“Nico?”
Her voice, that voice I’ve only heard over a scratchy phone connection every Sunday, cuts through the room like a knife. Everyone goes silent, and my brother and sisters fall off me like the skin of an onion, breaking a natural path from me to the kitchen. My mother stands in the doorway, winding a dishtowel tightly around her hand.
She looks the same as I last saw her when we said goodbye in the courtroom. Young, too young to have three teenagers and a ten-year-old, her oldest––me––almost grown. Small and sturdy, with dark skin the color of coffee with just a touch of milk. Big, almost black eyes that she gave to all of her kids, fringed with thick lashes. Bristly dark hair threaded with gray, pulled into a small, tight knot at the base of her neck. The same grubby apron I’ve seen all my life covers the hand-me-down clothes she gets from Alba.
“Hola, Mami,” I whisper, lapsing into the Spanish I’ve barely spoken in two years. The feel of it on my tongue is strange and familiar at the same time. “I’m home.”
She blinks, and I see the wet of tears cloud her big eyes. The sight of it almost makes me tear up too. My mother doesn’t cry. This is a woman who has seen some rough shit in her life, way worse than this building, this neighborhood. This is a woman who was smuggled across the Caribbean in a raft when she was two and orphaned in the process. Who has worked her ass off her entire life to make sure her kids don’t have to go through the things she did, and who didn’t even cry when her oldest son fucked up and was taken away in handcuffs.
But now I’m back. And it’s my mother’s face, crumpling the way it does, that finally breaks through this shell I’ve built over the past two years.
“Ven pa’ca.”
She gestures hurriedly, and in a second, I’ve dropped my bag, wrapped her in my arms, and pulled her close. She smells the same: like air freshener and rice and wool sweaters. Her tears come––I can feel them on my shoulder. She shakes. I’m surprised. I don’t remember her being this small.
“Ay, nene,” she says into my rough t-shirt, over and over again in Spanish. “Papito Nico.” My baby boy.
“I’m home, Mami,” I tell her in a low voice, more than once so she’ll remember. Or maybe it’s so I’ll remember. “I’m home.”
My heart is full, like a cup that’s been bone-dry for years, set out in a rain. And then, just as quickly, it’s emptied again, kicked over as a shadow falls across me and my mother.
“Nico,” he says.
Some things do change. My shoulders tense. His voice isn’t as deep as I remember.
“Good to have you back, man.”
I release Ma and look up. Like hers, the eyes of David Esteban Martin Sanchez––names I’ll never forget because of the way he used to make me repeat them in time with his belt buckle––haven’t changed. They are deep brown with flecks of gray––a dull steel that doesn’t cut through the room, but saws, over and over again.
He seems smaller than before, even though he still has about three inches on me. A native New Yorker from the South Bronx, David has always talked about this city like it belongs to him more than anyone else. He’s not my dad, who cut out before I was even born. Not even my stepdad, since my mother can’t get married. David is Gabe’s father, and the dude who keeps coming back to this family for the last ten years like a bad cough we can’t get rid of.
Memories start popping off in my head, like a camera flash that’s stuck. Gabe crying in the corner. David with his fist lightly curled. Eyes like murder as he chased my mother into the bedroom with a folded belt. The screams the door could never block out.
Two years ago, he had at least eight inches on me and fifty pounds. Two years ago, I might have flinched under his sharp gaze, knowing that when I spoke up, he’d turn those fists, that belt, on me. But now I’ve dealt with enough shit that David’s fists and belt don’t scare me anymore. I look at him straight on, and this time, he’s the one who looks away first.
“That’s right,” I say. For the first time, I’m aware of just how low my voice has become. “I’m back.”
~
Click here for your free, full-length copy of Broken Arrow.
Other Works by Nicole French
The Spitfire Series
I had a plan.
Finish law school. Start a job. Stay away from men like Brandon Sterling. Cocky, overbearing, and richer than the earth, he thinks the world belongs to him, and that includes me.
Yeah, no. Think again.
It doesn’t matter that his blue eyes look straight into my soul, or that his touch melts my icy reserve. It doesn’t even matter that past all that swagger, there’s a beautiful, damaged man who has so much to offer beyond private planes and jewelry boxes.
But I had a plan: no falling in love.
I just have to convince myself.
Keep reading for the first three chapters of Legally Yours, Book I of the Spitfire Series
Chapter 1
I glanced over the top of my cubicle toward a window about ten feet away. Snow was coming down hard, in big, fat flakes that shone white against the black night and stuck to the pane whenever a sudden gust of wind slammed into the building. I looked at the clock on the opposite wall and sighed. You’d never know by the looks of the office that it was almost 9 p.m.
“The Pit,” as everyone called the group of cubicles that housed temps and interns, included a pod of hopeful, over-achieving, third-year law students like myself. The four of us still had one week left on the job. After working the standard summer internship at Sterling Grove’s full-service firm, I had been asked, along with the other three interns, to stay on when the firm took on a major trial case. The trial had finished up last week, and the firm had won, with some thanks due to the countless hours Steve, Cherie, Eric, and I had put in over the last four months. Our hard work paid off when we were offered full-time positions after we finished school and passed the bar exam. It was no small carrot—the firm was one of the largest in Boston, and the positions some of the most coveted for any new grad.
But unlike the other interns, I wasn’t actually sure I wanted to work at Sterling Grove. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a good firm (despite the first-year associate hours that would be undoubtedly hellacious). There was simply something missing. Two and a half years ago, I had left a job in investment banking for law school, hoping to find a career that would make me feel, well, complete. Law had seemed like a good idea. It was lucrative, analytical, and I had the potential to do more for the world than just stockpiling money. And upon starting my classes, I quickly learned that I loved the philosophical side of justice just as much as the practical. Law school was a practice of existing somewhere in the middle.
The difficulty was in choosing a focus. Two and a half years later, when most of my classmates already had jobs locked for the following year, I still had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do with my degree. I had excelled in my classes and attracted three job offers already, but had turned down all of them. Although I was interested in almost everything I had participated in, nothing made me feel that “oomph,” that one hundred percent knowledge that this was what I was supposed to do. Two and a half years later, I was still looking.
“I see you looking for a cab, Crosby.”
A pair of thick black glasses, bright white teeth, and a mop of curly black hair popped over the cubicle barrier. I smiled, careful to avoid my co-intern’s eyes.
“I’m not looking for anything, Steve,” I said. “Anyway, I’m not sure I’m going either.”
“What?!”
Steve Kramer, a student at Boston College, looked around briefly to make sure none of our supervising associates were in the common room before skittering around to sit on my desk, disregarding the legal pad under his butt. The two temps who shared my cubicle glanced up with mild annoyance before leaning back to their work.
“Dude,” Steve said as he grabbed the arms of my desk chair and rolled me to face him. “You gotta come. The trial is finally over. It’s our las
t drunken hurrah as interns together.” He didn’t seem to notice when I immediately rolled back to my original position.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s already so late. Plus, the weather is turning to shit, and I really need to finish this brief tonight.”
“Finishing a brief” was the legal equivalent of telling someone you needed to wash your hair or walk your dog. Unfortunately, for all the promise Steve showed as a cutthroat attorney, he never seemed to clue into basic social cues from women.
“Come on, Crosby,” he cajoled, again pulling my chair close. “I’m not letting you go until you say yes. It’s our only opportunity to celebrate the end of this insane internship. You don’t even have to pay—Cherie knows the owner at Manny’s and can get us comp’d pitchers.”
It wasn’t really the end yet—we still had a whole week. But considering the fact that classes were starting on Monday, it was more fitting to celebrate the end now instead of next Friday, when most of us would be more interested in getting ahead on our reading than tipping back shots.
Manny’s was a well-known bar in Chinatown and just a short cab ride away from the office. I wasn’t much of a drinker, which made me less than excited about going. Nor was I particularly interested in fending off the odious advances of Steve, who had been trying to talk me into a date since September. He was okay-looking, but, like most of the men I’d been out with, just didn’t quite do it for me. Apparently, I seemed to have the same problem with men that I did with choosing a job.
I sighed.
“You know he’s not going to leave you alone until you say yes.”
I glanced over to a neighboring cubicle, where Eric, my classmate and neighboring intern, hadn’t even looked up from his work to make the dry comment. I looked back at Steve, who waggled his prominent eyebrows. I sighed again.
“Fine!” I said and turned back to my desk. “I’m going, I’m going. Can I get back to work now?”
~
We arrived at the tail end of happy hour while the band was finishing their sound check. We weren’t alone—Manny’s attracted the twenty-something young professional crowd of Boston, most of whom consisted of lawyers, bankers, and grad students working around Beacon Hill. The men wore a standard after-work uniform of suit pants and striped, button-down shirts, matching jackets tossed over the backs of chairs and ties loosened as they tossed back cheap beer. The women were dressed much like myself, in pencil skirts or pantsuits, their blouses undone one extra button to make it clear this wasn’t an interview. I kept my buttons where they were.
I filed into the small booth that had been claimed by my cohort and allowed Steve to hang my coat on the hooks next to us. Steve and Cherie jetted off to the bar and returned shortly with a tray full of tequila shots and a pitcher of PBR. Everyone eagerly took one of the shot glasses and the accompanying limes. I was the last to take one after Steve looked pointedly at me. With a quick eye roll, I raised my shot along with everyone else.
“This is the end,” Steve intoned, mimicking the words of Jim Morrison. “My only friend, the end.”
“Shut up and drink,” jeered Cherie.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve protested, stopping everyone from drinking. “I bought the shots, I get to toast. Okay. It’s been a pleasure working with you all, and I’d just like to say: may you finish the year without flunking out of law school in your last semester. May you all succeed and get filthy rich like I know you want to with these overpriced degrees. May you all make name partner within five years. Except not at Sterling, because that’s going to be me.”
We all yelled and threw balled-up napkins and cardboard coasters at him before gulping down the harsh liquor. It was the cheap stuff, of course, but it would no doubt get everyone trashed while liquor was half price. Steve began to dole out PBR-filled pint glasses.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” I said, slipping out of the booth to his obvious disappointment. “Don’t worry, I’m just going to get my own drink.”
“Too good for the blue ribbon, huh?” Steve teased.
“Everyone’s too good for that horse piss,” I retorted with a grin before making my way over to the bar, where I ordered a whiskey with a splash of water.
“Not a PBR fan?”
I turned to find a good-looking guy next to me, leaning against the bar. Like the other men, he also wore a button-down and suit pants, with his sleeves rolled up his forearms to reveal an expensive and ostentatious watch. Flashing with a bright band and even a few small diamonds encrusting the edges, it was the kind of watch meant to tell people he had money. The top button of his shirt was undone, and his dark-blue tie was slightly askew. He was cute, in that young M.B.A. kind of way, with close-cut brown hair and a square, goatee-lined jaw. He also held a glass of brown liquor, which he raised.
“Not so much,” I said as I slipped the bartender my card and nodded that she could cash me out.
“Trevor,” he said, reaching out a hand.
“Skylar,” I said as I accepted the firm handshake. That watch really was bright and shiny. I took a sip of my whiskey and closed my eyes momentarily with pleasure.
“What are you guys celebrating over there?” Trevor asked.
“The end of a trial,” I replied. “We’re all interns at Sterling Grove.”
“Ah,” Trevor said knowingly, although his lack of further response made it clear that he knew little more than the name of the firm. “I’m an analyst over at Chase.”
He said it in a way that was obviously meant to impress me. While he probably didn’t know much about my life, I was extremely familiar with his. One year on Wall Street had been more than enough to convince me I needed to do something for a living that wouldn’t cost my soul and sacrifice others’ in the process.
But despite his occupation, Trevor had a nice face. I was in no hurry to return to Steve’s attention, and after talking with Trevor for two more drinks, I started thinking about other places we might go.
It had been a long time—too long for someone my age who had no attachments and no hang-ups about casual sex. But I would have been lying if I said that any of those encounters were more than barely satisfying. Most of them had simply scratched a strong, primal itch to be with another person, but also ended up with me scratching myself better, later, alone.
It didn’t help that when I did get attached, it was with the worst people on the planet. Out of the two major relationships I’d had, the first, my high school sweetheart, was currently serving time for aggravated assault. Poor Robbie hadn’t stood a chance, growing up with the remains of the Brooklyn mob living within a five-block radius of his house. The second…well, let’s just say I avoided talking about him at all. Patrick’s serial philandering had left a scar that was still fairly raw.
So, my classmates knew me as a loner. But that didn’t mean I wanted it to be that way forever. Just because things hadn’t worked out before didn’t mean they couldn’t in the future.
I looked at Trevor, who was jabbering about some kind of deal he had made that week. He stopped when he found me staring at him.
“Something wrong?” he asked. “You need another drink?”
I looked down at the remnants of my third glass of whiskey, which was nearly empty. I had reached my self-imposed limit for the night, where I was tipsy but wouldn’t be hungover the next morning.
I pushed the glass away.
“Let’s dance,” I said, and held out my hand so he could lead me to the back of the bar, where a bunch of people had started an impromptu dance floor next to the jukebox. As the lazy riffs of “Beast of Burden” came on, Trevor pulled me into his chest and swayed awkwardly and out of sync with the music while Steve, Eric, and Cherie all watched with interest. He smelled like bourbon and body spray, but I enjoyed at least the feel of his arms wrapped tightly around my waist and the muscles of his chest beneath my cheek.
“Hey,” he said as the Stones launched into the chorus the second time. I looked up, and he touched his nose to mine.
> All right, why not? Jagger asked if he was strong enough, and I closed my eyes as Trevor leaned in.
His tongue slipped into my mouth and touched mine before darting out again. He did this again. And then again. It was…not pleasant. Like being kissed by some kind of reptile. When I pulled away, he moved his mouth, rubbery and wet, to my neck before leaning back with obvious, drunken desire gleaming in his muddy brown eyes.
“You’re really hot, you know that?” His words were slightly slurred. “I have a total thing for redheads, and you are at least a nine. Maybe even a ten by Boston standards.”
“Um, thanks,” I muttered. My long red hair, which was wavy, unruly, and roughly the color of an heirloom tomato, was almost always the subject of tired come-ons. I was proud of my natural color, but it was like these guys literally couldn’t see anything but the top of my head.
“You want to get out of here? My place is just off Newbury.” Like Chase, the street name was meant to impress—Newbury was a nice part of town, and expensive.
Five minutes ago, I might have said yes, but I had no intention of having sex with Captain Jabbing Tongue of the Good Ship Sexism that night. I gently untangled myself from Trevor’s grip and was careful not to answer the question. “I’m going to stop in the ladies’ room.”
Trevor nodded happily. “I’ll just go close out my tab, honey.”
I ducked through the crowd back to the booth, where Cherie hooted, and Steve pretended not to notice me.
“I’m heading out,” I told them as I grabbed my coat.
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