“Did you die just now while standing here?” she demanded.
“Unfortunately no, so I still have to hear these dumbass accusations.”
“You dramatic asshole. Just forget it, Angel. I should have known better, anyway.”
She turned away, dark hair falling over her shoulder to cover her back like a silky curtain, and walked over to her vanity. It was messy with jewelry and makeup, notes written on the mirror in pink lipstick, but it was controlled chaos. Usually, anyway. Now, she seemed irritated by the clutter and shoved things around with jerky movements.
I came up behind her and put my hands on her bared shoulders. “Nena.” When she ignored me in favor of hyper-focusing on her bottles of perfume, I squeezed. “Nena, look at me.”
Stephanie looked into the mirror, remoteness casting her expression in indifference even though I could see through that mask. When she didn’t protest, I eased closer, pressing my chest to her back. Her fingers balled into fists, and she closed her eyes when I gathered her hair to slide it over her shoulder. She was so soft, just like I’d always known she would be, way back in ninth grade when I’d begun hanging out with her and the guys on the regular.
Even then, I’d been infatuated. Obsessed. I’d been quiet around her at first, but had done anything she’d wanted before she’d thought to ask. Grabbed her a seat in the crowded cafeteria, carried her backpack, bought her loosies at the store because I’d looked older, helped her with her Spanish homework because it was all we’d spoken at home for years whereas she and her brother weren’t as fluent. Braided her hair while she read our English homework aloud, because she was better at analyzing texts.
And I’d hated her parents for leaving her and Vic all alone. Loved Vic like he was my own brother because it had hurt her to know everyone else loathed him. Hid him in my fucking apartment the night of the shooting, away from both the cops and the shooter. That was when he’d gone from scary-tough-guy Vic to scared-kid Victor who’d agreed to be sent off to Chicago to avoid ending up like his dead best friend.
I would never forget how hard she’d cried at the airport. Not because she would miss him, but because she’d been so relieved. And how she’d told me she loved me for being there when no one else was, for buying the ticket because all her money went to tuition and rent. That moment was etched into my brain even though it wasn’t the kind of love I’d wanted from her, but still.
Still.
“Angel.”
I blinked away the memories and refocused on her, seeing her half-shut eyes and parted lips, and realizing I’d been caressing her arm with my face pressed into her hair.
“Stephanie.” Her name sounded thick in my mouth, padded by a decade’s worth of longing. “I’m sorry I always let you down these days. You know I hate being that guy.”
She tilted her head back against me, observing, quiet, giving nothing away. “Then apologize.”
“I’m so—”
“Without words.”
My heart nearly beat out of my chest, slamming into her back, and my dick chubbed up almost instantly. “I thought we weren’t fucking around anymore.”
“We’re not fucking around,” she said softly. “You’re apologizing, and then I’m going to the party by myself.”
My hands slid along her arms, trailing down to settle on her waist. I didn’t break eye contact, and didn’t move farther, until she turned to face me and pulled me against her. Unspoken permission to touch her body. I leaned in, desperate as always to kiss her, but wasn’t surprised when she turned away.
“I’m not redoing my face.”
“Harsh,” I said, kissing the side of her neck instead. “Considering this is my last chance to kiss you.”
“That was your choice.”
She wasn’t wrong. We’d pushed and pulled each other for the past year, her initiating, then me, her putting a stop to things when it got too intense, then me calling for a finale when my feelings had escalated into jealousy and spiraled out of control. Me eyeballing Raymond for dancing with her on a cruise ship had been a serious red flag that things were getting out of control. I’d dragged her off and fucked her mean and hard until she’d come on my dick, as if that had meant I had any ownership over her. God, I was an idiot. Everything was mortifying in retrospect.
“I want your mouth,” I said against her throat. “Come on, nena.”
“No.” Her voice was losing its cool unaffected factor the wetter my kisses became, openmouthed along her neck, then over her clavicle. “You can kiss something else.”
My dick thickened fully, throbbing in my jeans, as she pressed her hands to the top of my head and pushed me down. I gave no resistance, sinking to my knees, and stared up at her as she watched me. I didn’t look away when I hooked my fingers on the sides of her skimpy underwear, dragging my fingers along her thighs as I knelt.
When she was standing in front of me with nothing more than her bra, I grabbed her hips and guided her back against the vanity. She took the hint, sitting on the edge, and spread her thighs open with her heels propped against the lower drawers.
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip, while rubbing the inside of her thighs. I wanted to kiss every part of her, from her mouth to her breasts, over her soft stomach, then down to her pussy. Try to make her feel, with my touch, how much I cared about her, even though I always said the wrong thing. Let her know that I wanted her to be with me if she ever decided being with one person was her thing.
But she didn’t want all that right now. She wanted an apology, which meant she wanted me to give her an orgasm—something I was actually good at.
I leaned in to kiss the hood of her sex, pressed her lips apart with my thumbs, then kissed her clit. A breath whooshed out above me, and her fingers went into my too-long hair, right before I went full steam ahead from worshipful to flat-out nasty—how she liked it. I tongued her pussy the way I would have done her mouth, until my saliva was everywhere and her clit was swollen.
There was a clink of her bracelets as she ran her fingers through my hair, tugging and clawing through the strands. When she yanked harder, her breath gusting audibly, I began tracing I’m sorry against her clit with my tongue. Then I traced I love you. By the time I got to the last letter, she was writhing.
“Angel.” Her voice went high, and she ground against my face. Her thighs tried to clench together, but I held them apart. “Baby . . .”
I loved it when she called me that, so I thanked her with three fingers in her hole as I made out with her clit, alternating between sucking and licking. I could taste her instead of my own spit now, and I finger-fucked her relentlessly until she went from gripping my hair to leaning back against the mirror with her legs spread wide open.
“I’m gonna come,” she panted. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come so hard.”
I lodged my fingers inside of her, crooking them while sucking on her clit.
“Angel—”
She broke off with a loud cry, her hips jolting as she came all over my fingers, giving me even more to lick up. The trifecta of her filthy mouth, her taste, and the feel of her juice all over my hand was enough for my body to rebel against me. My dick was trying to burst out of my jeans, pulsing in a way that meant wet spots, but I didn’t touch myself. I’d wait until I was home, and whack it all by my lonesome.
Stephanie whimpered when I slid my fingers out of her and sat back, her eyes squeezed shut. She’d melted against the vanity, legs slack and hanging down as she held herself up with taut arms. She didn’t open her eyes until she regained control of her breathing, and until her trembling lips stiffened back into forced indifference.
“How’s my face?”
I smirked. “Still on point. I figured you use that extra-strength stuff to prepare for such unexpected emergencies.”
A laugh burst out of her, she tried to quell it, and then laughed harder. I joined her, wiping my arm across my mouth and wondering how I’d survive the walk home with her taste in my mouth and her smell all over
me.
“You’re so dumb,” she said, sliding off the dresser.
“Yeah, but am I forgiven?”
Stephanie shrugged, smile fading. “Yes. I was mostly joking about all that. I don’t know.”
She hadn’t been, but she was better at being cold with me when we weren’t touching. She always gravitated to affection after we fucked. Something I knew wasn’t typical with other people she messed with. A fact that had briefly deluded me into thinking she wanted to be monogamous. Which, she’d made quite clear, she did not. Ever. With anyone.
“Do you ever wonder why we can’t get along like normal? Like David and Ray?”
“Or Chris, and his guys? Or Tonya and Mere?” she asked slowly.
“Yeah, but all of them got together during this same hot-ass month. I can count them as our relationship goals after the summer—” I broke off as her eyes widened. Because I was out here telling her I wanted what they all had. With her. “Uh, yeah, let me let you get ready.”
“Okay . . .” Stephanie grabbed her robe and put it on, looking away. “I’ll see you, Angel.”
“Yeah. See you.”
After a quick pit stop in her bathroom, I booked it down the stairs of her three-story walk-up like the end of my aborted sentence was chasing me.
I spent over fifty dollars for an Uber from Jamaica Estates to Caleb and Oli’s penthouse in the Financial District, and I had no regrets. The idea of taking the hot, crowded subway during rush hour while it was ninety-eight degrees was bad enough, but I knew I wouldn’t make it from here to there without a bevy of catcalls that would end with me getting in someone’s face. It was not the day to trifle with a Quinones.
My driver, Marcel, rolled up in a shiny black Suburban as if he were picking up an entire entourage, and promptly drove me toward Manhattan in complete silence. He also played a nineties R&B station on Sirius XM, and I wound up relating really hard to Mary J. as we went over the bridge.
Humming turned to singing, and I only realized I was hitting M.J. high notes when I caught Marcel looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“Marcel, have you ever had a lover who acted mad undercover? Because I think Mary knows what she’s talking about.”
He shrugged and made a seesaw gesture with his hand.
“I hear you, boy,” I said, nodding.
The song switched to Fat Joe and Ashanti, a clear omen that I was meant to be in this giant vehicle. I needed to unwind, but nothing helped. Even the blast of arctic air from the vents weren’t helping. I could still feel Angel’s hands on me, his mouth on me. I could still see those green eyes looking up at me as he knelt between my thighs. Feel his fingers digging into my flesh as he got more and more into tasting every inch of me. He’d probably been so hard . . .
I squeezed my thighs together and exhaled slowly. It shouldn’t have happened. I was an idiot, and now I was the one sending him confusing signals, which was what I always accused him of doing. He’d say he was cool with being fuck buddies, then hulk out as soon as another person glanced at me twice, then I’d say it was friends with bennies or platonic friendship, right before getting mushy and affectionate. We’d both been going back and forth like this for months, and it was starting to become too much.
We toyed with each other so frequently that I couldn’t keep up. It was why he’d recently suggested we stick to platonic friendship. Fat chance of that. And it wasn’t even him who initiated us fooling around half the time. Earlier, I’d known I was doomed as soon as I’d glanced up in the mirror to catch him watching me. My breath had caught, because he’d been giving me that look. The look he gave me when he thought I wasn’t watching. The one he’d been giving me since high school. It conveyed a lot more than lust, and it often caused butterflies to explode in my stomach.
I’d known him for ten years, and he could still make me nervous with nothing but a glance. If I was like several of my high school friends, I’d take that as a sign that we were meant to end up having a big Catholic wedding ending with adorable one-quarter Italian, three-quarters Boricua kids popping out right after the honeymoon.
But I didn’t, because signs were bullshit, and that was not my dream. Even without the wedding and the kids, I wasn’t here to get caught up with a guy just because he managed to look like sex in torn-up jeans and a thin gray Yankees tee when he wasn’t fronting like he couldn’t manage to be around me in a public setting. Getting caught up wasn’t my life plan. My goal was to only depend on myself, just like I’d been doing since I was a kid. Focusing on me, and me alone, and not changing things to fit another person, had allowed me to put myself through college, get my own place, and feel successful without anybody’s help. At all.
We pulled up in front of the gleaming tower that housed the penthouse, and I could not deny that I felt deliciously fancy. It was a nice change after I’d spent the entire day hunched over my desk at work, making magic by transforming bits and pieces of information into a narrative that would get one of my boss’s clients a hard-won O-1 visa. In my heart of hearts, this would be the assignment that showed him I deserved a raise. In the bitter reality, I was going to stay stuck at twenty dollars an hour unless I found another job, which was undesirable since I loved his practice.
“Thank you,” I said to Marcel. “I’ll give you five stars for not speaking.”
He nodded at me. “Thanks. Cheer up.”
I slid him a side-eye as I got out of the car. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
His laugh was cut off by me slamming the door shut. My fancy feeling vanished in the humid night air, and I speed-walked into the building. It wasn’t the first time I’d attended one of Caleb and Oli’s parties, but I was struck by the glitz every time. Comparatively, it made my large-for-NYC one-bedroom apartment in the Jamaica Estates look like a hovel. This place was . . . unreal. A fantasy. Something I’d never conceived of, let alone wanted. While I loved visiting the world of penthouses or mansions with the Stone kids, I still liked going home to my cozy place above Hillside Avenue.
The doorman nodded at me in greeting as I crossed the lobby, and I checked my reflection in the elevator once the doors closed. I didn’t look even remotely as messy as I felt, and my white dress was still unsullied, so I considered it a win.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of the elevator and . . . found myself face-to-face with my brother. I went from feeling put together to internally flailing, because I wasn’t ready to see Victor this frequently. Or to face the memories that had come rushing back ever since he’d returned from Chicago. My childhood, our childhood, had remained safely tucked into the back of my closet for the past several years, but he was forcing me to confront it solely by being in the city.
“What’s good, Steph?”
I blinked, looked around, and then went back to staring at him in something that likely resembled panic. He’d been back in town for two weeks, and my stomach still sank every time I saw him, which was why I was keeping my distance. It wasn’t that I was avoiding his hulking, muscular, tattooed self—it was more that I casually tried not to speak to him. I’d done enough of that three years ago before forcing him to go to Chicago. Upon his return to New York, I’d begged Angel and Tonya to let him crash for a week until he got a place together. Seeing him was bad enough, but having him in the house with me where we’d inevitably ruminate about our absent parents . . . It seemed like a nightmare.
“Why are you here?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended.
He raised one shoulder. “Meredith invited me.”
“. . . Why?”
Victor snorted. “Trying to suck up to Tonya by being nice to her squad?”
“You’re not in her squad,” I reminded him. “Only Angel likes you.”
“Yeah, because he isn’t a dick. Unlike Raymond.”
The way he said Raymond’s name put me on edge. Even as reformed as Victor claimed to be, with his button-down shirt hiding his gang tats, and his voice a little lower and less confrontational, the aggress
ion poured out of his mouth at the mention of Ray. It took me back to the time when I’d been terrified of them crossing paths, convinced they’d kill each other one day. The hostility he’d had toward Raymond had never made any sense to me. He’d fixated on Ray. Gone out of his way to provoke a guy who’d been my best friend since junior high school. Even now, I didn’t get it. Just the mention of Raymond had been enough to set Victor off.
“Don’t worry, sis. I’m going.” He ran a hand over his hair. “You here with Angel?”
“No,” I said sharply. “Why would I be?”
He gave me a weird look. “I dunno. I thought you were hanging out or whatever.”
Hanging out or whatever was his awkward brother way of saying he’d thought we were sleeping together.
“We’re not in a relationship, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying nothing. I kinda figured you’d end up with a woman by now, to be honest.” It was so out of left field that I just stared at him and waited for an explanation. He snorted out a laugh. “You used to get more girls than me.”
He was right. Between Tonya in her white ribbed tank tops and baggy jeans, and me with my name chains, gold hoops, and skater outfits, the teenage girls around Kings Park hadn’t really stood a chance. Her open queerness had made me feel comfortable coming out about my bisexuality early on. And I couldn’t deny that I’d crushed on her for mad long before realizing neither of us were willing to risk our close friendship for sex. Not to mention that she hadn’t shared my disdain for monogamy.
“Because I’m flyer than you.”
“No doubt. Maybe that’s why you fit in so well with this crowd.” He glanced over his shoulder, brows twitching together. “You really like these people?”
“They’re not bad,” I said. “You should give them a chance if you plan to work for Kenneth Stone.”
Citywide Page 22
