Page 51 of Female Fantasy
The lady’s knowing expression makes me giggle. I smile and shake my head. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Unfortunately, no can do,” she says. “There’s some kind of fidget-spinner convention up the road this week. We’re booked solid. Only got one room left. The paradise suite.”
“We’ll take it,” I say before Nico can object.
“Fabulous.”
She hands us the keys, leaning over the desk. “And a little pro tip: If you’re planning on securing yourself to the headboard, I suggest you use handcuffs. Those motherfuckers are too slippery for ropes.”
She winks, and I get the distinct pleasure of watching Nico’s face turn the same color as the dying grass.
He follows me up to our room, dumbfounded. I throw open the door to find a heart-shaped waterbed, complete with a leopard-print duvet, floral wallpaper, and a full-size jacuzzi with some questionable brown marks at the bottom.
Honestly? I have to laugh. This room looks like the backdrop of a really corny porno.
“I’ll take the floor,” Nico says immediately.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, dropping my duffel on the floor.“There are literally red stains all over the carpet. And something tells me they aren’t ketchup.”
Nico gags. “I thought that was just an artistic pattern or something.”
“Sure,” I say sweetly. “Splatter paint. Bloody red splatter paint.”
I sit down on the waterbed, and it dips beneath me, almost causing me to slide off onto my ass on the Furnace-forsaken crime scene floor.
“Come on. I need your weight to balance out the oil in this thing anyway.”
Nico begrudgingly approaches the waterbed and takes a seat before stretching out beside me. I try to ignore the way his arms flex as he stretches them above his head, his abdomen taut and clenched as he yawns. We both lie there staring up at the speckled ceiling. I replay the day’s events over and over in our heads.
Literally occupying two sides of the same heart.
“Do you think that’s black mold?” I whisper.
Nico grunts, which turns into a fit of giggles.
Before I know it, we’re both on our sides, our bodies shaking as tears stream down our faces, our cackles all-consuming. After a while, I can’t tell if we’re laughing or crying.
Most likely both.
“I can’t believe we got kidnapped today,” Nico says. “That shit just doesn’t happen to people like me. I don’t get kidnapped. I go to work. I go to the gym. I go home. But I never get kidnapped.”
I snort in agreement. “For someone who loves playing out worst-case scenarios in your head, you were oddly unprepared for the worst-case scenario.”
He turns to face me. “But you weren’t. You’re being surprisingly calm about the entire thing. Like, you’re nottraumatizedat all.”
“Maybe I’m dissociating.” I shrug, uncomfortable with being complimented by Nico.
“You were incredible.”
Blood rushes to my head. “I just read a lot is all.”
His eyes are fixed on me, unwavering and sincere. “I think you were right. Maybe I do need to start believing in the power of love. Maybe then the universe will stop kicking my ass.”
A beat goes by before I fully process what he’s saying. “Wait. I’m sorry. You don’t believe in love?”
He shakes his head. “My parents made sure of that.”
I rack my brain for more information. Nico’s parents got divorced when I was in middle school. Before that, they always seemed enamored with each other. I remember them holding hands at Chowder Fest at Olde Mystick Village and making out like teenagers at Clyde’s Cider Mill. But I don’t remember too many details of their breakup.
