Dil or No Dil

by Suleikha Snyder

  “How am I at risk right now, Mia?” Of course, he challenges her. Because he’s been doing that since the beginning. Demanding to know why he needed to leave his house, his work. Refusing to hand over his cell phone. Calling her “MI6”—which is a nickname she’s heard plenty of times in her line of work, given her name and her posh accent.

  His accent holds traces of New York, of whiskey and cigarettes. And his voice, like his body, is entirely too close. An arrogant whisper in her ear. “I think we both know what the real risk here is. And you’re running away from it. I didn’t peg you for a coward.”

  She could knock him on his ass in four seconds. She should. “I don’t sleep with clients,” she says instead.

  Putting it into words breaks the lock. Like it’s some sort of tacit permission for them to move beyond the delicate negotiation of space. It brings Jack flush against her. One of his hands comes off the countertop and splays across her pelvis. That arrogant whisper drops from her ear to her cheek. “Then don’t sleep.”

  She’s not sure who turns. Her to him. Him to her. Perhaps they meet in the middle. It’s the worst decision. It’s the best decision. Because Jack Wilder is infinitely more tolerable when he’s kissing her. His mouth was made for this fierce fusing of their lips and tongues. No complaints. No snark. Just utter and complete sensual devastation.

  Mia should be pushing him away. Instead, she’s pulling him closer, slipping her arms around his neck. If someone comes through the safehouse door, they’ll still have to get through her, she reasons. She’ll take the bullets.

  “No.” The murmur is harsh against her lips. For a second she wonders if he’s psychic, but then Jack pulls back just enough to take a ragged breath. “You’re not leaving me,” he tells her, like it’s a foregone conclusion. “I don’t trust anyone else.”

  Fuck. Mia should not let this continue. This is absurd. A breach of protocol. And she’s torn between caring too much and not giving a good goddamn. Jack doesn’t help. No, he only makes it worse, trailing kisses from her lips to her cheek to her temple and back again. “You’re so damn beautiful,” he groans. “You’re so damn annoying,” he’d said on their second day here. But that’s all forgotten now in the crush of their bodies, in his hands gripping her hips, in the swell of his erection beneath his button-fly.

  They’re going to have sex. She’s still going to ask to be reassigned tomorrow. And she’ll never see him again. That’s what she tells herself as she walks backward with him out of the kitchen. As they slam against the wall in the hallway and then knock into his bedroom door. She’ll go. After one night. After one taste of this rich, dark, forbidden thing. It’s the only way to keep protecting him.

  And the only way to protect herself.

  The Spin Cycle

  Somebody was pounding. She groaned, flipping over in bed and tangling in the sheets. Probably the guy in 7E, who had a good time twice a week for about five minutes tops. But the sound continued. Less through the ceiling and more through the door. Knocking.

  Fuck.

  This was the price of a bargain apartment in Flatbush. Assholes and Jehovah’s Witnesses wandering through the building at all times. What she saved in rent, she lost in aggravation.

  Dusty swung—okay, fell—out of bed, toeing for her well-worn Bata chappals. She stumbled across the small studio like it was a mile long before unbolting the door and pulling it to the end of the security chain. Just enough to see. To scowl.

  White guy. Ironic Batman t-shirt. Scruffy beard. Oh, God. A hipster lost from his Williamsburg herd. And she looked like a Bengal tiger’s ass. Great. She dragged a hand through her unkempt hair, forcing her eyes to open beyond light-fearing slits. “What?”

  Batboy shifted from foot to foot, clearing his throat. “Um. Hi. I live down the hall in 6A. Have you been in the laundry room lately?”

  Yeah, she summered there like it was the Cote d’Azur. Dusty hoped her face telegraphed the proper amount of “You woke me up for this? Fuck you.” Another price break: She lived next door to the 6th floor’s communal laundry room. One machine, one dryer, constant thumping. A nice companion to the spin cycle from the dynamo in 7E. “No. But I can hear the machines running through the wall. What of it?”

  He had the grace to look abashed, this infant hipster with big blue eyes and plaid flannel pajama pants. “Someone stole my laundry out of the dryer last night. I was wondering—”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.” It probably wasn’t polite for her to cut him off. But, then again, it wasn’t polite for him to knock at the ass-crack of dawn, when sunlight was barely slinking through her cheap, knock-off blackout curtains.

  He blinked, likely unused to having anyone, especially a woman, cut him off. “Well. Uh.” The shifting and stammering would be kind of adorable if she were more awake. “If you hear anything, just let me know. I’m Trev. 6A.”

  Trev. Of course, his name was Trev. Dusty didn’t wait till she shut her door to start laughing, and she giggled all the way back to bed. For fifteen blissful minutes. And then her alarm went off.

  Fuck.

  ***

  With coffee zipping through her veins, Dusty actually felt human. But not human enough to jog six flights down the stairs to the lobby. It was something she debated almost every morning and summarily discarded. Elevators were invented for a reason. Especially in a building where the dimly lit stairwells doubled as smoking sections and graffiti art installations. Not that she didn’t appreciate graffiti…but six flights was a killer for someone with her aversion to physical exertion. Even if it was probably faster to walk than to wait for an ancient metal deathtrap to climb its way up to her floor.

  She tucked the ends of her scarf into her coat, impatiently tapping her foot as the bright red indicator on the wall panel slowly changed numbers. Morning noise filtered from the apartments lining the hall. Law & Order from the neighbors who seemed to watch it 24/7, two dogs barking and whining, a couple of girls on the phone. Signs of life were comforting as long as they didn’t encroach on her sleep.

  Like Trev in 6A.

  It had been two days since he’d knocked on her door—and probably all the others on the 6th floor—and all she knew of his plight was the hand-written note he’d taped to the coin slot on the dryer. If anyone knows what happened to the dryer load with skinny jeans from 1/28, please contact Trev in 6A. Short, sweet, easy to memorize and pretty fucking hysterical.

  A guilty flash followed the obligatory chuckle. Stolen laundry was no joke. His ironic-and-ironed wardrobe probably cost more than most people made in a month. Someone had, in all likelihood, sold it all to a thrift store for cash. Possibly a thrift store he’d shop at. Like a hipster Circle of Life.

  Dusty smothered another laugh against her palm. God, she was going to hell. But after twelve years in New York City, half of them in Brooklyn, she’d somehow absorbed a crotchety and irrational mistrust of the perpetual wave of young twentysomethings with disposable income whose mere presence jacked up rent and grocery costs wherever they went. From Astoria and Sunnyside in Queens to Williamsburg and Bushwick in Brooklyn…now they were creeping into Crown Heights and Flatbush. And, so help her, if a single West Indian roti shop closed to make way for a Starbucks, she was going to choke a bitch.

  Sure, she’d moved here as a college student, but she’d forgotten to pack entitlement and left her parents’ money behind in Chicago. Now, at the ripe old age of thirty-two, she still lived paycheck-to-paycheck and weighed cocktail outings against groceries.

  Dhristi, if you had MBA this would not be a problem! She could just hear her mother now. No MBA, no MD. What did we come to this country for? So you could be nothing? Pointing out that her parents had been childless when they got to Illinois in the ‘70s never helped answer that question. As far as her mother was concerned, working for a nonprofit after a Bachelor’s degree and staying off the marriage market was time wasted. And what is this ‘Dusty’? I gave you such a beautiful name. A beautiful name that had gotten murdere
d on the playground in first grade. She’d never looked back at the crime scene, just moved forward.

  And she moved forward again as the elevator doors finally cranked open, accompanied by a contrary ping.

  Only to come face-to-face with Trev from 6A.

  Fuck.

  Unimpeded by a door and a metal security chain, the view was no less unwelcome. He wore a heavy winter coat and a toque, a messenger bag slung across his body, and tortoiseshell granny glasses. His cheeks were still flushed from the cold. Her own warmed with secondhand embarrassment as he stepped past her into the hallway. Or maybe firsthand.

  “Uh, hi.”

  “Hey.”

  They spoke at the same time. Her half in and half out of the car. “Did you ever find your laundry?” she wondered, with what she hoped was neighborly politeness instead of amusement.

  He smiled, apparently determined to make the same effort toward civility, his teeth a perfect glimmer against the backdrop of his sandy beard. “No. I don’t suppose you found my underwear mixed in with your stuff?”

  “Yeah, Trev,” she snorted, “I’m wearing your boxer-briefs right now.” Whoops. There went her good behavior. She couldn’t help it; she cracked up.

  And before he could fire back, she stepped fully into the elevator and let the doors do their thing.

  There were many advantages to vetoing the stairs.

  ***

  Church Avenue was bustling at night. People poured out of the subway station until she was just another brown face in a sea of working stiffs coming home from the city and the boroughs. Some ran for the bus, others headed east towards Kensington. Dusty was just glad to be home after a particularly mind-numbing commute. The Q train had stalled twice while still in Manhattan. Then, as it lurched over the Manhattan Bridge, a group of athletic teenagers had shouted the two words guaranteed to strike dread into the heart of every regular commuter: “It’s showtime!” What followed was a ten-minute long breakdancing and pole-dancing extravaganza that nearly ended with an old lady getting kicked in the face.

  It was enough to warrant the removal of her bra the minute she crossed the threshold of her apartment. And a glass of wine just a few minutes later. After a few hours of streaming TV, Dusty almost felt like a human being again.

  And then the music started. Just after 9 o’clock. Ironic—she hoped—Nickelback. Loud enough that she could sing along from her cave of pillows and sheets. Chatter and laughter rose and fell above the sound. Who had a raucous party on a weeknight? Hipsters, that’s who.

  She tried to wait it out. A half-hour. An hour. But as much as she loved Britney Spears—having been a tween for Brit-Brit’s actual heyday—enough was enough. She jackknifed out of bed, didn’t even bother to look for her sandals, and yanked open her front door. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she shouted out into the hallway.

  As expected, there was no reply. So, she marched over to 6A, too furious to care that her feet were bare and the floors were basically petri dishes full of germs, and knocked on the door. No, she pounded, just like Trev had last week while on a desperate hunt for his laundry. Eventually, it had the same result: putting her face-to-face with the world’s most annoying new neighbor.

  No ironic t-shirts today. Or adorkable glasses. She still found something to be mad about: His cuffed jeans—skinny, of course.

  “Yeah?” He had to yell to be heard over the sound system.

  Dusty rolled her eyes. “Can you turn your music down? Some of us have work tomorrow.” Though she was tempted, she didn’t yell. She did mime turning a volume dial for emphasis. In case all the Nickelback had damaged his hearing.

  Trev moved out into the hallway, pulling his apartment door closed behind him and only slightly muting the cacophony. “It’s not even midnight.” His gaze flicked over her flannel pajamas. “Not all of us keep senior citizen hours.”

  “Not all of us have our laundry stolen because we’re entitled douchebags who don’t keep an eye on the machines,” she pointed out.

  A smirk tilted his lips, and he gestured to her sandal-less feet. “I don’t know. Looks like you’re missing a few things.”

  And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was taking a second look at her PJs, lingering on the cartoon sheep strewn across her chest. Making her extremely aware that she’d doffed her bra hours ago. Ugh.

  “Turn the music down or I’ll call in a noise complaint,” she said instead of acknowledging any possible perviness.

  She stomped back to her place without waiting for a response.

  Two minutes later, she got one.

  Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” practically shaking her walls.

  But just as she scrambled for her cell phone, nearly knocking it from her bedside table, the music finally, mercifully, stopped.

  Asshole, she thought. Goodnight to you, too.

  ***

  “Is he cute?”

  “What do you mean ‘Is he cute’?” It was the third time in a week she’d told the “Trev in 6A” story—or the story so far, at least—and the first time the question had actually come up. She frowned at her friend Gina, for whom cuteness was clearly a priority over comfort. “He’s an infant. Like…12.”

  “Oh, come on.” Gina huffed. “You know the rule: half your age and add seven and you’re in the clear. Plus, there’s no harm in looking.”

  There was no way of knowing, offhand, if the ubiquitous Trev was younger or older than 23. Either way, she had no intention of looking.

  “What kind of name is ‘Trev’ anyway? Can you imagine calling that out in bed? ‘Oh, Trev. Do me harder, Trev.’” Gina threw her head back, dark brown hair flipping like a shampoo commercial as she really got into the performance. “Ohhh, Trev!”

  Dusty had no desire to watch her friend and coworker fake an orgasm in the middle of a bar. So, she tried to change the subject to something less sexual. “Wasn’t Trevor the frog in Harry Potter?”

  “A toad. Trevor was Neville’s toad.” The new voice came from behind them. Low. Amused. Familiar. Embarrassingly familiar.

  Dusty didn’t want to turn around. But as the seconds ticked by and the awkwardness grew, she had no choice. Brooklyn was huge. Sprawling. Full of every kind of dive and watering hole imaginable. What were the odds of running into someone you knew? How was life that cruel?

  The questions all stopped in her throat as she faced Trev from 6A. In all his hipster glory. Tight jeans. Gray Henley stretching across his gym-honed chest. Possibly less ironic scruff than before. He held a pint of beer in one hand and sipped from it patiently as he waited for her to yank her foot out of her mouth.

  Though, technically, Gina’s foot was far deeper in hers. What with the moaning and all. But Gina hadn’t laughed at him every time she saw him. Or joked about wearing his underwear. Or yelled at him to turn his music down like she was a crabby grandma.

  “Uh, hi.” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

  “Williamsburg,” he pointed out, unselfconsciously. Probably because she was selfconscious enough for both of them. “Just reuniting with my people.” And then he smiled. Not a smug smile. Not a jerk smile. Just a sweet tilt of his lips and a flash of dimples.

  And it lit up his whole face.

  Fuck. Dusty retrieved her wine from the high-top and took a hefty swig. Gina didn’t look sorry at all. Just gleeful. The bitch. Is he cute? Well, she had her answer. Yes, Trev/Trevor was unequivocally, definitively cute.

  He cocked his head, peering at her with the same suspicion she’d leveled at him through her door. “What are you doing here? Besides discussing Harry Potter and what I’m like in bed, I mean. I’d be happy to weigh in on both subjects.”

  She deserved that. And more. But her latent sense of guilt was suddenly overtaken by another sensation. One responding to him saying “in bed.” Like a kinky fortune cookie fortune. Dusty’s breath caught, and she almost choked on a mouthful of Pinot. She made sure to swallow. There was no point in wasti
ng good wine. Plus, it gave her a precious moment to gather her composure, her cool, and her “Well, at least nobody stole my laundry” je ne sais quois.

  “This is a whiskey bar,” she pointed out, her smile more acidic than sweet. “I thought the lack of $3 PBRs meant I could drink in peace.”

  “Ouch,” he acknowledged with a tip of his glass.

  That was Gina’s cue to tap her shoulder and murmur something about getting another round. She left them alone, grabbing her purse and her coat…which, it didn’t escape Dusty’s notice, meant her absence was going to be longer than that of a drink run. Great. Left alone with Trev, she had no choice but to continue the completely awkward conversation. “How are you getting back?” When in doubt, feign concern. “Do you know the way?”

  “Are you worried? I’m touched.” And, the funny thing was, he sounded completely sincere. More sincere than her, at any rate. He set his beer down by her wine glass, shouldering into the spot by the wall that Gina had so generously vacated. “I’ve been in the city since college. I do know my way around.”

  Her eyebrows arched of their own volition. Too many of her body parts worked independent of her brain. “When was college? Five minutes ago?”

  He laughed. It was, predictably, just as adorable as his smile. Likely some sort of hipster camouflage. “Two years, actually. I’m 23. What’s your name, anyway? Between all the hostility and laundry snark, I never did catch it.”

  There was a question in there somewhere. But Dusty was hung up on the ‘23.’ Jesus God in Vishnu’s sidecar, Trev in 6A was barely legal. How did he even grow a beard? Rogaine? She was suddenly aware of the gray hairs sprouting from her widow’s peak. The laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. Gravity pulling at her boobs. Half her age, plus seven. Yeah, Gina had nailed it, but she was the one screwed. “Dhristi,” she said, absently, hoping more Pinot Noir could dull the pain. “It means vision, focus. But most people call me ‘Dusty.’