closed my eyes and smiled, and Zico kissed each of my eyelids. I pressed my hands on his chest and pushed. “Your turn.”
He fell backward on the couch. “My turn for what?”
I crawled over him and unzipped his jeans. He raised his eyebrows at me several times, understanding what I meant, and then laid his head back on the couch. I laughed as I slid his jeans and boxers down his legs, and ran my hands back up his thighs. He was already hard when I slid my mouth down him and back up, sucking at the tip of him, swirling my tongue around him.
He groaned, and I bit back a smile. I loved knowing what I could do to him, how I could make him react. I slid back down him, moving painfully slow, listening to him moan the entire time. I did this several times before quickening my pace, breaking it up only to lick the underside of him, which always made his muscles clench.
I slid my mouth off and replaced it with my hand, my fingers curling around him and massaging him up and down. My hand kept moving as I crawled up his body, and then, my knees were positioned on either side of his hips, pressing him against my opening, and sliding down onto him.
“Oh, God,” he groaned out, his fingers wrapping around my waist, digging into my skin.
I lifted myself nearly all the way off of him before dropping back down again, our bodies slapping together as I did. Soon, Zico was grabbing my hips and picking me up, directing my movements and the speed. Eventually, though, he held me still while he pounded into me. I placed my hands on his chest and arched my back, letting him take control.
Our bodies slammed together, and I felt myself tensing up again, my body preparing for another big release. I collapsed onto his chest and began making circular motions with my hips, grinding against him while I trailed kisses up his neck and sucked on his earlobe.
Zico and I had slept together too many times to count. However, this time felt different. As cheesy as it sounded, we were making love. Our bodies moved together rhythmically, and we ran our hands over each other, feeling all of our curves and edges. I felt his heart pounding in his chest, felt his lungs filling with air.
I loved everything about his body. I loved him. I hadn’t wanted to admit it, and the idea still scared me, but I loved him. Despite all the reasons I shouldn’t, I loved him.
“You’re beautiful,” Zico whispered in my ear, his hands wrapped around my hips, as I continued grinding down onto him.
I kissed his earlobe one last time, and then sat up, arched my back, and bucked my hips onto him. He moaned loudly and then used his hands to encourage me as I moved faster and faster. We were both shaking. I placed my hands on his chest for support and moved even faster.
Suddenly, we both took shaky breaths and then released. He held my hips and thrust upwards into me in rhythmic pulses, biting his lower lip, while I clenched and unclenched around him, pleasure crashing over me in waves. When we were finished, I rolled off of him and cuddled into his side, our naked bodies hot and sweaty.
“So, you like the apartment then?” Zico asked, winking at me.
I laughed and nuzzled into him further, my arm wrapped around his chest. “I love it. More than anything.