Bad Idea

by Nicole French

  I sit up and wipe the mascara under my eyes. They’ve been watering all day. “I’ll be fine.”

  Quinn looks like she doesn’t believe me. “It’s okay to be sad, Lay.”

  I shrug. I’ve spent so much of the past three weeks vacillating between moping around and trying to pretend like everything will be fine. The effort is giving me whiplash.

  “What does Romeo have planned for today?”

  I blink. “We’re going up to the Cloisters again. He said he wanted to e-end where we s-started.” The tears start to well up before I can stop them, and I swipe angrily while Quinn looks on. “God, this is ridiculous! We barely know each other!”

  Quinn pulls my hand away and squeezes it for a second before letting go. “I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” she says. “And it’s been long enough.”

  I give her a look. “Come on. You’ve been against this relationship from the start.”

  “I had my reservations, sure,” Quinn admits. “But he won me over. Even if...”

  I look up curiously. “Even if what?”

  She twists her lips around. “Well...even if it was never going to work out. Come on, Layla, just listen,” she says when I open my mouth to speak. “He’s nice. And overall, he’s been really good to you. I know you love him––you don’t have to say it; it just shows. He probably loves you too, honestly. But you guys come from two completely different worlds. And eventually, those worlds are going to grow further and further apart.”

  “That’s ridiculous––” I start to protest, but Quinn just shakes her head.

  “It’s reality, babe,” she breaks in. “Think about where you’ll be in ten years, and where he’ll be. You’ll be, what, a lawyer? Doing real, important things with your life? And where is he going to be? Still working doors at nightclubs? Delivering packages? He has no future, Lay.”

  The words sound harsh, but Quinn’s voice is actually kind. Her expression is full of pity, like she’s sorry to have to break the news to me. I close my eyes. This isn’t what I want to hear. Because when I see Nico, I don’t see any of the things other people see. I don’t see the bad neighborhood, the dead-end jobs, the messy home life, and so on. I just see Nico, someone with whom I feel more right, more myself than with any person I’ve ever known.

  How could that be wrong?

  But it doesn’t matter now. He’s leaving. This is over. Done.

  I stand up and run my fingers under my eyes. Quinn stands up with me and checks her watch.

  “It’s that time,” she says. “My train leaves at 2:30. I need to get going to the station.”

  On my now-empty desk, my phone buzzes with a message.

  “I’ll walk you down,” I say. “He’s here.”

  ~

  Quinn and I exit onto the sidewalk. I look to the lamppost where Nico usually waits for me, but he’s not there. Quinn nudges me in the shoulder.

  “Over there,” she says, and points across the street.

  He’s standing against the door of a shiny black Jeep, waiting like the entire city belongs to him. It’s a warm spring day, and he’s wearing his dark jeans and a worn t-shirt that hugs the contours of his shoulders. The dark lines of his tattoo snake out of one sleeve around his right bicep. I can see the tip of the compass tattoo on his chest peeking out of the collar, and a thin silver chain glints around his neck. With his Yankees hat pulled low over his face, he looks like the definition of the bad boy everyone thinks he is.

  But I know better.

  He spots me and raises a big paw.

  “Have fun,” Quinn says. “Love you.”

  I give her a tight hug. “Love you too. Call me when you’re in Boston.”

  “Call me when you’re in Seattle.” She releases me, then checks me over. “Take care of yourself, Lay. Have fun today. And have some fun at home. Try not to spend your whole summer arguing with your dad, okay?”

  I nod. “Love you.”

  “Love you too. See ya, babe,” Quinn says, and with a terse wave at Nico, walks to Canal Street to catch a cab for Grand Central.

  I turn back to the man waiting for me and quickly cross the street.

  “Hey, sweetie,” he says as he takes my hands and pulls me to him for a quick kiss. I ignore the throbbing in my chest. Shit. Everything is going to hurt today, isn’t it?

  But Nico looks me up and down with a sly smile. “Beautiful as ever. Goddamn, I’m going to miss you.”

  I swallow and look away, blinking back the tears that are already threatening to fall. Shit, I’m really going to be a mess by the end of this day. I gulp them back and finally manage to look back.

  “Let’s not...let’s not do that until the very end, okay?” I suggest.

  Nico looks at me for a second, then nods. “Deal. You wanna check out my new ride? Not bad for a delivery boy, huh? Gabe talked me into it.”

  I look over the Jeep. It’s not exactly my dad’s BMW, but it’s definitely sexy. I’m sure Nico’s going to look really good driving the thing in LA. Around all the pretty blonde girls in bikinis. I cringe.

  “It’s nice,” I say.

  Nico tips his head back and laughs loudly. “You sound thrilled. I know, I know, it’s kind of a piece of junk. But it’ll be good for sunny days like this.” He pulls open the passenger side door for me and ushers me in. “Come on, baby. Let’s go.”

  ~

  Nico

  She’s incredibly quiet as I steer the Jeep back uptown, swerving around cars on our way up to the top of the island. It’s hard to enjoy it when Layla is so clearly miserable.

  She looks as beautiful as ever in a light blue sundress that matches her eyes. I keep staring at her like an idiot. I don’t want to make things weird, but this day was never going to be light and fun. It’s the end. So, my brain is already watching her hard, taking mental pictures so I won’t forget. Her sky-blue eyes turn to me. Those eyes that have been watering since I saw her.

  Click. Committed to memory.

  “Hey,” I say, just to break the awkward silence. “I got something for you.”

  I reach to the backseat and grab a package that I wrapped in newsprint. Layla takes it like it’s made of gold. This is one of the things I’m going to miss about her the most––she’ll never be the type to look at the way something’s wrapped on the outside and judge. Layla is the kind of person who cares about what’s inside.

  “For me?” she asks.

  I nod. “Open it.”

  She unwraps the newspaper, then pulls out the picture within a frame. It’s a charcoal sketch I did of her one night while she was sleeping. She’s on her back, arms folded over her head, the sheet just barely covering her naked body. I remember the night I drew it. I had just come back in from the bathroom in the middle of the night and saw her asleep, her hair spread on the pillow under her while the moonlight shone through my bedroom window, lighting up her skin in the night. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Fuck. She still is.

  “Oh my God,” she murmurs as she floats her hand over the drawing, careful not to touch the paper, which isn’t covered by glass. “Oh my God, Nico. This is amazing.”

  I could tell her she won’t ruin it––it’s been treated with my sister’s hairspray to make sure the charcoal won’t fade. That shit is basically shellac. But I like the awe in the way Layla hovers her fingers. There aren’t a lot of people who look at anything I do like that.

  Click.

  But then she turns, and she looks like she’s about to cry again. It’s not doing good things to the cracks already running through my chest. And for the first time, I’m actually sad I’m not on the subway or in the back of a cab, because if I’m driving, it means I can’t pull her close and hug her until she stops crying.

  “Oh, baby...hey...fuck...” I trail off. I can’t cuss her tears away. My hand falls off the gearshift, and I grapple for hers. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d like it.”

  She sniffs and wipes at her eyes. “I––I do like it. I love it. So mu
ch.”

  I glance at the picture in her lap, with its carved wood frame I found at a flea market in Chelsea. It’s not much, but I thought it would look good with the rough charcoal. I’m no real artist, but it seems to have hit its mark. In the last three weeks, things have been good between us, but she’s pulled back a bit. I get it. I probably have too. Sometimes she’d look at me, and I’d see a glimmer of that heat, that emotion that I suspect is always going to be between us. She’d look like she wanted to say something. Those three words, the three words I’ve been keeping back since...well, since I met her, I guess.

  But it would only last a moment, because then she’d turn away, and we’d be back to casual and carefree.

  Inwardly, I’m shaking my head. I’ve been crazy about this girl from the moment I saw her. This is some Romeo and Juliet shit going on. But I know this is right, even if it hurts. I can’t stay here anymore. And she can’t come with me.

  Layla finally touches the drawing, and I smile a little. I needed to tell her how I felt, somehow. I think maybe now she can see it.

  ~

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Layla

  We wander around the museum for a few hours, taking our time with the paintings and the tapestries and all of the other medieval art that’s there. It’s three o’clock on a Tuesday, so we’re basically the only ones at The Cloisters. Nico’s never more than a few inches away from me, his hands always touching somewhere: my hand, my waist, the back of my neck. We say little, just enjoying each other’s company. Every time we stop in front of another piece, he slips his arms around my waist and knots his fists there so he can rest his chin on my shoulder. I have no idea what the last five pieces are that we’ve looked at, because every time he does it, I just close my eyes, relishing the feel of his cheek, warm and slightly scratchy against mine, or his unique scent, soap and some sort of musk that’s only Nico.

  I try not to think about the fact that this is the last day I’ll ever do this. I try not to count down the times I’ll get to feel his warmth around me.

  I fail miserably.

  We wander past the unicorn tapestries, and I find that I can’t even look at them. In some way, I had known even on our first day that I wasn’t going to be able to keep this beautiful man. The caged animal reminds me of the fact that Nico is going to be free. It makes me feel a little better. Only a little.

  “You hungry?” he murmurs as one hand drifts down my arm and grasps my fingers.

  I nod. “A little.”

  My stomach is actually in knots––I doubt I could eat anything today. But Nico doesn’t like it when I don’t take care of myself. Since I ended up in the hospital, he started bringing me snacks and water every time he saw me. Karen actually got mad at how much food I had stashed behind the receptionist desk.

  “There’s a cafe downstairs,” Nico says, and leads me to the basement level of the museum.

  He buys us a bottle of water to share and a chocolate chip cookie, and we carry them outside into the small cloister garden. We sit down on the wide stone wall that overlooks the Westside Highway, the Hudson River, and New Jersey beyond that. West. Where we’re both going, but not together.

  “Here,” Nico says as he pulls the cookie out of the bag and breaks it in half. I nibble on my piece, but it tastes like sawdust. I hate that we’re here. I hate that this day is here.

  “Come on, baby,” Nico cajoles. “You gotta be hungry since you skipped lunch.”

  I just look out toward the river. It’s a much different scene from the last time we were here. It’s spring now, and the park that the museum looks over is covered by trees in full bloom. All shades of green line the river bank on either side, muffling the sounds of cars. A warm breeze sweeps through the courtyard every so often. It’s a beautiful spring day, but the sound of the wind rustling the leaves sounds like crying. It sounds like how I feel.

  The wind causes my hair to fly around and into my face; I’m glad, because it hides the tears that are threatening to fall again. Don’t go. The words sit on my tongue, waiting to be said. It’s selfish, but a part of me wishes he had brushed off my order. A part of my heart is breaking because I’m not enough for him to stay.

  Nico reaches over and brushes the hair out of my face, but the wind just tosses it back into my eyes. He pulls off his cap and sets it backwards on my head with a smirk. But his lopsided smile disappears when he catches my unguarded face. The regret I see there, the concern, the––dare I say it?––love, breaks my heart all over again. And finally, my tears begin to fall.

  “Aw, baby,” he murmurs as his thumb brushes across my cheek, wiping one tear away, then another.

  The sweet gesture doesn’t do anything but make them come even more. I don’t move, don’t even try to make them stop. Just like the first time we met, I’m frozen––by his touch, by the depth in his eyes, by everything about him.

  Nothing else in my life seems as real as this man. Washington feels a million miles away––am I really going back there tonight? California––what’s that? School, my friends, all of the vibrant things I’ve seen and done since living in this city...everything pales next to him.

  What am I going to do without you?

  Nico leans in, his hand still cupping my cheek, and presses an impossibly soft kiss on my lips. He starts to move away, but I pull him back, and the kiss slowly morphs into something so much deeper. We savor each other, tongues twisting, lips drinking, hands grasping, but slowly, slowly. This is a kiss that’s saying everything our voices can’t. I feel it, and I think Nico does too.

  When I pull away, his eyes are wet and shining, and his breath is haggard. I lean in and kiss him once more, echoing the soft touch of his first one. Full circle, over and over again.

  “I think,” he starts when I pull back. His voice is choked. “I think we should go. Layla...Jesus. I need you so fucking bad right now.”

  My chest expands. I nod.

  “Let’s go,” I whisper.

  ~

  We say little as Nico drives us back to Lafayette, even less as I sign him into the nearly-empty building and escort him up to my room. The apartment is bare––nothing in the kitchen, no sheets on the plastic-covered mattresses. All my things are boxed up, ready to be taken into storage or in the duffel bags I’m bringing home with me.

  As soon as the door closes behind us, Nico pulls me into him, wrapping me into a kiss so painfully deep that I can’t think of anything else. Our hands are everywhere, pulling off each other’s clothes like butterflies shedding their chrysalises. Nico walks me backward to the couch and gently pushes me down. But then he stops when I lie back, naked. His gaze drifts over me, like he’s trying to memorize the curves of my body. Then his dark eyes blacken as he kneels in front of me and lays his head on my stomach.

  My hands drift over the smooth skin of his shoulders, tracing the tattoos that cover one side.

  “Don’t forget about me, okay?” he says in a voice so low I almost can’t hear it. But that baritone rumbles against my skin.

  Before I can answer, he presses kisses over my navel, drifting down over my hip bones, over the soft skin of my inner thighs. The light stubble scratches the sensitive skin, and my hips jerk a little at the feel of it. His tongue and lips drift to my center, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves that makes my thoughts stop completely.

  My fingers weave into his thick hair while he licks softly. His eyes are closed, and I watch him work in a trance, as if he’s committing this most intimate taste to memory too.

  My body starts to shake, and I can’t keep my gaze straight anymore. I fall back into the couch cushions as Nico picks up his pace, humming a little as he goes, like someone tasting exotic chocolate or their favorite foods.

  “Please,” I whimper, although for what, I’m not sure. Please let me come? Please stay? Please...

  “Let go,” Nico says, his breath warm and his voice low. “Let me feel you let go, Layla.”

  The sound of my name, when usua
lly I’m “sweetie,” “baby,” or “NYU,” is my undoing. My body seizes, and suddenly I’m no longer preparing to lose the first person I’ve ever really loved in my short life. Right now, I’m flying.

  “Nico!” I cry, my hands grasping at the pillows, at his hair, at anything to keep me anchored as one orgasm flies through me, and then, almost as suddenly, another in quick, body-wrenching spasms.

  And it’s only when the last gut-wrenching tremor has rippled through every cell in my body that Nico presses his nose into that most intimate part of me, inhales deeply, and then lifts himself up to kiss me gently. I can taste myself on his lips, on his tongue. The knowledge of it makes me shiver.

  “I...” I say in between long, languid kisses. “I...”

  But the words won’t come. Not the ones I want to say. The ones my heart is too scared to admit anymore.

  “I know,” Nico says softly in between kisses. “I know, baby.”

  Then he reaches down and grabs a condom from his pants. I shouldn’t do this––I know I shouldn’t––but I stop him, pull the condom away, and toss it to the floor.

  “It’s okay,” I say softly. “I’m on the pill.”

  Nico’s brow furrows adorably. “I––you don’t have to––”

  “I’m safe,” I tell him. “I was tested last month at the hospital.”

  Nico gulps. “I was, too, just after we met.”

  I pull him into me. I close my eyes as he nudges at my entrance. It’s stupid, but just once, I’d like to know there’s nothing between us.

  “You sure?” he asks, even as he pushes in slightly. There’s pain in his voice––he wants this as badly as I do.

  I raise my eyes to meet his, and neither of us can look away.

  “I’m sure,” I whisper.

  Slowly, he fills me, one solid inch at a time. The muscles in his arms––the cut lines of his biceps, forearms, triceps, even in his chest––tremble with the effort to go slow.

  “Jesus,” he whispers as he seats himself completely. “You feel so fucking good, Layla.”