7. Chapter 4 – Nikki
“Nik, I just don’t think this is working.”
My brows furrowed as I stared at the man I’d called my lover and my boyfriend for the better part of six months.
“Was it the movie?” I asked incredulously, knowing full well it wasn’t the dubbed American slasher flick Timothy himself had chosen. Playing possum seemed to be the best idea, although instead of dead, I was playing dumb, which was a hell of a lot easier than accepting the rejection outright.
We stood awkwardly between our two parked cars, and at once I was grateful we’d driven separately after work tonight.
Well, his work. I’d taken a few days of vacation, so I wasn’t on the flight schedule, and although my sister was in town, I’d hoped to spend some quality time with the one man I’d settled down for, starting with a terrible movie and ending with some great sex and Thai takeout.
“Do you know how hard it is to fall for someone who’s only half in?” His storm-gray eyes bore through my soul with the declaration, and my heart stuttered. Yes, I knew unrequited feelings, but only crushes, never love.
When he asked me to be exclusive, I had to think about it. This gorgeous man was the complete package: an aspiring career as a lawyer, a conversationalist beyond compare, one hell of a generous lover. I’d convinced myself it had taken me so long to give in because he was so good for me — too good.
Now, seeing hurt flash through the eyes I loved to stare into and the slash of his tightening lips, I could recognize the truth. He was too good. Too kind, too loving. Not nearly enough damage to rectify mine.
Blowing out an acknowledging breath through my teeth, I deflated when the pain in his stare melted into frustration. Quickly, I spoke.
“I never meant to be half in, Timmy. I love spending time with you. I love the adventures we share. I love—”
“But you don’t love me, Nikki. Me. Me.” He aggressively pointed his finger into his sternum to stress the word, each thrust hitting the bone. I winced sympathetically.
No, I did not love Timothy Anchorage, the fellow Brit I’d met at the S?o Paulo dance club. His pouty lips and sculpted physique had captured my lust just before his quick wit and charm had captured my attention, but he’d never managed to capture my heart.
Rolling my lips, I stared at him through smeared glasses. Confessions of the heart, or lack of one, were much harder than they made them look on television. His gaze held my green eyes captive, expectant.
“I think I could, with more time,” I professed softly and the admission echoed against the surrounding concrete walls, amplifying my guilt. “It’s not a matter of caring, it’s—”
“It’s not enough.” My handsome, now ex-lover interrupted and broke eye contact, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s not enough, Nik. This is — it’s over. It has to be over.” He offered me a weak smile, but his eyes never reached mine again. “I’ve got to go.”
He opened the door of his practical Volkswagen and lowered his body into the seat. Then he pulled it shut, the finality of the door slam reverberated through my teeth.
I should have wrenched it open, proclaimed a heartfelt declaration, and kept this goldmine of a human being by my side, but I couldn’t.
He was right. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.
Numb, I watched him drive around the corner of the concrete pillar, tires screeching against the concrete floor, everything around me drab, depressing concrete.
I needed a drink.
Instead of retreating into my car and heading home for the night, I turned on my heel toward the lift at the end of the level. There was a dance club three blocks from here, one of my favorite holes to drink in. It would do for an impromptu obliteration.
The doorman nodded to me in familiarity and unleashed the red velvet rope as I approached the door.
The night was unbearably hot despite being the tail end of Brazil’s summer, but the sticky slick of sweat only spurred my need for a crisp bourbon — no, whiskey — even more.
I sat on my usual stool — my usual scoping stool before I’d committed — opposite the dance floor and beckoned the cute bartender.
“Glenfiddich, please, Maria. Neat. Three fingers.” I held up the three fingers in question as I ordered in accented Portuguese.
My tongue tingled in anticipation as she poured the brown liquor into the lowball crystal.
After she slid the glass over the marble countertop, I drew a large sip, savoring the oaky flavor and relishing the familiar burn in my gullet as I swallowed it down.
Two more gulps. Gone. But the ache in my heart persisted.
“Another, please.”
I eyed the other patrons as she poured.
Brazil was the most diverse country on the planet, for flora and fauna, and for people.
Indigenous, African, European, East and West Asian people made up the heart of South America.
I normally loved watching the beautiful collection of bodies as I drank, eyeing up who I’d be taking home for a raucous night of pleasure.
Tonight, attractive men and women of varying shapes and sizes writhed on the dance floor, their bodies undulating without a care in the world.
They hadn’t just been dumped, certainly not the woman with her partner’s hand massaging her crotch from behind, or the man sucking on his partner’s neck so hard it would leave a hickey.
That could be Timothy and I on the dance floor dry-humping ourselves into a fornicating frenzy to act out when we got home, but I sat alone, because something was so fundamentally wrong with me, I couldn’t love the perfect man who had been willing to love me back.
A scantily clad woman in a barely-there brown leather skirt and crop top eyed me appreciatively from a few paces away. My cock didn’t even stir in my jeans.
No, tonight wasn’t about fucking. It was about forgetting.
Turning away from her open invitation, I downed the second glass in three successive swallows.
I stared at my hands, the bronze skin reflecting purple and green under the disco lighting.
I could call a taxi right now; this only needed to be a few calming drinks to dull Timothy’s blow.
I didn’t need to take this as far as … always.
“You’re lucky you’re still alive,” the officer had told me when he’d found me in the alley, fresh off a three-day bender of whiskey to pills and a dodgy night’s stay in a prostitute’s apartment.
She’d been lovely — a curvy little thing with doe eyes — but she kept trying to tie me up and calling her pimp to “collect” me for a job.
I’d escaped when she’d gone into the lavatory, but my “almost” introduction to sexual slavery had sobered me enough to cap that behavior.
Then I met Timothy. No capping required.
Shame’s hot breath dusted along my neck. Going home meant I’d see his picture on my fridge, his jacket on my coat hook — reminders of the life I was incapable of. And I’d be seeing my sister tomorrow, the bubbly neon billboard for the original life I couldn’t manage.
That settled it. I’d stifle the icy coils of resentment with a beautifully room-temperature 18-year-old malted whiskey.
Drowning in drink was a familiar hobby I’d shelved for a bit of time, but its tug in my belly was a comfort of sorts. A few nips a day had been all I needed, but tonight called for the destruction of a few brain cells. A few heart cells, at the very least.
I could stay in control. I wasn’t that bloke anymore.
“Another, Maria. Please.” The pangs in my chest slowly diminished with each pull. A few more, and I wouldn’t feel a thing at all.
I would pay its penance tomorrow.
“Are you coming, Nicolas?”
The sharpness of my sister’s eyebrows, crisply pointed toward the ornate stucco ceiling of her rented villa, could have skewered the bravest of men.
My stomach roiled as I summoned the strength to hold her stare, the kohl-lined golden-green eyes matching mine.
Where she’d inherited the lighter skin of our father, we’d both received our mother’s tight ringlet curls and long, lean physique.
Her expectant frown matched the Baron’s so completely I had to look away.
I had enough shame on my shoulders today.
I was happy to report I’d been quite successful and destroyed every single brain, stomach, and liver cell in my body in a single evening.
I wasn’t a hearty teen anymore. Every hour of my thirty years was quite prominent in the smashing headache behind my eyes and the torrid ache in every limb, but Bianca, first-time South American traveler, was not entertaining my self-induced pain.
I’d stumbled into her vacation rental at three in the morning after a foggy debate with the taxi driver. It had seemed like the most reasonable plan. Timothy’s evidence was all over my apartment, and we’d planned on sightseeing the next morning.
Now, with a fuzzy tongue and a shirt so wrinkled it resembled crepe paper, I had regrets.
“I’m just a bit slow this morning, Bianca. Give me a minute, yeah?”
Shuffling down the hallway, I popped a mint from the tin in my pocket and paused in front of the embossed gold mirror to check my hair.
My eyes burned behind the black rims of my glasses, and my head had a bass beat that mimicked the club’s.
But by all outward appearances, I didn’t look hungover, just a bit rumpled.
It was not my first drinking blitz and likely wouldn’t be my last.
But it did the trick. Every now and again, a good binge got the yearning for drink out of my system. Now I would enjoy the grace period a renewed man.
Running my fingers through the short curls that landed on my cheekbones, I straightened, satisfied I looked partially presentable — at least by my metrics. Bianca hadn’t gotten the memo we were headed to an outdoor activity and was wearing a soft pink formal suit and heels.
My family’s obsession with appearances was no longer my problem. She would ruin the five-hundred-pound pair of shoes on her feet, but the Baron would replace them, as always.