Nico

by J. B. Hartnett

  “Nico, before you tell me anything else,” she reached out her hands and held them open for me, “tell me, right now, if you didn’t cheat on me, did you do something… illegal?” She looked at the table and slowly raised her eyes to me, dread written all over her face.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “What?”

  “I mean, if you did something really bad, I’ll do my best to stand by you. I’m different than Dee. I’m not as… stuffy and conservative. But you know me. Do you really think I’m going to walk away from you, from this?” She squeezed my hands and continued. “From the little boy that held me in his arms all night on the absolute worse day of my life?” Her eyes spilled over and my heart, once again, was just about ready to explode.

  I managed to choke out the words. “You knew?”

  “Georgie is gone, Nico. When you had that nightmare, I wanted to give him to you and tell you about that night once and for all, tell you that this little boy gave him to me with a story about bad dreams going into his paw and coming out as good ones, and then it hit me. I don’t know how we didn’t figure it out before?”

  I leaned down, opened the box, and put Georgie and the journal on the table. I wanted to talk, I wanted to tell her everything all at once, but I knew I was gonna cry like a fucking pussy if I did. I opened it to the last entry and put it in front of her.

  Dear Dish,

  The little girl with dishwater-blonde hair; I found you. The person that makes me feel like anything is possible with her by my side. The woman who knocked the wind right out of me. The woman who, when she feels pain, I feel it right alongside her, because I want to, not because I have to.

  Now I know why I haven’t had a real relationship until now. I have been in love with the same girl since I was seven years old. If thirty-three years has done nothing to dull those feelings, nothing ever will.

  Til the day I die.

  All my love, Lark…

  Nicolas Grant

  Her tears spilled onto the words as she looked up from the page. “So you didn’t murder somebody or sell government secrets or kill my dog when I was ten? We never did find out who poisoned Jack.” She smiled.

  I smiled back at her, my eyes equally wet, and answered, “No babe. I’m not a criminal. I just look like one.”

  “Nico?” she asked.

  “Yeah, babe.”

  “No more white flags,” she said. “All this could have been avoided.” She pushed back her chair and let go of my hands. Her mood changed from relief to pissed in a matter of seconds. She stomped into the kitchen and slammed open a drawer, cutlery clinking together like a smashed wind chime.

  “Babe?” I started to get up from the table.

  “Don’t you dare move!” she screeched.

  I waited a minute, thought about what to say while cupboard doors opened and slammed shut, much in the same way as the drawer. “Can I help you find something?”

  “Where are the dessert plates? Argh!” she yelled and went to the next cupboard over.

  I got up, and, as she searched high, I went to the shelf low, because I knew exactly where they were for some reason. I handed her two and asked, “You wanna tell me what’s going on? Because, and I’m just saying, we should be celebrating.”

  “I’m so stupid! You know, she has never liked you. From day one she told me you were bad news. And you know what else?” She walked with a butcher knife, went to the cake, and stabbed the thing like there was a chance it might attack first. “She always does this. It all started when Kyle Wolkowski gave her a Valentine in third grade, but ten years later asked me to prom instead of her. He and I were in the same year; she wasn’t. And, I put out. She was a goody-goody. Then, when I was giving him a blowjob in the back of the car—”

  “Babe?” I interrupted.

  “Hang on, I’m almost done,” she said and shoved a piece of cake, bigger than the plate at me.

  “Be done. It makes me go crazy when I hear about you with another guy,” I said and stabbed my fork into the cake.

  “Right, well, she told Hank and Ramona. Hank came out, furious. I got the car taken away for two weeks. Two weeks!”

  I closed my eyes and chewed. The cake was fuckin’ delicious. Then I stopped and watched her take her own first bite and said, “Babe?”

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Babe,” I said softly and reached for her hand. “As soon as I knew, I should have told you. I shouldn’t have hesitated, but I was so worried about how you’d react, so scared I might lose you… I did exactly what I said I wouldn’t; I let other people get involved. I’m fucking pissed as hell at Dee, but she did this because she loves you. She knows what you went through as a kid. She told me you didn’t start talking until she did.”

  “I did talk. I talked to you,” she said with a mouth full of cake.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “You were my imaginary friend, kinda. I talked to Georgie, but I pretended he was you. Then, when I was older, I kept a diary, and instead of writing ‘Dear Diary,’ I wrote, ‘Dear Boy’. It’s under the dress in that box. This is the best cake I have ever had in my entire life.”

  “I’ll be damned.” I smiled and put down the fork.

  “I told you I kept a diary,” she spoke and chewed as discreetly as possible. I’d never seen her eat like that.

  “Babe, you all right there?” I smiled.

  “What?” She held her hands up.

  “You don’t usually go for sweets and you’re going for it.”

  “Are you saying I’m fat?” Her brow furrowed, she put down the fork, and gave me her big, sad eyes.

  “Jesus, Lark no—”

  “Gotcha,” she said and smiled, chocolate purposefully all over her teeth.

  “Oh, you are going down.” I got up and pushed her chair back. I sunk to my knees in front of her and moved my hands up the back of her smooth legs.

  “Seems to me you’re the one going down, my friend.” She reached out to hold my head in her hands. I stopped what I was about to do and looked up at her beautiful face. “This, all this mess, this will never happen again, Nico. I’m wearing this necklace and this ring because, in my heart, I am married to you. I understand why Dee was worried, but what she didn’t know was that you helped me to find myself again. I tried to tell her that, but I think she was more upset with her parents than anything else. I knew she wasn’t talking to them, but I didn’t know why. Just keep loving me.” She brushed her thumb across my lips. “Don’t change anything. The one thing I kept wishing for, growing up in Hank and Ramona’s house? It wasn’t to have my mom back, I knew that wasn’t possible, it was to have you, Nico, and I do. I finally do.”

  I moved up to her face, stared into her eyes, and told her, “I thought I was going to lose you, babe.”

  “Nope, not gonna happen. Kiss me now before I start crying… or eating.” She laughed.

  I let my tongue meld with hers and drew my hand down her side, over her ribs to her hip. Slowly, I gathered up the fabric between her legs and discovered… no panties.

  She shrugged. “This fabric shows everything.”

  “I keep saying it, perfect woman.” I grinned.

  Her light laugh sounded nasal from all the crying she’d done, and not just the last twenty minutes. I knew the last few days had been hard for her, and the last few months. So much had happened, but we were through it, fuckin’ finally. I wished I had never doubted her, us, in the first place.

  I sat down in front of her, pulled her to the edge of the chair, and said, “Lean back, babe.”

  “You are so good at eating pussy. Those twins said I was lucky because you had such a nice penis. I said, ‘Thanks, I know,’ but I couldn’t leave it at that. I mean, I knew you slept with them, but they didn’t have to, you know, tell me about it like that. So I walked away and said, ‘He eats great pussy, too.’”

  I lifted my head. “You said that?”

  “Yep,” she replied and put her thumb into my mouth for me to
suck. “Now get busy, mister. It won’t be long before your head won’t fit there anymore.”

  “Perfect,” I said and opened her legs in front of me. I moved one finger inside her and let it glide up to her clit and rubbed softly in a small circle.

  “Oh my God.” Her head hit the back of the chair when I removed my finger and replaced it with my mouth. I swirled my tongue over her opening, across her soft folds, and sucked her clit hard until she pushed my head back and said, “Too much, too much, too much!”

  I laughed and pulled her to the floor with me. “Babe?”

  “I want you inside me.” She pushed off my jacket and unbuttoned the vest. I’d already done away with the tie, and when she got to my shirt, I realized she was about to unveil my big surprise. She un-did the first two buttons quickly, but, when she got to the third, she saw the tape and plastic. “Nico? What is this?”

  I opened the rest of the buttons quietly and peeled everything back to reveal the front of her wedding dress, now on my chest forever.

  She threw her hands over her face. “I thought I was done crying,” she said.

  “It was my big gun. If the truth pushed you away, I hoped this would pull you back.”

  She didn’t touch the freshly tattooed skin, but she traced it from above saying, “I wanted my future husband to see that my heart was full of love. It couldn’t be contained. So much so, it just exploded out of it. I was in love with the idea of love. But when I was making it, honestly, and I swear to you Nico, I never thought about Shane. I thought about the idea of you. The ultimate romantic fantasy,” she said with her hands on either side of my bare chest. “It came true.”

  I started to undo the remaining buttons of the shirt when she said, “Leave it on… part of the fantasy… lose everything else and make love to me in my pretty dress,” she said with one raised eyebrow and a huge smile.

  “You got it, babe.” Clothes gone, except for the shirt, I pulled that dress up and moved us to the bedroom. She pushed herself toward the pillows with her bare feet as I moved above her. I was thinking how lucky I was when I slowly sunk into her. “Fuckin’ perfect,” I groaned out.

  It wasn’t long before she sat up and crossed her legs behind me, my legs beneath her as we faced each other. Our kisses became one kiss as we breathed through each other, never breaking our connection until we both rode our orgasms and kept moving, building again to the next.

  She moved back to meet my eyes and asked, “Mind if I get cleaned up and we take a walk on the beach? I kind of want to feel this dress flowing behind me, even if it does get ruined. I want that memory of our first night together as Boy and Dish.” She smiled. “It’s corny, but it’s romantic.”

  I gave her lips a final kiss. “Nah, babe, it’s perfect. I’d love to walk on the beach with you, Dish. Actually, meet me down at the studio. I’ll throw on some jeans and get the deposit ready for the morning. Can’t believe Frodo forgot.” I tugged on my boxers and grabbed a pair of jeans that Lark had neatly folded in the closet.

  “You’re surprised? Really? Zack got married today, baby.” She laughed. “And Frodo gave you that tattoo today, right? Kind of a big deal to give the boss a tattoo.”

  “Yeah, he did. I didn’t really think of those things.”

  “You need a better system.” Her face was serious with worry, although she really was trying to hide it.

  “I’ll meet you down there.” I slipped on my sandals, took my wallet from my tux jacket, and put it in my pocket. My chain and keys were next to the front door, so I grabbed them on my way.

  I was just at the door to the studio when I heard someone run toward me. “Get out of the fuckin’ way!” the man yelled, so I jumped back. I looked to the direction he had come from when he suddenly came back and said, “This your shop?” When I hesitated he demanded, “Open the fuckin’ door! Now! Now! Now!” I opened it mostly because he had what looked to be a handgun at the side of my head.

  He pulled the blinds and instructed, “Shut the fuck up and don’t fuckin’ move. You have a car?”

  I immediately answered, “No.” I wanted him nowhere near Lark, and, hopefully, he would be gone before she came down.

  “Great, fuckin’ great! Can’t believe he left me there. Fuck!” I heard voices outside and the beams of high powered flashlights hit the windows. He came over to me and held the gun above my ear and whispered, “Don’t make a fucking sound.” When they were gone, he asked, “Call me a cab. Tell them to pick up out front. You have cash?”

  “Whatever you want, friend.” I sat there, and waited for him to tell me what to do. A sudden movement, any movement, even if it was to get my cell out of my pocket seemed like a bad idea.

  “What are you waiting for? Give me your wallet and your phone!”

  I took them from my pocket slowly and handed them to him.

  “Open it.”

  I assumed he meant the phone, but I was wrong.

  “Both of them.”

  I did as he asked, all the while he held the gun against my head.

  He opened the phone and hit send. “I’d like a pick up… name…” He looked at my license and gave my name and the address of the shop. “Now… to San Diego. Thanks.” Then he hung up and said, “Shouldn’t have said that. You’ve been real helpful.”

  The cab honked twice.

  The man turned to the door then turned to me. He repeated the same action then said, “See ya,” and fired the gun.

  I sat on the floor, my back against the wall, and faced the door.

  Lark threw it open and yelled, “Nico? Nico?”

  “Here, babe.”

  She flipped the light switch and screamed. “Oh my God, Nico!” She cried out.

  I held my hand over my stomach and watched her scramble for the cordless phone. Her foot slipped in my blood as she sat down at my side. “Yes, send an ambulance, that’s right, my husband, he’s been shot, I heard it maybe two minutes ago. No, I saw a taxi, going south on P.C.H. Please hurry. I have a towel against it.” She held the towel under my hand and through her tears said, “Baby, I’m gonna take a look at your back,” she inched me forward and gasped. “Just blood everywhere. Okay, I can’t talk to you anymore. Get someone here now!” she cried and set the phone down. “You’re on speakerphone,” she said to the operator.

  “Okay, ma’am, ETA is three minutes. I’ll be right here. Just keep him talking.”

  “Baby?” she said.

  “We should have stayed in bed.” I smiled.

  She gave a hiccup of a laugh and said, “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.”

  “I told you babe, ‘til the day I die.” I took her hand and held it over the towel with mine.

  “Don’t let that be today, please, Nico. I just found you!” she sobbed. “I don’t want to do this without you. They’ll be here any second now.”

  I closed my eyes because it felt nice. Those nightmares I was having, they were a premonition, I guessed. But I didn’t feel any pain. I couldn’t feel anything, except the calm I always felt with Lark by my side. “Love you,” I said. I had a hard time talking. I wanted to tell her more, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  I heard her screaming at me to open them. “Please, Nico… please!”

  The ambulance arrived, and she was telling them ‘no’ over and over.

  “Babe?” I said.

  “I’m here, I’m here. Talk to me,” she begged.

  I was being lowered and moved, but she was right next to me.

  “If it’s a boy, I want to name him Martin, if it’s a girl… we’ll name her after your mom, or whatever you want. You’re gonna be a good mom, Lark. The best. Tell my folks I love them. Couldn’t have asked for better parents. And you, babe, be happy. I love you…” and I closed my eyes. My last thought, how lucky I was to have loved this woman next to me.

  Epilogue

  Six years later…

  “Okay, now you remember what we talked about guys?” They nodded. “And you don’t back-t
alk.” They nodded again. “And don’t give Gamma a hard tfime.”

  The leader of the two cocked his head to the side and said, “Mom already said all this.”

  “Are you getting’ smart with me?” The grey haired man smiled at the curly blonde head in front of him.

  “Nope, just telling it like it is, Grandpop.”

  “Right,” the man grinned.

  “Okay, you kids,” the brown haired woman said. “Now you remember what we talked about?”

  They gave each other a knowing look. “We remember,” they said in unison.

  “She’s ready!” a small voice cried out.

  The garden had been transformed. Moira took care of everything along with Teensy and Becca. A new lawn was planted for the occasion, and four long rows of tables covered with white had been set for the biggest party any of us had ever seen.

  Zola ran to the back and tugged on my jacket. “She’s ready. And she looks pretty. Like a princess.” Her hazel eyes as wide as her smile.

  “Is she prettier than you?” I asked.

  “I’m supposed to say yes, right?”

  I leaned down and whispered, “I won’t tell.”

  She giggled and said, “Show me again, Uncle NeeNee.”

  “Show you what?” I replied like I hadn’t shown her a million times before.

  “You know, where cupid got you!” She faked getting shot, just as dramatic as her dad.

  I untucked my shirt while she stuck her finger in the scar. Hated the sensation, but I endured it because I couldn’t say no to her. Teensy told me off constantly.

  “Get your finger out of Uncle NeeNee. That didn’t sound right.” Zack laughed and scooped up his daughter. “You have some flower petals that need throwing, Princess Zola.”

  “Did you know it’s one of the most import jobs in a wedding, Uncle NeeNee?” she asked me.

  “I have heard that it’s very import.”

  “Come on, Zo.” Zack was holding her basket in his other hand. “Thanks, Daddy.” Who knew, Zack was the best dad, next to my own, I had ever known. He listened to her every word, he was patient, he played with her all the time, and they adored each other, probably because they were so much alike.