Lost Ones

by Nicole French

  “You okay, sweetie?”

  A deep voice startles me with its familiarity. Its low timbre. Its faint New York accent. I turn around, but of course, it’s not him. The doorman is dressed in the universal uniform of black, but he’s not Nico.

  “You want me to kick his ass for you?” he offers kindly.

  I almost say yes––that’s how badly I want it. But then I catch the way the guy’s eyes drift down to the cleavage apparent in my flimsy black shirt.

  I shiver again and shake my head. “No. No, thanks.”

  “Anytime,” he says just before I duck back inside the bar.

  ~

  As if my roommates all made an agreement not to press me about Giancarlo for a certain period of time, no one brings up his sudden disappearance. We share a few rounds, and slowly the ball of stress in my stomach unravels––a little––while I listen to them tell stories about their breaks. We let Quinn brag about her family’s trip to Miami Beach, ooh and ahh as Jamie and Dev recount visiting Jamie’s mom, and boo accordingly as Shama debriefs us on her and Jason’s breakup. A few hours later, I’m not checking my phone for messages every few minutes anymore. Jamie and Dev have graduated to the dance floor, and Shama’s found herself a rebound.

  “I don’t get it.”

  I turn back to the table, where Quinn is finishing her fourth vodka soda. The music in here is really loud, but her disapproval echoes across the table.

  “What don’t you get?” I ask.

  Quinn looks toward the door, like she’s expecting Giancarlo to walk back in.

  “What you see in Severus Snape.”

  “Annnnd here it is,” I mutter.

  “What?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t be able to help it,” I snap. “You just couldn’t let an entire evening pass without judging my life, could you?”

  “Calm down,” Quinn says. “He was a dick, and you know it.”

  “He was a dick because you were a dick!” I counter. “You couldn’t have just been nice? Welcoming to my new boyfriend for once? Christ, you didn’t even like Nico until you physically saw him nursing me back to health last spring.”

  “And I was still right about him, wasn’t I? I said he was the ‘fuck and run’ type, and he was! And I’m right about this one too. Giancarlo’s a selfish prick, Lay––I can see it all over his Potter-looking face.”

  “Will you make up your mind which character he’s going to be?” I snap as I cross my arms over my chest. “Your snide insults aren’t as effective when you jump around.”

  “He takes off for his so-called ‘job’ at the mysterious club. Does he not see that we are college kids out for the night? Jesus, even that shit-eating bastard Jason used to hook us up at Fat Black’s, and he was cheating on Shams the whole time!”

  I roll my eyes. “I get it now. You’re just pissed that he didn’t invite you for free drinks. After you were busy insulting, no less.” I cross my arms. “Your entitlement is incredible, you know that? I had really hoped that a month away would have cooled your desire to criticize every part of my life, but it’s like it got worse.” I take a drink, polishing off the rest of my whiskey diet. “When you left, you were mad because you wanted me to move on from Nico. Well, I did, and now you can’t handle it. I’m happy now. Can’t you just be okay with that?”

  “This is you happy? You’re a shell. You spent the entire ten-minute conversation brokering his interactions. Not to mention the mommy act you had to pull when you got in.”

  “That’s it!” I toss a few bills on the table to pay for my drinks, grab my coat, and scoot out of the booth.

  “Layla, come on. Don’t be so dramatic.”

  I whirl around, not caring in the slightest how dramatic that makes me look. “You did not just say that to me.”

  Quinn shrugs. “If the shoe fits…”

  I shake my head, biting back the words I really want to say. “I’m going home. I need to cool off.”

  “Is that the room we share, or Argentina?”

  “Try not to wake me when you get back,” I call out as I exit the bar.

  When I get outside, I ignore the leering smile of the doorman, deciding to waste a few extra dollars on cab fare instead of walking the several frigid blocks to the nearest subway stop. Sitting in the back of the cab by myself, while the city races by, I’m struck by how alone I feel. New York is an incredibly dense place, where everyone is literally stacked on top of one another. And yet, sitting in this cab, I feel so incredibly alone.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and open the message there.

  GIANCARLO: I’m sorry. I will see you tomorrow? You have no idea how important you are to me. x

  I pause, reading the brief sentences over and over again. Giancarlo has a way of loading his words with more than they say on the outside, but it’s hard to tell with a text message. I’m never quite sure what he really means by these things, and if I get it wrong, I might pay for it with yet another argument.

  But the bench beside me is empty. I rub my forearm, remembering another cab ride. One where I sat in someone’s lap, was utterly wrapped up in his lips, his mouth, his arms, his hands. Where I felt like I was the center of his universe in those moments, like for him, the sun rose and set with me.

  All before it was ripped away. Time and time again.

  I touch my lips, then look down at my phone.

  ME: You are important to me too. x

  The phone buzzes quickly after that, more x’s and o’s, more messages with all the ways he’s going to make the night up to me. I respond to them briefly, then tell him I’m home well before I am. For the rest of the drive, I lean my head against the window and close my eyes, willing that ball in my stomach to loosen completely, and the voice in my heart that aches for another to quiet into the night.

  ~

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Nico

  I pull hard on the underside of the bleachers. One more. Two more. Last one. You can do it.

  “Ahhhh!” I growl as I pull up the last time, holding my body for an extra second before dropping to the ground. I’m so covered in sweat from the end of my workout, I’m not sure I could have held on anymore if I tried.

  Still, I jog in place for a second, shaking out the pain coursing up and down my arms. It’s a good pain––a burn that tells me I’m making progress.

  On the other side of the bleachers, a group of high school girls giggle at me from the middle of the field as I jog back to the track for my cool-down. I probably should have kept my shirt on, but it’s too damn hot for that. Way hotter than normal even for LA in February––and if you want to know the truth, I’m getting tired of the damn sunshine. Right now New York is covered in slush, and they’re supposed to have a snowstorm next week. I’d almost be happy to be there if just for the change of pace.

  I finish the last loop of the mile, ignoring the way the girls are eyeing me. Kids. I sprint the last hundred meters on the track, huffing out short, sharp breaths in time with my feet. I want this. I want this job more than just about anything. I had one of the top scores of the test––and now I want one of the top physical assessments too. I know that it doesn’t really matter as long as I pass––it’s the background checks that are really important to getting one of the coveted FDNY spots. But I can’t afford to have an application that’s anything less than stellar. They already know about my pas, and the two big blemishes against met: two years in detention for aggravated assault. I was only fifteen, but still prosecuted as an offender instead of a delinquent, putting a permanent mark on my record.

  But they could have just tossed my application right then and there, and then didn’t. So I have to try. If FedEx can see past my mistakes, maybe the FDNY will too, and I’m determined to make the rest of my application shine.

  I know you can do it.

  Layla’s voice sings through my brain as I jog back to my apartment, keeping a quicker pace than normal. I wish I could tell her what she does for me, how her
faith keeps me going. I’ve left her alone since Christmas, when I heard that male voice on the other end of the line. I’m not going to lie. That knowledge cuts me too. I hate knowing that she’s moving on, even though she has every right. I hate thinking about the fact that another dude is touching her, loving her. Doing things to her that only I should do.

  So I don’t. Instead, I think about the good stuff. When we do share a few text messages back and forth, she asks about my EMT test, and like an idiot, I tell her it’s going well. I tell her I have an interview––which is true––and let her praise and faith and optimism wash all over me.

  I’m so proud of you. You’re going to be great. You’re so freaking smart. Words I’d never heard in my life––words I never thought I needed to hear––until I met her.

  The problem with thinking about her as much as I do is that it usually leads to thinking about other stuff too. The glow in her eyes when she sees me naked. The texture of her lips when I suck on them. The swell of her ass when I take a nice handful…

  I grunt, forcing myself to run a little faster. Fuck. I’m going to need a really cold shower now. It’s been more than two months since I saw her last, but it. Never. Ends. Normally I wouldn’t let myself get so caught up in those fantasies, but I need her words right now. My test is next week.

  I have just enough time to get home, shower, and pack up my stuff before my shift tonight. I have an early flight to New York in the morning, with the weekend to spend with my family before my interview on Monday. And yeah. Okay. I’m hoping to see her too. I just want to make sure she’s okay.

  Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, mano. K.C. isn’t even here, but I can hear him, loud and clear. Whatever, man, I think back at him. You’ve never been in love. You don’t know how it is.

  First, though, I have to tell her I’m coming.

  I get back to the apartment, where most of my stuff has been packed into boxes. Jessie’s supposed to find a new roommate by the time I get back, which will give me the last few weeks of February to move my things into storage and K.C.’s place in WeHo.

  Jessie is sitting at the table, looking sullenly through her email.

  “Hey,” I say as I toss my keys into the bowl. “How’s the search?”

  Her answer is the same as it’s always been: a scowl. She wasn’t happy when, after she got back from the holidays, I broke the news: I was moving out. And when I say not happy, I mean she hurled a vase at my head, then tried to get me into bed, then a salad bowl joined the vase. So yeah, I think getting out is the right decision, aside from just being the right thing to do. And you know what? It feels good to do the right thing.

  I promised I’d stay until she found a roommate, but slowly, I’ve been bringing my stuff over to K.C.’s and have been spending more and more nights over there. It doesn’t make sense for me to find another apartment if I’m not sure what I’m doing here, and my boy is nice enough to let me sleep on his couch. Sometimes I think I should just get on the plane now. Go back to my old apartment and wait out the results of my next test in New York. Try to convince Layla to dump that fuckwad she’s with and come back to me, where she belongs.

  But what if I fail? Even worse, what if I get all the way to the end only to have my past pull the rug out from under me? Then I’d be right back where I started. Same old life. Same old shit.

  I can’t do that. Because as much as I don’t want to admit it, Jessie’s right. I can’t go back to a city that doesn’t want me. I need to make something of myself first. At least in LA I’m head of security instead of just a minor employee. There’s room for growth in that. Or maybe I can actually take that EMT exam. Maybe I’ll even go back to school.

  Jessie huffs at her computer. “Not anyone worth having here. People are psychos; you know that.”

  I get a glass of water, gulp it down, and immediately refill it. “Jess, you have to give some of them a chance. At least meet a few.”

  “Why?” she asks sullenly.

  I sigh. “We really gonna do this again? You and I should not be living together, Jessie.”

  She rolls her eyes, but she knows it’s the truth. It’s not good, this situation. A year ago, we had some fun together, but that was before things got…complicated…in my life. It was before I gave my heart to someone else. Jessie deserves more than that. She doesn’t deserve to be used like a Band-Aid when I’m missing someone else.

  I walk over to where she sits and look over her shoulder at a response to her Craigslist ad. I shrug, standing back up. “She looks nice.”

  “She,” Jessie spits out. “I don’t want to live with a girl. They’re too catty.” She shuts her laptop and spins around to me, slipping her hands up my bare skin naturally. “Come on. Stay. This is getting ridiculous, don’t you think?”

  I step out of her grasp. It would be easy, like it’s been so many other times, to let her do what she wants to do––use me for some kind of self-esteem boost, let me use her to distract myself. And fuck, I am feeling pretty fuckin’ hard up these days. But she always feels like shit when we’re done, and so do I. If we were good together, good for each other, it wouldn’t be like that. And I’d be thinking of her when I close my eyes, not someone else.

  “I gotta pack, Jess,” I say as I walk backward to my room. “Keep looking. You’ll find someone.”

  ~

  That feeling doesn’t go away, even after I jump into a freezing cold shower. I’m still a bit hard; it’s all anticipation.

  “Fuck this,” I mutter and turn the water on warm again while I wash up. I might as well take care of this while I’m in here. I work in an industry with a lot of scantily dressed women. I can’t be checking IDs with half a boner.

  Layla. I’ll call eventually, but right now, I imagine what she would do if I showed up and surprised her. Outside her dorm, maybe, where I used to wait against the lamppost. Wait, no. She doesn’t live there now.

  Her office, then, where we first met. Doesn’t matter that she doesn’t work there anymore either; this fantasy is working for me. Yeah…I thought about bending her over that desk lots of times.

  Now I’m fully hard, and without a second thought, I start rubbing one out, focusing more on one particular idea that I’ve imagined so many times that I’ve even sketched it once or twice.

  She’s sending a fax or filing papers or whatever shit she did behind that donut-shaped desk. If I remember right, it’s about three and a half feet high, tall enough that when she stood, it came well above her waist. I see her there, standing in one of those tight skirts she preferred, the high-heeled shoes that made her legs look crazy long.

  How many times did I imagine coming up behind her and caging her to the desk with both hands while I nosed her hair off her neck and kissed her bare skin? How many times did I imagine slipping a hand between her legs and slowly, slowly, tugging her skirt over her hips? Sliding a finger inside her with my thumb on her clit, just the way I know she likes until she’s practically dripping down my arm.

  And then, just when I’d know she was ready, I’d unzip my pants and pull out my dick. I’d be a fuckin’ rock, so fucking hard for her, and she’d arch as I’d gently push inside, little by little. No condom, no nothing. Just me. Just her.

  “Quiet, baby,” I’d have to tell her. “They’ll hear you.”

  But she can’t be quiet. My girl never could. And because I’d just have to fucking have her, right then and there, I’d keep thrusting, take hold of her ass with one hand, flick her clit with the other, and keep going until she’d be writhing all over that desktop like a snake, begging me to give it to her, harder, faster, deeper.

  “Baby…” she’d moan, all breathy and light like she does when she’s just about to lose it. “Nico…please.”

  I press one hand into the shower tile as the other takes over, stroking furiously as I let my imagination go. Turning her around. Riding her all over that fucking desk. Sometimes I imagine that some of the stuck-up lawyers at that place walk in, the ones who a
lways flirted with her in front of me, treated me like a piece of furniture. Like I wasn’t there. I imagine they’d see me giving it to her, see her face contorted with desire, see her grasping at the edges as I ram into her again and again.

  “Hey!” they’d shout. “You can’t do that! Get off her!”

  “Get the fuck out,” I’d snarl just as she’d fall apart, twisting and moaning as she’d come hard all over me. “She’s mine.”

  “Fuuuuuuuucccccckkkk,” I moan, clapping my hand against the shower tile again and again as I come. It seems like it lasts forever as I let it pour over me and through, massaging out the last of it until everything is spent.

  For a moment after, I rest my forehead against the tile, letting the water rinse off the rest of my body, which is filled with the peace that only comes from that sort of release. I know in a few minutes, it’s going to be even worse. With my head filled with images of her, I’ll want to topple into bed and hold her for the rest of the night.

  But she’s not here. And that bed is empty. And I’ve got to get to work before––hopefully––I can see her again for real.

  ~

  A few hours later, I’m standing outside, my bag in hand. K.C. is going to drive me to the airport after his gig and my shift are up.

  I finger my cell phone. Maybe I shouldn’t call. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell her that I’m coming. She’s trying to move on, and I should let her. But…I can’t. I just have to know she’s okay. I haven’t seen her in almost three months. Dinner can’t hurt.

  The phone rings three, four times. Of course. It’s almost eleven o’clock on a Friday night in New York. She’s at a bar with her friends, maybe out with her…man. She’s not going to be able to talk to me.

  But then she picks up.

  “Hello?”

  I listen hard for any sounds behind her. A deep voice. The clink of glasses or blare of music. But it’s silent.

  “Hey, baby,” I say as I relax into my seat. “It’s…yeah, it’s me.”

  There’s a sigh, low and content. Fuck, I forgot how good that sound makes me feel. It’s the sound she used to make whenever we hugged, whenever she relaxed into my arms. She made it when she was happy. I lived for that sound. I would do anything to hear it again.