RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance (2 page)

She cracks a half-smile.

“I think maybe you’re just misunderstood.  There are a lot of good things about you but there are people who just don’t get you.”

She nods slightly, a vulnerable look in her eyes.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but I felt something special about you since I first saw you.  I don’t know.  It’s strange since we only just met, but I feel some sort of closeness to you.  Maybe this doesn’t make any sense…”  I look downward, feigning contemplation.  “I’m not sure.  All I know is you have a great energy and being with you just feels really good for some reason.”

She studies my face intently.  I stare back sincerely, the two of us alone in the quiet condo.  Maya looks downward, appearing as if she might cry.

I place my hand on hers.  “Are you okay?” 

She takes a deep breath.

I move closer.  I lift her chin and look into her eyes.  “Are you alright?”

She gives a slight nod.

I lean forward and softly kiss her.  Soon we return to her bedroom.  We kiss more than the previous night and she whispers into my ear how happy she is to have met me.  The entire morning and early afternoon we alternate between sex and lying in bed together talking.  In the late afternoon we nap and I wake up at six o’clock that evening.

I sit out on the terrace and light a cigarette.  I smoke and stare out into the bay, not thinking about anything.  Later Maya walks out, sits on my lap, and takes my cigarette.  She flicks it over the railing.  “I don’t want you to smoke,” she says.  “It’s not good for you.” 

I almost get angry, but then I realize I don’t really care that much.  I smile and say, “Fair enough.”

Her cell phone rings.  “Hey, Dad,” she answers.  “Yeah, I’m still looking … Yeah, I’ve been handing out résumés all day.”

After hanging up she turns to me.  “Do you want to order in food later?” she asks.

“Yeah, that sounds great.”

“You can stay over again if you want.”

Four nights before meeting Maya, I’m at a plush hotel bar on South Beach.  Unlike the clubs and beachside cabanas, the clientele is locals and Miami regulars.  The bar top is lined with candles and a trio of Victorian chandeliers hangs from the ceiling.  I drink a J&B as businesspeople and socialites intermingle.  A girl standing at the bar near me catches my attention.

If some girls could be considered perfect tens, this girl is a seventeen.  She’s about six-foot-two in heels.  Her skin is olive and her long hair is dark with highlights.  She wears a low-cut halterneck dress with a colorful palm tree print.  Around her at the bar are three females, also young, tall and attractive.  I notice several men gawk at them.  Eventually one has the courage to approach.  He is in his fifties, at least double her age, with salt and pepper hair and a mild paunch.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks nervously.

“What?” she asks, appearing bothered.

He repeats himself.

“No,” she says flatly.

“How about something to eat?” he asks.  “For you and your friends?”

“We’re models,” she says.  “We’re not going to eat anything.”

The man pauses, not knowing what to say next.

“You can walk away now.”  She turns back toward the bar.

A grimace on his face, the man walks away as if in physical pain.

“That was vicious,” I say.

She glances at me, then smiles to herself, and says, “Yeah, well …”

“I thought y’all made a nice couple.”  I grin.

“Too old for me,” she says, uninterested, not looking at me.

“He couldn’t have been more than … what?  Fifteen years older than you?”

She now looks directly at me.  “How old do you think I am?”

“I don’t know.”  I sip my J&B.

“I’m a model,” she says.

“Yeah, I heard you tell that guy,” I say plainly.  “Congratulations.”

She stares at me.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I say.  “I think you’re very attractive for your age.”

She steps closer to me.  “Yeah, well, how old are you?”

I notice her proximity and say, “Don’t worry, I’m over the age of consent.”

She laughs and says, “You’re a fucking jerk.”  She finishes her cocktail and says, “Buy me a drink.”

“Yeah, right,” I respond.  “Get that guy you just rejected to buy you one.”

“After I already blew him off?”

I shrug.  “I mean, if you don’t think you can get him to do it …”

“Please,” she scoffs.  “I can get him to.”

“Yeah?  Get him to buy one for me then too.”

A devilish grin creeps across her face.  “Alright, fine.  Watch this.”  She finds the guy across the bar and brings him back.  “You can buy me a drink,” she tells him. “But you have to buy one for my friend too.”

“Oh.  I didn’t realize he was with you,” the guy says, noticing me.  He buys me another J&B and her an Absolut Vodka and cranberry.  Afterward he stands there, hoping she will now talk to him.

She looks at him and says, “Will you leave now?  We want to talk.”

Jen, her name she tells me, and I continue this game.  I point out guys in the bar.  She approaches each one and says, “You’re hot.  Come buy me and my friend drinks.”  Nearly all of them comply and I receive ten free J&Bs.  One man even buys us a sushi appetizer.

By night’s end she and I are both smashed.  She grabs my arm and says in a slurred, yet seductive tone, “I’m staying in this hotel.”  We walk into the hotel lobby and onto the elevator.  Inside I press her against the wall, my hands on her hips, and we make out.  A couple in their fifties, also inside the elevator, tries to ignore us.

On her bed Jen straddles me.  She leans down to kiss me, accidentally bumping her forehead into mine.  Jen cracks up laughing and lies on her back.  During sex she passes out and so do I, not waking up for the next several hours.

In the morning her roommate yells at us and Jen pushes me off her and bounds out of bed and gets dressed.  “You need to go,” she tells me.  “I have to go to work.”

I fumble to find my clothes and put them on.  At the doorway I say goodbye.

Jen grabs a piece of hotel stationery and scrawls her phone number on it.  She kisses me on the cheek and says, “I’m in town all this week.  Call me.”

In the hallway I note her room number, 819.  Outside the hotel I sit in my Toyota parked down the street.  I crack the window and light a cigarette.  About a half hour later a dark blue minivan parks in front of the hotel.  Jen and her three model friends from the previous night walk outside and get in the van.  I note the time on my clock-radio, then pull out and drive away.

Chapter Two

In the daytime each day Maya hands out résumés while I supposedly look at apartments.  Late afternoons we eat lunch together downtown.  Afterward we drive to South Beach and watch the sunset.

It’s Thursday morning following my third consecutive night sleeping at Maya’s.  I roll out of bed.  Today’s outfit consists of a Ralph Lauren oxford, pleated khaki shorts, and loafers.  “Yacht club chic,” I say into the mirror.

Maya walks up behind me, kisses me on the neck.  “You look nice.”

After breakfast Maya and I leave her condo together, then split off in our own directions.

I drive to Jen’s hotel and park down the street.  I ride the elevator to the eighth floor and knock on her door.

“Hey.”  She takes my hands and pulls me inside.

Her roommate Nikki is an All-American type with blue eyes and a blonde ponytail.  On Nikki’s nightstand is an open bottle of Oxycodone.  In her hand is a Piña Colada-flavored wine cooler.

“My nose itches,” she announces to no one in particular.

“I’m not so sure you’re supposed to mix those,” I mention to her.

Nikki looks up at me blankly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jen interjects.  “She does it all the time.”  Jen sits on the twin bed next to Nikki’s and I join her.

Playing on the television is a soap opera.  “So that guy is the father of the redheaded girl’s baby?” Nikki asks.

“No,” Jen says.  “The redhead paid off a nurse to switch the paternity tests, that way she and that guy could be together.  So now he’s leaving his wife and their baby for the redheaded girl and her baby … Also, the wife got caught driving in a snowstorm and might die.”

“Look at this.”  Nikki points to an almost imperceptible freckle on the big toe of her right foot.  “Do you think I should get that removed?”

“Why?” Jen asks.

“I think it’s stopping me from getting jobs.  I mean, I’ve noticed a bunch of photographers look at it.  I don’t think they like it.”

“Maybe.”  Jen shrugs.

“Do you know any doctors in Miami who could remove it?” Nikki asks me.

I shake my head.

A door interconnects Jen’s room to the next.  It bursts open and another model, Giselle, enters.  “Can you believe she got away with switching the paternity tests?” she asks.  “You think nurses and doctors are really open to being bribed like that?”

“I thought the guy didn’t want paternity tests done in the first place,” Nikki says.

“He didn’t,” Giselle responds.  “But then the redheaded girl got a friend of hers who is a psychic to tell him that his wife’s son wasn’t really his.  So his curiosity got the best of him.”

Nikki nods, satisfied.

Giselle points to the Oxycodone on her nightstand.  “Can I have a few of those?”

“Hey, look at what I got,” Nikki says, picking up one of her travel bags.  She takes out a pair of earrings.  Diamond dolphins leap through fourteen-carat white gold hoops.

“When did you get those?” Jen asks.

“Yesterday.  That doctor who has taken me out a few times gave them to me.”

“That doctor who is, like, what?  Eighty?” Jen says.

“Ew.”  Giselle scrunches up her nose.

“What?  He’s rich and I haven’t had to fuck him or anything!”  Nikki laughs.  “He just likes to have me on his arm or something.  So whatever.  You guys are just jealous.”

“Oh, please,” Jen says.  She turns to me.  “What do you do again?”

“Lawyer,” I say.

“Lawyer,” Jen says, turning to Nikki.  “And he’s not so old I have to make sure he remembers his teeth if we go out.”

Nikki laughs and says, “Yeah, well, fuck you.”  She takes out a bottle of nail polish, places cotton swabs between her toes, and begins painting her toenails.

“Hey,” Giselle says.  “I met a movie producer last night who said he thought I could be an actress.  I gave him my number.”

I squeeze Jen’s thigh, tickling her.

“But you don’t know how to act,” Nikki says.

Jen tries to grab my wrists to stop me from tickling her.  She straddles me and tries to pin my arms down.

“So what?” Giselle says.  “He said I have the look.  And how hard can acting be anyway?”

Jen forces my arms down against the bed.  With the force of my body I flip her over, turning Jen on her back with me atop her.

“I hear it can be challenging,” I say.

“Well, I can do it,” Giselle says.  “You’ll see in a year or two when I’m winning an Oscar.”

“Ha,” Jen scoffs, pulling off my shirt.  “Maybe they’ll let you be an extra, sitting in the background looking pretty, if you’re lucky.”

“Well, it looks like you’re busy now,” Giselle says watching me take off Jen’s blue jeans.  “I’ll talk to you later.”  She walks back into her room.

I glance over at Nikki who carefully paints the pinky toe on her right foot.

She glances back.  “Oh, don’t let me bother you,” Nikki says.  “I need to finish and then let them dry.  Just pretend like I’m not here.”

While Jen and I have sex, Nikki finishes painting her toenails.  She picks up the diamond dolphin earrings and stares at them absentmindedly.  I glance over at the earrings a few times, distracted.  Jen puts her palm on the side of my face, redirecting my attention toward her.  “Why do you keep looking at her?” she asks annoyed.

“I’m not,” I say.  “I mean, I didn’t mean to.”

“Nikki, go to Giselle’s room,” Jen says.

“What?” Nikki asks.  “But my nails are drying.  I don’t want to mess them up.”

“I don’t care,” Jen shouts.  “I’m not going to have the guy I’m fucking stare at you while he’s fucking me.  So get the fuck out!”

“Fine.”  Nikki stands and cautiously walks on her heels to the next room.

“Do you think she’s prettier than me?” Jen asks, shifting from an angry to a vulnerable tone.

“You’re way prettier,” I say.  “It’s not even close.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“You’re absolutely gorgeous,” I continue.

She looks into my eyes, not yet convinced.

“She can’t touch you.  There’s no comparison.  You’re on a whole different level than her.”

Jen smiles and we continue.

Afterward we lay in bed together.  Nikki returns to the room.  Upset with Jen, she doesn’t speak.  A maid knocks on the door.