Matt snaps his fingers, trying to get my attention. “Hey—where’d you go?”
I shake my head wildly, trying to disengage my stare from those pissed-off green eyes, which are glaring back at me. I shift my eyes to Matt, who’s still talking.
“How ’bout a cab? We can call you a cab. Or Uber?”
I shake my head. “No.” I don’t know how less than an hour ago I had the strength to get in a cab by myself. I think it was because of the pill and because I had not realized how messed up I truly was. All that talking myself into coming tonight messed with the circuit in my brain. It gave me a false sense of bravery, which was squashed the moment I set foot into this damn nightclub.
“Oookaay…I can have an employee take you.”
Agitated, again I shake my head. All I want is out of the confines of the small room, because no matter how hot Nick is, I need to get the hell out. My anxiety over being in a windowless room with strange men trumps the unusual reaction I’m having to him.
I look around the unfamiliar area and begin to feel faint again. Matt carefully reaches over to my side, retrieves my purse, and slowly hands it to me as if any sudden movement will send me running.
He’s right.
“It says here you live on Collins Avenue,” he says, showing me my license, which one of them obviously took from my purse. “Nick lives close by. He can ta—”
“No, I can’t,” Nick bites out, his raspy voice reverberating through my body.
“Shut the fuck up, Nick,” Matt scolds. “She needs help.”
“Exit?” I ask in a low voice I barely hear. They don’t answer because they’re arguing about something. My heart begins to hammer against my chest again. “Exit!” I shriek this time, because damn it, I need to get out of here. I turn my head to one side and then the other. I need to find the exit. Where the hell is the door in this place? And where are the windows? It’s been years since I’ve had a panic attack this bad. I’ve embarrassed myself enough. I need to get out of here. Now.
“Okay. Okay. Come on,” Matt says, and I follow behind him, but suddenly the Xanax starts to take effect. A warm feeling passes through my body and even though I’m still nervous, I’m also…not. It’s as if I can see myself moving but it’s not really me who’s moving.
“Look at her. She’s out of it,” Nick says, and snaps his fingers at me. “Hey. Hey, you.” To his brother he says tersely, “Her eyes aren’t focused. Damn it, Matt, we can’t have another run-in with the cops,” and he lets out a frustrated breath.
I open my mouth to speak but quickly close it and decide to save my energy. Nick turns to look at Matt, who doesn’t seem to know what to do with me. Rolling his eyes, Nick grabs me by the forearm so abruptly I lurch forward, my legs barely keeping up.
Normally I don’t like people touching me, and if I’d seen it coming, I’d have made it clear not to touch me. But since he left me with no other choice, I don’t pull away. If his touching me means I’ll be far away from this room, I’ll gladly hold his hand the entire way. Touching is preferable to claustrophobia.
Nick pulls me out of the small, windowless room and into the hall. “You have to breathe. In and out.” He says it not delicately or comfortingly, but with a tone that tells me he thinks I’m weak and annoying and that he’s coaching me only so I don’t cause him any further problems. It’s clear he just wants me out of his club.
What a coincidence—seems we both want the same exact thing.
I’d like to note that before my “condition” worsened, I was not a pushover. Not by any means. I was going to go into law enforcement. My dream was to work for the FBI. So being dragged out, told what to do, scolded, and humiliated goes against every fiber of my out-of-control body. The problem is, the anxiety I feel masks everything else, and coping with that emotion takes all my energy.
With Matt on our heels, Nick continues pulling me down the hall. “You can’t pass out again. I’m not calling an ambulance for you. If there’s an ambulance, there’s police.”
I’m right—he absolutely wants me out of his club.
We continue to walk down the winding hall. “You hear me? What the fuck are you on?” He practically shakes me as he says this.
On? Too many things are going through my head, and my flight instinct is kicking in. “Panic atta—” I begin to croak out, but I’m gasping for air by the time we reach the end of the hallway. And then I stop dead in my tracks.
My feet stop.
My heart stops.
Everything just stops.
Time fucking stops.
I see it.
My worst nightmare stares back at me, taunting me.
At my abrupt halt, our hands disconnect, and oddly enough I feel a need to grab him back. But before I can get a handle on things, Matt crashes into my back, and I’m thrown forward against Nick, who’s forced to grip me tightly around the waist in an effort to steady me.
“Get the elevator, Matt,” Nick demands, still not releasing his grip on me, his eyes fixed on mine in a mixture of confusion and disgust.
“She’s about to go down again,” Matt says.
I pull away from Nick as I take slow and steady steps toward the elevator, all the while taking deep and deliberate breaths in and out. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this, I chant to myself. I hate being weak, and if I had control of my body, I would have reacted differently. But that is the crux of the problem. When I am outside my apartment, I have no control of my body, and it makes me mad and ashamed.
With each step I take, I come closer to my nemesis. My legs become heavier and my breathing shallows. With a low, ominous beep, the door opens. Over the years of seclusion, my anxiety has expanded to the point where I am now basically afraid of everything: small spaces, open spaces, loud noises, small rooms, heights, strangers…you name it. But claustrophobia is by far the worst.
I see the small, confined space, the dim light and the mirrored walls.
The edges of my vision become fuzzy as all the blood drains from my body. I feel my eyes roll to the back of my head as strong hands grab me right before I hit the floor.
I’m passing out.
Again.
But not before I hear Nick spit, “I fucking hate junkies.”
Two
Fear
Nico
“Oh, shit!” Matt runs to catch her before she hits the floor, but I’m already there. What the hell is wrong with this woman? She looked terrified but also determined. Probably she’s on some sort of hallucinogenic tripping balls, who the hell knows? But after the shit year I’ve had, the last thing I need are the cops swarming this place again. I swoop her up in my arms and notice she’s breathing and has a pulse, which are good signs. “Hit the garage.”
Matt presses the button and follows me. “Weird, huh?” he says, looking at her face. “She was all jittery but also scared. I feel bad for her. Did she say she was having a panic attack?”
Feel bad for her? I roll my eyes. “No. She said Panic. She probably didn’t know if she was still in the club.” My brother’s always been like this—naive, nice, a bleeding heart who always gets taken advantage of, especially by women.
I was like that too. Well, not as nice, but I’d say there was a time, not too long ago, when I was blinded by pussy. But no more. That time has come and gone—along with half my bank account. My heart’s now colder, wiser, and definitely more discerning. And this woman’s glazed eyes, shaky hands, and nervous tics are all too familiar. I need her out of here.
“What a shame, she’s real cute,” Matt says. Looking at her arms, he adds, “No track marks.”
“Maybe between her fingers. On her thighs. Who the hell knows—they can be creative,” I say, not really caring. My eyes do, however, wander to her smooth, toned legs, which are showing a little more now that her dress has moved up. I adjust her so she’s not so exposed. Her long brown hair is dangling down my arms, and I try not to notice her sweet flowery scent or her full pink lips. I shake my hea
d, trying to forget she’s beautiful. “Or it could be blow. Doesn’t have to be smack,” I add, mostly to get my mind back on track. She’s trash, and I don’t need to be checking out trash. I fell in love with trash once, and that shit’s not happening again.
“Hospital?” Matt asks. I look down at her once more. She’s pale and sweaty, but she’s definitely alive and warm in my arms. “Nah, probably just needs to sleep it off.”
“Is that what Naomi would do?” Matt asks of my ex-girlfriend. “Just sleep it off?”
I snarl and don’t bother answering. Matt knows I hate to talk about Naomi, the cunt who left me in the worst moment of my life with most of my money. When she’d pass out like this, I always assumed she drank too much. Yeah, maybe a little recreational drug use, but I never thought she’d be a full-out drug-abusing, thieving bitch. Alcohol, weed, and a few lines of coke here and there are almost expected when you’re practically living in a nightclub, but I never ever thought that after two years I’d find my fiancée snorting meth off my best friend’s cock in one of the back rooms of my own fucking club. “Okay, so we’re still not talking about her,” he says.
I clench my jaw and continue looking at the elevator door.
No, we are still not talking about her.
“You need to let that shit go, man. It’s been a year. We have bigger fish to fry, don’t you think?”
“I’m frying the fuckin’ fish, that’s why I’m not talking about her. Outta sight, outta mind, right? But you keep bringing her up.”
“I keep bringing her up?” Matt says, holding the door open so I can walk through. “This is the first time her name’s come out of my mouth in months.”
“That’s one time too many,” I say, and then ask him, “How are you getting this chick home on your bike?”
Matt snorts. “I’m not. I have a new DJ starting today. You have to take her home or to the hospital or wherever.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t have time for this shit. I have invoices, reports, emails—”
“It’s late. Drop her off, go home, and sleep. Or get laid or do something to get that stick outta your ass. Seriously, man, I’ve been trying to give you some slack and I’ve put up with your overall dick attitude toward everyone, but it’s taking a toll on me. On you. On everyone who comes within ten feet of you. Don’t think I haven’t seen you popping antacids ’round the clock.” Matt reaches into my pocket and takes out my keys since I don’t have any extra hands. I’m so shocked that my nonconfrontational, mostly obtuse, and usually self-involved brother noticed anything other than the amount of tits and ass the newest dancers I hired are showing.
Even though Panic isn’t a strip club, there are minimally dressed dancers on small stages in certain areas that work the crowd. I think Matt has slept with, or has tried to sleep with, all of them.
He opens my baby—my black mint-condition hard-top 1970 Pontiac GTO—and helps me slide the unconscious woman in. She moans slightly, and as I lean inside to buckle her up I think her eyes are about to flutter open, but instead she just rolls her head back and continues to sleep. I close the door, but apparently Matt’s not finished. “All the shit you’ve gone through, Nicky, I’ve been here with you.” He’s still talking, which is annoying me even more. I don’t need him telling me that I’m being an asshole and no one can stand being around me. Hell, I can’t stand being around myself. No one has called me Nicky in a long time, and it signals that the rarely serious Matt means business. “I’ve gone through it with you. It’s my dad sitting in prison. It’s my club that’s sinking. And I lost a girl too. I don’t want to lose my twin brother,” Matt says, looking at me with the same eyes I see when I look in the mirror. “Take a breather. Take a day, a week, whatever the hell you need, but I want my brother back. The guy that used words instead of grunts and scowls to communicate,” he says with a hard pat on the back before turning around and walking off.
Before starting the car, I rifle through her purse again to see if she has anything in there I can use to call someone. I already know her phone requires a password because I tried earlier and it was no use.
My mind starts to drift to all the shit from the past year, and my hands grip the steering wheel harder as I drive in silence. There’s always so much noise around me. Silence is unusual and a little disconcerting—especially since it leads to thinking, which only brings back bad memories. Memories I obviously don’t want to think about because there’s nothing I can do about the past. But Matt’s right that I need to do something to get my head right again.
I’m only thirty-four years old, but I feel like an old man; my body aches from working too hard and not sleeping enough. All the years of partying hard at Panic combined with the hellish past twelve months have finally caught up with me, and I’m left feeling drained. I park in front of her building, which is one of those new high-rises that’s totally fucked up the Miami Beach skyline—kind of like my own, actually. “Hey.” I shake her slightly. “Katherine, wake up.” She stirs just a little but turns her body toward the door and continues to sleep.
Annoyed, I get out of my car, hoping the sound of the door being slammed shut wakes her. But when I open her door, she’s still out. Before I lift her up, I take her keys in my hand.
She doesn’t weigh much and she turns her face toward my neck, making herself comfortable in my arm. She’s soft and admittedly gorgeous, which makes me angrier because now my underused cock begins to stir.
But all it takes is the memory of Naomi to rein in my hard-on. How many times did I have to carry her home in the early mornings when she was too drunk to walk? I ignored the signs because I’d thought she was sweet and kind, but it was all a ruse. I make sure to remember that as I ride up the elevator and carry Katherine to her apartment.
With one hand I unlock the door and feel around blindly for the lights.
A small apartment with white walls and wood furniture, not too frilly but definitely feminine, greets me. It’s a loft with an open floor plan, so her bedroom is in one of the corners separated by one of those Asian-style room dividers that really hides nothing, and there’s half a wall leading to the kitchen. I lay her down on her bed, and she immediately turns into her pillow. A moment of guilt stirs within me, and I feel bad leaving her here until I know she’s fine.
Even though I’ve been acting like an asshole lately, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy. I’m not. In fact, if I was a bad guy I would have walked away from Panic the day I was released from jail. It was a stress I didn’t need or want. Instead, I’m busting my ass to make the club what it used to be—minus the illegal activities. So walking away from this woman while she’s ill isn’t in me.
In one corner of her house she has a wall of books. Literally. They are stacked up against the wall and go all the way up to the ceiling. She has a lot of self-help books, I notice as I walk along the room. There’s also a bunch of travel books as well as autobiographies and fiction. Looking over my shoulder, I see she’s still dead to the world, so I take off my shoes and socks, slide a chair close to the bed, grab a book, and make myself comfortable next to her.
Katherine
I wake up unsure what’s worse, the mortification I feel at having passed out again or the throbbing headache, a result of the sudden surge and then drop of adrenaline. Moaning, I sit up slowly, trying to get my bearings and figure out where I am. Surprised I’m in my own bed, I squeeze the bridge of my nose, trying to remember what exactly happened.
“You’re alive.” The voice startles me and I whip my head to the side to see the hot guy from last night sitting on a chair in my room with his bare feet propped on my bed, my favorite travel book in one hand and my cat, Julius, sleeping on his lap. I remember his name is Nick.
He drops his feet down and leans forward as Julius jumps off his lap and onto my bed. “I didn’t know the password on your phone.” He holds up my iPhone. “I couldn’t call anyone for you, and you flipped out when I mentioned the hospital,” he says, his words just as ters
e as they were earlier at his club.
“So—”
He interrupts me, looking annoyed. “So you left me no choice but to stay and babysit you. Make sure you didn’t choke on your own tongue or something.”
I sit up and bring my blanket up to my neck. “You didn’t have to stay,” I point out. “But thank you.” I extend my hand to shake his, even though I don’t really want to. Instead, he drops my cellphone into my palm. As Nick begins to pull his socks back on, I scroll through my phone and read the numerous texts from my sister, all the while trying to ignore the fact that there is another person in my space. “Damn,” I say, sitting up straighter as I read the last one, where she warned she’d be coming over if I didn’t call her back in the next ten minutes. That was fifteen minutes ago.
As I’m dialing her number, trying to avoid eye contact with Nick, my phone rings instead.
“Where the hell are you? You better say you’re somewhere with some hot guy getting it on,” my sister says by way of hello. Rose is in fact my half sister, my father’s daughter with his second wife. She’s ten years younger than I am, and even though I love her, we are very different. Rose’s goals in life have always included a handsome husband and a big family. Her pastime is redecorating, and she’s always caught up on all the tabloid gossip. When our father passed away he left us a rather large inheritance, and she’s been living off that for years. Now she’ll have a husband to manage her money and her life. I wish she would be less dependent on a man, and I wish she’d used that money for college, but who am I to judge? I don’t leave the house, and if she knew this, she’d be appalled. Actually, appalled is exactly the word she’d use, I think.
“I’m fine, Rose. Don’t worry about me. Where are you?” I ask, glancing at Nick, who’s not looking back at me. God, the man is intimidatingly gorgeous; the muscles along his thick neck bunch up as he laces up his shoes. I quickly divert my eyes because I don’t want to chance being caught—I’m too ashamed of what happened.
Pull Me Close: The Panic Series Page 2
