Pull Me Close: The Panic Series

by Sidney Halston

  Katherine

  I have an idea, texts Nico.

  Should I be worried?

  Yes. I’ll tell you when I see you.

  I answer with an emoji of a scared face, but he doesn’t reply.

  When you hide yourself away from society, you miss things people take for granted, like being outside in the fresh air and sunlight, or even the rain. Last night was so great, and then all the texting from Nico today has made me want to climb mountains or go out to the beach and run in the sand while it rains. But I know that’s not something I could do, at least not yet.

  Oddly enough, I love rain. I don’t mean a light drizzle. I mean torrential downpours. I love the way the world looks when it’s raining, and I love the smell that comes along with it. The loud bang of thunder scares me, but since I know exactly what it is, it doesn’t send me into a tailspin. So once in a while, when I’m in a certain mood—nostalgic, mostly—I’ll stand on my balcony and let the rain beat down on me.

  That’s what I do tonight. I’ve been outside on the balcony for fifteen minutes, eyes closed, letting the rain fall on me, when a noise from inside the apartment registers. I turn around and see that it’s Julius purring loudly and scratching at the door, which is weird. As I’m opening the sliding door, I hear a pounding at my front door; at the same time, my phone is ringing. “What the hell?” I say aloud. Julius runs to the door as if he’s trying to tell me to open up. I look at my phone and it’s Nico calling.

  I start to say hello as I open the door but he cuts me off. “Are you okay? What happened?” It’s also Nico at the door. He’s looking me up and down, taking in my soaked clothing and dripping hair, and then around my apartment. His eyes are frantic.

  “Hey,” I say, cupping his face so that he looks down at me. “Hey. I didn’t hear the door. I was outside.”

  “Outside?” He looks to the open door that leads to the balcony. “It’s raining.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say, pulling at my drenched shirt.

  “Katherine?” he scolds, and I know exactly what he’s thinking.

  “Oh, relax, I’m not high.” I roll my eyes. “Come on.” I pull him by the hand, and we walk out to the balcony. Leaving him under the overhang, I walk toward the railing, extend my hands, and tip my head back, letting the rain fall on my face. “My mom was a very proper and scholarly banker. But she loved the rain. I remember this one time we were having a picnic on a Saturday afternoon in Central Park. The sky started to get dark and you could smell the rain coming. Everyone was scrambling to pick up their things to leave, but not us. I was nine years old, and when the rain began to pelt down, we lay back on our blanket, closed our eyes, and held hands. It’s one of the best memories of my life,” I say, my eyes still closed.

  That’s the most I’ve shared with him about my past. It’s also the most I’m willing to say out loud, because if more words come out of my mouth, the moment will fall apart with a rush of memories too painful to fit inside my body. The pain is so consuming that it chokes me. I turn around and look at the ocean. Lights from ships off in the distance line the horizon. I push the hair off my face and rest my forearms against the railing.

  When did life get so hard?

  How I wish I could be nine again, playing in the rain with my mother.

  Love you always, my heart.

  I can hear her say those words to me. There are nights I wake up startled because I think I hear them being spoken out loud. The last time she said that to me is on a constant loop in my mind.

  I can feel the tears escaping, but with the rain, I doubt Nico notices. Thinking about my mother always makes me cry.

  “Corazón?” he says as he steps toward me. He wraps his arms around my waist and rests his chin on my head. “Just breathe,” he tells me, using the words of the song we danced to.

  “You’re getting all wet,” I tell him.

  “ ’S okay.” And we stay like this for a long time, me deep in my memories and Nico…I don’t know what Nico’s thinking, but I do know it feels good having him here with me. It gives me a reason not to get too into my head. A reason to stop before I spiral down. His strong arms around me, the way his thumb absentmindedly moves up and down on my stomach, the way his heartbeat is in sync with the rain pounding against the metal railing, the way he smells of fresh soap, the way his beard tickles my ear…I love the way he makes me feel.

  “I’ve been researching,” he tells me after a few minutes. “Some people need space, wide-open space, to feel better when they’re having a panic attack. And others need to be in tight, confined spaces. Tell me what you need. I want to help.”

  I turn in his arms and look up at him. He did research? God, he’s wonderful. “Pull me close and hold me tight,” I whisper.

  He brings me in even closer and tightens his arm around me, my face tucked into his neck, his wet beard soft against my skin. We’re closer to the door now, so the rain isn’t hitting us directly any longer. In his arms, with the sound of the rain and the smell of the ocean all around us, I feel the thoughts that were about to send me crashing start to melt away.

  I need him.

  I want him.

  I get on the tips of my toes, pull his head down, and kiss him. I’m practically climbing up his body, but he has so much control, it blows my mind. Maybe he’s been getting some, but I certainly haven’t, and I want to feel numb with ecstasy again. I know he wants me. It’s written on his face, and I can feel it pressed against my stomach. But he takes control of the kiss, swiping his tongue over my lips, then inside my mouth.

  I break away and sweep the hair out of my face. “It’s not because you’re here. I know this for a fact. It’s because it’s you,” I say, as if he can read my mind. I’m referring to what he told me yesterday, the reason he said we had to wait. I wouldn’t want to jump just any man. I just want to jump him.

  Without letting me go, he reaches behind him, slides open the door, and pulls me inside.

  “Good,” he says with a cocky smile. “You’re shaking. You’re all wet and cold.”

  “No. It’s you. You’re making me shake.” I feel bold, so I pull off my wet shirt and let it fall to the floor. Then I wait to see what he’s going to do. Maybe I can seduce him into sleeping with me. Yeah, I’m that desperate.

  He pulls his shirt off and lets it fall to the floor too. And damn, he is just as gorgeous as I remembered. My eyes roam up and down. I hook my fingers into the waistband of my shorts and slide them down my legs, and then he does the same. We’re a few feet away from each other and most of the lights are on, so we’re getting a good eyeful of each other.

  “Cute pussy.” His words startle me, and I look down, only to notice I’m wearing white cotton panties that have a kitten’s face on the front and its tail on the back.

  “What do you want, Katherine?” He takes a step forward.

  “You. I want you.”

  “Go dry off, and then hand me a towel. We’re soaked, and I want to talk first.”

  “Seriously? Talk?”

  “Yeah, seriously. Talk.” He swats my ass and pushes me gently toward the bathroom.

  “Ow!” I yelp, and then come back a moment later with a towel for him and one for me.

  I take all our wet clothes and throw them in the dryer. When I come back I say, “So what would you like to chat about, Nico? And I would just like to add that you are a hard guy to have sex with. If I didn’t see or hear from you often, I’d think you’re not interested. Mental illness isn’t contagious, by the way. And having sex won’t hurt me.”

  “Let’s start off by making one thing perfectly clear. I want you.” He takes my hand and places it over the towel that barely conceals his cock. “See how much?”

  I nod, because what the hell else can I do or say?

  “The thing is, I don’t think you should use me to feel better. You need to get better first. I’ve had a dysfunctional relationship and I’ve had meaningless sex. Now I want real.”

  “I’m trying
to get better. I want real too.”

  “What are you so afraid of? Can you tell me?”

  “I told you. I’m afraid of small—”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, what do you think will happen? You sit in here in the dark with me, and what? The boogeyman will come?”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “I’m not,” he says, his tone completely serious. “I’m trying to understand.”

  “I can’t explain it, Nico. I’m just scared. I think of a million things that can happen, and I psych myself out, I guess.”

  Nico

  “You have to let the fear in, Katherine. You let it in and do the thing you’re afraid of. If you let it in, it can’t hurt you.”

  “Easier said than done, Nico.”

  “I know that. But you have to.”

  “You sound like you can relate, but I know that’s impossible.”

  “I won’t say I can relate exactly but I know what it is to be afraid. To be so terrified that you become paralyzed.” I’m afraid to tell her the truth about me out of fear that she won’t understand. I saw the look of disgust on the faces of my alleged friends right before I stopped hearing from them completely. But at the same time, I’d rather know now. It’s obvious that we like each other, and if she can’t accept this now, what’s the point in continuing forward? If there is one good thing about the shit Naomi put me through, it’s that it taught me that knowing the ugly parts of a person isn’t always the worst thing. In fact, knowing the ugly parts and looking past them is what makes a relationship solid. I learned this the hard way. Naomi didn’t stand by me through the worst. In fact, she added shit to my already shitty situation. So I think it’s best to just pull off the Band-Aid and see where I stand with Katherine. Plus, if Katherine ever got really curious and googled my name, she’d know the whole ugly story in a minute.

  “Last year I was arrested,” I tell her, and wait for a flinch, a twitch—something. But I don’t get anything other than her big round eyes boring into me. “So were Matt and my father,” I add. Might as well get it all out.

  “Tell me.”

  I shake my head. This woman is a fucking conundrum, always doing the opposite of what I expect her to do. “Let me back up a little and start from the beginning.”

  “I want to know it all. Please,” she says, her big eyes still looking at me as though I hung the moon.

  “My father, Victor Moreno, was a legend in Miami Beach. He opened Panic in the early eighties when he got here from Cuba, and it’s been a landmark since. Every star who’s visited Miami in the last thirty years has stopped at Panic, and if the star was female, my father probably fucked her. Anyone who’s anyone has gotten drunk at Panic, danced at Panic, gotten a top-notch blow job in the bathroom at Panic, or snorted some coke on the tabletop in the exclusive VIP area.” I sneak a look at her to see if she’s freaked out yet. The truth is, in the eighties, drug use was rampant and very much out in the open. It was mostly before my time, but still, it’s a fact and part of the notoriety of Panic. “Unfortunately, that reputation got my father in trouble with the feds. When I was ten my parents divorced; my brother and I fought to stay with my father, our hero, and our sister, Julia, went with Mom. You would love my mother. She lives with my aunt in Savannah. She’s all about manners, respect, and southern hospitality. Now, looking back, I see that’s where I got any good in me. But of course when you’re young you want fun and charm, and that’s my father. Matt and I grew up at the club, coming over every day after school and staying until it was time to go home in the late evenings.

  “We knew about the club’s reputation, but growing up, we never saw the drugs. My father was serious and strict and kept us sheltered from the unsavory shit. We would do our homework in his office, where we heard him barking out orders, demanding the best cigars, the best liquors, the best glasses—no plastic cups for his guests.

  “When Matty and I turned fifteen and started really noticing the tits, we started sneaking out of the office and into the club. By the time we were eighteen we were always there, and there wasn’t much my father could do to keep us away. We’d get our friends into the VIP area, we’d get plastered, and on more than one occasion we got thrown out on our asses for being obnoxiously drunk. I knew about the drugs—hell, I used them on more than one occasion—and I vaguely remembered seeing the same women every weekend come in, then disappear with different men every night. But we were too busy with college and our own partying to really notice all the shit going on in the club. When you grow up used to a certain lifestyle, it’s hard to know when something’s off.

  “By the time I turned twenty-four, I started getting my shit together. I went off to get my MBA at Dartmouth, and Matty went to law school at the University of Miami.”

  “Matt’s a lawyer?” she asks.

  “He hates it. Always did. Dad pretty much made him go to law school. Long story. Anyway, we calmed down a bit after graduate school. Yeah, we own a nightclub and we occasionally partied pretty hard, but I graduated at the top of my class. I lived in New Hampshire for a few years and worked at an investment firm, and Matt worked at a law firm in Fort Lauderdale that specialized in intellectual property.

  “Then, about three years ago, my dad started talking retirement, and I relocated here to help him out. My dad was beginning to seem tired, and I tried to help him with the running of the club, but he wouldn’t let me do much. Then, a year ago, the club was raided and my father indicted. And that’s the abridged story of how I became the owner of the most exclusive, most famous nightclub in a town where there’s a nightclub on every corner.”

  “Wow. And how did your dad end up in prison?”

  “The feds had been conducting an undercover operation in Panic for seven months—wiretaps, video surveillance, undercover agents—and none of us knew. Apparently my father was involved in a drug-trafficking ring. He wasn’t selling directly, but he facilitated the sale. Our club was swarming with drugs. He would get expensive trips, jewelry, and courtside seats to sporting events for turning a blind eye to the goings-on. The employees were in on it too. There were a lot of arrests made. He was charged with racketeering and some lesser counts involving prostitution.”

  “You didn’t know,” she says matter-of-factly. “Why did they arrest you?”

  “How do you know that I didn’t know? I could’ve known. My dad was busy jet-setting around the world those last few months, and I was in the club even more than I am now. I could’ve been using myself, for all you know.”

  “No way. I don’t believe that. You wouldn’t do that. You’re a good man.”

  I lean in and kiss her because there’s nothing I want to do more at that moment. She believes the best of me. Her blind faith in my character is a little unnerving, but it’s so welcome after everything that’s happened in the last year. Most people, even people who’d known me my whole life, just assumed I was guilty, but this woman, a woman I only just met, does the complete opposite.

  “You’re right, Katherine. I didn’t know anything, and neither did Matt. We got off right before the trial prep got under way. My dad didn’t. He’s serving the minimum mandatory sentence, which is twenty years.”

  “Holy shit! That’s a long time.”

  “I know. When I was arrested I was mad as hell at first. But then the thought that I might not be able to prove my innocence, or that Matt might not…I was petrified. The evidence was so overwhelming I didn’t see how we would win, even though I knew we were innocent. I thought my father was too. I didn’t want to serve one day in jail, much less twenty years. This scar,” I say, pointing to my eyebrow, “is from something that happened after only three days in jail. Some asshole tried to show me who was boss and came at me with a fucking razor blade. We fought for God knows how long before they stopped us and took us to the medic. They stitched up my face and reset his broken nose. That almost crushed me, to think that would now be my life. I thought I wouldn’t ever hold my niece and nephew or see su
nlight. I thought the worst,” I say, looking at her. “I know what it is to be scared, sweet Katherine. So to some degree, I understand.”

  “I always think the worst.”

  “I know. That’s fear. You think the worst and you forget to see what is right in front of you,” I say. “Feeling fear isn’t bad, but letting it stop you from doing the things that you want to do is bad. When I snapped out of it, I went into action. With David’s help, I found the best attorney, let go of all the people who’d turned their backs on me and Matt, and moved on. So the point is, don’t fight the fear anymore. Just roll with it, baby. It’s the only way you’ll get through it. You breathe and you roll with it.”

  “Roll with it,” she says, as if she’s testing out the way the words feel in her mouth.

  “So now I spend my days fighting everyone, it seems. I fight with the old clientele, the ones that have been loyal to Panic for over three decades. There can’t be drugs or prostitution or anything that’s illicit in my club. The FBI and the DEA are still up our asses, convinced that Matt and I knew or were involved and somehow got away with it. Apparently the new rules make the nightclub a little dull to some and we’re not quite in the black yet. But it is what it is, right? The easy thing would’ve been to close the club and do something else. Instead, we decided to—”

  “To roll with it.”

  “Fast learner,” I say with a wink.

  “So how were you found innocent?”

  “One of the undercovers vouched for us. I don’t even know who, but that’s what our lawyer told us,” I say. “But that doesn’t seem to matter to the damn papers and paparazzi. They still linger around waiting for a screw-up of some sort. If a movie star leaves my club drunk, they spin it to make it seem she was in a drug-induced orgy in the VIP section of the club.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. So my life hasn’t been easy the last year. Most of my friends bailed when they saw the shitstorm that was brewing. I can’t even go back to my old job because everyone I know saw me get arrested on television, plus, they know about my father. Besides, someone has to run the club.”