Bad Idea- The Complete Collection

by Nicole French

  “I’m here,” I tell him as I reach the corner. “I see you.”

  Across the street, he turns around. He’s still in FDNY-issued navy pants and a t-shirt that pulls across the taut lines of his chest under his thick black jacket. He could change at the firehouse, but he rarely does because he knows how much I love seeing him in uniform. His favorite Yankees cap, curled tightly over his brow, casts a shadow over his eyes.

  When he spots me, though, that hat doesn’t hide his smile as he claps his phone shut and shoves it in his pocket. It’s a bright, shining beacon; its light emanates, calling me to him. Calling me home.

  “Baby! What the fuck are you waiting for?” he shouts, laughing. “Get your ass over here!”

  He looks up and down Delancey. The big street, for once, is somewhat empty, the next round of cars at least four blocks away. Unable to stifle my grin, I jog across the six lanes, right into his arms just as another rush of cars arrives.

  “You,” he says as he pulls me close, “have been on the West Coast too fuckin’ long, NYU. Waiting for streetlights. Pssh.”

  I can’t help but grin. No one in New York waits for lights to turn to cross an empty street. But I don’t even care that he’s teasing. That’s how happy I am to see him.

  We stare at each other, until our mutual smiles start to fall, eyes drift to mouths, and the street corner, despite being mostly empty, starts to feel crowded. Too crowded.

  Nico exhales heavily through his nose, chewing on his lip as he stares at mine. Every cell in my body vibrates for him.

  “Um—come on,” I manage. “Let’s go inside.”

  He blinks, like some kind of spell was broken, then follows me to the door of our building. Behind me, he hovers, his broad hands at my waist while I pull out my keys.

  “Stop that,” I murmur as he nuzzles into my neck. “I can’t get the keys into the lock when you’re doing that.”

  “Mmmm.” His deep voice rumbles against my neck. “I can’t help it—you smell crazy good, and fuuuuck, I’ve been thinking about this all week.” His tongue slips out, causing us both to shudder. “Baby, open the fuckin’ door. I’m not waiting more than a minute, and then I swear to God, I’m taking you right here.”

  I smirk, even though the sudden hard length pressed into my back makes my hands fumble all over again. If anything, the last three months have made this yearning worse, rather than better. He’s ready for me too. It’s been a month of heavy breathing, daydreaming, and phone sex. And then another week of classes and training, with only a city between us. He wants me? I’m about ready to combust.

  “Nico!” I squeal when his fingers travel under the waistband of my jeans.

  His fingertips brush the elastic of my underwear, dipping a little further to tease at the dampness already building there before he pulls them out. Then, before I know it, I’m spun around and pressed to the glass door, and Nico’s mouth is on mine. Warm, open-mouthed, and demanding, his kiss encompasses me completely, renders me starving in about a quarter of a second. My hands knock his bill up his forehead and grab his thick black hair. We’re eating each other alive, right in front of my building, while more than one person passes us with hushed whispers and even a wolf whistle.

  “Oooh, look at them.”

  I couldn’t tell you who said it. Nico reaches around, pulls me into him and grinds into my waist while he messes with my keys. I can’t even think. His taste consumes me.

  Then with a click, the lock opens, and we topple inside. Jesus. I don’t even care that the door is transparent. He could take me right here on the stairs if he wanted to, in front of all the neighbors that have slowly filled up our building, and I wouldn’t argue one bit.

  “Up,” I mumbled in between kisses. “Up. Stairs.”

  “Fuck the stairs,” Nico growls, and in a single, fluid motion, he squats down and hoists me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “Aah!” I whoop in surprise, but he’s too busy stomping up the stairs like a caveman to answer.

  From my vantage point, I have the privilege of watching his extremely round ass as it moves. Back and forth, back and forth. I reach down with one hand and squeeze, which only causes him to yelp and jog faster.

  One of my neighbors’ doors opens as we pass the fourth floor.

  “Hi, Mrs. Dukakis!” I call through a bout of laughter as Nico continues his stampede.

  “Are you all right, dear?” she asks as she follows our stumbling forms.

  “She’s fine, Mrs. Dukakis!” Nico shouts as he starts on the fifth flight. He’s not even breaking a sweat. Apparently being a firefighter has given him some serious stamina.

  “Is the door locked?” he asks as we climb the last set, his voice only slightly winded from his little run with an extra hundred and twenty pounds slung over his shoulder.

  “Of course it’s locked.”

  With another exuberant growl, Nico winds his way around the final post and charges to our door, which he practically kicks in after he unlocks it.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks after he hauls me inside and dumps me on the couch.

  I can’t stop giggling—I’ve been laughing all the way up. I yank him down to me, and his hat topples to the floor along with my purse, allowing me to sink my fingers into his flattened curls. Everything is forgotten. I’m not even sure we closed the front door.

  “It’s nothing,” I say between kisses. “Just that I’ve literally wanted you to do that since the first time I met you.” His tongue is slick and urgent, and I open to it completely. “I remember thinking that your shoulders would be really good at carrying a girl some place.”

  Nico pushes himself up to examine my face. When he realizes I’m serious, he rewards me with a grin, this one is even broader than before. It lights up my room, even in the dark. My body hums in response.

  “Baby,” he said as he leans back down, “you only had to ask.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Layla

  “Should we order some takeout?”

  I open my eyes lazily. After conking out for about two hours after our little “reunion,” Nico and I are only barely starting to wake up. And if the grumbling under my ear is any indication, so is his stomach.

  Mine responds with a loud growl. I prop up onto my elbow and look at Nico, who’s peeking at me through one open, squinted eye. I grin.

  “Want me to get Chinese?” he asks. “I’ll even get dressed and go pick up those dumplings you like instead of calling the place that delivers.”

  I pinch his side. “You don’t want me to cook for you? I thought maybe you would have missed my skills in the kitchen.”

  He flops back onto the pillow. “Hmm. Did I miss chicken strips cooked in straight vinegar? Lemme think about that…I mean, it did almost blind me when I got home that night.”

  He twists his full mouth around, like he’s really weighing the option, which makes me want to sock him and kiss him at the same time. Okay, so I’m not the greatest cook. I elbow him in the gut, causing him to keel over laughing. He grabs me and starts tickling my side, which he discovered about six weeks ago is incredibly sensitive.

  “Okay, okay!” I shout as I thrash around. “I give, I give! Uncle! Tío! You win! I’m a terrible cook, and you didn’t need to miss any of it!”

  When Nico releases me, he’s straddling my waist, naked in all his glory and laughing like a maniac. I sigh. I could probably go another round…but I need sustenance first.

  “I missed you,” he says leaning down for a kiss. “Like fuckin’ crazy. But it’s a good thing I can make chicken and rice, is all I’m saying.”

  I roll my eyes, but we’re both still chuckling as we clamber off the bed and get dressed. The bedroom is ours now—my desk was moved into the other room, across from the other desk and easel that turned into a sort of studio for Nico. He usually has a few days off a week when he’s not at the firehouse, and when he’s not sleeping or taking care of stuff for his family, sometimes he’ll escape to t
he other room and draw for a while. Most of the time those drawings end up looking a lot like me, but I don’t like to pry. When he’s ready to show them to me, he will. Which usually it ends up with us on the floor, since I can’t help myself after I see them.

  “Sesame chicken?” Nico calls from the kitchen, where he’s dialing our favorite Chinese place on the next block.

  “Egg drop soup for me. It’s freezing outside. I still need to warm up.”

  I pull my hair into a messy bun, then walk into the living room just as Nico’s flipping on the Knicks game, kicking his heels on the coffee table in a pair of joggers and a t-shirt that’s threadbare enough I can see his tattoos right through the thin white cotton. He looks comfortable, and totally at home. It makes me want to pounce on him all over again.

  The open space has changed a lot since he moved in. As soon as we had a little extra cash, we went to a consignment shop and bought a small dining set, a TV to replace Shama’s, and a coffee table to go in front of the couch. The walls have a weird mix of both of our belongings—a few art posters I had from my dorm, the tribal masks Nico had hanging in his old room uptown, and a few small pictures of St. Mary and St. Christopher that Carmen gave us and Nico surprised me by hanging right away.

  “It’s good mojo,” he said with a casual shrug.

  I didn’t argue. It seems to have been working.

  The cupboards aren’t empty anymore either. Nico, I discovered, is an incredibly clean eater and a reasonably competent chef. Remnants of his boxing training. He’ll splurge once a week or so to eat out, but when he cooks, it’s usually something simple: chicken and salad, or fish and a vegetable, but always tasty. Considering that I’m not much of a cook at all, I’m usually happy to do the dishes on the nights when he’s home, and grab something cheap out on the nights he’s not.

  “You’re going to ruin your liver if you keep eating that crap,” Nico says as I flop down onto the couch with an open bag of Doritos and a book. But he grabs a handful of chips for himself and plucks the book from my hand, flipping through it for a second before handing it back. “Borges, huh? Sounds like some nice light reading. I liked the Neruda you read last semester better.”

  When he wasn’t at the firehouse, Nico basically took half my classes with me last semester, browsing through almost all of my books as I finished the first term of my senior year of college. He bent over my shoulder while I wrote my essay on Caribbean trade patterns and another on Cuban immigration history (he was very interested in that one). He quizzed me before I took the GRE exam in December and read and reread the admissions essays I sent out for graduate school.

  “What did Ileana say last week?” I ask as I snuggle into Nico’s side. I inhale his scent, which is warm and a little smoky. He must have been called to a live fire today.

  Nico’s hand drifts over my shoulder, and he starts playing with my hair. He likes it curly because he can twist it around his fingers. I think he finds it soothing.

  “We’re still waiting on Gabe’s application,” he says. “It’s been almost three months. We should hear back any day.”

  He rubs his face. After resubmitting the application for a travel license to go to Cuba, this time on an informational license, he and his family have been waiting on pins and needles for the Treasury to get back to them. It’s a long shot, Ileana said back in October. Since they weren’t journalists or government employees, it was unlikely an informational visit would be granted. But they still had to try. And keep trying. Otherwise, Carmen would be at the mercy of an immigration judge who may or may not believe her claim to Cuban nationality. And if they didn’t, Ileana said, it wasn’t a given she would be allowed to stay. That entirely depended on the judge.

  “I don’t know,” he says sadly. “I’m starting to think I should just try to sneak in. I’ve heard of people doing that. They fly through Venezuela or some place like that and change their money there so they don’t break U.S. law by spending money in Cuba.”

  I frown. “Couldn’t you get in trouble for doing that?”

  Nico shrugs. “I don’t know. But I doubt it would be worse than my mother being deported.”

  We sit there quietly for a bit, letting the basketball game fill the awkward silence. He’s tense, and I hate that there’s no way for me to solve this problem for him. I’ve been doing my best to pay attention to the things I’ve learned in school about Cuban immigration, but it always comes down to one thing: to guarantee residency, Carmen needs documentation of her birthplace, or else she has to risk court. But getting those documents is another matter entirely, and I’m not sure I like the idea of Nico risking everything he’s worked for to do that.

  “So, I forgot to ask you earlier since we were, ah, busy,” Nico says as I flip through my mail I still haven’t gone through from the last month. His fingers draw absent circles around my shoulder. “What did your mom say when you told her we were living together?”

  I gulp. This has been a sore spot for a while. Nico has been patient, knowing that I wanted to tell her face-to-face after we spent some time together again. As far as my conservative mother knows, I have a roommate, but it’s another NYU student. She likes Nico, but she wouldn’t be so keen on him if she knew we were living together without being married. I don’t want to think about what my father would do if he found out. We may barely speak these days, but I’m pretty sure the idea of his daughter living in sin would have him on a plane within twenty-four hours.

  “Layla.”

  I sit up and turn to him. The guarded look on his face tells me he already knows what I’m going to say.

  “I’m sorry,” I squeak out. “I just…I couldn’t. Not yet.”

  His face falls. And it just about kills me.

  “Layla. Two months I’ve had to pretend I’m not here when she calls. Had to listen to you tell her about another roommate. It’s fucked up, baby.”

  I hang my head. “I know.” I sigh. “But, come on, you know how it goes. Your mom is Catholic too.”

  It’s a stupid excuse, and the look on Nico’s face tells me he thinks so too. “Yeah, she is. And she knows exactly where I’m living. She lights a candle, prays for our forgiveness, and then she’s done with it.”

  “Yeah, but your mom doesn’t pay your rent and your tuition.”

  “Maybe your mom shouldn’t either, then.”

  We stare at each other, wrapped in a standoff. I feel terrible. I know hiding this is the wrong thing to do, and I hate it.

  “Is that what you want?” I ask quietly. “I’ll do it. But it will make things really hard. I’ll have to drop out, probably. Apply for loans until summer or maybe fall semester and graduate then. I’ll have to delay graduate school for another year if I do that.”

  Nico blinks, and the hardness in his face softens. “Would your dad really cut off your tuition if he knew?”

  I shrug. “He’s threatened it for a lot less.”

  “And you think your mom would tell him?”

  I bite my lip. “Nico, it’s just that my mom thinks I’m only barely able to stand up again by myself. She sees my last relationship as one that I need a lot of space from. If she knew that I had jumped right into living with you”—I pause when I see another round of hurt fly across his face—“not that I think that, but you know how she would get, well…she might…Nico, it probably would be the reason she’d finally call my dad.”

  Nico opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but then his eyes drop, and he closes it.

  “Fine,” he says as he gets up. “I’m going to go get dinner. You have a bunch of other mail on the table, by the way.”

  “Please don’t leave mad,” I say, grabbing for his hand as he sidles around me.

  He stops, and again, the hardness in his face melts a little as he looks at me. He leans down and gives me a kiss on the forehead.

  “How the fuck can I be mad at a face like that?” he murmurs. Then, with a quick squeeze of my hand, he swipes his jacket off the floor and leave
s.

  My stomach is still in knots when I get off the couch to retrieve the rest of my mail. I hate that I made him look like that. There’s nothing in the world I want to do more than shout to everyone I meet that I hit the freaking jackpot in New York City with Nico Soltero.

  But my parents are a different story. On top of being conservative, Catholic, and, in my dad’s case, ridiculously strict, they’re also bitter after going through their own painful separation this last year. My mom likes Nico okay since she knows his role in extracting me from Giancarlo last spring, but she’s definitely not too keen on seeing me jump back into anything serious. Since moving back to Brazil, my dad went from being overbearing to virtually absent in my life. I can only imagine him roaring back in with a vengeance if he found out I was living in sin with a firefighter seven years my senior.

  The thought makes me tingle. And probably in a way my parents would definitely not like.

  I flip through the mail I missed last month, sorting out spam from bills until coming to a large, stiff envelope. But it’s not the weight of it that stops me. It’s the familiar handwriting on the front.

  The apartment door opens, and Nico comes back in carrying a plastic bag containing my soup and his beef broccoli. He sets it on the kitchenette counter and starts grabbing plates, only stopping when he realizes I haven’t moved from the table.

  “Hey,” he says. “Everything all right over there?”

  “I’m…I’m not sure.” I shuffle into the kitchenette and hand him the letter. Nico squints, stumbling a little as he reads aloud my father’s terse, slanted script.

  Layla,

  It has been too long since I have seen my daughter. Your cousin Luciano graduates from medical school at the end of summer term, and there will be a celebration before Carnaval. You should be here too, to be a part of your family. Everything has been arranged. It is the right thing to do.