I look where Quinn gestured. It’s the same guy I just pointed out to Shama, and he is indeed watching me intently through a pair of glasses while he holds his beer bottle in a death grip. He’s tall and lanky, with a face that’s shadowed in the dim club light, but I can just make out the thin line of facial hair around his jaw, a mop of wavy black hair, and glasses that sort of look like Malcolm X’s. I don’t know who he is, but he’s hot. Dark. Exactly what I’m looking for tonight.
“And...she’s gone,” Shama says behind me while I’m locked in a stare with Mystery Man.
I pay her no mind as I slide off my chair.
My skin feels prickly. Uncomfortable. Like all the hairs on it are standing up, but not from fear. More like I’m a cat that’s been pet the wrong way, and now I need someone to smooth everything back into place. Who am I kidding? Someone? One person.
Except he’s three thousand miles away, and I’m standing in this bar with a blood alcohol level that should probably be illegal. The hell if I’m going to waste my temporary loss of inhibitions. Don’t be easy, my mom would say. Well, I’m about ready to say fuck it. Fuck her stupid conservative advice. What did it get her? A divorce? A husband who left her? Who the fuck cares if I’m easy?
“Lay, where are you going?” Quinn asks. Shama and Jamie trade glances, as if to say “of course” to Quinn’s controlling behavior.
“I’m just going to say hi,” I say, still watching the stranger. But before I can leave, Quinn grabs my arm and pulls me back to face her.
“Hey,” she says. “Not for nothing, but something seems off to me about that guy. He’s a little intense, don’t you think?”
I look back to Glasses, who, very subtly, tips his chin at me like a short summons. Quinn’s right. He does look intense. But that also might just be what I need right now.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, shaking her hand off irritably. “It’s just a conversation.”
Glasses watches me intently as I weave through the crowd. He takes a long drink without breaking eye contact, then sets his empty bottle on a table when I approach. He stands there, still looking, but not saying anything for a solid ten seconds. I stand awkwardly. Didn’t he ask me to come here?
“Um, hi,” I say, giving a light wave. I cock my head, waiting for a response. An introduction. Any of the normal niceties that would make this a little more comfortable.
Glasses nods. “I saw you dancing before.”
His voice is low, but not quite as low as I would have expected from someone with such an imposing presence. It has a lilt I don’t recognize. Like so many people in this city, he was born somewhere else. Italian, maybe. It’s hard to tell from just a few words.
Glasses doesn’t say anything else, so I nod and focus on my drink. He watches while I polish off the rest of it quickly. The alcohol goes straight to my head. Damn. I don’t normally pound whiskey—I usually get it because it’s better for sipping. But this guy makes me nervous. I have this urge, this immediate desire. I really want him to like me.
“Let’s go,” he says, and before I can reply, he walks around me.
I turn, and like he’s Moses and the Red Sea, the crowd parts on either side of him, opening a space in the middle of the dance floor. He turns around and jerks his head at me, like he’s surprised I didn’t automatically follow. I set my drink on the table. And then, for some reason I can’t really fathom, I do as I’m wordlessly told.
I understand now why birds in the wild do mating dances. I’ve danced with plenty of guys in clubs. I’ve let them touch my body, kiss my lips, even cop a feel here and there. It’s not always what I want to do, but it’s better than the alternative of telling them to fuck off and starting some drama. But this...this is different. This guy doesn’t touch me; in fact, he stays a solid foot away from me while we dance. He circles around me with every step, forcing the crowd to back up around him while he moves, his gaze slowly raking up and down my body. I never knew it was possible to be turned on and terrified at the same time, but here I am.
He circles again, and at the end of the song, he closes a big hand around my wrist and pulls me close. His touch feels like a brand. Then he leans down so his lips are next to my ear, and his scent surrounds me—something salty, warm, overlaid with a sharp cologne.
“Your name?” he asks. His breath smells of some kind of sweet liquor. Rum, maybe. It’s a bit like cachaça, the sweet Brazilian liquor my dad likes in the summertime.
“L-Layla,” I stutter. “Yours?”
“Mmmmm,” Glasses hums, but doesn’t answer my question. His grip around my wrist tightens, and he tugs me closer. “Let’s dance, Layla.”
So we do. While my roommates watch with wide, speculative eyes, I let the handsome stranger wrap a long arm around my waist and pull me close. I let him guide me around the dance floor with hip movements that seem almost sinful. I let him dust his lips over my ears and shoulders, but he never goes farther than that. His hands drift to my waist, but never lower, never farther up. He’s a tease, and it only makes that wanting, that painful desire, throb all the more.
And at the end of the dance, we do it again. And again. And at the end of those, when I’ve had three more drinks and can barely remember my own name, much less to ask him his, I say yes. I say yes to the tall, handsome stranger when he asks me to leave with him. I say yes, because he makes me feel like I can forget.
Chapter Seven
Nico
“ID, please.”
The two girls hand me the cards, which thankfully, are real. It’s harder to get a decent fake out here. California IDs are hard to forge, and it seems like underage people here just don’t really go out to clubs. They’d rather party on the beach or at someone’s house, smoke weed or drink shitty beer. I don’t mind. Makes my job easier.
The girls, a couple of twenty-two-year-olds who seem to giggle more than talk, give me a couple of twittery grins. With their bleached blonde hair, they might as well be canaries. A pair of slutty Tweety Birds.
“So, handsome. You, um, want to come inside and buy us some drinks when you get a break?” one of them asks as she runs her finger down my lapel.
I smile grimly, remove her hand, and give them back their cards. “I’m good, thanks. It’s twenty each for the cover.”
“You sure?” her friend asks. “We, um, come as a set.”
Canaries who are about as subtle as a steamroller. Coño. And the thing is, ninety-nine percent of dudes in my situation would be tripping all over themselves at a proposition like that. A threesome, offered on a platter, with two hot girls? I couldn’t be less interested.
I still can’t get those two blue eyes out of my mind. I might as well just accept it. I’m done. When she got on that plane, she basically took my heart and my dick with her. I should just make my mother happy and become a priest.
“What do you think, papi?” asks the taller of the blondes. “What time are you off? We could use a Spanish lesson.”
I wasn’t interested before, but now I’m pissed. These chicks are no different than the others who hit on me every week. They see the suit, the brown skin, maybe even the tattoo on my chest if my shirt is open. They want to get off with a brown guy. They want to go slumming.
Fuck. That.
“I’m good, ladies,” I say as evenly as I can manage. “I gotta keep up my standards.”
The short one’s mouth drops open, revealing some stained molars. Great, so they’re probably into meth too. Fuckin’ winners we got out here tonight.
“Did you hear what he just said?” she says to her friend.
But I turn to the street, like I can’t hear them as they walk by me into the club. I rub my hand over my face. It’s one of those things that I actually miss about New York: the way people just say what they think, and no one cares. Sure, sometimes people could be fuckin’ assholes, but at least they’re assholes up front. Douchebags at AJ’s, the club where I used to work, didn’t pretend to be anything but that. Vapid women who only wante
d one thing didn’t couch their come-ons with racist fuckin’ innuendo. It was black and white, and it’s the hardest thing about living here, how people seem to talk all the time and say fuckin’ nothing.
My phone rings in my pocket, pulling me out of my irritation. Gabe, my little brother.
“Yo, mano, what’s up?” I answer, maybe a little too eagerly.
It’s good to hear from him. We talk a lot, every few days usually, about what’s going on with Ma or our sisters. Gabe is the man of the house now, so to speak. He’s in my old room up by CUNY, about to start school. It’s his job now to make sure that little things around our mother’s apartment stay fixed, that the rent gets paid on time, that her utilities stay on. It’s his job because our mother’s immigration status is not exactly legal, and she’s terrified of getting caught.
“It’s good, it’s good,” Gabe says. “School starts on Wednesday. I’m pretty excited.”
“You should be, you smart fuck. You’re gonna do great, I know it.”
Gabe’s smart, but I know he’s nervous about starting college. I understand why. I did a year and a half at City before I had to drop out to work. It wasn’t easy. There was a big damn gap between what I learned to do in high school and what they expected me to know in college. I’m worried about my baby brother, but I know he can do it. He’s a way better student than I was at his age.
“So,” I say. “Did you find out the number for the writing center on campus? And all those free tutors I told you about?”
“Yes, for the fuckin’ millionth time, yes, I have all the tutoring shit squared away, okay?”
I chuckle. “Good. I’m just checkin’, just checkin’. So what’s up?” He doesn’t normally call me. Like a lot of kids his age, Gabe already texts more than he talks.
Gabe pauses. “I, uh, I was just wondering if you got my letter.”
I almost laugh. “You sent me a letter? What are you, my fuckin’ pen pal now? We gonna start trading drawings and locks of hair?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gabe says. “And you’re the artist, maricon, not me. I just sent you something, okay? I was wondering if you got it.”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “Nah, man, no letter. I’ll check my mailbox when I get home, all right?”
“Sure. I just didn’t want you to miss it.”
“Everything okay?” Suddenly, I’m worried. Gabe’s not exactly the kind of kid who would sit down at the kitchen table to compose a novel to send to someone. I’m honestly kind of surprised he even knew how to buy a stamp and address the envelope properly.
“Yeah, sure. Everything’s fine.”
But there’s a beat before he says it, and I’m not buying it. I know my family. “Gabe. What’s wrong?”
He sighs. “Nothing. Yet. It’s just that...yeah. Mr. Ramirez is gone. Sounds like Immigration was making the rounds last week. And there’s another rumor that Mr. Pineo wants to sell the building.”
Shit. This is not good. Mr. Pineo is the old-as-fuck Italian who owns my mother’s building. To be real, the dude’s a slumlord and was probably mixed up with the mob back in the day. Now he’s just a grouchy old man who takes wads of cash each week from his tenants in exchange for cheap apartments that wouldn’t have a chance in hell at meeting New York City housing standards.
But the neighborhood is changing. Hell’s Kitchen isn’t crime central the way it was when I was a kid. More and more of the buildings are being bought by developers interested in building skyscrapers for the Wall Street hacks to live in. One of these days, Mr. Pineo will decide he can make more money without collecting cheap rents, and my mother, along with the rest of his tenants who may or may not be there legally, will be shit out of luck.
Immigration pokes around the building every now and then because it’s full of people who speak English with an accent, but they rarely get anyone because most of the building is from Puerto Rico, which means they are all citizens. But my mom, even though she’s from San Juan too, is a different case. Smuggled to Puerto Rico as a baby from Cuba, she looks like a Puerto Rican and talks like a Puerto Rican. It’s the only culture she’s ever known, but to the U.S. government, she’s as Cuban as they come and here without permission.
Mr. Ramirez was a newer neighbor, one from Ecuador. I don’t know if he knows about my mom, but I don’t want to wait to find out.
“Have Ma stay uptown for a while,” I say. “You or Maggie can stay in the Kitchen. Just until you know ICE isn’t poking their nose around anymore, and you find out more about Pineo’s plans. Maggie would probably appreciate the extra space.”
Gabe exhales loudly. “Fuck that. I’m taking the apartment for myself. Ma can come help with Allie. That kid never stops crying, and I’m going to need to study!”
I chuckle. “You just gotta find her Dora the Explorer. She has that, she never cries.”
“Dora the Explorer,” Gabe says, like he’s writing it down. “Got it.”
“Anything else? You need money? For food, utilities, school supplies, whatever?”
“We’re good, man,” Gabe says. “Your last check came two days ago, and I just got a job on campus so you won’t have to pay for everything, okay? We’re fine.”
“Everyone else good? You hear from Flaco—”
“Nico, we’re fine,” Gabe says. Then he pauses. “Just check your mailbox.” Then, with a quick goodbye, he hangs up.
The rest of the night is slow. Labor Day weekend, said the manager. Most people are out of town for the long weekend, partying it up in Vegas or getting out of the city. I wouldn’t mind camping on the beach or something like that. Not that I ever have before, but something tells me I’d like it. Especially if I was with the right person.
Her face pops up again, like clockwork. Whenever I start daydreaming, there she is.
This time, I don’t even fight it. I pull out my phone and text her again. I haven’t stopped in the last week. She won’t take my calls, but sometimes she’ll respond to my texts. K.C. thinks I’m crazy for caring so muc. Why should it matter if a girl three thousand miles away hates me or not? But I do care. I’ll always care what Layla Barros thinks about me.
Me: hows the night? its nine oclock and im already bored as fuck. LA ppl suck.
It doesn’t take long to get a response. I nod to myself. A good sign. Sometimes she doesn’t answer at all.
Layla: Im out w the girls. yeah, LA ppl do suck.
It’s not an overt insult, but I’m pretty sure that’s for me. Or maybe Jessie. Or maybe us both. Well, she’s allowed a pot shot or two after what happened. I just want to keep her talking.
Me: Hot night? Send me a pic.
It’s a long shot, I know, not to mention torture. I know what kinds of Band-Aids Layla tries to pass as clothing when she and her friends go out. She’s probably looking at the message right now thinking, what the fuck is this guy’s problem?
I hope she asks. I hope I can tell her that my problem is her. That she needs to get her ass on a plane so we can finish what we started.
My phone buzzes, and I flip it open with surprise. It’s a picture, probably taken by one of her friends, grainy the way most cell phone pictures are. My phone barely gets them at all, and I’ll have to delete it immediately to save memory, but damn, I’m glad I asked. Layla’s tiny black dress might as well be underwear. It’s small and tight, even for her. Her hair is wavy around her shoulders. Even with the lack of focus, I can still see the tilt of her hips, the defiant posture, the eyes that stare a hole through me.
My baby is mad. And she wants to show me what I’m missing. Well, message fuckin’ received. She wants to play games, I’m up for that. It’s better than the silent treatment.
Me: u wanna take that off and show me what else im missing?
Not my finest, I know. But the green-eyed monster showed its face for a moment, and suddenly I’m not feeling like such a “nice guy” anymore.
It backfires, though, because she doesn’t text back. Two hours lat
er, my phone buzzes in my pocket again. I open it up to find another picture from Layla. I check my watch—it’s close to 3:00 a.m. New York time. I don’t know why she’d be texting me now unless it was to—
I can’t even finish my thought. The picture is grainy and kind of out of focus, but I’d know those shoulders, that hair, that ass anywhere. There’s Layla, wrapped like a vine around some dude in the middle of what looks like a crowded dance floor. His hands are hovering just over that part of her body I’d secretly love to have tattooed with: “Property of Nico fuckin’ Soltero, so step the fuck off.” Her hands are shoved into this creep’s hair, and he’s staring at her neck like she’s a piece of meat he’s going to bite into. It takes me a solid ten minutes to realize there’s a caption. A fuckin’ nasty one too.
Layla: This is what you’re missing. So you can fuck off.
I swear. In Spanish. In the dirtiest phrases I can think of, ones I couldn’t translate if I tried. Because when I see this picture, I am barely literate. It takes everything I have not to hurl my phone on the ground and kick the shit out of it.
And it takes hours—many of them—for it to occur to me that the text wasn’t written in the usual shorthand that Layla uses when she texts. That maybe she wasn’t the one who sent it. All I can see is some bloodsucking motherfucker about to kiss my girl. And my girl is going to kiss him back.
* * *
It’s almost four when I unlock the door to my apartment. It’s not until I’ve taken off my shoes and tossed my jacket over the back of the couch that I realize my bedroom light is on.
I push open the door. My room looks the same as always: simple, with a twin bed in one corner and my clothes hanging from a rack, since it doesn’t actually have a closet, a ratty armchair in one corner, and a small desk pushed under a window. The only difference is Jessie.
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 42