RECKLESS — Bad Boy Criminal Romance (3 page)

Nikki answers it.  “We don’t need the room cleaned.  We’ll take some towels though.”

I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand and note the time, thirty minutes past noon.  I stay another fifteen minutes and then stand out of bed and dress myself.

Jen sits up in bed and asks, “Why do you always leave so fast?”

I look up at her.

“Is it a girlfriend or wife or something?”

I blink.

“I don’t care,” she says.  “I travel all the time anyway.  Just curious.”

“Yeah, it’s something like that.”

“Hey,” she says, crawling to the edge of the bed.  “We have a shoot tomorrow morning and then we’re flying out the next day.  I’m going to be in Europe for a month or so.  But I’ll be back in Miami off and on after that.  Call or text me.”

“Definitely.”

She stands out of bed and kisses me.

I meet Maya for lunch at Fratelli Milano.  We both order baked lasagna and sit outside at a small table to eat.  Afterward we drive to South Beach and recline under a palm tree.

“You know what I want to do?”  Maya says.  “When I was shopping a few weeks ago I bought these cool sugar cookie cutouts.  Nothing boring like stars or Christmas trees or anything.  But sort of unique stuff like an angelfish, a roller-skate, vampires, stuff like that.  So I want to bake some.  And also, I want to get some icing and some food dye to color it with.  And I want the colors to be really funky to match the cookies.”

I nod, look at her, and break a smile.  “You sound like you really know how to have fun.”

She tilts her head.  “Are you being sarcastic?  Because if you think it sounds boring I won’t bother with it.”

“No, I’m not.   It sounds great.  I think you’re the girl I’ve been looking for all my life actually.  Someone who can make anything fun.  If this is boring, I like being bored.  Go ahead.  Bore the shit out of me.”

Maya giggles.  “Okay, cool.  Let’s stop by the grocery on the way to my apartment and pick some stuff up then.  You can help me pick out some good colors.”  Both of us are quiet awhile, just enjoying each other’s company.  She stares downward at the white sand, then looks up at me and asks, “Did you find a place to live yet?”

I shake my head.  “No, I haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for.”

“What are you going to do if you don’t find somewhere by Monday?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ll probably just find a hotel and continue searching for a permanent place on the weekends.”

She nods and stares downward again at the sand.

We spend the night, as planned, at home baking and decorating sugar cookies.  In the kitchen Maya slides a trey of cookies out of the oven and sets them on the countertop to cool.  Neon green and purple-striped angelfish.  Midnight blue roller-skates covered in silver sprinkles.  Hot pink vampires.

“I’m actually sort of a homebody.”  Maya hoists herself up and sits on the edge of the sink.  “I mean, I like going out and everything.  It’s fun but I really like hanging out and having fun at home too.  Even though we met in a bar, that’s not really the type of girl I see myself as, you know?”  She thinks a moment.  “If anyone asks where we met, let’s lie.”

In bed, around three o’clock in the morning, I wake up.  I look at Maya.  She’s wide awake, staring at the ceiling.  “Are you okay?” she asks, glancing over.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”  I readjust my body, finding a comfortable position.  “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

I close my eyes.

“Hey, I was thinking,” she says.

“Uh huh.”

“If you don’t find a place to live before Monday you could stay here a while longer.”

I open my eyes and look at her.

“I mean, if you want to.”

“Yeah,” I say.  “That’d be great.  I’ve really enjoyed being with you and spending time together.”

“Me too,” she says.  “I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking about it and it’s like we were meant to find each other, you know? … To be honest I’ve had a hard time finding good guys in the past.  And I’ve been hoping to meet someone like you.  A guy who has his life together who can make me laugh and who I just have fun with.”

I pull her close to me.  She kisses my forehead and we fall asleep.

Friday morning I wake up early.  I throw on a black T-shirt and blue jeans.  Maya, still in bed, wakes and sits up.

“I have a few appointments to see some apartments,” I tell her.  “I’ll be back sometime late this afternoon, okay?”

“Yeah,” she says.  “We’ll eat in tonight.  I’ll cook something.  Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that sounds great.”  I walk over, give her a quick kiss.  “I’ll see you later.”

I drive my Toyota to Jen’s hotel and park down the street along the sidewalk.  It’s eight o’clock in the morning.  I wait.  I smoke some cigarettes.  I flip on the radio.  

At ten o’clock a dark blue minivan pulls up in front of the hotel.  Jen, Nikki, Giselle, and Giselle’s roommate walk out the front of the hotel and enter the van.  They drive off.

I listen to some radio advertisements.  A personal injury attorney claiming, “I don’t look like an attorney.  That helps me sneak up on them!”  A 1-800 number you can call to “Talk to real live girls in your city any time of day!”  A church you can attend to “Shake off the immoralities of today’s popular culture and be reborn and redeemed in Jesus Christ!”

I smoke more cigarettes.

At fifteen minutes past noon I turn off the radio.  I get out of my car and walk down the street and into Jen’s hotel.  I bypass the lobby’s front desk and take the elevator to the eighth floor.  I find room 819.  The door is propped open, a maid’s cart outside in the hallway.  I rap my knuckles lightly against the door.  The maid peaks her head out from the bathroom.  She’s a young Spanish girl with a long black ponytail wearing a gray striped uniform.

I step inside the room, as if it’s mine.  “Are you almost finished?”

She nods timidly and mumbles, “Yo casi soy terminado.”  After she cleans the bathroom, she exits and closes the door behind her, leaving me in the room alone.

I locate Jen’s and Nikki’s travel bags.  I place them on each of their beds and quickly sift through them.  Both girls have several pieces of jewelry which I immediately pocket.  Among these are Nikki’s earrings, the diamond dolphins leaping through fourteen-carat white gold hoops.  I also find some cash.  I zip the bags back up and return them to their original positions in the room.

I try the door connecting to Giselle’s room and find it unlocked.  I enter Giselle’s room and repeat the same routine with her and her roommate’s bags.  After extracting all the jewelry and cash I return everything and exit both rooms and the hotel.

I pawn all the jewelry, excluding Nikki’s earrings which I decide to save.

Loud knocking on the bedroom door wakes me.  “Maya, are you in there?  Are you alright?”

Maya’s body jolts and she turns to me.  “That’s my dad,” she whispers.  She jumps out of bed and through the closed door says, “I’m getting dressed, Dad.  I’ll be out in just a sec.”  Maya scrambles to put on a white T-shirt and blue jeans.  “Just stay in here, okay?” she says to me in a hushed tone.  “I don’t want him to know you’re here.”

Dressed, Maya exits the bedroom, closing the door behind her, and meets her father in the living room.

“I’m sorry,” I hear her say.  “I was in the bathroom and then I was getting dressed.  Were you waiting long?”

“Well, I knocked on the front door,” her father says.  “And when I got no answer I let myself in.  I was afraid something was wrong.”

“No, I’m fine.”

I look at the clock on the nightstand by Maya’s bed.  It’s Monday morning, a few minutes past eight o’clock.  I cradle the pillow under my head, trying to get some more rest while continuing to eavesdrop on Maya’s conversation.

“Still no luck finding a job yet?” her father asks her.

“No,” she says.  “I’ve been looking pretty much every day though.”

“Have you thought about going back to college?”

“A little, but I don’t know.  I just really don’t feel like going back.  I mean, if I did, I have no idea what I’d even want to study.”

“You could go back undeclared, take some classes, maybe stumble upon something that interests you.”

Silence.

“How’s the condo?”

“It’s great.  I love it.”

“Anything else going on in your life?”

“I met a guy.”

“What does he do?”

“He moved here recently.  He’s a lawyer.”

“Really?” he asks, interested.  “Well, if he makes good money, get him to marry you.”  His tone is half-joking, half-serious.  “So will I get to meet him soon?”

“Yeah, we met not that long ago, but we’ve been seeing each other a lot and I really like him.  Maybe we can arrange to have dinner or something with you and Mom.”

“Speaking of your mother, she hasn’t heard from you in a while.  Can you call her?”

“Sure.”

“I have to get to work.  I just wanted to check up on you.  Call more often.  Your mother and I like to hear from you – to know you’re still alive.”

“I will.”  I hear the front door close and Maya returns to the bedroom.  “I had no idea he was stopping by.”

“How’d he get in?” I ask.

“He pays for this condo.  So technically it’s his and he has a key.  He usually doesn’t just barge in, but I guess he got worried when I wasn’t answering the front door.  Anyway, thanks for staying in here and being quiet.  My dad wouldn’t have been very happy to know you’ve been sleeping over.  I know it’s kind of silly.  But he has traditional values.  Really conservative.  And plus he has this idea of me in his head as being perfectly pure.”

I sit up out of bed.  “How wrong he is.”

Maya grins.  “Yeah, well, I’d still rather not shatter his illusion of me.”  She glances over at the clock.  “Hey, you have work.  You need to get dressed.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’ll make you something for breakfast.  You don’t want to be late on your first day.”

             
Chapter Three

It all happens so fast.  Maya and I click better than I hoped, better than I could’ve planned.  I’m living with her almost two months.  I offer to help her with the rent. 

“That’s really sweet but my dad pays it anyway,” she says, as I expected. 

Most of my meals are free.  Occasionally I take her out and insist on paying.  Or I buy her something small while I’m out during the day and bring it home and tell her I’ve been thinking about her.  Whatever to maintain some illusion of give and take.

Maya seems happy, every so often alluding to marriage.  Knowing me for only a short time is not a problem.  “When I met you I just knew,” she explains to me.  “I knew you were the guy I’ve been hoping to meet.”

Honestly, I’m happy too.  Life is simple, carefree.  I enjoy being with her, living this fantasy.  I wonder how long it can last.

I still haven’t met her parents.  They both know I exist, knowing the details Maya chooses to tell them on the phone, which excludes my living with her.  Maya frequently receives phone calls from friends of hers, both males and females.  One in particular, a guy friend of hers, calls nonstop.  He asks to come over, to go out together, whatever reason to spend some time with her.  She tells him she’s busy, she’s spending time with me, that she’ll call back and they’ll hang out sometime soon.

“Did you ever date him?” I ask.

“No,” Maya says.  “He’s just a friend I’ve known for a long time.”

He calls again, saying he’s in the neighborhood, and asks if he can come up to her apartment for a quick ‘hello’.

Finally relenting Maya says, “Uh … sure, I guess.”

In the kitchen Maya and I are sharing a beer, talking, when there’s a knock at the door.  She answers it and the guy walks in.  Like her, he’s in his early twenties.  His frame is slim, his dark hair unkempt.  His outfit consists of black-rimmed glasses, a navy blue hooded jacket, and black jeans.  He hugs her and says, “I haven’t seen you in forever.  What’ve you been doing?”

“Oh, you know, I’ve just been busy.”

He turns and sees me in the kitchen.  “I didn’t know you had someone over.”  He extends his hand.  “Hey, I’m Wyatt.”

“Tom.”  I shake his hand.

“This is my new boyfriend,” Maya says, standing by my side.

“Really?” Wyatt says, deflated.  “I had no idea you’d met someone new.”

“Yeah, it’s been, like, a couple months now.”

“That’s great,” Wyatt says, unenthused.

“I know.  Are you still with the same girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, you’ve been together a long time now.  Like a year, right?”

“Uh, yeah, something like that.”

“You must really like her.”

“Yeah, sure.  So …” Wyatt says, turning his attention to me.  “How’d a guy like you manage to get a girl like Maya?”

I exhale a chuckle and smile.  “I don’t know.  We just hit it off.”