True North

by Nicole French

  She cocks her head and worries her lower lip. “Yes. I see that too.”

  I know what she’s thinking. That the connection between Nico and me is too much, too soon after everything I went through. That if I was smart, I would take more time away from him or any relationship. That I wouldn’t jump into anything too quickly.

  Too bad that’s not an option. Not with him. Not now, not ever.

  “Mom, you don’t have to worry about Nico.” I clasp my arms around my waist. “He’ll take care of me.”

  I wish that were true. On some level, I believe it. But another part of me, the scared, anxious part, can’t contain its echo: he sent you away.

  But that was after he saved you, I tell myself. Before he flew across the country to rescue you. He sent you back to your parents so you could be together again, the right way. So you could pull yourself back together.

  Still…I’m not the same person I was when we met, or even when he put me back on that plane last May. He loved me then. Will he love me now?

  I shake the question away. “I’ll be fine.”

  Mom purses her lips, like she doesn’t quite believe me.

  “Mom?”

  She blinks, like she thinks I’ve changed my mind. I haven’t, but I do have one question that’s been bothering me for a long time. It’s taken me all summer long to ask the question my therapist and I bandied back and forth again and again. How did I learn to be loved this way?

  “Did Dad…did he ever hurt you?” I ask.

  Mom pauses and takes a long time to examine the grooves of one of the doorframes. When she looks up, her blue eyes, the ones that are so like mine, are serious and wide.

  “Not like you’re asking,” she says. “But in small ways, yes.”

  I don’t need to ask what she means by that. I know my father. I know what kind of a demanding, overbearing, unforgiving bear he can be.

  “You never really forget,” she says quietly. “And you shouldn’t. Because if you forget, then it might happen again.”

  I narrow my eyes. I don’t like what she’s insinuating. The only person in my life who could “do it again” is the same man who saved me. That’s not fair to him at all.

  “Okay.” Mom looks me over one more time and nods. “I’ll call you when I land.”

  “Fly safe.”

  With one last lingering look, she leaves, and I’m alone in my new apartment, with no one here to pull me out of my daydreams. Memories. Nightmares.

  I didn’t want to tell her how scared I really am to be here again. How the corners of the city, painted gray with time and people, felt all day today like they were hiding the face that’s been tormenting me all summer. He could be anywhere.

  I wander back into my bedroom and sit down on the mattress. I pull out my phone, thumbing the keypad. Nico and I talked every day this summer––mostly at night, when he was off from the academy. He didn’t know why I had a tendency to call him at twelve at night or even later. How I’d wake up in the middle of the night shaking, and the only thing that could calm me down was the deep burr of Nico’s baritone, even lower when he’d been sleeping. But it would hum me back to a calm place while he sleepily told me about his day, told me to be good. Told me he loved me.

  He never cared that I would wake him up in the middle of the night. Never asked why. He was only ever happy to hear my voice and fall back asleep on the phone with me. He doesn’t know yet that his voice is the only thing that really keeps those nightmares away.

  Almost as if on cue, the screen lights up with his name. I smile. At least this time, I don’t have to call him.

  “Hey,” I answer. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Good things?”

  I grin into the new mirror propped against the wall. “Of course.”

  “Naughty things?”

  My face practically splits, but I can’t quite answer. Nico laughs, like he knows my face is bright red. I don’t know why. It’s not like we haven’t had much dirtier conversations this summer.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were coming up to the club tonight,” he says. “I need to see you.”

  I can’t stop smiling. My cheeks are starting to hurt.

  “Is your mom there?”

  “No,” I answer. “She went back to the hotel to pack.”

  “So…she’s not staying at your place tonight?”

  I glance around the empty room. “No…”

  “So, does that mean I can?”

  I freeze. For a split-second, there’s a war within me, one I quickly quash. How could there even be doubt about that? This is what we’ve been waiting for since the spring.

  “Of course,” I say quickly. Maybe too quickly.

  “And, baby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m not saying you have to or anything…but if you did want to come up to AJ’s tonight, I wouldn’t mind seeing you in something short. And tight.”

  I bite my lip. Again with that weird freeze. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I love it when Nico talks about me like this. I can easily imagine the look on his face when I walk up in one of the tiny dresses I used to wear at nightclubs. The way his full mouth will drop as his gaze sears over every curve I have. It’s a look of pure, unadulterated desire. Like there is no one in the world he sees but me.

  “I’ll, um…I’ll see what I can do.”

  There’s a chuckle. “Okay. See you later, beautiful.”

  The phone hangs up before I can reply––before Nico can hear the doubt in my voice. I push away that cold feeling and focus on the night ahead as I unzip my suitcase and start pulling out clothes to change into. But one thing is bugging me. Outside, it’s dark. The shadows are long beyond the telephone poles. And beyond the safety of this room, people lurk. A person, maybe, lurks.

  I pick up my phone and dial the first safe person who comes to mind. Vinny, my old friend from freshman year, picks up the phone.

  “Whaddya know?” he crows. “Barros is back from the dead! What the fuck is up, yo!”

  I snort. We didn’t really hang out much last year because we were in totally different dorms, but Vinny, a business student who was always determined to sound as bro-y as possible, seems like he’s the same as ever.

  “I’m back,” I say. “Just finished moving into my new place over in Chinatown.”

  “No shit,” Vinny says. “I’m at Lafayette again, if you can believe that. But I got one of the senior singles. Dude, it’s sweet. I’m going to get so much ass this year.”

  I grin. Vinny talks like a douchebag, but he’s totally harmless. I can’t really see him using his single room as anything other than a gaming area. “Awesome, Vin. Let me know how it goes.”

  Lafayette was our dorm sophomore year, where I used to live with Jamie, Shama, and Quinn, my former best friend. The thought makes me ache a little. We had fun in that dorm. It was a good year.

  “So I heard about what happened last year…” Vinny drifts off, waiting for an opening.

  With one finger, I press a circle into my comforter. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Jamie mentioned it when I saw her at the student union yesterday.”

  My shoulders drop with relief. Jamie wouldn’t tell much, and she wouldn’t make me sound atrocious.

  “Damn, Lay. I wish I was around. I coulda beat that dude’s face in a long time before then. You guys always looked out for me.”

  I smirk. Chasing away the silly girls Vinny likes wasn’t exactly a hardship. Those girls had voices like Disney characters and were ridiculous.

  But what hurts more is the fact that I’m calling Vinny right now instead of Quinn or Jamie. Even though Jamie came with Shama and Nico to help me last May, she’s barely said a word to me all summer. It was like she saw what was really happening to me and just couldn’t handle it. Quinn and I totally parted ways when I left last spring. After the way she treated me, there’s no love lost there. Best friends don’t stand aside when their friend is in trouble. They don’t sco
ld and hate on them when they need to be held the most. I’m better off without her, as Nico frequently tells me.

  But, I realize, it’s going to be a little lonely without a posse. Starting over might be harder than I thought.

  “So hey,” I say, “I’m supposed to be meeting Nico––”

  “Nico? FedEx guy? You back with him?”

  I sigh. I’m going to be hearing that a lot, and I know Nico doesn’t like it.

  “Well, he’s a firefighter now,” I correct Vinny, enjoying the little thrill I feel when I say that out loud. I’m so crazy proud of Nico for what he’s doing. Not to mention he looks insanely hot in his uniform. “He graduates from the academy in a few more weeks. But yeah, we’re back together. He’s, um…he still works the door at AJ’s on the weekends. Any chance you want to go up there tonight? I could be your wingman…”

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been trying to get into AJ’s for months! They never let dudes in!”

  “Well, good,” I say with a grin as I pull one of my shortest dresses out of my suitcase with renewed enthusiasm. “Then it’s a date. Here, I’ll give you my address.”

  ~

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nico

  “Sorry, ladies. You’ll have to go elsewhere tonight.”

  The three girls in front of me stick out their lips, looking even more like the children they are. I doubt they’re even eighteen, let alone twenty-one. How their parents let them out of the house looking like two-bit prostitutes almost makes me feel sorry for them, but not sorry enough to let them into the club.

  The taller one, who’s wearing the tightest jeans I have ever seen and earrings so big they would give my sister Selena a run for her money, cocks her head and extends a finger to run up and down my shoulder. I glare at it. It’s hot tonight. We’re in the thick of late summer in New York, and the city smells like sweat, hot garbage, and alcohol.

  “Come on, handsome,” says Earrings. “I bet we could make it worth your while.”

  She leans in so I can smell the gallon of perfume she’s wearing. I cough.

  “We come as a package deal, you know,” she purrs. “And my friend’s parent’ have an empty penthouse on Fifth.”

  Ah, so that’s what’s going on. Rich Mommy and Daddy are probably at the Hamptons for the weekend, just like all the other rich people in the city, leaving their very underage daughters to play house for the weekend. I stare at the hand on my shoulder until she removes it, looking slightly scared.

  “Look…Wanda.” I flip her shitty ID back at her. “We don’t let kids in here. And word to the wise, asking strange men to your apartment is gonna get you into trouble. Go home before I call the cops, and they call your parents for you.”

  The girl’s lip trembles, and her friends, both of them wearing so much makeup they look like sad, underage clowns, stare at the concrete. For a split-second, I almost let them in, thinking that maybe it’s better if I keep them here. Then at least I could keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t go home with anyone they shouldn’t.

  Shit. I’m not these girls’ dad. The last thing I want to be doing is babysitting, especially when my girl is going to be here any second. Then I have an idea.

  “Tell you what, lemme see your IDs again, sweetheart,” I say. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  I almost feel bad about the hopeful looks on their faces when I collect the flimsy plastic cards. Even if the pictures hadn’t been grainy as fuck, their flimsy weights would have told me they were fakes. Wanda, Josephina, and Marilyn. Jesus, these are the worst fake names I’ve ever seen. They probably spent good money on these too. Poor kids.

  I pretend to examine them closely while I fish a pair of scissors out of my pocket. And then, before they can stop me, I slice them in half, then hand them back the broken pieces.

  “Hey!” “Wanda” cries out, holding the broken pieces while her friends look on in horror. “What the hell!”

  “You’ll thank me in about five years,” I tell them roughly. “Now go home, before I really do call the cops.”

  With a few more cries of protest, the girls finally leave, with nothing more to do. I know that most likely, they’ll just buy new IDs––maybe this week, maybe next month. But at least tonight they won’t be going anywhere that sixteen-year-olds have no business going. I swear to God, the day I check my last ID will be the last time I ever set foot in a nightclub again. Ten years of my life I’ve spent working in these shitholes.

  And now. Maybe a year. Maybe less. Once I’m off a probate’s salary and making a regular income from the fire department, I won’t have to do this shit. Any. More.

  I settle back on my stool and run a hand through my hair. It’s too long, the tight curls getting a little bushy on top, which means more shit I have to comb through it to get it to behave in this humidity. Normally I keep it short, but the memory of Layla’s hum when I mentioned it to her last month stuck with me. I close my eyes, remember the way her fingers wove through it at the airport. My girl is a hair-puller. I’d like to make her pull on it really hard. Soon.

  “That was kind of harsh.”

  I look up at the familiar sweet voice that brings an instant smile to my face, and immediately, every thought I have about protecting innocent girls’ decency flies out the fuckin’ window, because right here is an innocent girl I want nothing more than to corrupt.

  I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen her like this, all dressed up for a night out. Twelve months? Eighteen? Maybe more?

  She’s in a slinky black dress that’s short enough to be underwear and leaves absolutely none of her curves to the imagination. Her hair curls over her shoulders, and she’s got a pair of high-heeled shoes that make her legs look indecently good. Is it just me, or did her waist get even smaller this summer? If that dress clings the same way from the back, I’m not going to be able to focus for shit the rest of the night. Which, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t mind at all.

  You asked for it, asshole.

  “Hey, baby,” I greet her as she leans in for a kiss. Fuck, she smells good. Like coconut and flowers. Familiar and exotic at the same time.

  Her lips open to mine a little more than I was intending, but just when things are getting good, she breaks the kiss. I keep an arm around her waist, keeping her trapped between my legs. It’s all I can do not to press my nose into her cleavage, street traffic be damned. What can I say? My girl is smokin’.

  “I guess you’re glad to see me, huh?” she whispers.

  My hand hovers low on her back, just below where’s really decent. “I’m always glad to see you, baby.”

  I tip my head up for another kiss, but she smiles coyly, and to my disappointment, steps away. She gestures behind her, and it’s only then I realize she hasn’t come alone.

  “You remember my friend Vinny, right?”

  For a second, I’m all glares at the well-dressed schmuck behind her. He looks just like all the Wall Street jokers, in a pair of perfectly distressed jeans and a button-up shirt, with his hair mussed with too much gel. But then I recognize him. He’s a little more filled out now, but this is the kid who used to live in her dorm in Chinatown. The gawky, awkward kid who used to look out for her and her friends.

  He extends a hand, looking uncertain. I shake it and smile. He immediately relaxes.

  “How you doin’, man? I’m Nico.”

  “I remember,” says Vinny. “Nice to see you again, bro.”

  I nod. “You too. Thanks for keeping my girl company tonight.”

  Vinny nods. “Hey, this was my lucky night. I can never get in here.”

  I quirk an eyebrow. “You twenty-one?”

  Vinny nods and hands me his ID. “Yeah. As of last week, anyway.”

  I check his New Jersey ID, which looks pretty damn legit, not that it would matter. He’s Layla’s friend, which is good enough for me.

  I hand it back and nod. “Happy birthday, man. Go on in. Nah, you’re good––cover’s on me, so have fun.”

 
Gleefully, Vinny practically runs into the club. Layla gives me a grateful smile, then turns to follow. She pauses for a second at the doorway. It’s brief, but I don’t miss the way she bites her lip and examines the handle like it’s about to bite her. Just when she’s about to step inside, I reach out and snag her hand, making her jump.

  “Hey,” I say. “You okay, beautiful?”

  She holds a hand to her chest, and it drifts up to the delicate skin around her neck––the skin that was a mosaic of bruises last May. I tug her back for another kiss, one that’s deeper than before, since we don’t have an audience other than the random passersby. She sinks into it, and slowly, that tension that was written all over her melts away. Good.

  “Mmmm,” she hums once I’m certain that her body is totally relaxed again. “That was nice.”

  I nod and close my eyes for a moment, enjoying the feel of her smile against mine. “Tell the bartender who you are, okay? He knows you’re coming. I’ll be inside as soon as I can.”

  She giggles as I bite her lip lightly, then absorbs me in another soul-searing kiss.

  “Okay,” she says, finally stepping away. “Don’t make me wait too long.”

  With a grin, I watch her walk into the club. And Jesus fuckin’ Christ, that dress is even more dangerous from the back than I thought. I groan and rub a hand over my face, then check to make sure there’s no one watching before I adjust myself. Twice. It’s going to be a long night.

  ~

  About an hour later, I head inside for my thirty-minute break, in search of one thing: Layla. AJ’s has a great band tonight––a local trip hop group that basically sounds like sex on a stage. They’re in the middle of a synth set while the singer croons against the beat. The combination of the sultry keys and the bass line basically has the whole crowd writhing together like snakes, lost to the rhythm. It’s hot. It’s sticky. It’s foreplay.

  Like a magnet, I’m drawn to her. Layla stands on the edge of the crowd, a drink in one hand with her other arm wrapped around her middle as she sways a little from side to side. She’s stunning, of course, but that’s a posture I know well––one that says she’s feeling a little uncertain. Immediately, I feel terrible I didn’t just take the night off. It’s her first night in New York by herself. I should be there for all of it.