Stripped

by Zoey Castile

  Her mouth is a perfect O and glossy with my come. Her eyes bright as the carnival lights below and the stars above. I might just come again when she sticks her tongue out and licks her top lip and smiles a sinful smile.

  “You are so fucking sexy,” I tell her, and take off my shirt and offer it to her.

  She smirks, and cleans all traces of me off her lips. She tucks her hair behind her ear and hands the shirt back to me. Other guys would be grossed out over putting the shirt back on, but I’d do anything for this woman right about now. A soiled shirt is the least of my worries.

  I stretch my hand back over her shoulders, her head resting on my chest.

  “You’re shaking,” I whisper, tracing my hands up and down her arms.

  She looks up at me. “I’ve never done or felt anything like that before.”

  “Me neither,” I say. Though I’ve done plenty of things like that, the feeling of Robyn touching me—that—that was completely new.

  I wish we could roll around in bed right about now, but all we’re left with is a view of the loud and glittering Coney Island strip and the ocean as we descend one last time. There could be worse views.

  “What are you thinking?” I whisper in her ear.

  She leans her head on my shoulder, rests her hands over mine so we’re completely entwined.

  “I’m thinking I could get used to this arrangement.”

  And then it hits me.

  I’m leaving. Before the time we agreed on.

  I haven’t told her. And as the silence draws on, and we get off the ride, and get back in my car, and back on the BQE, and into our building, and then I’m kissing her good night—I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth.

  * * *

  The next day at rehearsals, there’s a buzz of excitement among the guys as we wait for Ricky.

  “Do you think things went well?” Vin asks, stretching his quads two spaces away from me.

  “Dunno,” I say.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he tells me.

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Well, you look nervous.”

  “Will you two quiet down?” Gary says, rubbing his temples. Gary’s been with Mayhem City since Ricky found him passed out on his front lawn. They were neighbors and Gary’s pro baseball career ended with what should’ve been a life-ruining knee injury. Some dance and water therapy later, he was better, but he’d never play baseball again. In some way, Ricky has rescued all of us but each in a different way. Gary wanted to join Ricky’s crazy endeavor and it took off. Though the only batting he does now is with props during his dance routine. “I swear, you guys are going to give me gray hair, and I didn’t have kids for a reason.”

  “You already dye that shit,” I point out, and Gary opens one eye to shoot me a death glare.

  I spread my legs to stretch my hamstrings and calves. I don’t want to be here. I want to be with Robyn. Just the thought of her sweet, sweet face sends a thrill down to my bones. I should say, boner.

  I grab my bottle of water and squeeze some over my head. The cold hits my skin, and I feel myself calm down again.

  “What is wrong with you?” Wonderboy asks. I’ve come to realize that I don’t mind Wonderboy when he’s alone. But when he’s with his brother, they set each other off. Still, he’s got potential as a dancer, and I can see him taking charge of the group years down the road. “You’re like—off.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, and resume stretching.

  “Naw, man. You’re like—” Wonderboy lets the phrase dangle, and his brother finishes.

  “Giddy,” Vin says.

  “I am not giddy,” I say.

  “Is it that teacher?” Gary asks.

  “I had a mad crush on my teacher when I was in high school,” Vin reminisces, leaning back on his hands.

  “Please, Mrs. Benitez was in love with me. She never failed me,” Wonderboy says.

  “That’s cuz she thought you was me,” Vin tells his brother.

  “You should do a naughty teacher routine,” Gary says. “It would spice things up when we get to Vegas.”

  It has been impossible to just say “Vegas.” One word. Simple. All of a sudden, it’s been VEGAS! Vegaaaaas! VE-GAS! Every which way they can say it, they do. The last time I was there I was on our first tour with the boys, and I was in Vinny and Wonderboy’s spot. I was so green, still figuring out my routine. The women out there would’ve eaten me alive if Ricky hadn’t knocked some sense into me. There were rules. No kissing. No putting money in your mouth. No taking drugs. No drinking their drinks. No going home with the clientele. Commonsense stuff that when you’re nineteen and showered with tits, ass, and more money than god, you don’t know how to act.

  Ricky finally walks in, and all the guys get to their feet and surround him. Ricky is dressed in his office finest, if his office were in Milan. His blazer is a sharp blue and tailored to his every muscle. He wears a bright turquoise tie that makes his tanned skin look darker. His hair is freshly cropped at the sides, his beard has every hair meticulously in place, and a dreamy smile is playing on his lips.

  “Well?”

  “What’s the word?”

  “You’re killing me, Smalls.”

  The guys jump around, bouncing off one another’s excitement. I swear I could set off explosives if I lit a match in the room. Me, on the other hand—I always thought that when I got the news about Vegas I’d feel different. It’s everything we’ve been working toward for eleven years. Longer, for Ricky and Gary. I was happy with the way things have always been. I’ve never complained about this life, because I chose it. But as I look at my brothers, I can’t help but feel apart from them because my first reaction to waiting for Ricky’s word is fear. I’m scared as fuck because I don’t want to leave just yet.

  And I know—the smarter part of me is telling me that I’d be leaving in September anyway. What’s the difference? The smarter part of me is telling me that I can’t throw everything away for a woman, no matter who she is.

  Ricky walks up to me, and rests his hands on my shoulders. He’s shorter than me, but I’ve always looked up to him. He’s the definition of someone who built himself up from nothing. I know I can’t let him down. So, I put on a smile and I ask, “What’s the word?”

  Ricky looks down at the ground before meeting our eyes, and in that smile I know the answer. “It’s done and done, baby!”

  Our studio erupts with a bunch of grown-ass men cheering and screaming. Everyone jumps on Ricky, who tries to act like he doesn’t want the hugs and punches we throw at him. It’s a pregame huddle that lasts for a long time.

  “Okay, fellas,” Ricky says, breaking free of the circle. He holds out his hands. I’ve known Ricky for eleven years. I’ve seen him at his lowest and highest, but I’ve never seen him this happy. “They want us as soon as possible. We have a lot of work to do in four weeks.”

  “Four weeks?” I say, and I’m surprised at my own voice.

  Ricky looks like he’s doing calculus in his head, and says, “You’re right. Closer to three since we want to be there for a week before the show starts.”

  No matter what doubts I’m feeling, I push them down. I owe everything to Ricky and I’m not going to be the one to ruin this for him. I can’t.

  He holds out his hand to me. “You ready for the big-time, partner?”

  Partner. I’ve unofficially been his second in command so long, and he’s never, not once, called me partner. This crew has my blood, sweat, and tears. This crew is everything I’ve put my soul into. This crew is my family. What is wrong with me that I couldn’t see that right away?

  I take Ricky’s hand and we embrace, slapping each other’s backs. “I’m proud of you, brother.”

  “I couldn’t have done this without you,” he tells me, and the sincerity in his voice wrecks me. I can’t let them down. “Without all of you.”

  I look at everyone. The guys who’ve been with us for a decade, the guys who’ve joined this season, and every
one in between.

  “You know what this means?” I tell them. They trade glances and wait for my response. “No more bitching at rehearsals.”

  It’s their turn to jump on me, jabbing my arms and ribs with playful punches. We wait for Ricky to change out of his business attire, and then we line up for our first group routine. I don’t know if it’s the news or the excitement, or if all our practicing is finally paying off, but we’ve never been so in sync, our bodies moving in one tight formation.

  At the end of the day, when I’m in my car and on my way home, I realize that it isn’t the other guys who have been out of sync. It’s me. That has to change, because we’re leaving in three weeks, and I know the right thing is to break things off with Robyn. But when her name pops up on my phone, I don’t think I’m strong enough to go through with it.

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

  11

  Need You Now

  ROBYN

  “I can’t believe it,” I say.

  I stare at Fallon, the Central Park greenery blooming around him. Early summer in New York has never been more pristine. He wears a light hoodie and jeans. Even though I try to pay attention to his words, I always end up staring at him. His mouth is hypnotizing, more so than the pretty shade of his blue-green eyes.

  “Are you serious?” I repeat, unable to process what he’s telling me.

  He leans on his side of our picnic blanket and takes a bite out of the sandwich I made.

  “I swear. This is my first picnic.”

  I bring the straw to my lips and look at him skeptically. “How?”

  “We were never the picnic kind of family.” He smiles, but there’s a hint of sadness there. In his big hands, the champagne-in-a-can looks like a miniature toy.

  “What kind of family were you?” I wonder if I should ask. But I want to know everything about him in the time we have left. It’s been a day and a half since our night at Coney Island and every waking (and sleeping) moment I have is consumed with one thought: When are we going to do that again?

  “Okay.” He sits cross-legged. He rubs his hands together and takes a deep breath. “Honesty moment. I’ll tell you about my family and you tell me about yours. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “My dad worked at a printing company. Books, magazines, flyers, etc. When I was a kid, the one thing I remember about my dad is that when he came home, his fingers were always black with ink. It got deep in his nails, and no matter how much he cleaned, he could never wash it off. He got laid off when I was thirteen. I remember the exact moment because it was the day he told me I had to quit Little League. Back then I thought it was because he thought I sucked.”

  “Did you?”

  “What?”

  “Suck?”

  He breaks off a piece of bread and throws it at me. “That’s beside the point. I hated him for so long. I wanted to play in a league. I wanted to pitch for the Red Sox. I had plans.

  “Instead, I ended up babysitting my little brother because my mom was pregnant again with my sister. My older brother was fifteen and already getting in trouble. Four kids was a lot for them to handle. My dad didn’t know how to deal with not working. He was unemployed for a year. It was the longest year of our lives. He drank more in that year than in his whole life, probably.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I think it’s the right thing to say and nothing else seems right.

  “Not your fault. Anyway, he wasn’t a violent drunk. Just a drunk. He never hit us or my mom. Didn’t really yell, either. He was just consumed in this sadness. I think—I think he wanted to die. Almost did. His liver is shot now. He was sick for a long time after that. My mom was a maid at a hotel, but when that wasn’t enough, she started cleaning apartments on the weekend.

  “When she died, my dad fell off the wagon. I was sixteen and flunking out of school. My sister was three and there was no one to look out for her, so I’d stay home instead of going to school most days. My dad always fought with me the most, though. I think it’s because I look like him. If you see pictures of when my pop was my age, I look like a carbon copy. I used to think he hated me because I flunked out and then started stripping. But I think he just hated himself.”

  “Fallon—” I say his name, reach for his arm. He flinches slightly, but then relaxes when I touch him.

  “So you see.” He takes my hand in his. “We never had time for picnics. Thank you for doing this.”

  I lean forward and kiss him gingerly. His lips part for me and his hands comb through the sides of my hair. There’s a softness to his touch that makes my body melt into his.

  I pull away first because I want to look at his face. I will never be tired of looking at his face.

  “Your turn,” he tells me.

  I chuckle. “It hardly seems fair. My family is boring.”

  “How about this?” he says. “Let’s pack this up and walk toward that castle. I want to get all of my New York sights in bef—before the tourists descend like locusts.”

  We pack up, and he shoulders the backpack. We take a winding path north. No matter how many times I walk through Central Park, I always have the sense of being lost in its enclosed patches of trees and sprawling green. I love watching the rowboats on the pond.

  Fallon watches me watch them. “Do you want to do that instead?”

  I shake my head. “Another time. Let’s keep going toward the castle.”

  There’s a strange frown on his face, but I tell myself to ignore it. “As you wish, Princess.”

  “You know when I was little my cousin convinced me that we were descended from an Inca princess?”

  “Wait a minute,” he says, completely serious. “You’re not? Dammit. There goes my plan to marry into royalty.”

  I nearly choke on my own spit at the marriage comment. I think he is shocked too because his face goes slack, as if he can’t believe he said that. We ignore it, and I keep talking.

  “My dad’s from Peru. He lived in a tiny city outside of Lima. He was studying to become a pediatrician and was volunteering at a town that didn’t have any doctors. That’s where he met my mom. She was volunteering, too, with an American company. She was born in New York, but her family’s from Ecuador.”

  “They fell in love and moved here? There’s nothing boring about that, Robyn.”

  I laugh. “Oh, they hated each other. Dad had to get over his Peruvian machismo because my mom wanted none of it after being raised here. They were both alphas marking their territory. Both wanting to be right. I always tell my dad he was the original mansplainer. You know, I have no idea how he landed my mom sometimes. But she loves him even still.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  He threads his fingers with mine and we walk up a hill. From here, Belvedere Castle is visible. Flanked by tall trees and the skyscrapers, it looks like the last remnant of a fairy tale.

  “I just mean that I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long. All of my friends in high school had parents that were getting divorced. I used to think my parents were cyborgs.”

  “Princess Cyborg,” he says. “I like that. You should write that.”

  I roll my eyes. Ever since I told him that I had wanted to be a writer, he won’t stop putting ideas together and telling me to write them.

  “When did your parents come here?” he asks.

  “They were apart for two years. They wrote letters. Real, honest-to-god love letters. My mom never used to let me read them. I think it’s because she was afraid that I’d see her as a human.”

  “She a tough one?” he asks. “Your mom?”

  “Tough as diamonds. My mom was one of ten kids in a Catholic family and she was like a mom to her siblings.”

  “Did you ever get to read the letters?” He looks at me with a mischievous arch of his brow. “I bet you did. You look like trouble.”

  “Please,” I say, scoffing. “Up until a few years ago, I was a model adult. I didn’t even have my first drink u
ntil I was twenty-one. I waited to be legal because I always followed the rules. I was top of my class. Most Likely to Succeed.”

  “In addition to Most Likely to Stick a Foot in Her Mouth? Nice.”

  I swat his arm with my palm, but end up running my hand over the delicious muscles of his biceps. Shameless, I know.

  “Reading those letters was the most scandalous thing I ever did. My mom still doesn’t know.”

  “Did you find any juicy secrets?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Makes sense. Two people during that time. You either called on a real landline or you wrote. No e-mails or texts. They wouldn’t be able to see each other, so the only way to talk about their feelings was through those letters.”

  “My mom was pregnant with me before they got married,” I tell him. He gasps, feigning scandal. “I know. It was easier for her to travel to Peru because the visas came in faster through her side. Then, she got herself pregnant before she left back to the States. I’m pretty sure it was on purpose. Two doctors with means of contraception?”

  “Baby trap,” Fallon says, and we’ve finally reached the entrance to the castle.

  Tourists walk in and out with massive cameras trying to get just the right angles. Kids run around near the water’s edge.

  “Total baby trap,” I say. “She found out after a month or so. Flew back down to Peru and they got married by the priest in the tiny town. My Gran on my mom’s side still doesn’t know that. No one does, except my parents and me. And that’s only because I read the letters.”

  “Holy shit,” Fallon says. “You’re crazy if you think that isn’t interesting. You should—”

  “Do not tell me to write it.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you. But I will suggest it. Why are you so hesitant to write?”

  I grab him by the collar of his T-shirt and pull him down to me. “Because that’s a story for another day.”

  I shut him up with a kiss, and pretty soon we have an audience giggling as we make out. I pull away, my face red from dozens of strangers hooting and whistling our praise.