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  I trail off as a chill settles over me. Nico rubs my shoulder. His touch is a welcome warmth.

  “He’s still here,” I whisper. “He didn’t go back to Argentina. Nico, he’s still here.”

  Nico’s expression turns black, and a muscle in his jaw starts ticking. “When’s his court date?”

  I swallow. “Next month. October eighth.”

  “That’s a Friday,” he says. “What time?”

  “The police said one thirty.”

  My voice grows small. Nico looks like he wants to punch something. It takes me back to that day again, when he lost himself completely with Giancarlo. I don’t want to tell him that some of my dreams involve him and the rage I witnessed that day. That sometimes, very, very rarely, I dream that he might turn it on me.

  I shiver and resist the urge to rock myself.

  “Baby, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you gotta go.”

  My head jerks. “What? No!”

  “Baby––”

  “Nico. I don’t want to see him!”

  The words are more vehement than I intend, spitting out like bullets. Suddenly my voice is choked, and I can’t breathe. The here and now. The here and now. I chant the words over and over again to myself. But it doesn’t work. Everything feels tighter. My breath draws shallow, and everything starts to spin. I gasp for breath, but none of it seems like enough.

  “Layla.”

  It’s Nico’s arms folding around me that open up my lungs again. It’s his lips on my neck, the soft vibration of his voice on my skin. He hushes me, holds me until I calm. Until I’m ready to push away the memories of Giancarlo’s looming face and terrible touch instead of this man, a man who truly loves me.

  The here and now.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m okay now. Um…sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry about anything,” Nico murmurs. “But, Layla…”

  I sigh. “What?”

  “I have demons too,” he says. “Which is why I know they’ll stay with you until you face them. You don’t want that shit chasing you forever. Don’t let those memories hold you hostage.”

  I blink into his chest. There are times from his life that Nico hates to discuss. The years when Gabe’s father lived with them and used to beat their mother, and probably the kids too. The two years he spent at a detention facility in upstate New York, which is all but a mystery to me, mostly because Nico absolutely will not go there. Plus, I’ve seen the tiny, terrible apartment where he grew up. Poverty is its own kind of trauma, and his lasted a lot longer than the six or so months I was with Giancarlo.

  “You won’t be alone,” he says. “I’ll be with you.”

  I look up. “You will?”

  He snorts lightly and gives me a surprised half smile. “Of course I will, baby. What kind of man do you think I am?”

  I blink. “I…I guess I don’t really know, do I?”

  We stare at each other as the reality of the words sinks in. For as much time as we’ve spent this summer flirting and talking, we haven’t really been together in well over a year, and even then, it was tenuous, with his departure to LA hanging over us the whole time.

  “Yours,” he says softly. “I’m your man, Layla. No matter what, I’m here for you. You can believe that.”

  Just as quickly, the shadows fade away. His warmth envelops me.

  “I’m yours too,” I whisper back.

  Nico smiles, almost a little sadly. Slowly, he takes one hand to his lips, then the other.

  “Not yet,” he whispers. “But I have faith.”

  He’s honest, but without judgment. There’s no doubt in his words, just the knowledge that things will be all right if we just give it time. It’s a knowledge I didn’t know I needed until now. A knowledge that scoots me across the pillow and back into his arms.

  I kiss him again, and just as quickly as before, what starts sweet almost immediately turns into something more potent. Nico gasps into my mouth and tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. I want more. I want to be us again, whatever that means. His hands drift down my back, and he groans lightly as he finds my ass and squeezes that favorite body part of his, pressing me into the hard length that’s suddenly tenting the front of his shorts.

  “Okay!” he practically shouts suddenly, rolling away and forcing some space between us.

  I scowl. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re not ready, baby. I…gah. That’s not why I came here tonight.” Nico folds inward, like he’s protecting himself. Almost like he’s in pain.

  The blanket has fallen down, and I can see the obvious bulge in his shorts. It turns me on, but just when I go to move his hand away, I stop, stricken again with fear. And immediately, shame.

  Why do I have to be like this? My body wants nothing but him. All day. Every day. But some other part of me is screaming to put on the brakes. It’s ruining everything.

  “Let’s just go to sleep,” Nico’s saying, but I can barely hear him over the fighting thoughts in my head.

  “I…”

  I can’t stop staring at the bulge in the front of his shorts. Almost unconsciously, like he’s not even aware of it, Nico’s hand drifts down to adjust himself, then rests there.

  I look up. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t? Just turn over.”

  “What if…I don’t want to?”

  Nico sighs. “Layla…”

  “I could watch you,” I blurt out and immediately flush. Holy shit. I am some kind of pervert. I could watch him?

  A black brow rises playfully. “What?”

  I gulp, and the flush gets worse as my gaze drifts back down to the, ah, package he’s now casually stroking. On purpose. Yep, I’m still going to ask.

  “If…if you’d let me,” I say, mesmerized by his gentle strokes. “I wouldn’t mind watching you…do that.”

  Nico follows my gaze to his cock, and, as if he just now registers what he’s been doing, his eyes brighten considerably. With a bit more purpose now, his hand cups the bulge, straining against the thin black fabric. It’s perfect––not too big, not too small. Slightly curved. With a stark flash, I can remember perfectly how it feels when it presses into that one, perfect spot inside me. How it completely undid me only a few hours before.

  Nico licks his full lips. Then, without a word, he tugs down the waistband, revealing himself completely. When I meet his eyes again, they sparkle with knowing, and he leans in for a kiss.

  “This okay?” he asks as his hand starts to move. “Can I kiss you again?”

  I nod. “You can always kiss me.”

  So he does, moving slowly, softly, until our tongues are wrapped up in that delicate dance together that sets both our bodies alight. It’s a light that can’t be banished, even when the darkness threatens.

  “What about you?” he murmurs a bit later. “This ain’t just the Nico show, baby. I have another hand I can use here.”

  I glance down to where he works. There’s an ache between my legs now, one I wouldn’t mind taking care of either. But there’s something about watching…I’m not quite ready to give it up.

  “I…I think I can do it.”

  “Then can I watch too?” That sly brow is back up.

  I bite my lip and nod. His eyes dilate as I slide my fingers down and under the band of my underwear. He’s as transfixed by the movements as I am by the way his hand works his solid length. His breathing grows harsher as I find my sweet spot, that small bundle of nerves that makes me come undone. It’s a good interim, a touch I know, a feeling I know. We’ve listened to each other do this countless times over the summer, but this is the first time either of us has watched.

  The idea turns me on even more.

  “Oh, God,” I groan as my fingers pick up their pace.

  Nico grunts, and his hand also moves faster.

  “Can you see this?” he asks, his deep voice somehow even deeper. “Do you see what you do to me? This isn’t me, Layla. This is
you. All you.”

  I can’t answer. I’m too busy, too mesmerized by the tension in his body. Nico’s not a big man, but he has the presence of one. This close, seeing the way each well-defined muscle ripples with every flick of his wrist. The way his bricked abdominals squeeze with the effort to keep his cool. The way the compass tattoo over his heart seems to tick ferociously every time his breath picks up a notch.

  “Layla,” he croaks, and his other hand snakes around my head and pulls me into him for another fierce kiss.

  I return it with as much vigor, finally lost in this moment, lost in him as my fingers work to join him.

  “Layla!” Nico cries as his body seizes up suddenly. Every muscle he has is suddenly in high relief, caught in the shadows of the night and the city.

  The knowledge of his undoing spurs my own. I shout my release as suddenly as his, but he swallows my cries with yet another kiss as we come together, side by side as the world falls apart, but we come closer to being one.

  “Fuck,” he breathes slowly as he comes down. “You wanted to watch…” He chuckles. “I love you so goddamn much, you know that? You’re bananas, but I love you like crazy.”

  I can’t do anything but giggle, but his wide, lazy smile tells me he sees everything I’m feeling on my face.

  Nico looks down sheepishly to the mess in his hand. “Got a towel? I don’t want to mess up your sheets.”

  “Bathroom,” I tell him.

  I enjoy the view while he walks away in nothing but his birthday suit, admiring the prize-winning ass that literally stopped me on the street once. I wait patiently while he cleans up and returns to bed. For the first time all night, I feel a sense of peace, which is only heightened the second he slips back into the bed next to me.

  “I love you,” he says again as he gathers me close.

  I smile behind closed eyes. “I love you too. Good night.”

  Then I turn over and scoot to the other pillow.

  “What are you doing?”

  I turn back. “Giving you space.”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Baby, why the fuck would you think I need space? When the fuck did I ever want space from you?”

  I open my mouth to answer, but just as soon, realize the answer. Never, of course. That was Giancarlo who always insisted on a full three feet between us at night. Who pushed me to the edge of the bed so he could splay his long limbs while he slept.

  As if he sees the answer on my face, Nico tugs me back toward him immediately. His arm slips under my neck, and the other one drapes over my stomach, pulling my back firmly into his chest. The man is a furnace, and I crave his warmth.

  “I just want to fall asleep with you in my arms again,” he murmurs into my ear, his low voice vibrating over the sensitive skin as he repeats his earlier request. “Is that okay?”

  I sigh and nod. I want to tell him that this would be okay every night for the rest of my life. That when I’m with him, I have this feeling like nothing out there could hurt me. Instead I let him gather me close, hold me the way we’ve both wanted for so, so long until his breaths grow deep and regular.

  But as the room grows cold again, and the darkness outside fades, that sliver of fear still lingering at the edges of my heart remains. I shut my eyes and focus on the sound of Nico’s breaths. The fear will be back tomorrow, and probably the next day too. But for now, I’m safe. For now, I’m where I belong.

  ~

  CHAPTER SIX

  Layla

  “Happy birthday, baby.”

  There’s a bright light shining in my face, visible even through closed eyelids. When I open them, I see the source: a flash glinting off bright gold. The whole bedroom seems cast in light. Bouncing off the east-facing windows on the other side of me, the early morning sun casts everything with a warm glow.

  It’s the first solid night of sleep I’ve had in months. The first night where I didn’t wake up in the middle seized with terror. The first where I didn’t have to spend an hour or more chanting myself back to sleep for another few pitiful hours.

  I turn back to the trinket next to me and the eager man holding it. “It’s not my birthday. That was way back in June.”

  “I know,” Nico says, holding out the jewelry. “But I wanted to give this to you in person.”

  Gingerly, I take it from him, and it’s only when my vision comes fully into focus that I realize what it is.

  A gold watch. More specifically, it’s my gold watch. The watch my dad gave me for Christmas last year, which I had to pawn when Giancarlo sent me, unwittingly, to pay off a drug-related debt of his in the South Bronx. Nico helped me sell it in order to avoid much, much worse happening if we didn’t. I turn it over and find the engraved inscription: a minha filha. “To my daughter” in Portuguese, my father’s native language. It’s a little bittersweet to see, since he refused to teach me Portuguese while I was growing up, insisting that I needed to be as Americanized as possible to succeed. It was one of the reasons why his absence last year hurt so badly. Not only did he shield me from a half of myself I had always wanted to know, but then he abandoned both my mother and me to run back to it just the same.

  ~

  “What did he say when you told him what happened?” Dr. Parker’s face is kind and patient. Everything my father is not.

  I stare at my hands, braced in my lap. “I didn’t tell him.”

  There’s a long pause. Then: “Would you like to tell me why not?”

  I sigh. No, I wouldn’t. But I know I should. Dr. Parker doesn’t ask questions she doesn’t think I need to figure out. And unfortunately, the hard ones usually end up helping the most.

  “I…I don’t really want to hear what he would have to say,” I whisper.

  She says nothing, just waits for me to gather my thoughts. I weave and unweave my fingers, suddenly remembering the old nursery rhyme I used to play with my dad. The one he would do to get me to go to church. Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door, and look, all the people.

  It was a rhyme that always made me laugh, until he launched into his lecture on piety. That I needed to be one of the people inside, or else I’d burn with everyone else. My father, so concerned with my mortal soul, seemed to have given up on his own in the end.

  “He will tell me I earned it,” I say. “That I brought it on myself.”

  One word about last year will deliver endless lectures over the crackling line from Brazil. It’ll be questions about what I did to provoke it––what did I wear, what did I drink, when did I skip church, who was I hanging out with. But most of all, it will spell out his disappointment. That his daughter would never let this happen to her. That we get what we earn.

  The worst part is, I ask myself those questions too, all the time. No matter how many times Dr. Parker tells me it wasn’t my fault what Giancarlo did, I still wonder what I should have done to stop it.

  It’s the same reason I never said that I had lost the watch he had given me. The last thing he had given me, one that, after months of silence, explicitly recognized me as his daughter. His blood.

  ~

  I shake my head, then clasp the watch around my wrist. Nico blinks, trying to gauge my response.

  “How…” I shake my head, overwhelmed. “When did you do this?”

  A dimple appears with a shy smile. “About a day after I put you on the plane.”

  “But this must have cost you…Nico, it’s too much.”

  The watch was taken in exchange for a debt of a thousand dollars. I sincerely doubt the pawnbroker would have taken anything less than that plus interest.

  “I…I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck, like he’s nervous. “I needed to do something, you know? To make things right again. This was a start.”

  The memories from last spring darken the morning light before either of us can stop them––I see them playing clearly across Nico’s face, and feel them just as clearly on mine. The dingy apartment. The stained floors. The slam of bodies on w
ood and plaster. Blood dripping down my face.

  My chest squeezes again. My breath recedes.

  No. Not this morning.

  So I do the only thing I can think of that will banish the shadows and protect this light. I tackle Nico.

  “Thank you,” I say as I cover his face with kisses. “Thank you so much. This is crazy. You’re crazy.”

  He laughs, the bright sound bouncing around the high ceilings, and I nuzzle into his neck, eager for the light he exudes to permeate through me.

  “It’s done, all right? I had some cash from selling my truck. It’s fine.”

  “I’ll repay you, I promise. Every cent.”

  He shakes his head. “No way. It’s a birthday gift.”

  “It’s too much. I have to do something to show you how grateful I am.”

  That sly smile reappears. “I’m sure I can think of some ways.”

  I set my chin on his chest, enjoying the solid feel of him. “So what’s your plan today? Saturdays are laundry day, right?”

  Nico lies back on the pillow and nods. “Laundry. Cleaning. Pay my bills. Shit like that since I’m usually ready to drop by the time I get home during the week. You want to meet up later for dinner?”

  Reluctantly, I shake my head. “I can’t. Shama should be here by tonight, and I promised her we’d hang out. Chicks before dicks, you know.”

  Nico pouts. “I’d ask if I could come over later, but I doubt it would be the best impression to jump off with, having your boyfriend stay over on day one, huh?”

  Sadly, I nod. Shama’s my friend, and we’ve shared an apartment before. But things are different now. She’s seen me spiral away with a man, and I doubt she’d be comfortable with me jumping straight into something intense all over again, even if it is with Nico. Because the thing is, I don’t want him to leave. I want to sleep like this every night, wound up around each other, and I want to wake up in the morning to his bright smile. But that’s a little too much to say to him on literally our first day back together. It’s a little much for anyone.