Lost Ones

by Nicole French

  It’s the kiss we’ve both wanted all night. While we sat next to each other at his mother’s apartment, our knees continually touching, feet brushing under the table. While we walked hand in hand to Alba’s party, body to body in the packed elevator. While we twirled and turned around the crowded dance floor. Even while we stood against the wall together, when he wrapped me in his strong arms and made me feel safer than I’d felt in months.

  All that time, I still wanted this kiss. I was starved for this closeness.

  It’s the kiss we wanted and couldn’t have until now, when his fingers and mouth possess me with a kind of certainty I lack. My hands move on their own, up his chest, then down his arms, clutching the bulges of his biceps, that raw, animal strength that he controls so elegantly. His touch is delicate yet firm as we move in a dance reminiscent of the one we did earlier––all of it says the same thing he murmured to me all night.

  I got you, baby.

  He doesn’t say it now, but the words release knots in my shoulders and back I didn’t know were there, a ripple that flutters through me. Nico senses the change. The hands at my neck and waist relax, and his mouth breaks away as he rubs his nose against mine. He kisses me again. Once. Twice. Worries my lower lip between his teeth a little until I squeak. It’s only then I can feel his smile against my mouth.

  “Do you ever feel this way?” he wonders as his mouth travels across my face, down to my neck where he sucks, hard, at that soft spot just below my ear.

  Goose bumps immediately erupt all over my skin. “What way?”

  His hands slide up my thighs, then grab my ass and squeeze. “Like we can’t get close enough?”

  My arms wrap around his neck so I can press my body against his. I want to feel every edge of him, hard and soft. I want there to be nothing between us––not even a sliver of light.

  “Layla,” Nico says in between kisses that seem to grow deeper and deeper, like he wants to swallow me whole and also dive into me himself. “Layla.”

  It’s then I realize that he’s waiting for me to take the next step. He’ll do this all night––just feel our bodies together, the way our skin produces a new kind of warmth. He’ll keep rubbing his hands over my skin with a pressure that’s demanding, but never out of control. Kiss after hungry kiss. Touch after starving touch.

  He’s waiting for me to tell him he can let go. Even now, when I can feel the shape of his desire throbbing between us, the length of him that begs to come inside, he protects me.

  “I know one way we can,” I finally say.

  Nico watches as I press him back just an inch or two, and proceed to undress him. Like he did with me, I take my time about it, unbutton each button of his black shirt, push the tailored material over his broad shoulders, and watch it fall to the ground. I slide my hands over his chest, pausing slightly as I trace the delicate work of the tattoo over his chest. Half-compass, half-clock. A reminder that he has only one life, one direction to find. A direction he’s searching for now in California.

  The thought makes my chest squeeze, and I push it away. As if sensing my shift, Nico catches my hand and kisses it.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking right now, baby?” he asks, the deep bass of his voice pulling me out of my brooding.

  I blink at him. It’s written all over his face, just like I’m sure it’s written across mine. But we’ve done this before. And just like I don’t want to think about the fact that he’s going back to California tomorrow, I don’t want to think about what happened the last time we said the word love.

  They tell you how good it feels when you find love for the first time. But no one ever tells you how much love hurts when you have to let it go. And the way I’m feeling tonight, I’m not sure I can take it if I hear him say it again just to walk away. I’m not sure my heart can take it.

  “I know,” I finally say. “I know.”

  Nico nods, that same delicate pain I feel is etched over his strong face. His gaze drops to my lips as he reaches into his pocket.

  “Please,” he says as he presses a condom into my hand. “Please let me come closer.”

  I take the condom, and he kisses me, slow and steady, absorbing the waves of emotion, pain, love, tenderness that wash over us again and again. Still controlled. Still waiting for me to take this at my own pace.

  We’re both silent as I unbuckle his pants and push them and his briefs down. I hold him in my hand for a moment, and he shudders. It would be so easy to take him again, with nothing between us. So easy. So natural.

  But I don’t want to regret anything I do with Nico. Not ever again. So I roll the condom on while he groans slightly, then guide him toward me. He looks down, watches for a moment as he finds his way inside, finding that place where his body fits perfectly, deeply within mine. Then he finds my face again, his black eyes fathomless.

  “Come here,” I say as I slip my hands around his neck.

  So he does. But this time his kiss isn’t measured, isn’t quite as thorough. It’s hungrier, belying the control he’s losing. The rest of him is still, though his hands take hold of my thighs so tightly it almost hurts. It turns me on even more.

  “I don’t want to move,” he says in between kisses that are losing their control. “I don’t want to ruin it.”

  I tilt my hips, taking him even further. He groans.

  “You won’t,” I say as I bite his lip. “I need it just as bad as you do.”

  Slowly, slowly he obeys. His lips float over mine, his breath uneven as he starts to move.

  I fall back, only barely registering that he catches me with a strong arm. His lips catch one of my nipples as he picks up his pace, his cock moving in time with his lips.

  “Nico,” I whisper, my voice hardly more than a whimper.

  My legs wrap automatically around his waist as he thrusts even deeper. A moan erupts from deep within my chest. My words are no longer any language I know.

  “I got you,” he keeps saying against my neck, my chest, my ear, his breath now coming in torn waves. “Let go, Layla.”

  It’s not just the friction of him as he moves steadily, finding that spot only he seems to find. Nor is it the way his lips feel, feather-light as they drift staccato touches over my neck and collarbone, or the way his hands knead the fullest parts of my body with aplomb. It’s all of it––his complete and utter want of me that undoes me in the end.

  The world explodes behind my closed eyelids as it hits me, a detonation of color and light that’s brighter than the center of Times Square itself. My body tightens; every muscle seizes, and I squeeze him tightly, wanting him deeper still as I fall apart around him.

  “Layla,” he shudders, his hips continue to move. “Baby. I. Fuck.”

  His words dip into unintelligibility right along with mine. He calls my name out just as I call his. We fall into each other, completely laid out as the world envelopes us together.

  “Layla.” My name echoes across his lips. “Layla.”

  ~

  “I can tell about your mom,” I say much later, when Nico and I are curled up in my twin bed. I lie on his chest, tracing the outlines of the compass tattoo. It splays over his heart, about a hand’s width. He has one arm draped over my shoulders, the other tucked behind his head.

  “What’s that?”

  “That she’s not here legally.”

  Beneath me, he tenses. It’s not a secret––he told me a long time ago that Carmen doesn’t have papers––but it’s not something he likes to discuss. A few seconds pass before he replies.

  “How’s that?” he asks finally.

  “Little things. You can see the difference.” I massage his tricep, which has suddenly gone stiff. “Between her and K.C.’s mom. Alba is so open, and it seems like she’s done all right for herself.”

  Nico relaxes a bit. “Well, K.C. paid for that apartment a few years ago. But yeah, Tía’s done pretty good. She got a job housekeeping at one of the big hotels and then started her own business.”
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br />   “She just seems comfortable. Your mom seems…I don’t know. Closed off, somehow.”

  My fingers trace a path down his sternum, in the hollow between his chest muscles. He’s smooth there, only a few stray hairs. The black ink on his chest and encircling most of his right arm shines in the moonlight.

  “Plus, you know, her apartment gives it away too,” I add. “The bathroom doesn’t exactly meet housing code. I’m guessing people don’t live in that kind of place legally.”

  Nico snorts. “You’d be surprised, NYU. Plenty of people live in even worse places just for cheap rent.” He sighs. “So it was that bad, huh?”

  Shit. I’m such a jerk. Here I am, with the clueless audacity to explain to Nico about his family’s own semi-poverty. And now he’s clearly thinking that somehow I’m put off by it all, when that’s the last thing I’m thinking.

  I sit up so I can lean over him. My hair falls over my shoulder, and he immediately starts to play with it, studiously avoiding my gaze.

  “Hey.”

  I wait until he looks up, his black eyes big and vulnerable.

  “It’s not the Ritz,” I say, “but it doesn’t have to be. It was warm and full of people who love each other. I don’t give a shit about the bathroom or any of that. It felt like a home.”

  Finally, the tension in his body releases. Both of his hands slide up my back and pull me down. His kiss is soft.

  “You feel like home to me,” he says very, very softly. “You always do.”

  I close my eyes as he kisses me again. My mouth opens to him reflexively, wanting to take him deeper. But as he rolls me onto my back, ready to start round two of what never seems to fade no matter how many times we do it, one thought keeps screaming through my head.

  “I could come with you,” I blurt out when his mouth moves to my neck.

  He stops, pushes up on his hands so he’s looking down at me with a frown. “What?”

  “To California,” I rush on. “I could move there. Finish the semester at NYU and leave. Apply to transfer in the spring. It’s not too late, I––”

  “Layla,” Nico says, and the resignation in his voice makes my chest ache.

  “Please.” My voice shakes around the word, and with it, another round of tears threatens. God, I just can’t stop them tonight.

  But he needs to know. I want to know about his family not because I think they’re strange, but because tonight I felt like they were people I could maybe be a part of one day. It’s a feeling I didn’t even know I wanted until I met this man. Here with him, in this safe cocoon of love and sex and warmth, one thing is certain: that when we’re together, things are better. I’d give up everything I had if it meant we could stay this way for good.

  But Nico doesn’t smile. He doesn’t laugh and kiss me again with relief, tell me he’s been dying for me to suggest it again, that he regrets ever leaving. He just stares at me, his mouth hanging open slightly.

  “The answer is no, isn’t it?” I ask, utterly crestfallen.

  Nico exhales, long and heavy. His head hangs. “Yeah, baby. The answer’s no.”

  I roll out from under him and curl into myself, willing the pain lancing through my chest to abate. It does not. Not even close.

  “Layla…”

  “Why? Why don’t you want me?”

  “Baby, come on. It’s not that. You know it’s not that. Layla, will you look at me, please?”

  I turn back over so we are both on our sides facing each other. I’m naked, but it’s my emotions that are making me feel this vulnerable. Like I’m about to break.

  “Why did you come to New York?” Nico asks as he takes one of my hands between us and strokes a finger over my knuckles.

  My throat is too choked to answer.

  “Do you know who you are?” he continues, gazing at our joined hands. “Like, one hundred percent? Who Layla is, what you want, what you need, in ways that you know aren’t going to change?”

  Yes, I want to say. I want you. I need you. But instead I gulp the words down. Because he and I both know the real answer. “No.”

  Nico’s black eyes drill through me, like he knows who and what I am in a way I still don’t. I could say I have everything figured out, but the truth is, the only thing I feel like I know is him. That I love him.

  “I’m not letting you give this up,” he says. “You came to New York to figure that out. You need to be here. I’m not letting you get lost in my life when I don’t even know what the fuck my life is supposed to be yet. I don’t even know where I’m going to be in the next few months.”

  I frown, confused. “What does that mean? Where would you be if not LA?”

  He blinks sharply, but then turns his gaze to our hands. “I’ll probably be there. But I…I just don’t know, Layla. I have shit to figure out about myself, about what I’m doing with my life. And you do too.”

  They’re good reasons, all of them. What he’s saying makes sense. But all I hear is the same truth I hear from my mother every time she pushes off my next trip to visit, or every time my dad doesn’t answer his phone. I don’t want you.

  “I think you should go,” I whisper, curling away from him. Oh, my chest hurts. My heart feels swollen, like it’s about to explode. My lungs feel like they’ve turned to stone. I can’t breathe. Why doesn’t he want me? Doesn’t he feel what I feel?

  “Layla,” Nico says, placing a hand on my shoulder and trying to turn me toward him. I don’t move. “Baby, please. I just want what’s best for you. I…I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

  That’s when the tears finally let go. Those words should feel good, but they cut so deeply, just like I knew they would. Does he love me? I know he means it, but I’m not convinced he understands it. Those words––those three simple words that I’m always yearning to hear from him––don’t make me feel better; they only make the pain worse. I may be young, but I know that’s not what love should do. It shouldn’t make you feel abandoned. Like you’re nothing.

  “Please,” he murmurs behind me. “Let me stay. Just for tonight. Please.”

  I sigh, keeping my face toward the wall so he won’t see the goddamn rivers sliding down my cheeks. “Okay.” It hurts, but I also know I can’t say no to him. I could never ask him to leave and truly mean it.

  “Will I…” he asks tentatively as he gently strokes my back. His fingers fit into the groove of my spine, sliding down and scooping back up. “Will I get to see you at Christmas in LA?”

  I can’t speak for a moment. This hurts so much. And the idea of sitting in that big stupid house, having vapid conversations with my grandparents, pretending everything is fine. Seeing Nico during the day only to know he’s going home to another woman at night.

  It’s too much to take.

  “No,” I say quietly, keeping my eyes trained on the wall in front of me.

  His heartbeat behind me quickens for a moment, then calms.

  “Okay,” he says. The single word is full of so much understanding. “Okay.”

  ~

  Part III: The Tango

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  December 2003

  Layla

  I tap my pencil on the top of my desk. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. It’s a machine gun. It’s a woodpecker. It’s a…

  “Layla!”

  I turn around. “What?”

  Quinn tosses her book on the bed and crosses her arms. “What do you think?”

  Our bedroom door opens, and Shama pops her head inside, quickly followed by Jamie.

  “Everything all right in here?” Shama asks.

  I frown at Quinn. “It’s fine.”

  “Oh, that’s rich.” Quinn stands up and makes a big show at brushing off her yoga pants. She recently started wearing them everywhere after someone at the gym told her she had a nice ass. If I have to hear about her squat routine one more time, I swear to God, I’m going to scream.

  Instead I glare at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means it
’s the same damn answer you’ve been giving us for weeks, Sylvia Plath. Everything’s ‘fine.’ Your soup is ‘fine.’ Your classes are ‘fine.’ You haven’t even wanted to go out since Thanksgiving. I know you’re still pining over Special Delivery––”

  “Oh my God, don’t call him that, Quinn.”

  “It’s getting ridiculous!” she explodes, falling back onto her mattress. “He’s gone! He doesn’t live here anymore, and he didn’t want you to be with him. I know it’s sad, Lay, and I know you were into him, but you have got to move on, babe!”

  I stare at the ground, trying unsuccessfully to let her words roll off me. Does she think I haven’t told myself this a thousand times? We’ve had this conversation. And to be honest, it hurts a little to have her minimize a relationship when she knows that “into him” doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt about Nico. How I still feel. How painful it still is.

  “I want my friend back,” she continues. “I want fun, snarky Layla who liked to joke in bars and was up for late-night study sessions. Do you know what time you went to sleep last night? Nine thirty. My great-grandmother doesn’t go to bed that early.”

  Shama and Jamie edge their way into the room and sit down on my bed. Quinn and I haven’t been getting along as well as we used to, and our roommates have taken to trying to distract us when we bicker. It was never unusual for Quinn and me to butt heads from time to time, but it’s been getting worse. She wants me to be something I’m not––her sidekick, someone to go out and be her “wingman.” Play stupid drinking games in bars and judge the men who try to buy us drinks. But I’m just not in the mood these days. I’ll snap out of it at some point, I’m sure, but for now, I’m just not interested in listening to her wax melodic about her future as an orthopedic surgeon or evaluate men’s footwear.

  I yank on the end of my ponytail. “Whatever.” Original, I know. But I’m not really interested in coming up with pithy comebacks either.