It’s a nice way to ignore what just happened out there. You see things like that in movies, but it’s not the same when, in real life, the man you’re lusting over defends your honor. I don’t even care that he just threatened to beat the crap out of some stranger. I don’t care that I should probably have turned around and left. What really scares me is how turned on I was when he did it. That’s what I’m trying to forget.
After ninety straight minutes of dancing, I’m sweaty, tired, and ready for a break. The band is done, and now there’s a DJ who will play until last call, sometime around four. Shama split a while ago to meet up with Jason, and both Quinn and Jamie have cozied up to dance partners of their own, so I won’t be missed. I get a cup of water at the bar, retrieve my coat from where it’s stashed behind a speaker, and head outside to fulfill my promise to Nico.
At this point, the line to get into the club is gone. Nico sits alone on his stool, hands shoved into his pockets while he stares at the concrete, deep in thought. Plumes of white escape his lips and nose as he breathes.
“Cold?” I ask.
He looks up, clearly surprised to see me. And then that grin appears again. I’m really never going to get used to that.
“Nah,” he says. “I could walk across Antarctica in this coat and still be hot. You okay, though? That outfit can’t be too warm.”
I look down to where my open coat reveals my dress. “I’m good. It’s really hot in there right now.”
The chilly wind actually feels refreshing. I shift back and forth on my feet, unsure of what else to say. Usually I’m pretty good at flirting, but with him, it’s like eighty percent of my vocabulary goes on vacation. How am I supposed to charm him if I can’t find words—any words at all?
I look back up to find him watching me intently, and before I know it, I blurt out, “You have a terrific smile, you know.”
That, of course, earns me another ear-splitting grin, which just about makes me lose my footing. Christ, what is happening to me? I look back down and tap the pointed toes of my shoes together. One, two, three. Anything to avoid staring at him like an idiot.
A gloved finger reaches out and tips my chin up so I’m looking into a pair of impossibly dark eyes. This close, I can see that they’re brown, not black. An insanely, chocolatey, dive-into-them dark brown.
Nico’s expression softens. “Thanks, sweetie,” he says gently and drops his hand, almost as if the contact makes him nervous too. “I’m sorry about what happened before. With those guys. I was already pissed off, and when he called you a—”
“It’s okay,” I cut in even while I’m trying not to flush. “Forget about it, really.”
Nico pauses, like he’s not sure whether to believe me. Then he sighs. “Did you like the music?”
I nod. “I did, yeah. Dancehall is really fun. Kind of reminds of samba, a little.”
“You dance samba?”
“Yeah. A little, since my dad is Brazilian. We’ve gone for Carnaval a couple of times. I picked up a few moves.”
Nico scans me up and down, appraising. “Yeah, I can see that. You got a little of the look of some Brazilians I’ve met. You speak Portuguese?”
I flush again. “A little. We, um, didn’t speak it much in the house. My mom doesn’t speak it at all.”
Nico nods again, as if that confirms something untold about me. What, I don’t know.
“Well, let’s see it.”
“See what?”
Nico raises one black brow. “Come on, NYU. You were just telling me how good you can samba. Was that all just talk?”
I giggle. “This isn’t samba music,” I say lamely, earning another raised brow.
“Come on…” he cajoles with another grin. “I’m not going to believe you otherwise.”
“Okay, okay,” I relent. “But only if you do it with me.”
To my surprise, he hops off his stool and holds out his gloved hands. Even through the thick leather, I can feel that electric spark.
“Show me,” he says.
So I do. We move awkwardly through the basic steps, which he keeps trying to dance like they’re salsa. Eventually, though, he gets the rhythm, and I speed up so we roughly match the grinding pace of the dancehall vibrating from inside the club. In Brazilian samba, the feet move so quickly you can hardly discern one step from another—it’s all in the hips. Soon mine are shaking all over the place, and I let go of his hands so I can move forward and back and turn to the music the way my cousins taught me a few years ago, the way I would practice in my bedroom when my parents weren’t home. Nico tries to follow, going faster and faster until finally we trip over each other’s feet, and I topple into his arms.
“Careful!” he exclaims, but we’re both laughing like crazy.
I inhale his scent and am barely able to stand upright when I pull away. Nico resumes his seat and looks me over, like he’s checking to see if everything is in order. I pull nervously at my skirt.
“Okay, NYU,” he says as he chuckles. “I guess you really are Brazilian. You move like one, anyway.”
Inside, I feel a twinge. Is that what I am? I never felt like it until I moved here and everyone insisted on it.
“What about you?” I ask, diverting the attention from me. “What kind of name is Nico?”
“It’s short for Nicolás Soltero,” he pronounces. “I’m a mutt too, like you. My mom’s, um, Puerto Rican, and the other half is Italian, Puerto Rican, and some other stuff too. I grew up with my moms, though, so her side’s the only one that really matters.”
“You never saw your dad?” I blurt out, aware too late of how rude my question is.
Nico’s dark eyes grow even darker, but he gives me a rueful smile.
“No, sweetie, I didn’t,” he says kindly. “He ran with some bad dudes, got locked up before I was born. I don’t know where he is now. But...whatever. It’s in the past.”
An awkward silence grows as we stare at each other. Anything that comes to mind to say seems completely inadequate and ignorant. In my suburban existence, I’ve never really known anyone who lived a truly hard life as a kid. Even in Brazil, my only real exposure to poverty came from the inevitable drives through the slums that surround all the major cities. We didn’t actually spend time there.
“Are you close to your mom?” I ask.
Nico gives me that rueful smile again and nods, suddenly absorbed with picking lint off his jeans. “Yeah, she still lives in Hell’s Kitchen, in the same apartment I grew up in. My sisters and I go over there on weekends.”
“How many sisters do you have?”
“Just two.”
“Younger or older?”
“Younger. Everyone’s younger than me. And they are total bitches too, let me tell you.”
I have to laugh at the matter-of-fact way he says it, but honestly, I’m jealous. I’m an only child, and it was a bit lonely growing up without much family in Washington.
“It’s great you are all close, though,” I say. “I bet your mom likes it, too.”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything. We stand together for a moment more until I shiver and zip up my coat. The post-dancing heat has definitely worn off, and the chill from the river penetrates my clothes more with every gust.
“You should go back in, sweetie,” Nico says. “You look like your lips are gonna turn blue.”
I smile, but nod because he’s right. “Yeah, I should check on my roommates. We’ll probably get going home soon.”
He reaches out and touches my elbow for a second. “Thanks for keeping me company, Layla. And for showing me your dance moves.”
A shiver that is completely unrelated to the cold shimmies down my back.
“Anytime,” I manage, and walk back inside.
A half an hour later, the DJ is starting to slow down. The bar will probably stay open for another hour or more, but the majority of the crowd leaves with us. I look for Nico, but his stool has been moved inside.
“Jeez, he didn’t even say g
oodbye,” sniffs Quinn as we walk to the subway station.
I shrug. He likely had better things to do than search out a bunch of college kids. That we shared a moment together is sufficient for me. Wherever Nico is now on this cold, late night, I hope he’s warm and safe.
Chapter Seven
Layla
I spend most of Sunday trying to get ahead of my reading and assignments for the week. I’ve only had this part-time job for a few weeks, but the suck on my time is starting to get the best of me. I need to be more disciplined.
Sometime around four o’clock, my cell phone buzzes on my desk.
With an annoyed expression, Quinn looks up from her bed, where she’s surrounded by books. “Senhora Barros?”
I nod. Like clockwork, my mom calls every Sunday while my dad lies down for a nap after lunch. I duck out of the room and into the hall, where I won’t disturb anyone. Most students are probably doing the same thing we are, so the normally bustling thoroughfare is empty.
“Hi, Mom,” I answer once my door is shut behind me.
“Hi, honey. How are you this week? How is the paper going?”
When we’d spoken last week, I mentioned a paper that would be due this Monday. I’m not surprised she’s asking about it. She knows sometimes I procrastinate, and one of the conditions of even being in New York is that I maintain straight As. Otherwise, it’s back home and to a state school for me.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Mostly drafted. I have a bit of editing to do tonight, but it shouldn’t take me long.”
I don’t include the fact that I’ve got another hundred pages of reading to get through before I can actually start on it. But I’ll deal.
“Good, good. How are your grades looking this semester?”
She asks me that question every week—I know it’s because my dad makes her. He can’t be bothered to call me directly. Too tied up with work.
I sigh. “It’s still early, Mom, like I told you last week. I won’t really know until I get my papers back and we take our midterms.”
“There’s no reason to be curt, Layla.”
I stifle a groan. Sometimes my mom is the most sensitive person on the planet. According to her, everything out of my mouth should be the equivalent of roses and sunshine. Polite. Demure. But it’s no use arguing either—I learned that a long time ago.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “But there’s really nothing to report. I will let you know when there is.”
Mom sighs prettily. I can just imagine her on the other side of the phone. She’s a timid West Coast princess, raised in Pasadena before meeting my dad while he was studying medicine at UCLA. Dad was the big rebellion of her life, and only because he was a Brazilian medical student instead of an American one. Still a doctor. Still wealthy, conservative, and everything else her family expected of her. He just had an accent, is all.
The story of how they fell in love isn’t well known—not to me, not to anyone—and I suspect it’s because it was a forbidden affair. I don’t know her family well; they never seemed to approve of my dad or me. It doesn’t matter that my dad comes from money too or that his skin is as light as theirs. She was only eighteen when they met; my dad was almost twenty-eight. We see her parents every few years or so, usually when they come to marvel at the big house my dad’s career as a plastic surgeon has bought their daughter. But Dad doesn’t waste time placating his in-laws anymore. He usually has better things to do.
For a minute, I consider telling Mom about Nico. Maybe she’ll get it instead of insisting I get on the first plane back to Seattle. There are some similarities: the age difference, Nico’s ethnic background. The fact that I’m almost as young as she was when she fell in love.
But my parents aren’t happy with each other these days. Once they were in love—their wedding pictures, the shots at the Rio cathedral of my mom drenched in lace and my dad, dashing in his black tuxedo, are a testament to that. But these days they are more indifferent than anything else. I haven’t seen them kiss each other in years, and Mom is usually more concerned with the state of her antiques collection than with her husband. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember.
The only clue to anything beyond their pleasant détente was a comment my mom made when we attended her cousin’s wedding a few years ago. They were another young couple, marrying right out of college. The ceremony was short and sweet, but it wasn’t until the bride tossed her bouquet into a crowd of thrashing bridesmaids that I heard my mother speak to herself.
“No one should get married that young,” she murmured.
Before I could reply, she had located her glass of white wine and found her old friends, her slim, blonde form disappearing through the crowd.
So, I keep my mouth shut while Mom conveys the news from the week: that she has been appointed treasurer of the local Rotary club, that Maura Smith’s son has been accepted to UW with early admission, that Dad is leaving for some kind of conference tomorrow, so he can’t talk just now. I sigh and lean back against the wall. She doesn’t explicitly come out and say it, but my mom is worried about something.
Another Sunday, another absence. Lately it seems like every time I talk to them he’s on his way out of town or working late. In Brazil, it’s common for wealthy men of a certain age and wealth to have mistresses. I remember when one of my cousins mentioned something about their grandfather’s girlfriend and just shrugged when I started to ask about what Mamãe, our grandmother, must have thought. Considering how badly my dad always wanted to be considered American, I hoped he would forego that family tradition.
“Anything else to report, honey? How’s the new job? Any young men you’re interested in?”
I could tell her about Nico now. Part of me wants to. There’s a side of my mom that likes to indulge me. When I had my first boyfriend in high school, she kept the secret for over a month before I told my dad.
Sometimes I tell her about the dates I’ve been on or the guys I meet. Sometimes. But not this one. I’m not ready to be told he’s too old, too poor, too whatever. I’m not ready for the low, shameful sighs that will feel just as harsh as any winter wind.
Besides, there’s nothing to tell.
“Nothing new,” I say. “How’s church?”
She takes my cue like I didn’t just brush her off and starts talking about the Mass this morning. I push ungrateful thoughts of my dad aside and do my best to listen. It’s hard, though, when there are so many things between us that we’d both like to say but can’t.
Nico and I don’t get much of a chance to talk the week after seeing each other at AJ’s. Karen is almost always there to sign for the packages and flirt with him. He catches me glaring at her once and winks when she turns her back. I flush. He just smiles wider. And honestly, I don’t even care that he caught me looking jealous. This bitch is derailing all of my carefully laid plans, and I’m running out of time.
By the time I close the office on Thursday, I’m starting to stress. Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. I know it doesn’t really matter if he asks me out for exactly that day, but I’m my father’s daughter: a goal setter and extremely competitive, even with myself. There is nothing I hate more than losing.
It’s seven forty-five in the morning on Friday, and Jamie and I were up late studying for our tests. Vinny and I are stopping for coffee at Reggie’s, the local café across the street from the College of Arts and Sciences building. Huddled in our parkas in the February wind, we stand in the long line of students snaking out onto the sidewalk. Washington Square Park, the unofficial “quad” of the NYU campus, is a freaking wind tunnel during the winter.
“Relax, kid,” Vinny says. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. There’s plenty of time to let the guy into your pants.”
I bang my palm into my forehead. “Jesus, Vin, it is way too early in the day to be talking about my pants or anyone sneaking into them.”
Vinny snorts. “You make it sound like I’m talking about little trolls who come out at night.”
“Pants trolls?”
“Yeah. They climb in when you’re asleep. Have a party. Brush their hair. Yell at goats. They’re a bunch of little perverts.”
The students in front of us snicker, but we ignore them as the line inches forward. I nudge Vinny, but I’m still laughing.
“You’re such a weirdo,” I say.
I’m practically drooling at the smell of fresh coffee. Coffee is my lifeline, and I haven’t had any yet this morning. Four hours of class per day, working twenty-five hours per week, plus finding enough time to study, work out, and maintain an active social life is exhausting. I need my caffeine.
“Jesus,” I say, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I touch the hollows in my cheeks lightly in my mild horror. “Well, he’s not going to be asking me out with these freakin’ suitcases under my eyes. I look like my grandmother.”
“Whatever,” Vinny scoffs. “It’s still early, and you look fine. Just rub Vaseline under them like my Bubbe does.”
“How do you even know she does that?” The line moves forward again, and at last I’m able to order. “Large Americano, no room,” I say, wincing a bit as I hand over the four dollars to the waifish guy behind the counter. Four dollars is way too much for a cup of coffee, but I just can’t take the battery acid this morning. I need something stronger.
“I don’t know how you drink that without eating anything,” Vinny remarks after putting his own order for white chocolate mocha with caramel on top and a blueberry scone.
I have to laugh; it’s always guys who order the girliest drinks. I empty one sugar packet into my coffee and stir it for a moment before taking a long, satisfying sip.
“No money,” I say as we walk past the other students still waiting for their turn to order. “I’ve told you this before. My parents are paying for tuition and dorm fees, but I have to pay for everything else. That’s food, insurance, transportation, books, spending money…” I tick off each item with my gloved fingers. “And I spent too much already last weekend. So, the choice is food or coffee. If I eat, I fall asleep in class. Coffee, and I’m hungry, but alert. Let me tell you, my folks won’t give a shit that I’m eating well if my grades suck. And my mom always wants me to lose weight anyway.”
Bad Idea- The Complete Collection Page 6
