Finally, she catches sight of me, and her face bursts into the biggest, brightest smile I have ever fuckin’ seen.
“Hi!” she shouts over the crowd, causing several people in front of her to turn around with cranky expressions.
Fuckin’ New Yorkers. Sometimes people here forget to smile. Well, fuck ’em. I’ve got a grin on my face a mile wide, and I don’t give a shit.
When she’s finally able to get off the escalator, she starts jogging awkwardly through the crowd, her bag and purse banging on her sides. By this time, I’m hopping like a fuckin’ rabbit on the other side of the barrier, ready to catch her the second she passes security. My girl is practically a linebacker as she elbows through people waiting for their bags. But I can see on her face the same thing that’s probably written all over mine.
But just before she reaches me, doubt shakes through me like a thunderclap. Is she okay? Will she want what I want? Will she be the Layla I used to know? Will I be okay if she’s not? Suddenly the fact that Layla and I have never really had time, plain and simple, to know each other and be sure of one another, looms ahead. My heart is thumping in my chest, and as the rest of the questions filter away, a final few remain:
Will she still love me for exactly what I am? And will I love her too?
She comes to a stop, and for a second, the entire airport disappears. I guess there’s only one way to find out. I open my mouth.
“Welcome home, baby.”
Thank you for reading Lost Ones!
Layla and Nico’s story finishes in True North. Keep reading for the first two chapters or go here to download the whole book:
http://bit.ly/TrueNorthNovel
A Note from the Author
Thank you for taking the time to read Lost Ones. A great deal of research and work went into this book, but I feel that I should call attention to a few potential inaccuracies. The first, and most glaring, is the expedited order of Nico’s application with the FDNY. The FDNY was actually hiring in 2002 in the wake of the horrific events of 9/11, but I moved that up a year to fit the events of the story. I also expedited and shifted around the order of the application process slightly to fit the characters’ other plot progressions. Similarly, I might also point out that physical conditioning like in the final scene might be more likely for new cadets rather than someone about to graduate. What can I say? I just wanted a hot pushup scene.
On a more serious note, this was easily the hardest thing I have ever written. Harder than my academic writing. Harder than my first, second, third, fourth, or fifth book. It was so difficult because, more than anything I have ever written, Lost Ones was a catharsis of events I’ve kept long buried.
When I was a sophomore in college, I ended up in a physically abusive relationship. It’s funny—I think that’s the first time I’ve ever written that down. It’s strange to see it there, in print form. It’s so permanent. It will never go away.
But such are the lasting effects of abuse, of all types. My story is not unique. We are living in an incredible moment where, for the first time, millions of women are coming out of the shadows to tell their stories of mistreatment. People misunderstand, perhaps seeing many of these stories as a pursuit of vengeance. I think they are about catharsis, the process of purging demons that stay inside you long after your original persecutor may be gone. Of finally having a moment to say your truth out loud and have people listen. Validate. Believe.
So this book purged some of my own demons, yes. But I also wanted to write a story about people who come from histories of abuse in multiple forms, and to understand the social foundations for a person’s willingness to tolerate mistreatment. It was to understand that such foundations exist for all of us in a society, not simply people who belong to one class, one class, one identity or another. But most of all, my purpose was to write the ultimate truth: that love, in its purest form, is the cure to that terrible logic. Like so many of us, my characters frequently cannot believe that someone else would love them the way they love each other. But in the end, of course, their willingness to believe in that love, to believe that the other is worth it, that they are worth it, is what really defines their mutual salvation.
If you or anyone you know is suffering from the effects of an abusive relationship, please consider contacting one of the many resources out there that can help people cope, escape, and recover from abuse. You are loved. They are loved. And you are all worth it.
xo,
Nic
True North
Book Three of the Bad Idea Series
I
The Bitter and the Sweet
Chapter One
AUGUST 2004
Nico
Longing. Desire. Excitement. Absolute fuckin’ joy.
Finally, fuckin’ finally, Layla Barros is in my arms again, right in the middle of John F. Kennedy airport, having launched herself at me with the force of an NFL football player.
“Hey!” I shout as I swing her around and around.
Layla’s legs come around my waist with a strength I didn’t know she had, forcing me to drop my hands and get two handfuls of my favorite body part in order to hold her up. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. I’m already hard and she’s the only thing hiding that fact from the dozens of other people milling around the baggage claim.
But before I can say anything—a smart-ass comment that’s about to roll off my tongue—she’s kissing me. And it’s not a tentative kiss either. Gone is the fear she had when she left over three months ago. This isn’t a gentle kiss. It’s hungry, forceful, full-throated. Her thin arms are vises around my neck. My girl is fuckin’ devouring me, and I’m consuming her right back. Three months—no, scratch that, over a fuckin’ year of pent-up longing is released in this kiss. I’ll kiss her forever if that’s what she wants. God knows I’ll never get tired of it.
Around us, there’s even a smattering of applause—our joy is infectious. And that’s the thing about New Yorkers—they might be grouchy as fuck sometimes, but when it comes down to it, they’re also real. And when they see joy that’s honest, authentic, as deep as what Layla and I feel for each other, no one in my city would be anything but happy for us.
Fuck me, we really can’t stop kissing each other. We need to find a room, an empty closet, fuck, even a bathroom somewhere. But I know I can wait. Right now, in this moment, I might be happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and if the look on Layla’s face is any indication, she feels the same way.
“All right,” I tell her as I take her hand. “Where’s your bag? We need to get out of here. I need to get you home.”
Layla lays her head on my shoulder. Even just that simple touch sends tremors of happiness through my chest.
“What do you mean?” she asks with another bright smile. “I am home. I’m with you.”
Her tongue dips around mine again as her legs. I groan as I squeeze her ass, which I’ve been dreaming about all summer. I’ve While I waited for her to heal after the year from fuckin’ hell she had last year. While we talked on the phone so long I thought I was going to burn my ear off. While we breathed, hot and heavy, late at night, listening to each other lose control from three thousand miles away. Just the memories of that make me feel like I’m about to lose control now. I need to get my girl alone, like yesterday.
“Layla?”
Her lips break from mine, and I growl. I actually growl, like I’m a dog, and someone is trying to take away my bone. Or, you know, boner. Same difference right about now.
“Who the fuck is that?” I ask, seeking her mouth all over again.
But she’s done for now. Layla sighs, rolls her big blue eyes, and drops her feet to the ground. She tries to step away, but I’m not having it. So she tugs on a handful of her dark hair, which, if I’m not mistaken, looks even shinier than it was before. Her pale skin is just a little sun kissed. Damn. Three months of enjoying the California sun has done my baby good.
“Surprise,” she says weakly. “Nico, this is my mother, Cher
yl.”
Her…mother?
My hands fly off Layla’s ass like I’m touching a hot plate. Shit. Shit. This wasn’t the impression I was looking to make when I met her parents for the first time. I already know I’m not really the type of guy they probably want to see her with. Older, tatted up, and with a record to boot. I’m a long shot from the kind of guy they want in family pictures. Her father’s a doctor, for fuck’s sake, and I’ve seen her grandparents’ mansion in Pasadena. Not exactly the one-bedroom apartment I grew up in, shared between me, my mom, and three other kids.
But Layla doesn’t see any of that. She doesn’t care about where I come from; she never did. And she’s the only one whose opinion I give a shit about anyway.
So I straighten up and turn to her mother, glad that my skin color hides my flush.
“Hi, Mrs. Barros, how you doin’? It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Cheryl, please.”
I tip the brim of my Yankees hat. I feel like an idiot when I do it. Who the fuck am I, an old timey cowboy? John fuckin’ Wayne? Should I just go all out and say “Howdy, ma’am?” Have a little hoedown in the middle of JFK arrivals?
Layla giggles, like she can sense what I’m thinking. And she probably can, too. She knows me better than anybody. I roll my eyes, but I have to grin. Whatever. It’s polite, right?
But then my smile falls when I catch the look on Cheryl’s face. A dark-blonde brow arches over one of her bright blue eyes—the same eyes she shares with her daughter. She’s imperious. And currently very suspicious.
You wouldn’t know that Cheryl and Layla are related unless they told you. I’ve never met her dad, but Layla probably has the coloring of her Brazilian father: dark-brown, almost black hair, deep-set eyes that get circles when she’s tired, full pink lips that I would like to go back to sucking on, thank you very fuckin’ much. But Cheryl Barros definitely gave her daughter those eyes the color of a bluebird sky, sharp as a kitchen knife. And right now, I’ve got two pairs of them zeroed in on me.
Bam. Gutted. Just like that.
“You must be Nico,” she says evenly.
She says it like she knows me. And to be fair, she probably does. Cheryl and I have only spoken once, but it was one of the most intense conversations I’ve ever had. Imagine calling your girl’s mom for the first time, and you tell her that her daughter is basically in pieces––not because you did anything, but because you found her that way. After I moved to LA for a year and her dad left her and Cheryl for Brazil, Layla spiraled all last year. In her vulnerability, she was taken advantage of by the worst possible person. Giancarlo—fuck, I don’t even like thinking that piece of shit’s name, let alone saying it—was a monster if I ever met one, the kind of dude who cuts a woman down to make himself feel stronger. The kind of guy who takes his anger out on her face in the end.
A pang of guilt shoots through me. I’ll never forgive myself for what happened, knowing that if I had just stayed in New York, Layla wouldn’t have gotten wrapped up with that abusive motherfucker. It’s a memory I’ll never shake: Layla crushed under a much larger man, with blood all over both of them while he used her beautiful face like a punching bag. If I hadn’t gotten there when I did…
I shudder, same way I do whenever the memory reappears. No. I’m not going to go there. Returning to that day is the quickest way to bring me to The Dark Place, as I’ve come to know it. The place where harder Nico lives, a Nico who knows himself for the asshole he can really be, the Nico I’ve been working really fuckin’ hard to keep buried for the last several years.
Layla gives a hopeful smile. Her face shines with that light that only my girl has. It lightens me too.
Not today, asshole, I tell myself. Maybe not ever again.
Cheryl holds out her hand, palm down, like she’s expecting me to kiss it or something. Should I? I start to lean down, but end up standing up straight. Going from John Wayne to Prince Charming is a little much, don’t you think? Instead, I shake it a little, accepting her light squeeze before she pulls away, looking like she wants hands sanitizer.
Okay, yeah. My hands aren’t exactly clean. Thirty minutes ago, I was doing pushups on concrete with a hundred other FDNY cadets, and there are still smudges of dirt on my palms. Well, sorry, lady. I wasn’t planning on touching anyone else but your daughter, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mind if I came straight for her instead of washing up first.
“Mom’s here to help me find an apartment,” Layla says as she takes my hand. See? I knew she wouldn’t care about the dirt.
I turn to her. “You’re not living at the dorms this year?”
For whatever reason, Layla and I haven’t spoken much about her living situation. We talked every day this summer, when we could get the spare moments to do it. But we’ve both been crazy busy. I’m at the academy five days a week, usually from sunup to sundown, and then I’ve been doing security again at AJ’s, the nightclub where I used to work. The extra cash helps supplement the shitty probationary salary I get as a new recruit with the FDNY. Layla took a couple more language classes to keep up her Spanish and Portuguese requirements for her degree, and I know she’s been working a lot at a local women’s services center too. So when we did talk, it wasn’t about monotonous shit like apartment hunting or bills. It was usually what we did that day for a few brief moments before we both fell asleep. Just enough time to reassure her that I was still here, waiting for the day she was coming back.
I didn’t really think about what would happen when she did.
Layla shakes her head. “Jamie and Quinn are still rooming together, so Shama and I decided to find a place off campus…”
She drifts off, but I know where she’s going. Up until the end of last year, Quinn was Layla’s best friend, her roommate through the first three years of college. But their friendship was tested when Layla’s life fell apart, and Quinn couldn’t handle it. Bitch. Layla’s better off without her.
“Okay,” I say. “So we need to find you an apartment. You know, you could just stay with me—”
I can’t quite cut myself off in time before I realize what I’m saying. While I’d like nothing more than to wake up and fall asleep with Layla right next to me every day—I probably like that idea too much, if we’re being honest—all I have to offer is a pullout couch in the living room of a crowded apartment uptown. My old place is currently occupied by me, my brother Gabe, my sister Maggie, and her daughter. I’m on the couch until the academy’s done and I can even start to think about finding a new place of my own. What kind of offer is that?
I frown to myself. It’s just another reminder of how little I actually have to offer someone like Layla. She says she doesn’t care, but I do wonder every now and then if she really knows what that means.
“Do you have a car?” Cheryl interrupts my brooding before Layla can respond. “Or do we need a taxi? We have an appointment with a realtor at six, and we need to drop Layla’s bags at the hotel.”
Her toe taps on the linoleum floor so loudly I can hear it over the crowd.
“Ah, no,” I admit, feeling suddenly weird about it even though most people in New York don’t have cars. “We’ll have to get a cab.”
“All right.” Cheryl looks me up and down. She’s dressed casually in short white pants and a striped shirt, but the woman has a presence that would intimidate my sergeant. I don’t know why Layla ever described her mother as meek. This lady is anything but. “I suppose we can drop you in the city on your way home.”
“Mom,” Layla starts, but I cut in anyway.
“That’s all right, Mrs. Barros,” I say. “I’m happy to help out. You’ll need a local anyway to make sure you don’t get scammed by the brokers.”
I wink, even though I don’t really know what the fuck I’m talking about. I’ve only had one apartment here in New York, and it was a rent-controlled lease passed to me from K.C.’s cousin. I don’t know the first thing about hunting for an apartment in the city, even though I’m about
to learn myself. But right now, there isn’t a thing that could stop me from being by Layla’s side. Definitely not a little white lie.
Cheryl opens her mouth, surprised, then closes it again. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a little quirk of lips before she looks away.
“Well, let’s go,” she says and turns abruptly toward baggage claim.
I pick up Layla’s carry-on and heave it over my shoulder, then sling my other arm around her waist so I can sneak another kiss. She stops walking and returns it, with a lot more tongue than I was initially planning, but hey, I’m not going to argue. Fuck me, she tastes good. Like vanilla and some kind of fruit and maybe some kind of soda she was drinking on the plane. But mostly she just tastes like Layla. She tastes like home.
“Damn,” I whisper when we break again. We have got to find a room.
“Yeah,” Layla whispers, keeping her nose to mine.
It’s still there: that magnetic pull that always made us feel like we couldn’t get close enough. Fuck the fact that we’re in the middle of an airport. Fuck the fact that her mother is ten feet away, watching me carefully. I’d take Layla right here if she said the word. I’d take her for the rest of my life.
“Come on,” Layla says, finally stepping away and tugging me forward. “She’s right. We do need to get going.”
I just nod and follow her through the crowd. But I don’t let go of her hand. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter Two
Layla
Nico waits in the hotel lobby while Mom and I check into our room and change. He looked like it was physically painful to stay behind, and I get it. Those brief kisses in the airport were not enough. Not even close. I’d been waiting for that moment all summer, and the complete and utter rightness of being in his arms again was enough to banish the shadows I’ve been fighting for the last year. It was enough to make me feel unafraid for the first time in so, so long.
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 73