"You can call me Naz, if you prefer," he says.
"Naz." The name sounds weird on my tongue. "I've never met a Naz before."
"I like to think I'm one of a kind."
He stares at me, and once again, I'm not sure what to say. I feel like a fool, just sitting here, wrapped up in his sheets that smell so masculine, like I imagine he smells if I get close enough to inhale the scent of him. Although my heart has slowed down, my anxiety lessening, my head hurts like a son of a bitch.
And not to mention I still have to pee.
"I, uh…" I feel my cheeks flushing. "Do you have a bathroom I can use?"
He nods, breaking eye contact, and turns toward the open door behind him. "Just down the hall, last door on the left."
I climb out of the bed, my legs wobbly as I stand up. Geez, how long have I been out? Ducking my head, unable to look at Naz, I scurry past him, down the hall. The bathroom is massive, everything bright white just like the bedroom, the marble floor cold under my bare feet. The light burns my eyes when I flip it on, and I squint, trying to adjust to the brightness. I take care of business, groaning when I catch sight of my reflection in a mirror afterward.
I look like death.
My eyes are bloodshot, makeup streaked all over my face, a big smudge of color marring my skin. My hair is little more than a tangled rats nest perched on top of my head, and I'm still wearing the godforsaken spandex.
Grimacing, I try to fix myself up, splashing water on my face and running my fingers through my hair, but it does little to help. Giving up, I head back out, my steps unhurried.
I'm in no rush to face him again, knowing how I look.
He's still standing just in the doorway of the bedroom, his hands in his pocket, his stance full of ease. He's not at all uncomfortable having a strange girl in his home… in his bedroom.
Does anything bother him?
He turns, catching my eye when I approach the doorway, but I stop there, not going back into that room.
"I don't usually look this way," I say, motioning toward myself, feeling the need to explain my disaster of an appearance.
He smiles again. He has a nice smile—the kind that's warm but not overly friendly. It's genuine, nothing forced about it. He smiles like he means it. I don't know much about this man, but he doesn’t seem like the type to do anything needlessly.
"I figured," he says, his eyes scanning me, making my cheeks flush again. "Eighties night."
"Yeah."
"As a man who was around back then, I can tell you that most people didn't dress that way."
"Ugh, I know. Acid-wash and shoulder pads were all the rage, right?"
"Yes."
I eye him peculiarly, trying again to guess his age. When he smiles, his eyes crinkle, but I don't spot any wrinkles. "So you remember the eighties well?"
"Well enough."
"How old were you then?"
That's nicer than asking how old he is now, right?
A look of amusement flashes across his face that tells me he's on to me. "How old do you think I was?"
I hesitate. "A teenager?"
"Close."
My stomach sinks. Ugh. "Older?"
"Younger."
Whew.
"So that means you're about…" I try to do the math in my head, but there still seems to be a fog settled over me. "Forty-ish?"
Jesus, he's forty.
"I'm going on thirty-seven."
Thirty-six, then. That makes him eighteen years older than me.
Ugh, eighteen.
He's twice my age.
"Well, thanks, Naz," I say quietly, feeling inadequate. He's all man, and I'm probably nothing more than a silly, helpless little girl to him. "Really, I appreciate it."
He merely nods.
I look away from him then, glancing around the room, searching out the belongings I'm missing, but they're nowhere to be seen. The room has significantly lightened the past few minutes, swaddling everything in the soft glow. It's still early, but Melody has to notice I'm missing by now.
"Do you know where my phone is?" I ask.
He nods, pulling it from his pocket. "You seem to make a habit of losing it."
"Yeah, I guess I do," I say, taking the phone from him. "How did you know it was mine, anyway?"
"You had it with you."
"No, before that," I say. "In Professor Santino's classroom."
"Ah. I heard you ask for it."
"You heard me?"
"I did," he confirms. "You stepped into the doorway and said 'my phone'."
I look at him incredulously, clutching my phone, running my thumb along the jagged scratch down the screen. I hope like hell it still works because I can't afford to replace it. I can barely afford to pay the damn bill. "You must have great hearing."
"I do," he says, walking toward me. I stand still as he steps past, his arm brushing against mine, the familiar cologne wafting around me, clinging to him just as it clings to his bed. "Not much slips past me, Karissa."
He walks away, and I watch as he disappears through the hall and down a set of stairs. Looking down at my phone, I try to turn it on but it's dead, the screen staying black.
With a sigh, I look away, having no choice but to follow Naz downstairs.
The two-story house is large and mostly vacant, fully furnished but scarcely decorated. My eyes scan the rooms as I trudge through them. I spot my shoes in the living room and slip them on. Now all I need is my ID.
"Here," Naz says, picking up my license from a table and holding it out, as if he'd read my mind. "I think that's all you had on you."
"It was," I confirm, taking it. "I, uh... I should go."
I nervously turn toward the door when he clears his throat. "Do you want a ride?"
I hesitate. "A ride?"
It doesn't strike me until then that I could be anywhere.
"Yes," he says. "I can take you back into the city."
Jesus, I'm not even in Manhattan anymore?
"Uh, yeah, sure. Okay."
It turns out we're in Brooklyn, an upper-class neighborhood in the southwest corner of the borough. Naz's place is bigger than most others on the street. I wonder what he does for a living to be able to afford it. I don't ask, though. I feel enough out of place without having to know my Prince Charming is an actual heir to some sort of throne.
A sleek black Mercedes is parked in the driveway, roaring to life when Naz hits a button on his keys. He fits the car beautifully, both impressive and downright gorgeous. I feel even smaller sitting in the passenger seat, not speaking as he drives us through Brooklyn.
"Are you hungry?" he asks eventually, not giving me time to answer before he whips the car into a Starbucks drive-through. "What do you want?"
I want to say nothing, but my stomach is tearing up, and I'm pretty sure he can hear it. It sounds like grinding gears. "Just whatever you get, I guess."
He cocks an eyebrow at me. "What if I get nothing?"
"Then get me something else… something chocolate."
He laughs, rolling down his window to order—two coffees, loaded with cream and sugar, and a chocolate muffin. I thank him when he hands me mine, but he shrugs it off like it's nothing.
"So where am I taking you?" he asks when he pulls back into traffic.
"NYU," I say. "I stay in the dorms."
It's a twenty-minute drive into our part of lower Manhattan. I pick at my muffin and sip on my drink and try to think of something—anything—except for the reality of what I'd gotten myself into.
By the time we make it there, I'm feeling insignificant, little more than a charity case that has been picked up off the streets. He pulls the Mercedes around the corner and into an adjacent parking garage, stopping there and slipping the car in park, blocking the entrance.
"Thank you again," I say nervously, unfastening my seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. "Really."
I don't give him time to respond… this is uncomfortable enough without forced conve
rsation. I step out, clutching my coffee, and slam the door behind me. Before I can walk away, the window rolls down, and his voice calls out. "Karissa."
I turn around, wondering why he just can't make this easy on me, and freeze when I see the pink object in his extended hand.
My phone.
Really?
Sighing, I step back that way and reach through the open window, taking it from him. I try to pull away but he grasps my hand, clutching it tightly. It doesn't hurt, but it locks me in place, his skin warm and rough to the touch.
"A word of advice?" he says. "Be careful who you trust. There may not always be someone there to save you."
"I, uh…" Those words are chilling. I have no idea what to say. "Okay."
He lets go, his hand grasping the gearshift to put the car in reverse. I back up a few steps, away from the car.
"Call me sometime," he says. "It would be nice to see what you look like out of those clothes."
"Karissa, it's your Mom… sorry I missed your call…"
"Hey, kiddo, call me back when you get the chance!"
"It's been a few hours and I haven't heard from you, honey. I hope everything's okay. Call me."
"Karissa, I'm starting to worry… call me, please."
"I swear to God, Karissa Maria, if you don't call me back right now—"
"That's it. You're grounded. Forever."
Sighing, I hang up and stare at the screen of my phone. It still works, thankfully, once I got it plugged in and charging. It sprang to life with a whopping thirty-two missed calls—a few from Melody, wondering where I was, but most from my mother. She went from asking to pleading to threatening all within the span of a few hours.
I'm surprised she hasn't called the police to report me missing.
On second thought, she probably did.
If they ever gave out an award for overprotective mother of the year, Carrie Reed would win it, hands down. For eighteen years she kept me on lock down, always two seconds away from a mental break whenever I was out of her sight for too long. I was a bubble wrapped package marked 'fragile'—do not bend, do not break. We moved around so much it was hard for me to keep friends. She was restless, always needing to move on to something else—a new town, a new hobby, and new people—while I just wanted nothing more than to have somewhere I could call home.
Despite migrating and starting over practically every year, homeschooling in a lot of the places we lived, my application and SATs were enough to get me on the waiting list at NYU. I figured it was hopeless, and nearly gave up, when at the last minute a spot opened up and I was offered admission.
She cried when I told her. I thought she would be happy, but she sobbed and pleaded, asking me to reconsider moving to New York City. I told her I had to follow my heart, follow my dreams. She eventually backed off, but she never full accepted my leaving.
Abandonment issues, I guess. My father walked out on her when she was pregnant, and I don't think she has been the same since. I only vaguely remember seeing a photograph once, a flash of a mustached face, like a faded old Polaroid with a name scribbled on the bottom: John. It doesn't bother me—I can't miss someone I never had, can't mourn someone I don't know—but I know she feels the loss.
I know it, because I've heard her cry, muttering to him when she's in her bedroom, like he could hear her wherever he was.
She can't have him, so she overcompensates with me.
I lay back on my bed, too exhausted to do much more than move. My bed smells faintly like laundry detergent, but I smell like him. The scent lingers on my clothes from sleeping tangled in his sheets. It's half the reason I haven't bothered to shower, or change… the other half is because I can hardly think straight to function. My mother's messages are already slipping from my mind as Naz's words creep back in, replaying over and over, like a CD skipping.
It would be nice to see what you look like out of those clothes. I just gaped at the car as he drove away, disappearing into traffic. He'd seen me wearing something other than his ridiculous eighties get-up… the first time he saw me I was dressed normally.
It wasn't until I was in the elevator, heading up to my thirteenth floor room, that the double meaning behind those words hit me. It would be nice to see what you look like out of those clothes.
Holy shit, did he mean naked?
I'd been so startled I dropped my phone. Of course.
Sighing, trying to push it from my thoughts, I turn back to my phone and scroll through my contacts. I need to call my mother before she really does call the police. I make it to her name, Mom, when my finger hesitates, my eyes drifting to the name right below it. Naz.
I stare at it. He put his number into my phone at some point yesterday. I don't remember it happening, but that isn't surprising, considering I don't remember most of last night. I wondered how I was supposed to call him and shrugged the entire thing off, but now something stirs inside of me—anxiety, mingling with excitement. Butterflies tear up my stomach. I want to scream, to squeal, to puke. Before, it was harmless flirtation, but now… Jesus, now I can call him.
Oh God, no… I can't. I can't call him.
Can I?
I'm locked in an internal debate, trying to rationalize those feelings, when my phone starts ringing, my mom's name popping up before I can press the button to call her. I answer it, bringing the phone to my ear. "Hey, Mom, I was just about to call you."
"Karissa, where have you been? I've been worried!"
"I'm sorry. I, uh…" I went out drinking last night and was drugged and woke up in a strange guy's bed with one hell of a hangover. You know, all those things you worried would happen to me when I moved to NYC, but I told you only happened in the movies. "I dropped my phone yesterday and messed it up. I just got it working again."
That's true, at least.
"I thought something happened to you!"
"I'm fine, Mom," I say. "I just talked to you the day before yesterday… or the one before that. Nothing's going to happen to me."
She lets out a deep sigh. She doesn't argue with my words, but I know they don't reassure her. Switching the subject, I ask her how everything's going in Watertown and how things are working out at the flower shop she opened.
Watertown is where we lived the longest, the place that finally started to feel like home. We moved there from Syracuse right after my sixteenth birthday and she hasn't left yet.
Yet.
She's rambling on and on about how spring's coming and the flowers will soon bloom, and I'm trying to pay attention, but the words are fading away into a fog. The door flings open after a few minutes as I'm humming in acknowledgement to something my mom says, Melody appearing in the doorway. She does a double take when she sees me, her eyes wide. I can see the questions written all over her face and know, in about twenty seconds, an interrogation is coming.
"Mom, I need to go," I say, not wanting to be on the phone when it happens. "I'll call you later, okay?"
"Okay," she says, hesitating like she doesn't want to hang up. "I love you, Karissa."
"Love you, too."
I hang up with my finger still touching the screen when the dam breaks and the questions start flooding out. "What happened to you? Where did you go? Where have you been? Why haven't you called? And why the hell are you still wearing that?"
Rolling my eyes, I sit up. My head is still throbbing, despite the handful of pills I popped when I got to the room. I've had hangovers before, but this is more. This is a fuzziness I can't seem to shake.
"You first," I say. "What happened to you at Timbers?"
"I met a guy. Your turn."
Melody stares at me, awaiting some sort of response as I try to get my thoughts together and decide how much to tell her.
"Same," I respond. "I met a guy, too."
Her eyes widen. "Really? Who?"
"He's nobody," I say, not believing it even as the words leave my lips. That man is indisputably somebody. "So did you leave with the douche in the flight suit or
what?"
She eyes me for a moment in silence, as if debating whether to push me for more, but she thankfully shrugs it off. "Yeah. His name's Pat or Pete or something, I can't remember. Maybe it's Parker? We made out and then passed out."
"Same," I say again. "Except for the whole making out part."
"So you went home with a guy and… passed out?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, that's disappointing."
I let out a light laugh as I stand up and stretch, setting my phone down to let it finish charging. "Yeah, it made for one hell of an awkward morning. So tell me about Pat-Pete-Parker-whatever."
She shifts the subject, going back to talking about whatever his name is, as I gather some clothes to take a shower. I don't mention Naz any more. She'll have more questions—questions I don't have answers for.
"Ugh, I have one hell of a hangover," Melody says eventually. "How are you feeling?"
"Like hell," I say. "I think there was something in one of those drinks last night… a roofie or something. I don't know. It's fuzzy."
She looks at me, horrified. "That's scary. Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure." I hesitate. "I think it was the last one… the one you got from whatever-his-name is."
"No way," she says. "He was totally a gentleman. It must've been another."
"Yeah," I mumble. "Maybe, but be careful, you know, just in case."
"Are you sure you can't come?" Melody asks, exaggeratedly frowning as she sits across from me, clothes piled high all around her—this time on purpose. An empty suitcase sits on the floor by her feet, waiting to be filled.
"I'm sure," I say. "If I could, I would, but I can't."
"If it's about money, I—"
Before she can even finish that sentence, my eyes narrow and I cut her off. "I can't go."
She makes a face at me, somewhere between annoyance and pity. I know she's feeling both. It's Sunday, and tomorrow is the official start of spring break. With midterms behind us, we have nothing to worry about until classes start up again next week. Melody's off to Aruba with some old friends from high school—girls I've met but wouldn't recognize if I ever ran into them on the street. Melody's the only one in her group that stayed in New York for college.