CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nico
I drum my fingers on the bar at the Traveler, my favorite old place from when I worked at FedEx. I got here early enough to have a drink with Flaco after he finished his shift. I’m hoping it helps me get rid of some of this nervous energy.
“That’s great, man, that’s great,” he says after I tell him about the interview coming up. “You’ll fuckin’ kill it, I know it. Just one more step ’til we get you back, right?”
They offered me a spot to take the physical on Wednesday, right after the psych interview. From what I hear, most guys have to wait months, sometimes over a year to do that. It’s a good sign. Right after they sent me my list number, I received a fat packet in the mail and spent most of the holidays writing down every piece of information about myself. An investigator has been calling, asking me all sorts of questions, and I put it out there, told her everything I could think of, including all about my record and the stint at the facility upstate. The FDNY now knows me better than I know myself. They probably know what color my underwear is on any given day.
I shrug. I don’t want to count my chickens, as they say, but at the same time, I know I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I didn’t have at least a decent shot of making it to the academy. I’m close––real close.
“How’s the, uh, apartment?” I change the subject.
Flaco gives me a dry look down his long nose. “She’s fine, man.”
I hold my hands up innocently. “Who’s fine? I didn’t ask about––”
“She’s fine. NYU is the same as always, just like she was last week, and the week before that when you asked about whether the maintenance people fixed the locks. Stop playin’. Nobody is that interested in brass fittings.”
I snort and take a drink of my beer. Layla’s dorm is on Flaco’s FedEx route, and sometimes he drops off packages there. Care packages from students’ families, things like that. He’s seen her a few times, usually when she’s on her way out.
“Fine,” I say. “Fine. I’m just checkin.’”
Flaco pats my shoulder sympathetically. “I got you, papi, I got you. It’s not easy when your woman is with another dude.”
My head snaps up. “How did you know that?”
Flaco strokes his chin for a second, looking uneasy. “Shit. You didn’t know?”
“No, I knew. I just didn’t realize everyone else did too.”
He grimaces, spreads his wide lips in a way that makes him look more like a frog than usual. “Yeah, well. Maybe I should have told you. Homeboy lives in my building.”
I stare at him. “Are you serious?”
Flaco nods. “Yeah. I see them around the neighborhood sometimes. He likes that Chinese joint on 140th. She––yo, man, you sure you want to know this?”
I look down to where I’ve just torn a couple of the bar coasters to shreds. I drop the last few pieces and push the mess to the side. “No, I’m fine. It’s all good.”
“I’m not going to lie, Nico, the dude gives me the creeps. He’s tall, and every time I see him, he’s dressed all in black. Lookin’ like the grim fuckin’ reaper, chattin’ up those cats that hang outside the Dominican restaurant on 138th.”
I sit up a little straighter. I know those dudes. The faces change over the years, but their essence stays the same: wannabe thugs who dabble in drugs, selling dime bags to the kids at City College.
“You want me to keep tabs on him?” Flaco asks.
I scowl. I don’t want to know this shit. I don’t want to know anything about this dude or the stupid shit he’s into. What do I care if he smokes pot every now and then? I’ve certainly done worse myself.
“It’s fine,” I grit out between my teeth. “It’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you want to know more, you can probably just ask her yourself.”
I swing around on my barstool to where Flaco is looking. There’s Layla, standing in the door of the bar, shaking snow off her parka.
Flaco slides off his stool and drops a twenty on the bar. “See you, mano. And hey...be smart, eh?”
With a clap on my shoulder, Flaco leaves, giving Layla a greeting and kiss on the cheek before he points her in my direction. When she sees me, her face lights up in a bright smile, and it feels for a moment like the bar freezes. Or maybe my heart stops. I don’t know, but it’s always like this when we haven’t seen each other for a while. Like the electricity that’s always there––shit, that was there even before we met––just continues to build when we’re apart instead of lessening. And when it doesn’t have a way to escape as often as it should...boom.
Layla chews on her lower lip for a minute while she finishes removing her coat, giving me a second to run my gaze over her, checking for little things. She cut her hair again, straightened it so it flows down her back. She’s dressed conservatively in a modest gray sweater and black pants, but they don’t do anything to hide my girl’s beauty. You couldn’t hide it with a garbage bag.
My girl. I really need to stop calling her that. Problem is, I’m not sure if I can.
She hangs her coat on the rack by the door and starts toward me slowly, but soon picks up the pace so that by the time she reaches the bar she’s practically running. I’m grinning like an idiot, already off my stool, arms spread when she launches at me. Her arms lock around my neck as I pick her up in a tight embrace, swaying side to side. My heart squeezes as I bury my nose in her hair. There’s no other way to say it. I’m not really home until I have Layla in my arms.
We hug way longer than anyone who is “just friends” should, but slowly, eventually, Layla steps away, looking sheepish.
I push the brim of my Yankees hat up and smile. “Hey, baby. Goddamn, it’s good to see you.”
I’m rewarded with another grin, and for a second, we just stand there, grinning like idiots in the middle of the bar.
“Can I get you guys something?” Frankie, the bartender, asks.
Layla nods. “Um, sure. I’ll have a––”
“Whiskey diet,” I interrupt her. “And another beer for me. Thanks, Frankie.”
I toss a couple of bills on the bar, a pile of payments that Frankie will tally at the end of the night, just like he always did. Some things never change. It’s actually kind of a comfort.
Layla gives me another shy smile. “You remembered my drink.”
I tip my head. “Of course I do. I remember everything about you, sweetie. So tell me, how you doin’?”
She’s shy at first, but soon I get her to tell me about school, her classes, her job. She dances around the subject of her boyfriend, but that’s okay. I’m going to need another few drinks anyway before I can hear about that.
“That’s crazy,” I say when she tells me about some of the things she’s learning in her South American history class. “You mean they used to measure their heads and everything? Just to prove that black people weren’t as human as the Europeans?”
She nods solemnly. “I know, it’s horrific. We are learning about stuff like that every day. The teacher is kind of militant, but it’s really eye-opening. It’s part of the whole history of colonialism. You start to see how these things became so entrenched in our cultures.”
I have to smile. A year ago, even a few months ago, Layla wouldn’t have been using the term “our” like that. She’d mention her “dad’s culture” or “his country,” like the fact that he’s Brazilian was totally separate from her.
Layla sighs. “I think maybe that’s why my dad is the way he is. Maybe it’s why he never wanted me to learn about Brazilian culture. He’s always telling me how lucky I am that I look white.”
I stroke a finger down the smooth, pale skin of her arm. I can’t help it. She’s so lost in thought that she barely notices.
I’ve never met her dad, but I already knew this about him. I know so many like him, people who want to pretend like the native or the black parts of their heritage don’t exist. They talk up the fact that their ancestors came straight from Madrid or wherever, like they come from the blood of kings. Sometimes it’s little things too, like how K.C.’s grandma always calls Ma and my sisters “negra” as a term of endearment, but never her own kids. She means it kindly, but it was always a way to point out that they were different from her light-skinned family.
Layla taps her mouth, thinking. It’s distracting––she licks a drop of Coke off her top lip, and I spend a good minute and a half staring at the bar and thinking about Abuela before I can sit comfortably again.
She catches me looking and blushes. Fuck, she’s beautiful.
“You have to stop looking at me like that,” she says, turning back to the bar.
I want to hook a finger under her chin and turn her back to me, kiss that blush off her face, or maybe make it darker. I don’t want her to look away from me, ever. Still, she’s right––I shouldn’t touch her like that, or look at her like this.
My mouth, though, has other ideas.
“Did you know it’s an anniversary today?” I ask abruptly. “Ours, I mean. You and me.”
She looks up with wide, blue eyes. “I didn’t know you remembered.”
I scoff. “It’s easy to remember our first date since it was on Valentine’s Day, baby. But even if it wasn’t, I’d never forget that night.” I take another drink of my beer, lost for a second in the memories. “It was snowing, just like tonight, you remember?”
The blush on her face deepens. “I remember.”
I peek at her sideways. If I look at her straight on, she’ll see every dirty thought I have. “You remember how I kissed you in the snow? You had a snowflake on your lip.”
That same lip falls in response, like it’s waiting for me to kiss her again. This is so strange. I’ve never been next to Layla and not been able to kiss her. And yeah, that only makes me want to that much more.
She swallows and turns to her drink. I open my mouth to tease her a little more, but something on her face stops me. Her bright eyes are sad––a new kind of sad, but a sad I recognize. I’ve seen it in my mother and my sisters. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it puts me on edge.
“Your man,” I say softly, though my voice deepens. “Is he good to you?”
“Yes.”
Her voice is low and quick. She continues to study the bar. Call me crazy, but it’s not the most reassuring response in the world.
She looks up, and I freeze. Her eyes, always wide, always as blue as a summer sky, are glossy and bright. They flicker from side to side, like she’s watching for something. She reminds me of those tiny animals in Disney movies who are being chased by the big bad wolf. She looks...timid. Scared.
Immediately, I’m off my stool and reaching for her, but she leans away, like she’s scared of my touch. Like she’s scared of me.
“Hey,” I say. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” she murmurs down to the bar. “It’s just...I probably shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
She looks up, her face impatient and annoyed. “You know why.”
I chew on my lip for a second. Fuck it. If we’re already in forbidden territory, I might as well just lay it out there. It’s a kamikaze mission, but I never seemed to care about myself when it came to Layla. Why start now?
“I meant what I said, you know,” I say.
“What’s that?”
She’s trying so desperately to keep it cool and casual, but she’s also failing miserably. Her eyes keep drifting to my lips, and every now and then she sneaks a look at the tattoo that snakes down my arm. My muscles flex in response, as if they crave her touch.
“When I said I love you,” I rush on. “I know it was a long time ago, but I meant it.”
“W-why are you saying this to me?”
Why indeed. I don’t even know.
Yes, the fuck you do, you asshole.
“Because,” I say. “You should know if someone loves you, no matter what you want to do about it. And if that motherfucker you’re with doesn’t treat you like the princess you are, he ain’t worth your time, baby. He doesn’t deserve you.”
She stares at me, blinking for a minute. Her eyelids twitch––that’s how hard she’s thinking. I’d kill to be inside that beautiful mind of hers, to know where her thoughts are at right now. But before I can ask, decision sweeps over her.
“This was a mistake,” she says, pushing off her stool. “I have to go.”
“Layla,” I say, but she’s already winding her way out.
“I have to go,” she calls. She grabs her coat off the rack by the door, and in the space of five seconds, she’s gone.
~
Layla
“Fuck,” I breathe as soon as I’m outside. “Oh, fuck.”
The snow is falling even harder than before, and in the hour and a half that I was inside the bar, Park Avenue has been covered with an inch of white. The snow quiets the city, and I breathe heavily into the silence, lost in the muted sounds of the street.
What was he doing? What the hell was he doing in there?
The same thing he always does. Makes me fall in love with him. Reminds me of how well we fit. Causes that awful tug-of-war in my heart between what I want and what I know is right. And just when he makes me give in, he leaves me all over again.
It didn’t escape me that we had an entire conversation without bickering or getting angry. No hypersensitive accusations or vindictive, cutting remarks. Between Quinn and Giancarlo, it’s been months since I’ve had a conversation that didn’t devolve into some kind of fight. We fight and then we make up, like Giancarlo says. He always says makeup sex is the best kind of sex, but it’s not until I was sitting there with Nico that I realized how badly I wanted the other kind. All the other kinds. And not with Giancarlo, but with him.
Fuck. I’m a terrible person.
I lean against the brick building, still working to catch my breath. I wanted him so badly I could barely speak in there. I had to get out before I did something stupid. Giancarlo would kill me if he knew I was here. I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he knew the thoughts that were going through my head.
The door to the bar swings open, and Nico steps out into the cold, looking frantically up and down Twentieth, presumably looking for me. He’s putting on his gloves, but stops and shoves them into his pocket when he spots me holding myself against the wall.
“Why did you do that?” he asks sharply as he bounds down the steps. “Why did you run away from me?”
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say, pushing off the brick. I start walking toward Park.
“Layla,” he calls as his boots pad through the snow. “Goddammit, will you stop?”
He snags my arm and tugs me to a halt.
“What?” I cry. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything,” he says, but his voice shakes. “Just to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”
There goes his gaze again, drifting down my body and up again, resting on my lips. But it’s not a lecherous look, not one that’s purely physical. It bears a hunger I recognize because I feel it too. And it’s only made worse because it’s like I’m standing in front of a buffet I can’t touch. I’m starving, but I’m not allowed a bite.
“Do you not understand how much this hurts?” I say. “How painful it is to see you and know it can’t work? To––”
Before I can continue, he pulls me into him and wraps me up in a kiss. It’s the kind of kiss I didn’t realize I had been missing, that I’d blocked out of my mind, papering it over as best I could with another man’s lips, another man’s touch. Nico’s lips are full and soft, his tongue is wet and firm, and his arms, wrapped securely around my shoulders and my waist, hold me steady, like he knows that without them I’d be lost in the euphoria that only he causes.
A few second later––or maybe minutes, I really can’t tell with him––he breaks away, leaving only a small space between our mouths, where our breaths, white and warm in the chilly night, still mingle together.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers as he presses his forehead to mine. His eyes close, in a pain that matches the cyclone whipping around my chest.
Finally, what I’ve done hits me. He’s with someone. I’m with someone. And here we are, making out like nothing’s changed. But everything’s changed. And it hurts. So. Bad.
I push him away, putting at least three feet between us.
“I have to go,” I choke out, taking one step back, and then another. “I have to go.”
This time, he doesn’t follow.
~