True North

by Nicole French

  Suddenly, every thought, the thrill of what we are doing is too much, and without warning, my entire body seizes up as my orgasm hits. It crashes through me, tossing me around, tightening every muscle I have. Nico grabs my thighs roughly, keeping them apart so he can finish me off, not letting up for a second as wave after wave of tension ripples through my limbs. I moan around his cock, my body quaking as his hips thrust forward lightly as he comes as well. We grasp, claw at each other, eager to get closer, yet somehow unable to take it all completely. I savor every bit until I’m completely sure he’s finished. And then, just as my legs fall limp, forcing him to roll out from between my thighs, I release him too, and flop onto my back, completely out of breath.

  “Holy. Shit.” Nico’s deep voice is raw, like he’s been shouting. His chest rises and falls visibly. “Holy shit.”

  I loll to the side, curling against the mat. “Good?”

  “Fuckin’…” He sorts through a few strings of unintelligible Spanish, then blows out a long breath. “No words, baby. No fuckin’ words for what you do to me.”

  “Mmmm, good.” I close my eyes. “Do you think…” The adrenaline starts to fall, and immediately, I miss it, along with the strange high that accompanied my earlier exhaustion. “Do you think we could come back here again?”

  When my eyes open, Nico’s twisted around so we’re lying face-to-face. His dark eyes sparkle, and his mouth is spread in a peaceful grin. I grin back.

  “The boxing or the sixty-nine?” he asks cheekily, and his dimple on one side comes out to play. He strokes my face, and even through his joke, there is tenderness in his expression.

  I blush, and immediately he laughs. It’s infectious, simmering through me. I shove him playfully in the shoulder, which only makes him laugh louder.

  “Why not both?” I tease.

  Before he answers, Nico scoots in closer for a kiss. His tongue gently seeks entry, looking to mingle in a delicate dance that still carries the lust of the moment, but is mostly made of something deeper: contentment.

  “Any time you want, sweetie,” he says as he breaks away. “It’s a date.”

  ~

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Layla

  Nico drops me at the train station with a kiss and a promise of more boxing later in the week. I’m disappointed––I had hoped we might continue things at my apartment. But aside from the fact that he has to be up early to get to Randall’s Island on time for the academy, we both know we can’t push it. I’m just not ready for what we both want to do.

  Still, I feel lighter than I have in months. I never knew how much I wanted to hit something, maybe even someone like that, until the pop of glove on mitt cracked through the air. Nico has said before that learning to box saved him. It was the one good thing that came out of his time in a detention facility, and kept him from going down some really bad paths. I feel like I get it now, just a little. If he’d been carrying this kind of pent-up anger and frustration for most of his childhood, an outlet like that must have changed his entire life.

  But it’s not just that. Wrapped up in each other like that on the mat, a sticky, sweaty, pheromone-soaked mess of desire, only made me want more. We were animals, diving into one another, wanting only to be closer, get closer. That wall, the familiar block on my senses didn’t rise when things got too heated. A veil has lifted, and even though I’m not totally at the point where I feel open and free again, I feel like I can imagine it.

  Dr. Parker would call that progress, I think.

  Once I’m home, I sit at my desk, fingering the bottle of pills, which I’ve been taking at night, if only to calm my anxiety enough to sleep. Shama’s still out with our––her?––friends. The apartment is empty, with the streetlights outside casting shadows through the fire escape outside of my window. For the first time in months, my heart beats at a regular pace at the thought of being alone. Maybe I can sleep by myself tonight.

  And at that, my heart thumps loudly. My hands grow cold. A shiver passes through my body.

  Okay, maybe not.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.

  Nico: I forgot to say te amo, baby.

  I smile at the text. When he’s not smiling, he looks like he could mess up your face if you looked at him wrong, but underneath it all, Nico is really just a big softie.

  Me: I love you too. Thanks for a great night. ALL of it.

  The phone buzzes almost immediately.

  Nico: Anytime. Can’t wait for more.

  I stare at the words for a few minutes, ignoring the way my heart continues to beat a little too fast, and instead focusing on the warmth that grows through my belly when I think of him. I close my eyes and imagine the feel of his hands on my skin, his mouth between my legs, his skin pressed to mine. One of my hands creeps down and slides under the waistband of my pants, toying a little bit with the sensitive spot his tongue worried into a frenzy earlier.

  A few moments later, I get up to take a shower, and finish what I’ve started. While the hot water runs over my body that aches for just one person, I’ll think of Nico the entire time.

  It doesn’t take long to find my release, though my body wants more, wants the other part of me who is sleeping on a couch uptown. But when I come back, I slide into bed and fall asleep quickly and peacefully. I leave my pills where they are.

  ~

  I tap my watch. The hands don’t move. I’m sure Nico’s late, but the watch has been stuck at ten o’clock for what seems like forever. It’s lonely on this street corner, this part of the city so desolate it doesn’t even have street signs. Over the tops of grimy brick buildings, I can see the glow of Manhattan, a halo over the jagged lines of skyscrapers and high-rises, the dips where the apartment buildings only reach five or six stories. Even from this far away, the city hums. But I’m here, waiting in one of the pockets that never make it into movies or the news.

  “Come on, Nico,” I mutter to myself. A shiver passes through my body. I hug myself, but stop when bruises appear on both shoulders. “Dammit. I’m out of makeup.”

  Heavy footsteps echo down the empty street. I look up, eager when I see the outline of a dark male form striding toward me.

  “You’re late!” I call out, though I’m already running toward him. My anchor. My everything.

  “I would have been here earlier if you hadn’t called the cops.”

  The voice, low and heavily accented, stops me in my tracks. The man’s deep voice curves around me like a snail’s shell. You can practically hear his lips curl as he speaks. He steps under a streetlight, revealing a long body dressed entirely in black, a mop of thick black curls that have been tamed with wax, and a thin, brooding face with eyes like obsidian, framed with Wayfarer glasses.

  Giancarlo.

  “Mi joya,” he whispers, extending a hand while he pronounces that name he loves to use for me. Joya. Jewel. “I have been waiting for you.”

  I take a step back, then another. “Where’s Nico?”

  “Nico? Who? He left you. He went back to California. But it’s you and me, joya. It always was, no? No one else matters.”

  I scramble back another few steps. Giancarlo looms in the dark, like he just grew another few inches. Only a few steps bring him close.

  “Say it,” he demands as he grabs for my hand. “Say you’re mine.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  His face, always long and gaunt, grows longer, gaunter. He stretches taller, nearly as tall as one of the buildings, until he blocks out all the lights––the stars, the moon, the lights of New York. The world is black, except his pale, hollow face.

  I take a step back into an unknown street, yet another darkness in this city.

  “No,” I whisper, even as I turn to run.

  “Say it!” Giancarlo shouts.

  From an impossible distance away, he grabs me by the neck and yanks me into his chest, his long arms seeming to wrap multiple times around my body. He grows, one, two more feet, picking me up off the
ground,

  “Stop it!” I flail. “I don’t love you! I never did!”

  A hand claps over my face to shut me up. I can’t breathe, struggling to move until I manage to stick my nose through a crack in the giant’s hands.

  “Let her go!”

  I look up, barely able to see. But I do catch a glimpse of white: the stitching on a Yankees hat glows as a man charges through an alley. Nico.

  “All right, cabrón, I tried to warn you,” he says before spilling into Spanish I seem to know, but can’t totally understand.

  Giancarlo jerks at the sound. Nico pulls his fist back, ready to throw the punches, the blows he’s been practicing all of his adult life. I brace myself.

  But Giancarlo grows again, seemingly unaffected as Nico rains down fury onto his legs, his calves, now his ankles, a tiny David to this giant Goliath.

  “Nico!” I scream again and again, voice muted by the slippery, cigarette-stained palm.

  Giancarlo picks up one long, black-soled shoe and takes aim at the Yankees hat. Then he brings it down.

  “NO!”

  ~

  I wake up, my heart pounding wildly. My sheets are half-soaked with sweat, twisted around me like I just traveled through a tornado.

  “Lay?”

  Shama’s voice calls from the other side of my door. I glance at it, but remain curled into a ball while I rock.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “I…I’m fine,” I manage to call back, cursing myself as my voice quivers. “I was tossing around in my sleep, that’s all.”

  There’s a pause. “Um, okay. Do you need anything?”

  I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “N-no. I’m good. Go back to sleep, Shams.”

  There’s another pause before finally I hear her shuffle back to her room and shut the door. I grab my pillow, flipping it over so it’s no longer damp with sweat.

  On my nightstand, my phone sits innocuously. I could call him, let his deep, soothing voice lull me back to sleep, a lullaby for my soul. He’ll never know the way he does that, the way his whole presence brings me peace the way no one else can.

  But it’s three in the morning. He needs his sleep, and so do I. And he doesn’t need to know that I’m going a little crazy. I don’t need to be yet another burden on his life.

  So instead, I reach for the pills on the other side of the nightstand. I clap one to my mouth, and swallow tightly without any water. I’m going to spend the next twenty-four hours feeling like a zombie, but that’s better than feeling like a crazy person.

  “The here and now,” I whisper to myself as I burrow back under my sheets, waiting for the numbing effect of the drug to work its way into my system. “The here and now.”

  But the mantra doesn’t work. Because right here, in this small, cold, white room, I am scared. Right now, I am alone.

  ~

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nico

  “Time’s up.”

  I set my pencil down onto the table next to this week’s exam. It’s Friday, and I’m ready to get the fuck out of here for the weekend. All week I’ve been cooped up on “The Rock,” as a lot of people call the academy, trapped half the day in this cinder block of a room with fifty other dudes who smell like feet and Old Spice, and spending the other half of the day puzzling my way in and out of smoke-filled buildings. Don’t get me wrong: I love it. I love everything I’m doing, but it’s fuckin’ intense. I’m looking forward to getting to work in a real station. With real hours. And real people.

  I flex my fingers and shake out the cramp in my hand. I swear to God, if I never take another test in my life, it will be too soon. I’ve got one more month until I’m assigned a station––one more month before we take our final exams and graduate. I can’t fuckin’ wait.

  The sergeant collects our exams, raising his brow a little at me as he passes back the last ones.

  “Nice job, Soltero,” he mutters, then keeps moving.

  I flip over the packet and see the perfect score I got on the last test. I might hate doing them, but having Layla in my ear all summer, coaching me on study methods, has helped me more than she knows. I might even graduate top of my class if I’m lucky. Who would have thought?

  I thought, you goon. I can see Layla looking at me, her bright eyes smiling with pride while she chases away my doubts. She hates it when I think badly about myself, and while I used to brush it away as naivety, the truth is, I’m starting to believe her faith in me. I’m starting to expect myself to succeed rather than fail. It’s a weird feeling. But a really good one.

  “You doing anything fun this weekend, Soltero?”

  I turn to Mike, one of the probies in my class, as we’re filing out of the classroom. He’s a nice enough kid from Staten Island who just barely managed to squeak into this class. He looks at my test score and breathes a “damn” under his breath. I roll up the paper and shove it into my backpack.

  “Probably hang with my girl tonight,” I say, feeling a little excitement in my stomach even as I say it. God, I love calling her that again out loud, not just in my head. My girl. “Then I gotta work tomorrow, family stuff on Sunday. Do some studying. Nothing too crazy. You?”

  Mike nods his head. “Nah. I’ll probably sit at home and watch Fear Factor or something. By this time at the end of the week, I usually just want to sleep all weekend. Who’s your girl?”

  I can’t even hide the smile this time. “Layla. She’s a student at NYU.” I pull out my phone and flip it open to the picture. She doesn’t know I even have it––a stupidly blurry snapshot from my phone that I took from across the room when she was laughing.

  Mike nods approvingly. “Aww, that’s nice, man. She’s cute. You’re a lucky man.”

  I nod. “Sure as fuck am.”

  “So, what kind of stuff you doing with your family?”

  “The usual. Church. Family dinner. That sort of thing.” I don’t mention the fact that on Sunday we have a meeting with our social worker to talk about my mother’s status and our travel license to Cuba.

  We file out of the building, most of us making our way toward the bus stop.

  “You need a ride?” Mike asks as he sees me turning that way. “What direction are you going?”

  I chew on my lip. I should go home and change out of my uniform, but I remember Layla’s face when I picked her up at the airport in my regulation gear. I wouldn’t mind seeing her look at me like that again.

  “If it’s not too out of your way, you could drop me in Williamsburg,” I say.

  ~

  “So seems like you’re doing good on the tests,” Mike says once we’re on our way.

  I look out the window at the mostly boring buildings of Queens. “Um, yeah. I’m doing all right, I guess.”

  “Top recruit in your class means something,” Mike says as he turns on to the freeway. “Friend of my brother’s was top recruit. I heard he made lieutenant in less than a year.”

  I roll my eyes. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but you hear stories like that all the time. Would I like to make lieutenant? Sure. But honestly, I’ll just be happy to graduate and be a legit firefighter, same as I’ve wanted since I was just a little kid. That alone is enough for me.

  “You have a degree?”

  I frown. “Nah. I started community college way back, but it wasn’t for me.” I don’t want to get into the real reasons I didn’t stay in school. Truthfully, my head wasn’t in it, but I needed to work. I needed to support my family when my mom couldn’t.

  “Too bad,” Mike said. “The guys like you. They listen to you. I heard the sergeants are always looking for people to groom, you know? You could probably be a battalion chief at some point. But you need a degree.”

  I blink in surprise. “What? Why?”

  Mike nods. “Yeah, some bullshit requirement about leadership. Ain’t that some garbage? Like, what the fuck is a bunch of college courses gonna do to teach you about being a firefighter? What is writing a bunch
of crappy papers going to teach you about leading other guys? Nothin’, that’s what.”

  He switches gears, talking about the last Yankees game, but I only give a couple of nods and yeahs here and there. My mind is still lingering on that bombshell. I started this job because I wanted to do something real with my life, not just push boxes around all day. Even though I didn’t have any major goals of jumping up the ranks immediately, it feels fuckin’ shitty to realize that even from the start, I’m doomed to stay at the bottom.

  ~

  Mike drops me off at a J stop in Williamsburg with a shout that we should get a beer next Friday. I give him a maybe. Mike’s a nice guy, but I’ll be real. By Friday, after five days of not seeing Layla, I’m not really interested in anything else but tackling her.

  Too bad she’s not freakin’ here.

  “Hey,” Shama says as she lets me into the apartment. “She’s on her way back from the gym, I think.”

  “Oh yeah? She been working out?” She hasn’t said anything about that to me––not since our little session at Frank’s last weekend.

  Shama nods with a funny look on her face. “Every day. She hasn’t told you?”

  I frown. “No. But I’m glad she is again. She seemed to have a good time on Sunday when we did some boxing.”

  “Yeah, I saw her knuckles. They were bruised all week.”

  Immediately, a pang of guilt shoots through me at the thought of Layla bruised again. And I did that.

  “She seemed happy,” Shama continues as she moves a bunch of books around a cardboard box.

  Shama gives me a look that tells me my instinct to keep on my uniform was a good one. I give her a knowing look back, and she snorts.

  “Don’t get too excited, Special Delivery,” she says, using the nickname that Quinn, their old roommate, started when I first met Layla and was working at FedEx.