CHAPTER TWO
Nico
The Jeep rumbles to a stop, and I pull the parking break and sit for a minute. The soft top is off, and early evening California sun beats down on me and the pavement. Across the street, the disc-shaped Capitol Records building practically shimmers in the heat. It’s almost six o’clock, but it’s still hot as fuck. Not humid like August usually is in New York, but nastier. In New York, the grime is gray and sticky, but every so often a rain shower or a snowstorm washes everything away. The heat in LA feels dirtier somehow. It flickers with a layer of smog that bakes in the sun all year round. It doesn’t matter that the sky is always blue and the palm trees sway in the breeze that sometimes comes up from the ocean. LA heat is tinted yellow, and it cuts you through like a rusty blade.
The door to Venom, the nightclub across the street and my place of work, opens, and a few of the staff exit the building. One of them says hi, but they know my routine. I usually take a few minutes in my car, just to be alone, before I go in. The Wednesday-night DJ is already setting things up at the booth and doing his sound check. It’s drum and bass night, which means I’m going to need about ten Advil tomorrow morning to get rid of my headache. The sun will go down in another couple of hours, and the club will open to a mix of tourists, wannabe actors, and the people they want to impress. All of them have to pass by me. I’ll be dressed in my black monkey suit, my hair slicked back like a gangster while I check names and IDs, just like I do every other night.
It’s a job I didn’t mind so much in New York, but that was only because I did it for extra cash. It was never a career. It was never the defining part of my life. Now I’m working security six nights a week at Venom, where K.C., my best friend from back home, DJs every Saturday. It’s one of the biggest clubs in LA, but Venom is the cheesiest place on the planet. Go-go dancers and caged girls, strobe lights and disco balls.
And the people who come here...forget about it. I haven’t seen normal-colored teeth or real tits once in three months. I feel bad for the bouncers. About half their job consists of kicking people out who are fucking or doing blow in the bathrooms. I can’t even imagine wanting to fuck the kinds of people who go to places like this. I’d be getting STD tests every week for the rest of my life.
I work from seven thirty to four. Go home and sleep until noon. Get up. Go to the gym. Get dressed in the black tie and collared shirt I have to wear every damn night. Repeat.
It’s getting harder not to admit that coming here was a mistake, even if it’s only been a few months. At least the money’s good. I make enough to pay my little brother, Gabe’s, tuition at CUNY and my mother’s rent, plus help out my sisters, Maggie and Selena, so they can focus on work and Maggie’s kid, Allie. My family is taken care of, and since I’m three thousand miles away, they can’t come running to me for every little thing. It’s nice to have a break from them. I think.
My phone rings in my pocket. I pull it out and answer. “Hey, Jess.”
“Hey. Everything okay? You seemed kind of mad when you left tonight.”
I sigh. Jessie’s my roommate, but obviously wants to be more. And yeah, there have been a few times in the past couple of months where I’ve been a little weak and given in. What would you do if you were living with an actual model who handed out blowjobs like they were candy? When I come home from the club, I’m so tired that I don’t usually stop to wonder why she’s there waiting for me instead of going home with her own dates. And yeah, so maybe sometimes I close my eyes and pretend she’s someone else. Someone with black hair and blue eyes. Someone I still see almost every night when I fall asleep anyway.
Layla.
I didn’t think it would be this hard to forget her. I got here, and all I wanted was to hear her voice. Make her laugh. It was so hard that I almost quit my job the first week to drive up to Seattle to see her. I had to “lose” my phone in the Pacific Ocean to stop myself from calling and texting her, and I changed my number to a fuckin’ 323 area code so she couldn’t call me either. Do you know how hard it was to give up my 212 number? That’s OG New York right there. I’ll never get that back.
We only knew each other for a couple of months. And yeah, we both fell pretty hard. But Layla is young––only nineteen, or maybe twenty by now. She was going to move on from a futureless loser like me anyway at some point, so it might as well have been last May. I just didn’t think I wouldn’t be able to let her go.
“I’m fine, Jess,” I say, forcing myself back to the present. When I start daydreaming about Layla, it’s a rabbit hole I can’t always escape. “Just don’t want to go to work, that’s all.”
“Want me to come down and keep you company? You know Craig doesn’t mind when I hang out.”
It’s true. Craig, the club manager, loves it when Jessie stands outside with me. She’s gorgeous and blonde, and in California, that draws people in like flies. The only problem is, Jessie starts taking things like that to mean we’re more than we are. She starts putting her hands all over me, calling me baby, her big brown bear. It makes me cringe. I’m not a fuckin’ stuffed animal, and I’m certainly not hers. Any other guy would give his left nut to get with a girl like Jessie, but anything more than scratching the occasional itch just feels wrong. I can’t tell you the reason.
Yes, you can, you cowardly fuck. One big reason. One achingly beautiful, blue-eyed reason with a heart-shaped mouth and an ass that won’t quit. A heart that speaks to mine in a secret language that has no words.
I guess I’m a fuckin’ poet tonight. Just call me Mother fuckin’ Goose.
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “It’s going to be busy tonight. I’ll probably be in and out anyway.”
It’s a lie. Wednesdays are the slowest nights of the week. But I’m just not in the mood to deal with Jessie’s clinginess right now. If I hadn’t signed a lease on the apartment, I would have already moved out.
“Okay,” she says. “I guess I’ll just have to cheer you up when you get home.”
She doesn’t say anything wrong. But the way she talks, she makes it sound like it’s our place. Like we share everything about it together, instead of the living room and kitchen. Like we don’t have separate bedrooms, separate lives.
Who am I kidding? Maybe we don’t.
“I’ll probably just stay at K.C.’s tonight, hang out with him,” I tell her.
K.C. is in Vegas this week doing a party. But I have the key to his very nice West Hollywood apartment, and our arrangement here is the same as it was in New York: when he’s out of town, I get to use his place to get a little quiet.
And yeah, more often than not, I end up using it just to mope around and think about the girl I wish was there with me.
“Okay,” Jessie’s saying, a little sadly.
I sigh, trying not to be bothered by it. I came out here not to take on other people’s clingy shit.
“See you,” I say and hang up the phone before she can reply.
I lean back in my seat and pull the bill of my Yankees cap down low over my face, taking a few more minutes before I have to go into the club. Just like always, those two blue eyes pop up. Shadowed by a fringe of long black lashes. Wide and open. Bluer than the sky above me, bluer than the ocean just fifteen minutes down the road. I let them wash over me and pretend Layla’s right there, seeing into my soul the way she always could, penetrating but not painful.
My chest hurts. I rub my face. Usually when I give myself a few seconds to do this, I can push her memory away and get back to my real life. Like a true addict, I just need a quick hit. But today, it’s just making me want more, and it hurts like hell that I can’t have it.
My thumb slides over the buttons on my phone, automatically tapping out her number. Who was I kidding? I’d never forget it. It might as well be tattooed onto my chest, right over the compass that’s already there.
Before I know it, the phone is ringing. Three times, four times. I start to panic. What the fuck am I doing? She doesn’t want to hear from me. I haven’t called her in two months, like some fuckin’ asshole who sleeps with a girl and pretends she’s a stranger after she puts out. What the fuck am I going to say?
I’m just about to hang up when she answers.
“Hello?”
Her voice is shaking a little, and my heart shakes right along with it. Fuck. Does she know it’s me? What am I going to do? I’m paralyzed. But I can’t hang up now that I hear the voice that’s been haunting my dreams for the last three months. Like a true addict, I can’t let go.
“Hello?” she asks again. “Who is this?”
She’s been crying. Her voice is thick, like it’s speaking through molasses. I can imagine her, red-rimmed eyes, rose-petal mouth that’s pink and swollen. Sad, but beautiful. Always so damn beautiful.
“Hello?” she asks again, now a little bit irritated too.
“Hey, beautiful,” I say softly. “It’s me.”
Layla is silent. I can hear her shuffling around a little bit. I try to imagine where she is right now. Home, I think. She was going home for the summer––home to finish recuperating from a nasty bout of mono in the spring. Is she in her bedroom? A living room? I don’t even know exactly where her family lives, just that it’s somewhere near Seattle. Is it a big house? Her dad’s a big-time plastic surgeon, so I doubt it’s small. Do they live in a city, or a small town? Does she have pets?
Suddenly it’s killing me not to know these details. I should know these things. I want to know these things.
“Hey,” she says finally. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say back. I sound like a fuckin’ parrot. But I don’t know what else to say. I just wanted to hear her voice, and now that I have, I want her to talk so I can keep listening.
“Um...yeah. It’s...been a while.”
I chew on my lip. “I lost my phone,” I blurt out. “In the ocean. I had to get a new one and lost all my contacts.”
“You lost your phone in the ocean?”
I can hear the smile in her voice, and I grin too, even though she can’t see me. “Okay, I threw it in the ocean. By accident. When I got mad one night.”
She giggles. Fuck me, that sound kills me, and suddenly I’m laughing right with her, hard enough that my eyes start watering. But then she quiets down, just as quickly.
“Did you lose your number too?”
Shit. She’s got me there. I ghosted her, and we both know it. It was an asshole move. No question about it.
“I...uh...” I trail off, searching for an excuse. But I got nothing. I could never lie to her.
“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “I get it. It was...hard.”
I swallow. “Yeah. I...shit. I’m sorry, baby.”
The word snakes out of my mouth before I realize it. But somehow, I don’t mind it. I realize that no matter where we are or who we’re with or how long it’s been, on some level, Layla is always going to be my baby. That’s just how it will be. The thought is weirdly comforting.
“I know,” she says after a moment. “So, um, why are you calling?”
I sigh, drumming my fingers on my thigh. “Honestly...I’m not really sure. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”
I shouldn’t say these things. If it was hard before, it’s going to kill me when I have to hang up. If she’s feeling what I’m feeling, she’s been having just as hard a time being apart. I hope that’s not the case. Or maybe I do.
“Tell me about your life,” I say quickly, trying to make things light, but sounding more like a shitty game show host. Heartbreaking dickhead for five hundred, Alex. “I mean, how you been, NYU? How was your summer?”
“I’ve been...good,” she says low, in a voice that sounds about the farthest from good I can think of.
She goes quiet, and it’s only after another minute that I realize she’s crying again, long slow tears that are almost silent. Almost, but not quite.
“Layla, what is it?” I ask, sitting straight up and grabbing the steering wheel.
I’m an idiot. What the fuck are you going to do, Andretti? Drive to Seattle just to give her a hug? She doesn’t want to see you.
“Baby, talk to me,” I demand, because that’s all I can do.
Did I do this? Is she crying because of me? Fuck, I should have just left her alone.
“I...my parents,” she hiccups. “My parents are getting divorced. They...they just told me a few minutes ago. My dad is going back to Brazil. He’s leaving in three days.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe. “Oh fuck, sweetie. I’m so sorry. Layla, really, I am.”
She sniffs back a few more tears. “I know you are,” she says in a thickened voice. “I know it’s not like he’s dying or anything. And I barely even live here anymore. They’re not...well, they’ve never really been happy.”
My heart just about breaks listening to her try to diminish her own pain. Make it sound small. Like it doesn’t matter. I mean, sure, Layla grew up with a bit of a silver spoon. She was lucky enough to have an intact family, not the kind I grew up with, four kids from three shitty dads and a single mom. But I know what it’s like to have your father leave. Mine split when I was a baby, and I watched Maggie and Selena’s abandon them later on. It feels like shit no matter how old you are, no matter how much money you have. Abandonment is abandonment, plain and simple.
Just like you did to her, you selfish asshole. Fuck. What am I doing here?
“So your mom, though,” I say, trying to change the subject. “She’s going to stay in Seattle? At least you’ll still be able to go home, right?”
Another shuddering breath. “No. She’s...she’s moving to be close to her family too. In Pasadena.” Another sniff. “I have to go with her this weekend before school starts.”
See, the fucked-up thing is that I have no idea what that last sentence was or anything else Layla says as she tells me about her parents’ split. I barely hear how her dad got mad at her for calling herself Brazilian, or how her mom said maybe five words while she guzzled red wine––or was it white? Everything jumbles together after Layla says “Pasadena.”
Pasadena is fifteen, maybe twenty minutes from where I’m parked right now. Pasadena means I don’t just have to dream about those big blue eyes anymore. Pasadena means I might actually get to see them.
“Let me see you,” I blurt out without thinking, interrupting her discussion of the sale of her house. “Please. I know the phone thing was fucked up. But I won’t ghost you like that again, I promise. I promise, Layla.”
She’s silent for what feels like an hour. I get it. If she’d done that to me, I’d be thinking twice about whether or not to let her back in. But already I’m glad I called. The truth is, Layla and I are supposed to be in each other’s lives. Maybe not as lovers, but at least as friends.
“I’ll pick you up,” I rush on. “Show you around town. We can even go to one of those cheesy movies you love. Seriously. I’m your friend, Layla. No matter what, I’ll always be that.”
I sound pathetic, I know. But now the only thing I can think about is seeing her again, touching her. Not in a sexual way, although the sex with her was always fuckin’ mind-blowing. Like out-of-this-world, forget-my-own-name, lose-myself-completely kind of sex. But right now, I just miss the feel of her. The way her head fit exactly into the crook of my shoulder. The way her fingers always curled around one of my wrists when I held her cheek. The way my fingertips molded exactly to the grooves up and down her spine.
Right now I’d do anything to get her to agree. Get down on my knees. Run naked down the I-10. Wear bright pink ties to the club for a month. Anything.
“Okay,” she says softly and immediately, shocking the hell out of me.
I blink. “What?”
She giggles again, and I practically float out of my seat. Fuck, this girl absolutely wrecks me. She always did.
“Really?” I ask. I need to make sure this isn’t a joke.
She giggles again. “Yeah. I’ll call you on Saturday.”
I close my eyes, letting the sound of her sweet laughter seep in. Already, I’m feeling more energized to go into the club. Because now I have something to look forward to.
And I can tell you what: Craig could offer me an entire week’s extra salary. I don’t care if I make half of my weekly tips; there is no fuckin’ way I’m working Saturday night.
~