“Hey, ma! What you doin’ tonight, baby?”
A car blasting merengue drives by, and I cower toward a bodega entrance as a couple of guys hanging out the windows whistle. It’s certainly not the first time that’s happened, but there’s something alarming about the catcalls tonight. I feel like prey more than I ever have in this city.
“Move,” I tell myself. “You have to move.” I’m a sitting duck, just standing on the street like this, whether it’s in the middle of the West Village or up here. That’s the number one rule of New York City: movement.
“NYU?”
I turn around, and there’s Gabe, exiting the bodega, a six-pack of Coke under one arm.
I smile and give a weak wave. “Gabe, hi.”
“Hey,” he says, all friendly as he gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You okay? You look lost.”
I shake my head. “No, not lost, just...anyway. I know my way around up here.”
Gabe nods knowingly. “Yeah, I’ve seen you around. Plus, Nico...”
I blush, even though I know I have no reason not to. It’s not just because I was making out with his brother maybe an hour ago, right?
“My, um, boyfriend lives a few blocks from here,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets and nodding up Broadway. “I was just on my way there to wait for him until he gets off. He works at a club in midtown, I think.”
“Oh, I’ll walk you.”
“No, that’s ok—”
“Yeah, no,” Gabe interrupts as he hooks his free arm through mine and starts walking, fairly dragging me along with him. “My brother would kill me if I let you walk around by yourself at night.”
We walk in silence, letting the noises of the neighborhood replace conversation. West Harlem doesn’t get quiet until really late. It’s only about eleven now. Some of the curio shops are still open, with cheap suitcases piled on the sidewalk, although the owners are starting to bring them in. The big Dominican restaurant on 141st is still mostly full, and music echoes every so often from an opening door.
“So you know Nico’s in town, right?”
“I—” I open my mouth to say that I saw him, but then realize that Gabe would want to know where he ended up. “Yes, I know. He’s here to visit family, right? You guys must be happy to have him back for a little bit.”
“Here to visit...is that what he told you?” Gabe gives me a funny look.
I blink. “Yes, why? Is that not right?”
Gabe frowns, and it’s the first time he’s ever really looked much like his brother. Their eyes are the same—sooty and black with a twinkle—but the guileless expression on Gabe’s face most of the time is a lot different than the mischief and passion I know on Nico’s.
“No, that’s right,” he says, in the end, and lapses back into silence. “Just visiting family,” he murmurs, like he’s telling himself the fact.
“Is everything all right?” I ask. “Like...with your mom?”
It’s not until I say it that I realize I’m probably overstepping. Gabe gives me a sharp look, pauses for a second, then relaxes.
“He told you about her, huh?”
“I didn’t mean to impose. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Gabe wrinkles his long nose. “Nah, it’s okay. She’s still in her apartment. For now. The whole thing is really stressing us out, and it’s worse for Nico since he’s so far away right now.”
I stay quiet, since Gabe is apparently feeling chatty. Nico never liked to talk that much about his mother’s residency issues. He always treated them like a lost cause.
“We’re probably going to move her up here,” Gabe’s saying, “since her new landlord’s got eyes for developing.”
“What do you mean?”
Gabe shrugs. “Little things. A bunch of other places in the neighborhood have been bought over the last few years. Some of the other tenants have been pushed out. A couple even by having Immigration mysteriously knock on their doors. The landlord refuses to do repairs, cuts off the heat. We’re all kind of spooked. It’s their M.O. when they want to vacate rent-controlled apartments.”
“That’s awful!” I reply, totally aghast. “How can they do that?”
Gabe sighs, causing his lips to flare. “They can do a lot of things. Housing in New York is pretty fucked up if you don’t have a lot of money.” His fingers twitch at my elbow, like he’s itching to rub them together. “That’s why I want to be a doctor one day. Nico shouldn’t be the only one to take care of this kind of thing.”
I nod, considering yet again how little I understand about Nico’s responsibilities to his family and the burdens that made him leave. My anger thaws. He left because he needed to find out who he was without all of this. How could he make promises without that knowledge?
I get it. I really do. But it doesn’t make missing him any better.
We cross Broadway at 144th Street, and Gabe looks on curiously as I stop in front of Giancarlo’s building. I doubt he’s actually there, since he had to work tonight, but since I’m here, I might as well try.
I press the apartment buzzer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I say in surprise when I hear the familiarly accented voice. “You’re here.”
There’s a few beats, and I wonder if Giancarlo heard me. Then the same voice answers from above.
“I am here.”
I look up. There’s Giancarlo, looking down at us from two stories above with a face like thunder.
“Hey, man,” Gabe calls warily, waving a big hand.
Giancarlo glares at him, then at me. “I will let you in.”
He disappears, and Gabe looks at me. “He seems...nice.”
I sigh. “He can be intense, but he means well.”
“Yeah...” Gabe looks back at the window, but it’s clear he doesn’t believe me. “You sure you don’t want to come home with me? I bet Nico would love to see you.”
I shiver, more at the thought of telling Giancarlo I’m leaving than at the idea of going with Gabe. “No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
Again, Gabe looks skeptical. But when the buzzer to the door sounds, and I pull it open, his lanky shoulders fall.
“Okay. But, um, hey.”
I turn back, waiting, still holding the door open.
Gabe glances up toward the window once again, then back at me. “I, uh...listen, you’re welcome at my place anytime. If you need somewhere to crash or whatever. Just...come ring the bell. Okay?”
I take a deep breath and try to give him the friendliest smile I can. “Thanks, Gabe. I will.”
The response seems to appease him, and he relaxes. “Okay. See you, NYU.”
I watch him leave, then enter the building and start up the big stairs, only to be shocked when I find Giancarlo waiting for me on the second landing.
“Jesus!” I cry out, holding a hand to my heart. “You scared me! What are you doing lurking on the stairwell?”
“Who the fuck was that?”
I freeze in front of him. Giancarlo looks me over, his eyes grazing over my body slowly, taking in the tight black pants, the jewelry, the makeup—all the little signs that I wasn’t just sitting at home for the evening, pining away for him.
“Come upstairs,” he says, and starts toward his place without waiting.
The door slams heavily beside us, and he whirls around like a cyclone.
“Where the fuck were you? Out with him, this little boy?”
I swallow guiltily. “No, I wasn’t. Gabe saw me get off the subway and offered to walk me home. You met him once before, remember?” A thought occurs to me. “Why aren’t you at work? It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“I finished early.” He takes a step closer so that we’re nose to nose. I can see myself in his smudged glasses. “I went to your apartment to surprise you. You were not there.”
I gulp. “Um, no. I wasn’t.”
Giancarlo’s dark eyes narrow. He worries his jaw back and forth for a minute, and a muscle on one
side starts to tick. “Who is he?”
I frown. “Who?”
“The man you are fucking behind my back. Making me a fool? Being a fucking whore?”
“Hey, I wasn’t doing anything! I just met a friend for a drink because you had to work on Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t have been out at all if you had just told me you got the night off.”
Giancarlo takes a step toward me, and I step backward.
“I knew it,” he gritted out. “I knew you were always going to cheat on me like this. I knew better than to trust someone like you.”
I suddenly feel like I’m drowning. Where is this coming from? Sure, Nico kissed me, but I put a stop to it and left. I did the right thing, whether Giancarlo knows it or not. He has no reason to say any of this.
Or does he? Does the fact that I’m still in love with someone else show all over my face?
“You never loved me from the beginning,” Giancarlo continues, spitting the words out like poison. “Admit it. Admit that you were only using me. Using me like the puta you are.”
“Using you for what?” I pipe up, finally finding my voice. “This shitty apartment? The crappy takeout food we eat?” I can practically feel my roommates sitting on my shoulders, cheering me on. That’s it, Lay. Don’t let Snape get away with that shit. “What exactly am I using you for?”
Giancarlo’s face darkens further. “I suppose that’s better than the two rooms you share with four girls? You always want me to fuck you in the middle of the room, like we’re animals. You’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t appreciate the privacy here, no? The privacy I pay for!”
“I think you mean the privacy your daddy pays for, don’t you?” I cut back. “And it’s not like this is a palace or anything. You live in a shitty one-bedroom in the worst building in the neighborhood.”
A hand, fast as lightning, snakes out immediately and grabs my wrist. Giancarlo jerks me close, but even when I stumble next to him, my wrist stays steady, held fast near his chest while my body weight tugs on it. His hand is immovable—I’m caught.
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Who?”
“Whoever the fuck you were with?” Giancarlo looks closer. “I’m not stupid. I know you were with someone.”
“No,” I say as evenly as I can, even though my heart is thumping wildly. “I didn’t sleep with anyone.”
“Did you kiss him?”
Giancarlo’s eyes drop to my lips, like he’s studying them for imprints of Nico’s mouth. As searing as the kiss was, I half wonder if he can see remnants. And it’s then I know that my guilt is surely written through my thoughts and on my face. It spreads, just like the realization spreads over Giancarlo.
“H-he kissed me,” I whisper. “I stopped him. And ran off. Straight here. I—I didn’t want to. He just did it, and I left. I’m so—”
“Ahhh!”
Giancarlo shoves me away from him, finally releasing the iron grip on my wrist and causing me to fall back several steps from the force while he paces the living room like a caged animal. I rub my wrist—it’s red from his grip—and cower slightly into the corner. I’ve never seen him like this, not even when I angered him in the kitchen. Not even the other week when he couldn’t keep an erection and blamed me for it. My heart falls. Nothing I say here will make it better; nothing is going to alleviate my guilt. Because I did kiss another man, and in doing that, I hurt this one badly.
Then someone else’s face flashes through my mind, someone I haven’t thought about or spoken to more than a few times in the last several months. Someone too busy wallowing in her own misery to care about her daughter’s life.
My mother. I remember her all those years, dealing with my father’s late nights at the office. Realizing that in Brazil, where more than one of my uncles have not-so-secret extra-marital affairs, her husband is probably already involved with another woman if he wasn’t before. I wonder if he was unfaithful all those years where they clearly didn’t love each other. I wonder if she knew I was going to be like him.
The realization guts me, and I start to cry.
“Giancarlo,” I creak, unable to wait for him to speak. I’m full of remorse and self-hatred, and it pours from me like a river. “Giancarlo, please. It was an accident. I didn’t think anything would happen, but I should never have gone. I should have just stayed at home and waited for you, I know that now. Please, please forgive me. He’s no—”
I’m about to saying “nothing,” but that’s not true either. My heart squeezes as I admit to myself that Nico will always be someone to me. And that all I can do is try my best to be present with the person I’m with instead of the person who never wanted me like I wanted him anyway.
Giancarlo has stopped pacing, and is now standing in the doorway of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. He’s breathing normally now, like somehow my outpouring of emotion tempers his. Maybe, I think, he just needed to see I cared.
Slowly, he approaches me and raises his hand. I flinch, and he arches a thick eyebrow in response.
“You are afraid of me?” he asks in a low purr.
My jaw trembles, and I swipe at the tears falling down my cheeks. “N-no.”
Again, the eyebrow rises. “Maybe you should be.” He glances at my reddened wrist. “Now you’ll learn.”
The words land between us, and I’m not sure if they are a threat or a warning. I freeze, feeling again like prey, except this time the predator is someone I know intimately, not strangers in a car. Giancarlo maintains his penetrating stare, and it feels like some sort of test. But in the end, his shoulders relax.
“You are sorry?” he asks.
Miserably, I nod.
“You want to...how do you say...make it up for me?”
A bit less certain, I nod again.
His gaze flickers over me, like he’s measuring me up. He huffs. “Okay. Tomorrow.”
I blink. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” he repeats more firmly. “I have some money that needs to be taken to a store in the Bronx, but I can’t go because of work. It’s a payment for something my boss bought for the club.”
I frown. “What did your boss buy—”
“What does it matter?” he spits out curtly. “Televisions. For the walls. It’s none of your business, only a way for you to show me I can trust you. Can I trust you, amor?”
I look up. There’s that word. Love. For all his anger, Giancarlo uses it so freely. From the beginning, he’s been dedicated to whatever we are, jumping ahead and waiting patiently for me to join him. Maybe his anger is related to the fact that I’ve been holding back. That in my heart, maybe I’ve been waiting for someone else.
“Okay,” I relent. “Sure. I can take it.”
He relaxes visibly, then takes my hand and pulls me into him, turns me around so my back is to his front and he can press his face into my neck.
“Oh, my love,” he whispers, before he launches into Spanish colloquialisms I can’t quite understand. “You make me crazy, do you know that?”
I soften into him, desperate for the touch. My eyes close, and I sink into the feel of a body sheltering mine.
His hand slides up my back and into the hair at the base of my neck. But just as I relax a little more, he grabs my hair and winds it around his wrist, pulling it taut so my neck is cranked back, exposed to him.
“Go,” he says before he draws his teeth across my bared skin. He yanks at my hair, jerking my neck up, and points me down the hall. “Into the bedroom. Take off your clothes. We will finish this in there.”
In the end, I follow his orders. I walk into the bedroom, remove my clothes, and curl up on his faded, peach-colored sheets, feeling as naked inside as I am out. My skin pebbles in a room that’s never quite warm enough, and I wait for what seems like forever until Giancarlo finally follows me in. Outside the windows, a siren sounds.
Giancarlo looks me over and nods with approval, then strips off his own clothes. I can’t help it––I compare him to Nico. His bo
dy isn’t as cut; Giancarlo is long and lean, but he’s no athlete. His pale torso is softer, lacking the definition and raw strength of Nico’s even though he’s several inches taller. He removes his glasses and sets them next to the bed, then kneels in front of me on the mattress and takes a handful of my hair, pulling my head back. Pain prickles through my scalp.
“You want me to kiss you?” he asks in a voice that’s low, still laced with threat.
I gulp. Then I nod, although I’m not so sure. But I need something to replace the imprint of lips still throbbing on mine.
Giancarlo inspects me, his dark gaze traveling over my body. “Maybe later,” he says. “If you’re good.” He continues his examination. It strikes me how little we’ve really been like this together. Most of the times we’ve had sex have been in the dark, shrouded by alcohol and other ways of blurring the moment.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, like he’s surprised.
I look down my body. I haven’t been exercising as much as I usually do, since the time away usually earns Giancarlo’s ire, but I think I look okay. “Thanks.”
He reaches between my legs, slipping his fingers inside suddenly. I arch against the intrusion, ignoring the way I want them to feel like someone else’s. I ignore how clinical it feels, how his fingers actually pinch a little inside me, having not taken any time at all to ready me. My body squeezes in response, and not in a good way. It curls inward, trying to protect itself.
“Does that feel good?” Giancarlo asks as he presses a thumb on my clit. He watches the movement distantly, like he’s observing a lab rat or something, though his cock stands upright, pointing directly at me. “Do you like that?”
I nod, closing my eyes against the feeling. I frown, ignoring the way the tip of his cock brushes against my leg. His fingers are pressing too hard, pushing too far.
“Hold on,” I say, reaching down to take his hand.
I pull it back a little bit, urging a lighter touch, and Giancarlo stops completely.
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 57