Bad Idea- The Complete Collection

by Nicole French

  But then again, who’s going to email me?

  A few minutes later, Layla comes back looking cute as fuck in a pair of minuscule cotton shorts and a cotton tank top that makes it more than obvious she’s not wearing a bra. Her hair is pulled back in a long ponytail, one I could easily see myself pulling while I do extremely dirty things to her.

  But not tonight, I remind myself. Fuck. This is going to be torture. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

  I watch curiously as she reaches to the side of the bed and pulls a blue curtain around the wire that I hadn’t noticed suspended from the ceiling. It’s sort of like a hanging shower curtain that surrounds the bed and wraps the two of us with a little bit of privacy. Once we’re immersed in a sheath of darkness, she leans over me, surrounding me with that sweet coconut smell of hers, and switches on her bedside light. It casts a low, ambient glow through the dark blue material.

  I grin. “Nice cave.”

  Layla sits on the bed next to me. “Quinn and I had to rig something in here, if just to preserve our friendship.”

  “I could have used one of these when I was growing up.”

  “Tight quarters?”

  “You could say that. Get under here.”

  She slides in eagerly as I yank back the covers to make room for us both on the narrow mattress. I catch her glancing down my body, pausing briefly on the bulge in my briefs. With a soft hum, she tucks securely into the crook of my arm like she’s meant to be there, laying her head on my chest. She sighs. I sigh. And then, because I just fuckin’ have to, I tip her chin up and kiss her again, another deep, long kiss with just enough tongue to let her know I still want her more than anything, but mostly that I’m just happy to be with her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I tell her again, unable to keep it back.

  My filter is shot to hell with this girl. Her face sees through my damned soul. I have a feeling I couldn’t hide anything from her if I tried.

  She shivers, but I don’t think she’s cold. We lie here, listening to each other breathe in the quiet of the room. The combination of the wine and her warm body next to me soon causes my eyelids to droop.

  “Nico?” she asks in a voice low and sleepy.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Thanks for staying. I...I had a good time.”

  I hug her tighter, enjoying the feel of her legs entwined with mine, the curve of her lower back under my hand. It doesn’t matter how we do it. Together, we just fit. Absently, I brush a kiss over the top of her head. She inhales, then exhales, long and content.

  “Anytime, baby,” I say. And I mean it.

  We both close our eyes. Our heartbeats find a similar rhythm as we drift off to sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  Layla

  I awake the next morning to the sound of the curtain sliding back on the clothesline, and Nico is pulling his pants on. God, he looks even better in the light than he did at night––I don’t think I’ve ever had beer goggles work in reverse before. Now the chiseled muscles of his stomach and chest are in full relief in the morning light, and the black of his tattoos are even more visible. I sigh as the rest of the night comes back to me.

  Most of our “sleep” consisted of more groping and making out under the thick comforter, even after my roommates clambered in sometime after three. It was simply impossible to sleep soundly while pressed against his body. For some reason, the knowledge that Quinn was snoring on the other side of the thin curtain made the gorgeous man feeling me up that much hotter, and I couldn’t find a way to say no to his urgent kisses and roving hands. By the morning, I was no longer in possession of my pajama shorts, although I did manage to keep on my underwear and camisole. It took every iota of willpower I had not to tear off his boxer briefs and mount him like a damn pony at about four a.m.

  But hey, he never promised to be a gentleman. And I never promised to be a lady.

  “Hey,” I say drowsily, knowing I must look like a complete wreck.

  Curly hair rarely ever looks cute first thing in the morning, and in my half-drunken haze, I didn’t take the time to clean the makeup off my face last night either. I glance across the room at the full-length mirror on the closet door, which reveals several curls sticking out from behind my ears like antennas. With a clap, I grope around my desk for another hair band (since my last one was apparently lost in all the activity) and hastily pile my hair into a messy bun. On the bright side, at least none of my makeup is too badly smudged. I’m pretty sure Nico kissed most of it off.

  Nico watches me with an amused smile as he gingerly pulls back the curtain the rest of the way, breaking the sanctuary I built for us last night.

  “Hey, baby,” he whispers.

  Quinn emits a whale-sized snore across the room, earning an amused glance and a chuckle from Nico.

  “Where you going so early?” I ask as I sit up fully.

  Much to my disappointment, he pulls his shirt on over his shoulders and sits down to put on his shoes. “I figured I should leave before your roommates wake up.”

  I glance at the clock on my desk. It’s just past seven. “Nico, there is no way they’re going to wake up before ten. Besides, they won’t care if you’re here. Jamie or Shama, or both, probably have guys in their room too. Come on, it is way too early on a Saturday for you to be rushing out.”

  He smiles again and lies down beside me, and I let him pull my head into his chest for a quick embrace as he kisses my forehead. It’s a sweet gesture, the kind that makes me want to think maybe this means more to him than a casual hookup. God, I hope so.

  “You’re even gorgeous in the morning,” he murmurs. “It’s insane. Who are you? Where did you come from?”

  I push myself to sit up fully and smile over him. “You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Soltero. Take your shoes off. Shirt too. I can make it worth your while.”

  But he shakes his head ruefully and sits back up, then stretches his beanie back over his head. I know it’s cold outside, but it makes me sad. His hair is thick and glossy. I could run my fingers through it all day.

  “I’m really not ditching you, sweetie, I promise. I just have some errands I need to run today, and I’m up, so I figured I’d get them out of the way. Listen…” He traces the cream piping on my eggplant-colored comforter. “Shit…do you want to meet up later this afternoon? I have to work at AJ’s again tonight, but I’d like to see you…if you’re okay with that.”

  It’s the game he’s struggling with; I know because I’m struggling too. It’s not cool to want to see someone so soon—especially not the same day after you’ve hooked up. If you’re the guy, you’re supposed to play it cool, wait a few days until you send the girl a casual text to meet up somewhere. If you’re a girl, well, you’re just supposed to wait, and under no circumstances do you call the guy before he calls you. It sucks. Hard. Hardly anyone actually dates anymore, and if they do, they do their best to downplay it.

  So when he comes right out and tells me that he wants to see me again, I’m over the fucking moon. Calling me the same night he got my number. Taking me out for the first time on Valentine’s Day. Staying the night with me—without even having sex. And now asking for another date in just a few hours? I guess we’re breaking all the rules.

  I try to stifle a wide grin, but it’s a complete failure. My friends always tease me for having such a transparent face. Normally it doesn’t bother me; it’s something that keeps me honest. But in this case, I wouldn’t mind shielding my hand a bit more.

  “Sure,” I reply, trying my best to sound nonchalant. “I don’t have much going on today. I guess that sounds good.”

  Nico raises one black eyebrow. He sees right through me, which only makes me grin harder. “You guess, huh? Well, good, NYU. I’ll call you after I get my stuff taken care of. Say, around four?”

  I nod. He leans in for a brief but thorough kiss, unable to completely subdue a grunt of pleasure before he breaks away.

  “Take care, beautiful,” he s
ays as he draws the curtain back around the bed.

  I fall into my pillow, listening to the sound of his feet tiptoeing through the apartment. The front door only squeaks a little when it opens, but I don’t close my eyes again until it shuts.

  Nico

  After spending the morning fixing the busted pipe under my mom’s sink and listening to her nag at me for wearing jeans to Mass, I finally manage to get out of Hell’s Kitchen to get a haircut and meet up with K.C. for lunch.

  K.C., whose real name is Kevin Carlos, is my best friend. Really, he’s another brother, my twin, since our moms are both from the same part of Puerto Rico. We grew up together in the Kitchen, went to the same elementary school together, high school, ran with the same kids. K.C. and I are ride or die. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for him, and him for me.

  “Whazzup, maricón!” he hollers when I enter our favorite Dominican restaurant up on One-Forty-First and Broadway.

  It’s no different than every other mom and pops’ place in West Harlem, but this one has a cute waitress K.C. likes to flirt with. He’s not allowed to fuck her because we like the chicken here too much.

  “Hey, mano,” I greet him with a slap and a hug. “How’s LA? You missin’ New York yet, motherfucker?”

  K.C. left a year ago for a job out in LA, but he comes back all the time to visit, usually when he’s booked a gig at one of the clubs. I’m proud of my friend. He started out hoofing around boxes of records for some of the early beat boys in our neighborhood, and now he’s really starting to make a name for himself as a DJ. A big radio station just hired him to do their hip-hop programming while he spins at clubs on both coasts.

  “Miss this shitty weather?” K.C. gestures outside, where the snow is piled up on the sidewalks. “Fuck no. Gimme palm trees and beaches. Girls in bikinis, if you please!”

  I pull off my jacket and my hat, eager to get warm. Last night the snow was pretty, but today it’s gray sludge and just causes a bunch of delays. Took me an extra hour just to get up here on the 1 train.

  Lula, the waitress K.C. likes, comes over holding her notepad and rattles off a bunch of insults at him in Spanish. Her dialect is a little different from ours––she moved here from Panama, and I know she gets lost sometimes in the slang that gets thrown around by all the different groups in New York. K.C. always liked to mess with her that way, so now she messes with him.

  “Nico, que quiere?” she asks me after she’s done trading barbs with K.C.

  I order my favorite chicken plate, and she leaves us with a pitcher of Coors Light that K.C. ordered. I roll my eyes.

  “Coño, it’s fuckin’ twelve-thirty,” I say as he pours us both pints. “You don’t think it’s a little early?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” K.C. says. “This is basically water. Stop bein’ a pussy and drink.”

  I just look at the beer skeptically. I still want to get in a workout at the gym before I catch up with Layla. The last time I sparred on a stomach full of beer, I was in the bathroom for an hour puking my guts out. No bueno.

  “Come on, cabrón,” K.C. jeers. “We’re celebrating. Fuck your boxing shit. You ain’t gonna need that when you come to LA with me.”

  “Come again?” I ask, sitting back as Lula brings a water for me. “Gracias, linda. K.C., what are you talking about?”

  K.C. leans over the table, his round white face practically glowing with excitement. It’s funny. He’s never the best-looking dude in the room. Always a little pudgy with skinny arms and a gut, he’s so light-skinned that he looks like he was shipped straight from Spain, which is only more obvious by the fact that he started shaving his head a couple of years ago. Dude looks like the Man in the Moon.

  But K.C.’s energy is contagious. Wherever he goes, he’s the life of the party, because he has this ability to attract everyone’s energy. We’ve been friends our whole lives, getting into trouble together our whole lives. He was always the instigator; I just played along, even if sometimes I paid a higher price.

  “Nico, I did it, man,” he says in a low voice, like he’s telling me a secret. “I got the job.”

  “You got the...oh!”

  A light bulb goes off. It’s the club gig at Venom, the hottest new spot in LA that basically pretends to be New York in the middle of California. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but choosing K.C. to be their DJ every Friday night is a good idea. He couldn’t be more New York if he tried. It also makes him a genuine name in the business.

  “Yo, man, congratulations!” I shoot him a fist bump. “That’s amazing, mano! When do you start?”

  “Next month.”

  Lula brings over our chicken, and K.C. whistles at her as she goes. She looks back with a raised eyebrow. She’s dressed like a million other girls on the block with the gold chain around her neck, her hair pulled into a tight brown bun, and her nails done long with crazy designs on a few of them. If there’s one thing that girls in this neighborhood do, it’s their hair and nails.

  I think about Layla. She was trying to look a little like a girl from the block last night, and it was working for her, no doubt, but I think she looks cuter when she’s a little more low-key, the way she dresses at the office. Even more when she’s wearing barely anything at all.

  “Hey! Earth to Nico. Where the fuck you at, man?”

  I blink. My food is sitting in front of me, untouched. “Sorry. Just lost for a second, I guess.”

  “I know that look,” K.C. says as he shoves a forkful of beans and rice into his mouth. “You got some last night, didn’t you?”

  I don’t say anything, just take a bite of my food. Unfortunately, K.C. can read me like a book.

  “Oh, shit! Was it that NYU girl from the law firm? You finally hit that, bro?”

  Yeah, I told him. K.C. and I don’t have secrets, although right now, I’m kind of wishing we did.

  I just shake my head. “No, no. It’s not like that. We just hung out last night. We had a good time.”

  “Valentine’s Day, man? I can’t believe you fell for that. NYU must have some serious game.”

  I think back to Layla’s interactions this week––the way she tried to flirt with me in the office, but usually got just as tongue-tied as I did. The way her big blue eyes watched my every move. The way her body shook when I touched her.

  No, it might have started a little like a game, just like it always does when you first meet someone. But by the time we were sitting across a table from one another, neither one of us were playing anymore. We were just trying to keep up with what was happening.

  “Oh, shit,” K.C. says, interrupting my reminiscing. He gives me a knowing look as he drains his beer. “It’s like that, huh?”

  I frown and just shake my head. “Nah, man. It’s cool. She’s just cool, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I ignore him and focus on my food. The melt-in-your-mouth chicken doesn’t really taste like anything right now. But I can’t hide from K.C. He knows exactly what I’m thinking and why.

  “Yo, did you tell her about—”

  “No,” I say quickly. “It hasn’t come up.”

  There’s another long look from my friend.

  “Nico, if you changed your mind, I kinda need to know,” K.C. says. “They can find somebody else, but you can’t blow them off last minute.”

  I stab at my chicken. I really don’t want to talk about this right now. I managed to stop thinking about it all night last night, and I really don’t want to worry about it today when I see Layla again. It occurs to me that maybe I should just call it off. That maybe I should tell her I thought about it, and the timing’s no good. That I can’t get into a relationship right now.

  But then I remember the fact that when we kissed, it was like a lightning bolt ran through both of us. That when she touches me, my heart and my cock feel like they’re going to explode. I already know she isn’t someone I’m going to be able to ignore for the next three months. Not when I’ll be seeing her beautiful face
every damn day.

  Maybe there’s a way around it. Layla’s a girl who seems down for a good time. Shit, she and her friends built curtains around their beds. Don’t tell me that’s just because they like to sleep with privacy. I know the truth, even if the thought of Layla bringing another guy back to her room makes me want to cut someone.

  But it also makes me remember the score. For a girl like her, I’m just a good time, nothing else. I need to remember that.

  “You don’t have to worry,” I assure K.C. “Nothing’s changed.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Layla

  “I don’t know how you talked me into this today,” I grumble as I leave the cycling studio at the Student Athletic Center. “You guys were out later than me. I was counting on you just wanting to sleep all day and ply your hangovers with coconut water.”

  “A workout a day keeps the goddamn cellulite away, babe,” Quinn quips far too cheerily for my taste as she takes a large drink of said coconut water.

  Her mom, the pearl-wearing wife of a state senator in Massachusetts, is so hyped about Quinn’s relatively new workout obsession that she sends her daughter a crate of the stuff every month to keep her hydrated on the treadmill. I don’t know. Regular water always worked for me.

  We are both covered in sweat after hauling through a grueling spinning class at the Student Center. Despite her snoring, Quinn bounced out of bed just after eight and yanked me out the door with her to class so that Jamie could have some time alone with the guy who had escorted her home the night before. Shama, it turned out, had just gone home with Jason.

  “You could also say it’s payback for not letting me get a glimpse of Mr. Perfect,” Quinn says with a smirk. “I had to listen to you getting busy with FedEx Guy all fucking night, and I don’t even get a glimpse of his ass come morning? So not fair, babe.”

  I smile, happy that Quinn’s nasty reservations about Nico seem to have disappeared since last night.