The NYCE Girls!

by Raquel Belle

  “Grace…”

  “Crazy night, huh?” I interrupt. Is it just me or is my voice suddenly very high-pitched? I snatch up every article of clothing I can find from where I’m standing. Clearing my throat, I start to back away. “I uh...I should get going.” Spotting my thong, I grab it too, feeling heat scorch my face. “I have a, uh, thing… There’s this thing that I have to do today. I just remembered.”

  His eyes narrow to slits and he lets out a long breath. “This is what I didn’t want,” he murmurs.

  I assume me freaking out is what he’s talking about because of course he can see that I am. “So, I guess I’ll just get dressed and let myself out,” I say hastily, still backing up toward the door.

  “Grace, stop. What are you doing? Get back here.” He throws the sheet covering him aside, giving me a full view of his half-erect cock. It’s impressive even at half-mast. Goodness gracious.

  “No! I mean, no you stay in bed. I really have to go.” With that, I’m out of the bedroom and rushing to the front door, all the while trying to hop into my underwear and clothes.

  “Grace!” Nick’s voice booms from the bedroom and then I hear his footsteps coming toward me. “Grace, what happened last night wasn’t a mistake.”

  I think it is. Not that I regret the sex—never that. It was too awesome. In fact, I’d like to hop right back into bed with him and go for round three. But, I’m afraid we’ll ruin our great friendship. If it hasn’t already been ruined that is. “Uh, see you Monday at our new digs.” I finally have my jeans on and I’m practically sprinting to the door. Hand on the knob, I turn to see Nick barreling toward me, in the nude, his expression stormy.

  “Grace,” he growls. “Don’t you dare walk out that door.”

  Not a problem because I wasn’t planning to walk anyway—I’m going to run. “Remember, it’s the big time, dress to impress,” I tell him with a painfully bright smile.

  He takes another step and I open the door and skedaddle. “Grace!”

  “Bye Nick. Bright and early Monday!”

  A while later I step out of the elevator and march through the lobby downstairs, ignoring the concierge’s curious stare. I burst through the revolving doors to hail a cab. It’s a good thing I always keep an emergency fifty in my back pocket. Nick had insisted on me not paying for anything last night, so I’d met him at the bar with two empty hands. I haven’t moved into my new apartment down the street from him yet, so I definitely need a ride. I keep peering over my shoulder to see if Nick is going to come charging toward me and demand an explanation, but there’s no sign of him. When a cab halts at my feet, I dive in with a relieved sigh.

  The first thing I do—after taking a little more time to freak out— is call Cara. This emergency requires the entire gang for emotional support but it’s Sunday. Jazz’s family is visiting and Beth said she had a story to work on.

  “Grace? This had better be good. It’s barely eight o’clock on a Sunday morning,” Cara greets drowsily.

  I wince, feeling guilty for waking her. She works so hard, barely taking time for herself. “Sorry, it’s an emergency.”

  I can picture Cara bolting upright in bed when she asks, “What is it? Do I need to come over?”

  “Uh...no.” I look back at Nick’s building. “I’m not at home. I just left Nick’s.”

  “Is he okay? Did...wait a minute, Grace, did you go home at all last night?” She inquires suspiciously.

  I rub my forehead. That’s Cara, quick as lightning. “No.”

  “Oh.” There’s a pause. “Are you okay?”

  “I…no. I slept with my boss, Cara.”

  Chapter Four

  Grace

  Present day…

  There’s an assault on my senses as I hurry down the cracked sidewalk. The city is abuzz with car horns blaring, their drivers shouting curses out of irritation from the bumper to bumper traffic, footsteps echoing like a stampede as pedestrians hurry along shoulder to shoulder—completely ignoring each other.

  Along with the noises, a mixture of scents fills my nostrils. Various foods, cloying perfumes from my fellow pedestrians...garbage. I wrinkle my nose and scurry past the garbage truck pulled over on the side of the street.

  The sites, the smells, and the sounds, everything seems to be amplified by the rising heat. It’s early spring but I can already feel the impending heat of summer. Everything comes together in a perfect mixture, making me feel at home. I love New York and I especially love the people who make this city my home.

  Three of them are within sight through the window of our favorite coffee shop. Cara spots me first and waves, wearing a broad smile. Cara Conley, attorney at law and all-around best friend. I wave and grin back as I aim for the door and bounce into the coffee shop. My other two besties follow Cara’s gaze and spot me. Beth Espinoza, the journalist and the freaking adorable one with her big brown eyes and freckles—she hates it when I call her adorable—claps her hands and grins widely.

  I can hear her sing, “There she is.”

  Jasmine Taylor, aka Jazz, the sophisticated personal banker flicks a tightly coiled lock of hair away from her face and pulls out the chair beside her. She pats it with a smile, indicating that it’s for me.

  My smile grows the closer I get to the three women. They’re all dressed for work, Cara and Jazz in stylish pantsuits, while Beth is more casual in slacks and a simple silk top. We’ve all been friends for years and this Manhattan coffee shop is our weekly meet up spot to catch up—aside from our other scheduled girl’s outings of course. Mondays are our designated mornings to grab coffee together and chat. I love it.

  “Hi, ladies,” I chirp, grabbing the seat beside Jazz.

  “Morning, Grace,” they chorus.

  “Sorry, I’m a little late.” My cup of coffee has already been ordered and is sitting in front of me. With an appreciative smile at the girls, I take a sip. Caramel Macchiato, my favorite. The girls know me well.

  “It’s fine, we figured you got lost in your closet,” Cara says.

  I send her a glare. So I take a little extra time to select my outfits, who doesn’t? Okay, maybe I take more time than most. I have to dress to impress working at one of the most prestigious law firms in the state. But extra time to select my outfit this morning isn’t the reason I’m running late. I was on the phone with my father—he’s back in Long Island. He’s overprotective so it usually takes a long time to assure him that I’m just fine here in Manhattan. I had to remind him about five times that I’m twenty-nine and not nine in one conversation. But, I’m patient with dad. I get why he’s so overprotective. I’m the only girl out of three children, and I’m the baby at that. He’s always been that way and I doubt things will change even when I’m wrinkled and gray.

  “Any-who, how is everyone this morning?”

  Beth goes first. She twirls a lock of her brown curls around a finger and sighs. Jazz, Cara and I give each other knowing glances. “Okay, I guess,” she says.

  “Alright missy, what’s eating at you? Spit it out,” I demand.

  “Relax, ladies,” she laughs lightly, her brown eyes lighting up. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. I’ve just been thinking about my future as a journalist. I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever make a name for myself.”

  Cara puts down her coffee cup and smoothes her blonde hair which is in a severe bun at the nape of her neck. “Beth you have to give yourself time. It won’t happen overnight.”

  “Yeah,” Jazz chimes in. “You live and breathe your career. Before you know it, you’ll be giving Barbara Walters a run for her money.”

  “Barbara Walters, huh?”

  We all nod in agreement. “It’ll happen, Beth. Don’t worry too much about it,” I add.

  She takes a sip from her cup. Brows raised she says, “You sound super sure, Grace. Did you look into your crystal ball or something?”

  “If I say I did, will you stop worrying?”

  Cara and Jazz snicker while Beth rolls her eye
s. “Fine, I’ll stop thinking about it. Okay, who’s next?”

  Jazz smiles serenely. “I’m good. I had a quiet, relaxing weekend. I’m well-rested and ready for the week.” The table falls quiet and she eyes us all with a frown. “What?”

  “That’s it?” I ask. Jazz is a gorgeous woman. Perfect caramel skin, perfect height, slender frame―a real looker. Plus she’s super smart. If only she’d loosen up a bit. We’ve all been dying to hear about her doing something wild. For once, we want her to not come off so poised and controlled. If the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder (that she now hates) is anything to go by, she has the capacity to not be uptight.

  “That’s it,” she shrugs.

  “Can’t you lie to us and say you had a wild weekend with...I don’t know…lots of sex or something? It would be more exciting,” I explain.

  She scoffs. “I’m a proper woman, thank you.”

  “Guess that makes me improper because if I got some action you’d all hear about it,” I cackle. “I’d be so excited about finally getting a visitor down there, I’d probably shout it from the Empire State Building.” Cupping my hands around my mouth, I mock shout, “Good morning, New York! I finally got laid!”

  “Grace,” Cara sputtered, choking on a sip of her beverage.

  “Oh, my God,” Jazz moans, shaking her head.

  Beth is in stitches. She wipes the tears from her eyes. “No way. Has it really been that long?”

  Leaving them in suspense, I smirk and lift my cup to my lips.

  Eyes narrowed, Cara studies me with a smirk of her own. “Oh, so you’re really not going to tell us how long it’s been? You tease.”

  No way am I going to share how long it’s been since I’ve had sex. It’s embarrassing. “So, Cara. How are you doing?”

  Just then, her cell buzzes and she reaches for it in her handbag. Jabbing at her phone with flawlessly manicured nails and a slight frown, she murmurs, “Busy before I even get to the office.”

  “And there goes the female Daredevil,” Beth teases. “Saving the world one legal battle at a time.”

  A pair of sharp eyes lift from the cell phone to go around the table, taking in each grinning face. “Excuse me?”

  Jazz and I giggle before she explains, “That’s your superhero name because of your similarities to Matt Murdock, you know the Marvel character? The lawyer by day and vigilante by night. He’s Matt Murdock, you’re Cara Conley…you’ve got that double letter name thing going on. Very superhero.”

  One perfectly waxed blonde brow elevates. “The lawyer part I get but the vigilante part...not so much.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You once gave a would-be thief a beat down with your purse and he ran away terrified. That’s heroic enough for me,” I throw in.

  Beth and Jazz dissolve into laughter, obviously remembering the incident two months ago. None of us would have ever dreamed of taking on some burly man looking to snatch our purses and phones, but Cara had swatted him with her purse while lecturing him about the consequences of breaking the law. It was a pretty comical scene. The only thing left for her to do was to grab the guy by the ear like a misbehaving child and give him a time out, but he’d run off shouting that Cara was insane. A dangerous and horrifying situation had turned out to be quite hilarious.

  Sobering from another bout of giggles, Beth adds, “That, and you fight for justice tooth and nail in the courtroom. Hence, we’ve dubbed you the girl Daredevil. ”

  Cara, wearing a half-amused, half annoyed expression, snorts. “Is that so? What’s our superhero group called then? Because if I’m a superhero, so are the rest of you.” She frowns. “I can’t believe I’m actually entertaining this.”

  “The nice girls,” I blurt out. “But replace the I with a Y. Yeah, that’s it. We’re The Nyce Girls...because we’re all super nice—”

  “And classy,” Jazz chimes in.

  I nod. “Very classy.”

  Beth taps her chin. “We’re all modern career women, navigating our way through this world. Balancing everything in our lives makes us all superheroes in our own right. We definitely should have a group name. I like The Nyce Girls.”

  Shimmying my shoulders, I sing, “And this is New York bitches! The N-Y-C-e Girls. The name totally works.”

  Cara shakes her head. “Ridiculous. How old are you guys?”

  That elicits another round of laughter and even Cara joins in. Between the four of us, we’re over thirty or pushing thirty. Cara is the oldest at thirty-one, followed by yours truly who’s twenty-nine, and Jazz and Beth are both twenty-eight. We’re all mature professionals of course, but when we get together it’s usually all school-girl giggles and chatter. It’s awesome having a group of girls I can let loose with and be myself.

  “Enough laughter at my expense,” Cara announces. She peers at me with a mischievous grin. “Grace? You haven’t mentioned a word about your blind date last night. I’m guessing you thought we’d forgotten. We haven’t,” she says smugly.

  Busted. I did hope everyone would forget about it. I wanted to forget about it. It was horrible. I pout and then take huge gulps of my now lukewarm coffee. All eyes are on me. I might as well spill because they’ll drag it out of me eventually. “Alright, alright. Before I get into the details, let me say it was my first and only blind date.”

  The receptionist from my doctor’s office, whom I’ve gotten friendly with—because I make friends with just about everyone—talked me into it when I went for a routine check-up. She said it was her cousin and that she thought we’d make a nice pair. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I thought, what’s the harm in meeting the guy? It’s time for me to start putting some effort into getting a little romance. I’ve been single for the better part of seven years. So, I took my friend up on her offer to set me up. It turned out to be a huge mistake on my part.

  “Was it that bad?” Jazz asks.

  “So bad I pushed the entire night out of my mind and hoped you guys would forget I even had the stupid blind date. Who goes on blind dates anyway? What if the other person turns out to be an axe murderer or something?” I scoff and set my cup down, amused by the girls’ horrified expressions. “Relax, he wasn’t an axe murderer.”

  “Good to know,” Cara snorted. “What happened?”

  With a sigh, I regale the girls with the tale of the blind date from hell. “I was skeptical about going through with the whole thing.”

  “We know,” comes the murmured chorus.

  Cara’s lips curve into a smile. “You complained about it enough just leading up to the date.”

  “And rightfully so because as expected, it was a disaster. The first problem was I couldn’t even focus on anything Chester, my date, said because I was so distracted by his god-awful Hawaiian print shirt and his ridiculously over-gelled hair.”

  “Hawaiian print shirts are still a thing?” Jazz asks, seemingly scandalized. She’s into fashion like me.

  “That’s what I kept wondering. I guess he was going for the summer look?”

  I shrugged and Beth guffaws. “Oh, my God. And you didn’t sneak a pic of the guy? We would have loved to see him.”

  “I wasn’t interested in capturing any memories with that man,” I grumble.

  Cara purses her lips, fighting back a laugh. “Go on.”

  “After a drawn-out dinner with the most excruciating conversation ever—he’s a dentist and he wouldn’t shut up about the cases he’s had. I mean…who talks about cavities and root canals during a meal?” Cara grimaces and looking at her, I think she’s turned a little green. “Yeah, that was my expression throughout dinner. Only God knows why he thought I was entertained because he wouldn’t stop. Anyway, after trying not to barf up my dinner the entire time, we parted ways. But not before he laid a sloppy wet kiss on me. I tried to back away but he kept coming and...well, he got me. It was horrible.”

  “What?” Cara screeches.

  Everyone gawks at me.

  “I wasn’t expecting his attack and I accidentall
y stepped on his foot with my stiletto heel.” Alright, so maybe it wasn’t exactly an accident, but I’ll keep that to myself. “He hit a pretty high note for a man, I must say. I apologized for damaging his foot and pretty much ran in the opposite direction. It was all a very awkward encounter from the beginning to the end.” I cringe, remembering Chester’s attempt to kiss me and the disgusting wetness of his tongue. I’m ready to gag just remembering it. “I think I’m going to have to find a new doctor to avoid Chester’s cousin.”

  There’s a moment of stunned silence before boisterous laughter circulates the table. A few other customers glance our way, some with annoyance and some with curiosity.

  “Was Chester’s foot okay?” Beth inquires.

  “To be honest, I was more worried about my Jimmy Choo being okay.”

  “Preach it, sister.” Jazz holds up her cup and I gently tap it with my own.

  “You two are so wrong,” Beth laughs.

  “Well, he had no right to jump her with his gross lips,” Cara defends. “I’d have probably done him bodily harm too.”

  “Thank you, Cara. This is why I love you.”

  She gives me a wink and we all laugh again.

  “Needless to say, no more blind dates for me...or dating in general.”

  “Awe, come on Grace. You can’t give up because of one bad date,” Beth encourages.

  “What are you talking about? She’s never dated in the first place. How can she when she’s practically married?” Jazz elbows me lightly and wiggles her brows.

  I give her a scowl and almost wail am not—like a kindergartener.

  “Your boss does keep you busy,” Cara points out. “You spend so much time with him.”

  “I’m his assistant.”

  “Why don’t you just hook up with him since you’re already his work wife?”

  “Work wife?” I hiss, sending Beth a dark look. “Really?” I hate that term. I wouldn’t if I hadn’t already crossed the line with my boss. So being called his “work wife” makes me extremely uncomfortable. The girls know about our hook up eons ago but as I look around the table at each of them, I realize they seem to have forgotten. I’m not going to remind them.