I smirk. This is a game we’re required to play. “Tips, girl. Just take it. I’ll have a Tito’s and tonic, and...” I turn to Layla. “What do you want, baby?”
Layla softens at the nickname and lets me pull her a little closer. She’s a little overwhelmed by this place, by Nina. Shit, what’s she going to do when I introduce her to K.C.? I kiss her a little on the cheek, and she thaws a little more. Okay, okay. Good sign. Maybe the night’s not a total wash.
“Whiskey soda,” she murmurs, and leans her head on my shoulder while I pass her order to Nina.
Nina gives us another wink, then grabs our drinks and disappears down the bar to flirt with more customers and collect the massive tips those tits will get her. Layla just sips her drink.
“You still mad?” I ask her. My voice is already starting to hurt from shouting over this shitty house music. The bass is so loud I can feel it thumping through the bar top. K.C. hasn’t started his set yet––he’s known for doing a good mix of Latin and electronica, which will be better than this Eurotrash garbage.
Layla shrugs, just sucks on her drink and avoids my eyes. I sigh and look around the room. I spot K.C. and wave him over from where he’s flirting up not just one, but three women at the same time. The guy’s got serious game, I’ll give him that. He catches sight of me, and starts pushing through the dance floor.
“You don’t believe me?” I call to Layla, who turns back around to face me. “Ask K.C. He was with me most of the day.”
She turns around to see who I’m waving at and spots K.C. waving back. We watch as he weaves through the masses of people, wearing his backward red Yankees cap and a goofy smile even while he gives at least five girls on the way a smile or a wink. He sticks out––no one else but him would have been allowed into a club like this with a hat, hoodie, or sneakers, but he’s wearing all three.
It’s not until he’s almost here that I realize he’s got my brother Gabe with him too. Suddenly, I’m nervous. I didn’t want to make a big thing of it, but Layla hasn’t met any of my friends or family. Other than Ma and K.C., no one even knows yet that I’m staying. They don’t know that she’s the reason why.
“Hey, mano, what’s up?” K.C. greets me with a quick slap to the back and a fist bump. Gabe reaches around him to slap my hand.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, looking at my kid brother up and down. It’s not like I’ve never snuck him into a bar. But I came out to get away from my family. I love them, but for fuck’s sake, I needed a break tonight.
“K.C. hired me to help him lug his records,” Gabe says, clearly excited to be in a place like this.
I glance at K.C., who just shrugs. I know what he’s thinking––that Gabe’s eighteen, a man now, can make his own damn decisions. But he knows I don’t like my kid brother in a place like this. It’s one thing to tag along with me to AJ’s, which is a small enough club that I can keep an eye on him. It’s a total other to be in the Roxy, where if you stumble around the wrong corner, you’re as likely to find people selling blow as anything else.
“Well, you better be doing a good job, kid,” I tell him. I pull Layla in front of me, but keep an arm around her waist. “Guys, this is my girl, Layla.”
She softens again when I say that, and I smirk, even though for some reason, saying that to K.C. and Gabe like this makes my chest feel tight. It’s one thing to tell the doorman or the bartender, people I used to know but barely see anymore, about me and Layla. It’s another to introduce her to the most important people in my life.
Layla openly looks over K.C. and Gabe, who are doing the same thing to her. Gabe’s dressed up a little, wearing his Sunday shirt from H&M and the pair of black pants I bought him for his graduation. With his black hair combed back, he’s made a lot of effort to look more grown up than he is in church clothes and a pair of shoes that look a couple sizes too big for him.
We don’t look much alike. I’m a little on the shorter, bulkier side, while Gabe tops six feet and is skinny as a telephone pole. Gabe’s also fair like his dad, a light-skinned Cuban guy who still comes around every so often. I take more after Mamá, with her darker skin. But we both have the same dark eyes and big lips, and people still look at us and know we’re brothers.
“Hello,” he says as he holds out his hand to Layla. “I’m Gabe, Nico’s brother. You must be Layla. He was talking about you tremendously today.”
I have to hide a smile. Gabe’s trying really hard to speak what he calls “proper English.” He’s nervous about going to college this fall, and when I told him that Layla goes to NYU, he was curious about her right away.
“Hey, manito,” I cut in in Spanish so I don’t embarrass him. “You sound like an ass.”
Layla blinks between us, unaware of what I’ve said, while K.C. starts cackling, although he’s more interested in sizing up Layla than moderating my exchange with my brother.
Layla smiles shyly and shakes both of their hands and accepts kisses on both cheeks from K.C. “It’s nice to meet you guys. I’ve heard a lot.”
“Good things, I hope. I can’t trust this fuck to be honest,” K.C. jokes.
“Hey, hey, easy.” I swat his hand away good-naturedly. K.C. mimes a punch at my shoulder, and finally Layla smiles––really smiles––as she watches our exchange.
“Gabe was with me all day today too, baby,” I tell her. “He can tell you what a fucking mess the trains were.”
She looks at Gabe curiously. “You went up to Nico’s apartment with him? Why?”
“He has booze up there,” Gabe says with a sly wink. “I’m only eighteen, so I can’t buy.” He holds up a wrist that’s bare in contrast to the green paper bands wrapped around Nico’s and mine. “I needed to pregame.”
“You don’t have a fake ID?” she asks.
It’s cute how shocked she is. I know the first thing all the college kids do is buy a fake, but no one local does it. No one needs to if you have the right connections.
“Nah, what do I need that for when my brother knows everyone at the hottest clubs?” Gabe says. “Besides, most of the weekends I’m supposed to be studying anyway.”
We launch into a discussion of Gabe’s last semester of high school and his acceptance to CUNY. I’m so fuckin’ proud of my kid brother. He’s insanely good at math and didn’t fuck up the way I did in high school––I made sure of that. His counselor at school even helped him get a full scholarship, so he’s going to have nothing else to do but study next year. He’s going to finish college if it’s the last thing I make him do.
“I’m mostly excited to move uptown,” Gabe’s saying. “Nico’s place is right by the college. No commuting from Hell’s Kitchen. I don’t care what Ma says. She drives me nuts.”
“Well, she must be happy that you’ll be living with your brother,” Layla says cautiously. I smile at her. She’s trying to be nice without encouraging him to say anything bad about our mom. I want to tell her not to worry. We love her, but she drives all her kids crazy.
“What?” Gabe stares at me with obvious confusion. “Bro, what is she talking about? I thought you were moving to LA.”
K.C.’s eyes go wide. “Oh shit,” he mutters into his cup. “Dude, you didn’t tell him?”
Layla glances between us with confusion. Suddenly, my chest feels tight again.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “I realized I’d be crazy to leave the greatest city in the world for fuckin’ LA. So yeah, bro, I’m stayin’. You’ll still get my room, though.”
For some reason, I can’t quite meet my brother’s eyes, so instead I fix my gaze on the chick grinding on some dude behind him. She’s hot, and the guy is pretty into it, inching up her skirt. Normally it might turn me on, make me want to do the same thing with Layla, but instead I just hug her closer to me so she can’t see my face. Her coconut scent is there again, and my chest relaxes.
Gabe’s skinny face flickers back and forth between Layla and me for a moment before settling into a neutral smile.
&
nbsp; “Well, hey, that’s great, I guess,” he says. “Great, bro. Mom must be happy.”
“Um, yeah,” I say. “Yeah, she’s happy.”
“Too bad I won’t get my own place, though.”
He lifts his water cup toward me in silent salute while he steals one last glance at Layla. I give a tight smile and squeeze Layla around the waist. For some reason, in this moment, she feels like a lifeline. Like if I let her go, I’d drift away into this sea of nothingness that surrounds us.
K.C. has been weirdly quiet this whole time, watching the exchange over the rim of his cup. He looks at me carefully, and I just focus on finishing the strong-ass vodka tonic Nina made me. Girl was trying to fuck me up, that’s for sure.
“Come on, dude,” K.C. says suddenly, hitting Gabe on the shoulder. “We need to set up.”
Gabe nods. “All right. See you guys.”
Suddenly, I don’t want to sit here anymore. Layla’s not stupid. She’s going to turn around with her blue eyes full of questions that will gut me. I can hear them already. Why didn’t you tell your brother you were staying? What did your mother really say when you told her? Why was K.C. staring at me like that? And I can already feel the liquor loosening up my inhibitions.
She doesn’t need to know what I’m feeling right now. That even though I made my choice, that I can’t imagine leaving this girl, this woman who makes my heart feel like it’s beating for the first time, being in this place, in this city, still makes me feel like I’m drowning.
“Come on, baby,” I say, full of sudden decision. I tip back the rest of my drink, and then take Layla’s empty plastic cup and toss both of them into a nearby trashcan. “Let’s dance.”
I pull her into the middle of the crowd, letting the deep bass and drum filter through the floor into our bodies. Layla closes her eyes and sways her hips to the music. Even in the dim atmosphere of cigarette smoke cut through every so often with strobe lights, she looks like the sun. I’m reminded of the fact that much like this city, I can’t seem to escape her orbit. The only difference is that with her, I don’t want to.
A salsa beat starts to mix into the deep bass. K.C. is starting his set, and the crowd cheers in response. I pull Layla closer, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and nuzzling her cheek. She melts into me, moving in time to the rhythm I set with my hips. I’m not a professional, but I’m a decent dancer. You don’t grow up in New York without hearing a lot of music. Filtering out of the shops. Blasting out of boom boxes or people’s headphones on the subway. It’s everywhere here.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” Layla shouts in my ear. She’s got her fingers in my hair, and the way she’s moving her hips against mine has me standing at half-mast. There is nothing more I’d rather do than just take her home right now and forget the way this city makes me feel––like I’m stuck in a marriage I can’t get out of.
So I shrug and kiss her on the forehead, letting my lips linger a touch too long.
“Think about it, sweetie,” I say. “I’m staying in New York for you. If I wasn’t interested anymore, I would just leave, wouldn’t I? Go to LA like I originally planned.”
I try to ignore the way that statement makes me feel. The way it makes my chest constrict all over again, the way it makes me feel like I can’t breathe. I press my forehead into her neck and inhale. She’s my lifeline. She has no idea, but that’s what she is these days.
I need to treat her better for it, instead of like I resent her.
Now we’re swaying to our own beat, separate from whatever it is that K.C.’s playing. I grip her waist, holding her as tight to me as I can. What would she do if she knew how much I need her right now? Does that make me pathetic? I really don’t know.
“I was dumb,” she says. “Do you forgive me?”
I stand up straight, tip her chin up with a finger so I can look directly at her. Her eyes glow, two glittering blue lights that shine brighter than any strobe. Gently, I kiss her, my lips opening wider than I intended, as if by instinct. But her tongue welcomes mine, twists around, slowly, meticulously until we’re both out of breath. When I break away, her face is flushed. My chest hurts, but in a totally different way. There’s so much I want to say to her, but it’s too soon. Isn’t it?
“Already done, baby,” I say instead. “And I’m sorry I was so late and didn’t call. Now we need to make up.”
I touch my forehead to hers, and my hands slip down to cover her ass in the crowded club. I have no shame with her––there’s no way she’s missing the way she makes me feel against her leg. Instead, she grinds against it. I kiss her again.
“I think it’s time to go,” she says when I let her go, still a little breathless.
But now I’m not quite so eager to leave. We just got here, after all. The feel of her body, the thump of the music––all of it’s invaded me, hypnotized me, just the way New York always seems to do. Now my instincts aren’t to get out, but interested more in the torture of delayed gratification.
I squeeze her ass a little tighter and start to move in time to the music again.
“Not yet,” I say with a grin. “We should probably stay more than five minutes. I need to dance with my baby.”
~
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nico
“What do you think of this one?”
After spending the rest of last night and a solid chunk of Sunday morning making up, Layla and I decide to visit the Met before she has to go back downtown to do her homework. I still haven’t been able to shake that tightening I feel in my chest, and the Met is one of the few places in New York that doesn’t make me crazy. So I take her back downtown to change her clothes, and then we run back uptown to check out a special exhibit.
The Met is doing a special on the works of William Blake, a favorite of Layla’s. She’ll actually get some extra credit for going to the exhibit, so it’s a double-win. I just like the drawings. All around these massive poems, which I’m honestly not that big on, this Blake guy made these intricate watercolors and etched designs. I have to laugh at the title of the exhibit: “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” It could not fit my life better.
Layla’s pointing to a larger watercolor next to the fourth plate of the poem. “The Good and Evils Angels” presents two angels, one brown, the other white, both naked, arguing over the child held in the arms of the white, supposedly “good” angel. The “evil” angel seems to be flying out of a collection of flames, but is shackled to them by one foot. The child looks like it wants to escape from the arms of the “good” angel.
I cock my head as I study the drawings. “I like the way he draws the body. Very detailed, anatomically. I mean, he’s no Michelangelo, but everything is very clear.”
It’s something I try to do when I draw too. Since I’ve still been too chicken shit to tell Layla how I really feel––about her, about LA, about everything––this morning, I decided the next best thing was to let her look through my sketchbook. No one sees that. That shit is private.
She paged through it for about an hour, and at one point, when she found the cache of pencil drawings at the end that are mostly of her, I escaped to the shower. I just couldn’t deal with the possibility that she didn’t like them.
I didn’t need to worry. When I came back in, she showed me just how much she liked them, and then we both needed another shower.
“He was more a poet than an artist,” Layla says. “Do you think the bad angel isn’t ‘bad’ because he wants to be, but because he’s forced there?”
I frown, staring at the shackle. “I don’t know. Could be. I don’t think anyone really wants to be bad, really, but sometimes you have to do those things every now and then, and then it’s easier to get sucked further into it. Everything in life is that way, you know?” I look at her and smile, trying to shake off the echoes of my own life. “But he looks pretty possessed, NYU. I don’t think I’d give my kid to that dude.”
She laughs as she moves to look at the next pl
ate, but my thoughts still linger with the evil angels. It’s too close to home.
I look at the picture for a few more minutes, and just when I’m about to follow Layla, my cell phone buzzes in my pocket. Maggie. Fuck. My sister doesn’t exactly call just to chat.
“Yo, what’s up, Mag?” I say in a quiet voice, so as not to disturb the other people looking at the exhibit. It’s not that big of a deal, though—the Met is fairly loud, as museums go. Layla watches curiously as I chat with my sister in Spanish. I don’t need this room full of rich white people knowing my family’s business.
“Nico, hey...I just wanted to know if, um, Allie and I could come stay for a bit. Just until we find a place for ourselves, really.”
I swear silently to myself. The last time this happened, my sister had a nasty bruise on her face. “What happened? Did Jimmy...”
“No, no, nothing like that, I swear it. It’s just that things aren’t really so hot with him. He’s...I don’t know. He’s so hot and cold.”
“Forget him, Maggie. Tell him to fuck off. You don’t need that shit.”
A few of the other people looking at the pictures jump a little at my words and put a few extra feet between us. I roll my eyes. Forget them too.
The weight of my sister’s sighs seems to push physically through the phone. “It’s complicated, Nico. He’s Allie’s father. He just needs a little space sometimes, that’s all.”
I pace around in a small circle, trying to keep my temper in check. It’s the same old excuses for Jimmy, same old shit about how Maggie and he can’t seem to get along, how he needs a break from his own kid, how they always need everyone else––meaning me––to pick up the slack. It’s bullshit. This isn’t what grown-ups do. They don’t get to take timeouts from their own fuckin’ lives. They deal with their shit.
I close my eyes and rub my face. I want to tell my sister to deal with her own shit. Get her own place instead of leeching off me. Tell Jimmy where to shove it and stop putting her kid through this garbage. But then I think of Allie, and I don’t want to consider what might happen if I forced her mother to grow the fuck up.
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