“Well, have you ever actually asked the people who choose the new entries why they make the choices they do? Like, have you ever asked them what they’re looking for in an applicant?”
I don’t really know what to say. “No, not really,” I admit. “They have the application, so I put my information on it and sent it in. They keep saying no. What else can I do?”
Layla steps lightly, like she’s trying to see if she can walk without leaving footprints on the hard-packed snow. I grip her tighter around the waist and watch her progress. She fails every time, but she doesn’t stop trying.
“Well,” she starts again, “when I first applied last year for jobs in the city, I didn’t get a single call back on my resume. My dad is really good at getting the jobs he wants in a country that doesn’t really like accents.” She pauses, measuring her words. “He told me that if you want to break into a new industry, you have to figure out what they want that’s not in the application. He suggested I call some places I thought I might like to work for and ask for information only. Ask them what they like in an applicant and tell them I’m thinking about applying, but I want to build my skill set before I apply.”
She takes a deep breath and peeks at me, like she’s worried about what I’ll think. She seems thoughtful, if somewhat placid, before continuing.
“So I did. And I found out that even though the internship positions said no experience was needed, they were still interested in people who knew things like how to proofread a paper or how to use data entry software. They liked someone who had proven interest in the job, even if they didn’t have working experience. So last summer I volunteered for the legal department at my dad’s practice. It was ridiculously boring, but I learned a lot of that kind of stuff. When I was interviewed for the position at Fox and Lager, they actually said it was that experience––the fact that I had done it of my own volition––that got me the position over older, more experienced candidates.”
“Well, that, and you’re super hot,” I joke.
She tries to smack my shoulder, but I catch her arm and pull her close so I can press my nose in her neck. She smells even better than I remember. And suddenly I really want to stop talking about this. Jobs. Family. Our pasts. This day got really heavy, really fast.
We stop by one of the pillars that holds up the giant stones of the building, and I turn her to me. She rests her cheek on my chest.
“Maybe you should try again,” she says softly, toying with the zipper of my jacket. “You could find out what they want and do that first. It couldn’t hurt to ask.”
I want to ask why she cares so much. Why does it matter if I’m a FedEx guy or a doorman or a firefighter? They’re all blue-collar jobs, the kind of jobs that no one who ends up with this girl will ever have. Her father’s a doctor, for fuck’s sake. She’s going to end up married to someone like him, someone who can buy her more of that gold jewelry she likes to wear, someone who can take care of her. Someone who’s nothing like me. I’m just a pit stop on the way to her future. She knows it, and I know it.
Except, fuck. What if she doesn’t?
I can’t help but smile a little.
Because I can’t not kiss her right now, I tip her head up and press my mouth to hers. Her lips are soft and warm, even in the winter air. But just when she’s opening for something deeper, I stop, tuck a misbehaving curl behind her ear, and trace the rest of her cheek with my finger.
Things are getting a little too real with her today. But I think I always knew it would be like that with Layla.
“You’re a smart girl,” I say as I loosen my grasp around her waist.
“Um, thanks?”
She looks uncertain. I get it. Our kisses are electric––she’s probably wondering, just like I am, why exactly I pulled away. But it’s nothing I want to talk about right now.
So instead, I make a big production of stepping away to check my watch. Yeah, it’s time to go anyway.
“Time’s up, sweetie. I gotta be downtown at AJ’s by ten. You wanna stop by tonight with your friends again? You could stay until closing and we could continue our date…”
I shouldn’t ask her, but still, I can’t help it. The more time I spend with Layla, the more time I want to spend with her. Tonight, I tell myself. Tonight I can tell her the truth. I’ll explain why this can’t go on past May, why it’s best maybe to nip it in the bud.
But she just smiles sadly and shakes her head.
“I want to, but I really have to get some studying done tonight and tomorrow. I’m kind of behind in my school work right now, and I can’t afford to be hungover tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
I ignore the way my heart sinks in my chest when she says no. I don’t want to wait until Monday to see her again. But this is probably for the best. Maybe I need some space too to figure out what the fuck I’m doing here.
“Nah, baby, don’t apologize. School comes first, always.” My phone buzzes in my pocket, and for once, I’m glad for the interruption. “Hold on.” I step away to take the call. “Hey, Lionel. What’s up?”
Lionel is the manager at AJ’s and a good friend of K.C.’s.
“Hey man. Just want to let you know the show tonight is cancelled. The band is stuck in Boston because of the blizzard up there. Grant can probably handle the door if you want a night off.”
Is it sad that I’m excited? I shouldn’t be. I can always use the extra money this job brings in each week. But right now, all I can think is that maybe I can talk Layla into studying with me tonight instead of with her friends. Except my sister has taken over the apartment with her kid, and there is no way I’m bringing Layla around Maggie, the viper. She’d call Selena, and then whatever this is will be over before it’s even started. My sisters eat the girls I date for breakfast.
But K.C. is leaving for LA tonight. He’s got an apartment just sitting there across the river, a place I sometimes crash when the city gets a little too much. It’s quieter than Manhattan. A good place to tell Layla exactly what’s going on in my life.
I hang up and face her with a new bounce in my step.
“So, NYU,” I say, unable to keep the grin off my face. She doesn’t like it when I call her that, which for some reason makes me want to do it even more. She’s cute when she’s annoyed. “Looks like the show is cancelled tonight—‘inclement weather’ in Boston.”
“You don’t have to work tonight after all?”
I shake my head. “I was wondering…”
I reach out to twirl a piece of her hair around one finger. She watches the action like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Would you be interested in studying with me tonight? I’ll leave you alone, I promise. Except, you know, when you don’t want me to.”
I wink. It makes me look like an idiot, but she doesn’t seem to mind my goofy side. In fact, I’d say she likes it.
“Just a quiet night in?” she asks shyly. “That won’t be boring for you?”
I shake my head. She really has no idea. I never get quiet nights in. If I’m not working at FedEx until close to nine, I’m at the gym or working odd jobs at clubs around town. Suddenly, I’m ready to beg her to do it. An entire night alone with this girl sounds like a dream come true.
“It’ll be perfect,” I say honestly. “Especially with you there.”
She tips her head to one side, considering the idea for a moment even though I can already see on her face she’s going to say yes. She wants more time just as bad as I do
“Yeah, okay,” she says finally, and I can’t even try to hide my grin. “But only if you give me some time to study, okay?”
“Sure, sure, baby, I’ll just watch TV or something.” I hook an arm through hers and start walking us back to the train station. The sky is turning a purplish-gray as twilight falls, and I’m suddenly aware that I’ll be spending the night with this girl for the second night in a row. I can’t even remember the last time I spent one night with someone, let alone two. Not since Jessie
.
I shake that memory out of my head. No, I can’t think about that. Right now, I just hope I can keep some kind of self-control if that’s what Layla needs.
“So listen, sweetie,” I say as we walk down the drive. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to go to New Jersey…”
Chapter Sixteen
Layla
It doesn’t take me long to pack up my books and a few things into an overnight bag once we return to the dorm. Shama and Jamie are out, but I find Quinn sitting on her bed reading when I walk into our room with Nico at my heels, his hands eagerly on my hips. She glances at him curiously, then back at me, and smiles like a cat that just ate the canary.
“Well, hello, there,” she croons, standing up and fluffing her curly ponytail. “You must be FedEx man. I’m Quinn. Roommate. Best friend. You know the drill.”
I can tell Nico wants to laugh by the way his eyes twinkle, but he doesn’t, just extends a big hand out to shake Quinn’s.
“Nico,” he says. “Nice to meet you. How you doin’, Quinn?”
“Not as good as you, I’m guessing,” she says as she sits in her desk chair. “Where are you two kids coming from?”
I tell her about our afternoon at the Cloisters, which has her looking at Nico with obvious approval. Museums are classy places to take someone on a date, and Quinn’s a total snob. She won’t date a guy who wears sneakers to a bar, and she’ll never accept a movie offer (or something equally standard) until her third date. She says she likes to make sure they’re willing to work for it. There is a reason she doesn’t get a lot of dates. I secretly think these kinds of mind games are the reason she’s still a virgin at almost twenty—she can’t find anyone willing to jump through these damn hoops for her.
“So where to now?” she asks, drumming her fingernails on her desktop.
Nico sits down on my mattress while I rifle through my drawers, searching as unobtrusively as possible for underwear that’s appropriately sexy but won’t be uncomfortable the next morning. Hmmm, maybe I should just bring two sets.
“New Jersey,” I say, bracing myself for what I know will be her obvious scowl.
Quinn is from Boston, and the only thing Bostonians look down on more than New Yorkers (specifically Yankees fans) is New Jersey. It’s a constant source of genial conflict in our apartment, considering both Jamie and Shama grew up there. To Quinn, New Jersey is the land of shitty Springsteen cover bands and big-haired bridge-and-tunnel girls. Jamie and Shama just start shouting about Boston and Marky Mark whenever the topic comes up, but Quinn’s opinion never changes. New Jersey isn’t the kind of place you go if you can avoid it.
“Why? What’s over there?” Her face is thankfully blank when I turn around, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Nico doesn’t need to know just how entitled my roommates can be. At least not yet, anyway.
“My friend has an apartment in Hoboken,” he says, repeating the same thing he told me on the train. “I’m housesitting for him for a while. It’s a good place to relax and…uh…study.”
He shoots a devious grin in my direction, and I flush, knowing that Quinn certainly saw that look too. To her credit, she nods approvingly, although the quick flash in her eyes tells me there’s no way she thinks I’m going to do any studying there. Whatever. From out of Nico’s range of sight, I stick my tongue out at her, and she blinks before training her gaze back on Nico.
“I’m going to use the bathroom before we go, sweetie.” With a peck on my cheek, he leaves me alone with Quinn’s imperious attitude.
“Will you stop it?” I hiss, shoving a few other pieces of clothes in my bag before starting on my books. “I love you, but I have a dad of my own if I want someone to give my dates the third-degree.”
“Third-degree, please. It was a couple of questions. I’m just doing my best friend job, babe,” she retorts. She comes next to me so we can speak in low tones Nico won’t be able to hear through the thin walls.
“You never did this before. Not even with Teddy, and you fucking hated him,” I say in a loud whisper.
Teddy was my disaster of a boyfriend from freshman year to whom I lost my virginity. He cheated on me a few weeks later, leaving me furious and heartbroken, though surprisingly not as torn up as I might have expected, all things considered. Just goes to show that I wasn’t really as in love as I’d thought.
“That’s because you were obviously not in love with Teddy,” Quinn echoes my thoughts. “But you are definitely falling for this one, Lay. He’s hot—I’ll give you that. I just want you to be careful.”
“I’m being careful,” I insist, zipping up my bag and grabbing a few cosmetics from the small caboodle on my desk. “Yes, I like him. And I think he likes me too. But we’re just starting this, for Christ’s sake.”
“You’re taking off at a sprint, babe. Your first date was yesterday, and you’re already going home with him for a weekend.” Quinn cocks her head knowingly before she shrugs and goes to flop back down on her neatly made bedspread. “For what it’s worth, he seems nice, even if he does have a temper,” she informs me, ever so nonchalant as she picks up her marketing book and flips through it. “But you don’t really know him yet, and you’re heading off to New Jersey with the guy after, like, five minutes. I worry because I love.”
I soften at her words. I get that she cares. I’m lucky to have three friends like that who watch my back and who are willing to protect me against the shitheads roaming New York. But Nico’s not one of them.
“Thanks, Quinny,” I say as I zip up my bag. “You are the best. I’ll text you later, okay? Just to let you know I’m safe.”
She sighs, then leans over so she can reach into the desk drawer next to her bed.
“Here,” she says. She turns back and flings an unopened box of condoms at me.
I catch them in my chest and look up, grinning. “Really, Quinn? Didn’t know you even had any in stock. I’m impressed.”
“Shut up, you whore,” she orders me, sinking back down in her pillow with a red face. “Like I said, be safe.”
The PATH train to Hoboken doesn’t arrive as often as the subway, so Nico and I have about a fifteen-minute wait. Once we’re on, the trip under the Hudson is fast. Our stop is the second one across the water, and after we arrive, Nico immediately walks me down the street in search of food. Both of our stomachs are grumbling, so we find a cheap Chinese place and order some boxes to go before getting a cab to his friend’s apartment.
“So, who’s the friend that owns this place?” I ask once we’re on our way to an address on the outer edge of Hoboken that directly faces Manhattan across the river. My stomach growls—the lo mein smells amazing.
“My boy, K.C.,” Nico says fondly. “My best friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids in the Kitchen. His mom knew my mom, and we lived in the same building, so I was always over at their house.” He leans over conspiratorially to whisper: “Don’t tell my mom, but K.C.’s mom is a better cook.”
I laugh as the cab pulls up outside a building on a darkened road. It doesn’t look dangerous per se—just deserted. The street, which needs to be repaved, is lined with tall, somewhat dilapidated brownstones, remnants of a time when the area had a bit more money. I know enough about Hoboken to know that it’s already in the midst of a revitalization, considering its proximity to New York and the availability of space to young professionals. But I wouldn’t want to walk alone at night here.
Nico pays the cabbie and we step out, the frozen snow crunching loudly under our feet and the tires as the car pulls away. Nico leads me up the steps of the building and pulls out a key to unlock the door. He guides me into the foyer of the building and up a few flights of stairs that lead to the third floor.
“He owns the top floor,” Nico informs me as he unlocks the door. It swings open, and we step inside one of the nicest places I’ve seen since moving to New York.
The space alone tells me why people even bother moving to Hoboken—the living room we step into is easily
bigger than the entire apartment I share with three other girls. It’s huge, with high ceilings and massive windows at one end that open out to the street and offer a faint view of the Midtown skyscrapers that twinkle across the darkened river. The place has obviously been fixed up, with gleaming hardwood floors, walls that have all been painted a soft sage green, a large sectional sofa that faces a flat-screen TV mounted on one wall. A baby grand piano sits in the other corner of the room. I twirl around for a moment in it, my arms stretched out on all sides as Nico watches with amusement.
“Ahhh,” I sigh, coming to a stop. “I haven’t been able to do that inside since coming to the city. This place is gorgeous! What does your friend do?”
Nico smirks. “He’s a DJ. He mixes at a bunch of clubs, but he also does the programming for one of the radio stations in LA He’s mad talented.”
I gaze around, taking in the posh surroundings. “He must be.”
“Wait ‘til you see the rest.”
I’m quickly taken on a tour of the rest of the floor, which includes a dining room and big kitchen to the left of the living room, a hallway lined with a bathroom and framed black and white photos (several of which include Nico), and two huge bedrooms, one of which holds a set of turn tables and several instruments. The walls are padded with leather. This isn’t the shared apartment of a college kid, like me, or a poor twenty-something, like Nico. This is a grown-up’s apartment, through and through.
“Is this room…soundproofed?” I ask, reaching out to touch the leather. It’s soft against my fingers, and my voice is a bit muted in here.
Nico nods. “Yeah. K.C. records on his own sometimes. Pretty sweet, isn’t it? It’s my room when I stay here, too.” He gestures toward a small futon in the corner of the studio. It’s folded up as a couch right now. “I’d probably just sleep in the bedroom this week,” he says as if reading my mind. “Would you—do you want to see it?”
Bad Idea- The Complete Collection Page 14