Therapy. Self-defense. It’s only been a week since our explosive reunion at Frank’s, but already I feel like I’m on a better path forward. My fears haven’t totally faded––not even close. But I’m feeling stronger. Like maybe one day I can chase them away.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It was moved to five, so Nico will be there. And I think Gabe and Maggie are planning to come too.”
“You’re not alone here, dude,” Shama says, like she knows what’s going through my head. “You have Special Delivery. You’ve got his family too. It’s not just you.”
I shake my head. “He hates being called that, you know.”
“I know. It makes me want to do it more now. But seriously, he is kind of special, you know? It fits.”
I smile. It’s true. Nico is special––he’s been special since he delivered himself into my life. Inwardly, I can see Nico shaking his head even as his dark eyes dance. Mumbling, Baby, you are corny as fuck, even as he leans in for a kiss. The thought just makes me smile more.
“Wear something blue,” Shama says. “To make your eyes pop. Then stare that dickhead down as they cart his ass back to jail, say good fucking riddance, and move on with your life.”
I nod. She makes it sound so easy. “I’ll do my best.”
~
At five o’clock, the court, of course, is running late. And so is everyone else. There are several cases being tried today at city hall, and the small gallery is mostly full. Giancarlo is being held in the back, waiting for the bailiff to call his name, and I’m alone in the third row of the gallery, my arms wrapped around my waist, feeling much colder than I should in an overheated room full of people.
“It’s in your favor,” the DA said earlier in the week when she called to inform me about the sentencing date. “You never know what a jury is going to do, but I doubt this one will be lenient.”
They chose to prosecute for drug crimes instead of domestic violence, since it was easier to prove, and on top of that, the fact that Giancarlo’s wounds from Nico had been much worse than the ones I had incurred from Giancarlo made it difficult to prosecute him on that account. He hadn’t shown any desire to file charges against Nico, considering the number of witnesses there. But the drugs in the closet were another story adding up to charges of possession, intent to distribute, and trafficking.
The second hand on my watch ticks while I wait––the watch I can’t ever look at without remembering how it was taken from me. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait some more. As the courtroom murmurs rise, the colder and colder I feel. I start to rock slightly.
“The here and now,” I whisper to myself, keeping my eyes closed. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take, and it hasn’t even started. “The here and now.”
“Hey, baby.”
I open my eyes to find Nico filing into the bench seats, with Maggie and Gabe right behind him. Warmth blooms inside me. Thank God.
Nico wraps an arm around me and pulls me in for a kiss. “You okay? You look a little freaked out over here.”
I snuggle into his arms, which I swear have gotten even bigger over the last few months. He’s come straight from the academy, still in the uniform, which under normal circumstances, would excite me. He smells slightly of smoke, sweat, and men’s deodorant. It’s the best smell in the world.
“How was the day?” I ask after I wave hello to Gabe and Maggie.
“Fine, just fine. Two more weeks, and we’re done.” He sighs and leans back against the bench. “I can’t wait. Oh, by the way, they’re getting things together for the graduation. You, um, you don’t want to come, do you?”
I turn so I can look at him in the face.
“Of course I’m coming to your freaking graduation, you goon,” I tell him.
Nico breaks into a wide smile that injects another shot of warmth into my chilled heart. He practically glows as he kisses me again. It’s a chaste kiss––after all, we’re in the middle of a courtroom––but it’s full of promise of something more later. This is what love is supposed to feel like, I remind myself. Where you feel joy for your partner and only want them to succeed. Where their victories feel like your own. I hope I never forget that again.
But as Nico settles back into his seat again and pulls me close, a bit of tension vibrates through his broad shoulders. It takes me a few minutes to figure out what it is.
“Is this…is this where you were sentenced?” I wonder, looking around the room.
Nico glances down at me, clearly surprised.
“No,” he says, but the flash in his eyes and his quiet, resigned tone tell me I was right on the money for asking. “It was at the family court in Brooklyn. They handle most of the juvenile offenses there.”
“Was it a lot like this, though?” I ask, looking around the room.
It’s a lot like the courtrooms you see on TV: a few rows of pew-like bench seating, a barricaded area for the lawyers and the judge, and a few other designated spots for the jury.
There’s a long pause. I almost think he’s not going to say anything.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “It did.”
We sit there together silently, collectively lost in thought while Maggie and Gabe are chatting about who’s going to babysit Allie next week while Maggie goes to a job interview. I assume Nico’s remembering that day when his life changed forever––the day he officially became the criminal so many think he is.
Except he’s not, I think as I toy with the FDNY stitching on his rolled-up, navy-blue sleeve. And honestly, he never really was. I wonder sometimes if the perception of Nico as a criminal is more in his own head than anyone else’s––the residue of a single mistake. He’s been the savior of so many in his life––his family, his mother. Me. And in just over two weeks, he’ll be a bona fide public servant, one of the good guys. The fact has made a visible difference too. He walks different now. Straighter. Taller.
Nico twists some of my hair around one finger, playing with it the same way I’m playing with his sleeve. I don’t know if it’s just because we’re getting used to each other, but I like to think that maybe it’s our new normal. I like the constant touching. It provides comfort in a world where I so frequently feel alone. His presence makes me feel like I can overcome almost anything. Maybe both of us will be able to say goodbye to something dark in our pasts today.
“Layla?”
We swivel to the left, to where a woman in a bland gray suit beckons me. I recognize her voice––Dana Delaney, the district attorney who’s been prosecuting the case. She gestures for us to follow her out of the courtroom just as the bailiff calls for everyone to stand, and another defendant enters the room. Maggie and Gabe follow us out, but give us an extra few feet of space.
Outside, we’re eclipsed by the echoing stone corridors of city hall. The DA ushers Nico and me to a quiet corner and gives me a regretful look.
“He took a plea,” she says frankly, flipping a pen between her fingers. “It’s done.”
Everything in me wilts. I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d been counting on this. A moment to face him, my attacker, and put the demons to rest while the jury gave him what was coming to him. He was going to be served justice. He just had to be. I had been building myself up for this all week. And for what? To be told in the end that he was going to walk away?
“What’s the plea?” Nico’s strong, deep voice, breaks through my internal cacophony. He pulls on the bill of his hat, and it doesn’t escape me the way the DA’s gaze flickers appreciatively over his broad, trim body.
“It was last minute,” she says. “But the Argentinians came through for him. It’s complicated, involving a four-part exchange that basically gets the U.S. government a nasty member of a Mexican drug cartel in exchange for some intelligence and Giancarlo. I can’t really go into details, but what you need to know is that his trial is going to Argentinian courts, and he’s being escorted to the next flight out of New York.” She shrugs. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you th
at his father had a bit to do with it.”
I wilt even further. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this means salvation for Giancarlo. He’s the son of one of the wealthiest families in Buenos Aires, and his father has his fingers in plenty of politicians’ pockets there. He’ll get a slap on the wrist, if he’s even tried for anything to begin with. So much for justice.
I sag into Nico’s side, and he mutters a few expletives under his breath. It was all for nothing.
“Hey.” The attorney pulls my attention back. “He won’t be allowed back in the country. As far as the USA is concerned, he’s a persona non grata. The marshals are escorting him to holding now. That’s something.”
Nico’s hand squeezes my shoulder.
I nod. “Yeah. It is.”
A heavy door down the hall opens, and as if on cue, Giancarlo comes out, rubbing his wrists that must have been cuffed moments ago. He’s flanked on either side by two agents––likely the marshals the DA was just talking about.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Giancarlo spits as one of the marshals tries to escort him via the elbow. He shakes the man off as they walk toward the exit.
I’m frozen as I watch him, and next to me, Nico stiffens. As if he knows I’m there, Giancarlo straightens and turns his head.
“You!” he shouts from across the hall.
Nico starts in front of me, but for some reason I push him back. Giancarlo points a finger toward me, and like he’s suddenly acquired some kind of superhuman strength, breaks free of his captors and comes charging toward me at a run.
“You have ruined me!” he shouts. “You stupid whore! Do you know what will happen to me in Buenos Aires? Do you know what my father will do?”
He lunges forward, and beside me Nico tenses like a spring, his fists balled, one foot shifting automatically as Giancarlo approaches. The marshals sprint to catch up.
But before Nico can pounce, my right arm shoots out like a snake and strikes him in the belly. Giancarlo isn’t hard like Nico––he’s long and lean, but was always a little soft. The last thing he expects is for my fist to catch him in the belly, and the effect causes him to keel over immediately, like he’s had the wind knocked out of him.
“Bitch!” he wheezes even as he drops to the floor, clutching his stomach. “You will pay for that!”
“No,” I state clearly, staring down at him. “You don’t get to hurt me anymore.”
With a black look, Giancarlo scrambles to his feet, but before he can lunge again, the marshals grab him by both arms and haul him away, this time in handcuffs.
“You ruined me!” Giancarlo shouts again and again, his voice a chorus down the arched stone hall.
I open my mouth to reply, but think better of it, only now letting Nico tug me back against his chest so he can wrap a strong forearm around me. We watch silently as the marshals hustle Giancarlo down to the other end of the hall, out the double doors, and New York, with its incessant noise and constant movement, swallows him up.
~
As if he knows that I need some kind of outlet, Nico takes me up to Frank’s, where we spend the next hour grappling, fighting the demons that seem to follow us wherever we go. Despite the “knock-out” I managed to deliver in city hall, I feel even more defeated.
Giancarlo’s gone. I’ll never see him again.
But strangely, I still feel some compassion for him, regardless of what he did. I did care about him once. Giancarlo isn’t totally evil––some terrible darkness swallowed him up, but from time to time I saw glimpses of vulnerability. It was that vulnerability that made me stay with him for as long as I did, but now I find myself wondering what made him the way he is. Where his darkness came from to begin with.
It’s well past eight by the time Nico and I flop back on the mat after over two hours of sparring together. He’s taught me several other moves I could use in the event of another attack, although I think it’s more to soothe his own worries than mine. He’s been quiet all night, letting me process the events at the courthouse, but also maybe processing his own responses. There was no vicious lovemaking on the mat this time around. It was all business; we barely spoke, going at it until we were both literally falling down from exhaustion.
“You want to get something to eat, sweetie?” Nico asks as we exit the gym.
I nod, taking his hand. I’m hungry, and we can pick up something quick. But I have something else in mind first.
I tow us down Ninth Avenue until I find the exact thing I’m looking for.
“A tattoo parlor?” Nico looks at me, confused. “Seriously?” He fingers my hand, then drops it so he can cup my cheek. “Tattoos…they don’t go away, baby.”
I lean into his touch. The warmth that has nothing to do with his body temperature seeps through me, balm to my wounds, thaw to my frozen insides. Nico heals me, just like he always does. Just like he always will.
“I need to do something more,” I say. “Something that makes this day more than just about the day my ex tried to kill me. Again.”
Nico’s mouth is a straight line. “He wouldn’t have touched you. I would have killed him first.” Then he looks down. “I don’t know if today is the best day to be making snap decisions, NYU. Especially with something permanent.”
I shake my head. I’m saying this wrong.
“It’s not like that. It’s more like…” I tip my head to the side, trying to come up with the right words. I tug down Nico’s shirt collar so I can see the edge of the big compass tattoo over his heart. “Why did you get this?”
He’s told me this story, but he reiterates it anyway. “It was to remember,” he says. “Not to lose track of who I was. My direction.”
“Do you remember my bruises? The cuts on my face?”
His face darkens. “How could I forget?”
I chew on my lip. “This city, other people. My dad. Giancarlo. Other people marked me. Today, I want to mark myself. I want the next intense thing I feel to be because I wanted it, not because someone else did it to me. Does that make sense?”
Nico watches me for a moment, his black eyes burning under the streetlight. “You want control,” he says softly, in a voice that’s almost dangerous.
Slowly, I nod.
Nico examines me for a few more moments, like he’s trying to figure out some other puzzle about me. Finally he nods back and pulls the brim of his Yankees hat down low.
He glances at the shop, then takes my hand. “If you’re going to do this, we’re doing it right,” he says. “Come on. I know a much better place.”
~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nico
Fifteen minutes later, we’re standing in front of the tattoo shop on Second Avenue where my friend Milo has worked since we finished high school. Milo did my ink back then too, when he was an apprentice still learning his trade. Most of the art on my shoulder and half sleeve was me providing a canvas for him to practice on. I’d sketch, he’d trace, and I’d zone out on his table, half-enjoying the pinch of his needle. I figured I was already a fuckup, so I might as well get some badass art to look like it. My mom freaked when she first saw the swirling lines that Milo put all over my shoulder and arm. She said it made me look like a thug.
“Isn’t that what I am?” I asked her at the time.
“No,” she replied, in both Spanish and English so I’d know she really meant it. Even if it’s the same word in both languages, my mother has a way of making them sound different. Again and again and again.
Turns out, of course, that she was right. But I didn’t really believe it until I met the girl standing next to me, a person in the same exact place I was when I stood outside these doors, back for Milo to put the compass on my chest. I had just gotten my first legit job, the one with FedEx. I wanted something that was mine.
I don’t regret any of my tattoos, and I’ll probably get more one day. They’re a map of who I am, who I thought I was, what I wanted. Reminders of a life I wanted to put behind me, and another I
wanted to have. If Layla wants that grounding, I’ll help her get it. And I won’t have her do it alone.
The bell above the door to the shop jingles when we enter. A white girl with blue hair, dime-sized gauges in her ears, and skinny arms full of multicolored tattoos, some of which I recognize as Milo’s designs, is paging through a book at the glass counter.
She gives us both a bored look. “Can I help you?”
“Is Milo free?” I ask. Layla drifts away to check out the tattoo designs on the walls
“WHO THE FUCK IS THAT?” A loud voice calls from behind the red curtains that protect the rest of the shop from prying eyes.
I roll my eyes at the gauges girl. “Looks like he found us.”
She shrugs and turns back to her magazine. Layla comes to my side as Milo charges through the curtain in the doorway.
Average height, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a red backward Giants hat, Milo looks pretty much like your average Irish kid, with the exception of one thing: everything but his face is completely covered in tattoos––including his fingers and neck.
“What the fuck. Nico fuckin’ Soltero––how you been, man?”
I slap my friend’s palm and let him pull me in for a quick embrace before he steps back to look me over.
“I heard about you and the FDNY,” he says, noticing my uniform. “That’s the shit, Nico. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, man.” I shrug, like it’s no big deal, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get tired of hearing people say this. Talk to me with that kind of admiration. Beside me, Layla grins. Yeah, I’ll never get tired of that either.
“And who’s this?” Milo sticks a hand out to Layla, who shyly takes it. “How’re you doin’?”
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