Damaged, The Romance of Nick and Layla (Part 4) (6 page)

“All this time,” I sob into him, shoulders quaking violently as the tears continue their release. “I’m so sorry.” I keep repeating it over and over, but how many apologies would be enough to express the utter guilt of blaming Nick for the death of our son?

“Shhhh,” he’s whispering into my ear. He has one arm around my waist holding me close to him, and the other hand is in my hair, smoothing it down in calming strokes. “I know, baby. I know.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you! That I wouldn’t let you be there for me.”

I think I hear Nick crying too now, and feel a tear droplet land on the top of my ear. It’s warm as it slides down and settles into the soft indentation of my earlobe.

“I’m sorry about it all,” I whisper.

“I’m sorry, too. I wish to God I hadn’t taken Tyler out that day. I’d give anything in the world to take it back, to undo it all.” His words come out in sobs too, and I feel more tears on my ear and in my hair.

We hold each other for what seems like hours, standing amongst the twinkling lights and terra-cotta rooftops of downtown Santa Barbara. The sun has set beyond the horizon of the Pacific to ignite the other side of the world in daylight, and his arms are the very support I need to keep me standing upright.

After some time he pulls back to look at me, and I can see the depth of his own sorrow truly for the first time. It ages him, but he’s still handsome, even despite his red eyes and tear streaked cheeks.

My own crying has subsided, the quaking shoulders have calmed, and I can feel my melancholy lessening by the moment.

“I miss him terribly,” I confess, and Nick smiles and nods back at me. He understands, and for the first time I really
get it
that he understands. “I think I’ve missed you terribly, too.” The words are out before I’ve had time to consider them fully, but they sound honest even to my own ears.

Something lights his eyes from within and they grow infinitesimally. He’s looking at me like he’s taking in my face for the first time in forever. My eyes and nose, cheeks and mouth. He puts his hands on either side of my face and drinks me in and I feel wholly cherished. I can see him leaning in to me and I close my eyes just as his lips touch mine. He kisses them and then takes my top and bottom lip each in succession between his own, tugging the bottom one out with a gentle ease. It’s worlds apart from last night’s invasive kiss when he was trying to get me to say something - anything - to him for the first time.

I open my eyes to see him staring down at me, and his hands are still on my face like he’s holding something with great care. That muscle memory is still alive and open and I think I’m looking at him with a renewed perspective. I don’t hate him. Not at all actually. And I think I realize that part of the mourning I have gone through, the torment of seeing his name and his face, has been because I, too, have been grieving for the death of our love.

It feels in the moment like everything has changed. The wall has been broken down and finally everything is out in the open. There are no truths to run from or lies to hide behind, and I think it’s taken us ten years to finally come to a moment of absolute clarity and honesty.

“I don’t know if I could have survived the death of you, too,” I whisper to him. His face is momentarily flushed with what I at first think is pain, but realize is utter realization, like he is also seeing me with a fresh perspective.

“You were the reason I didn’t go through with it, Layla,” he whispers hoarsely back, and his eyes are starting to well up with tears again. My heart is bursting.
Nick.

“I have something for you.” His hands leave my face and he’s pulling something out from his back pocket. It’s a small blue Tiffany’s box with a signature white ribbon. My bursting heart skips a beat and it takes a minute to realize the box is a flatter square, nothing resembling a ring box.

Sigh.
For a moment there…

“Happy birthday, Layla,” he says as he hands me the beautiful box. I unwrap the bow and lift the top up, handling the iconic packaging with care.

Oh my
. It’s a locket in the shape of a heart, made out of 18k rose gold on a rose gold chain. It’s stunning.

“Open it,” he whispers.

I do, and gasp. On the left side of the open heart is a photo of me, Nick and Tyler. Tyler’s still a newborn, and Nick and I are on either side of him kissing his cheeks as he sleeps. The right side is my favorite photo: Tyler on his first birthday, laughing and covered in frosting.

My heart is bursting once more, and this time when I cry the tears are happy ones.

“It’s beautiful!” I exclaim through my quiet tears.

“Turn it over,” Nick instructs, and as I do I see three letters hand engraved in French script.
N. L. T.
Nick. Layla. And Tyler. I barely know what to say. It’s unexpected and lovely and so incredibly warm hearted.

“Will you help me put it on?” I ask, and take the delicate chain from the box to hold out to him. I turn my back to Nick and pull my hair to one side, giving him free access to my neck. In a moment he’s secured the chain and clasp and his lips are placing a chaste kiss just beneath my ear.

I open the locket again and stare down into our faces. You wouldn’t know from the first photo that our marriage was not as strong in love as it could have been. But with Tyler we were always connected, and love was clearly evident in our faces in that moment.

“If I remember correctly,” Nick is saying from behind me, “the minute after we took that photo we realized he had defacated something fierce into his diaper.”

The spell is broken and we are both laughing in hysterics. Nick has placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me close to him until I’m leaning against his chest. He’s so warm and the night has turned so chilly, the breeze coming in off the Pacific adding a particularly icy bite.

“Cold?” he asks. I nod and wrap my arms around my chest, Tiffany box and bow still in hand. He picks up the bottle of champagne and angles his jaw in the direction of the elevator. This time when we board we’re talking and the tone is light. We’ve finally broken free of that wall and all that it kept us from.

As we walk down the hallway Nick shares the singularly hysterical (to him at least) story of the look on my face the first time I opened Tyler’s diaper to find one of his diabolical expulsions.

“It was not that bad!” I laugh as the key unlocks my suite.

“What wasn’t? The shit or your face?”

“No, the shit was awful but I handled it with as much dignity as anyone could! Unlike some people...”

“Oh come on that was one poopy joke and I made it count.” I shut the door behind him and set my purse and the Tiffany box down on the desk. “Jesus Christ, Lay, what happened in here?”

I grimace at the sight of my room. Bags upon bags upon bags of shopping have exploded in concentrated piles around the room.

“I didn’t have time to put things away when I returned,” I say regretfully, laughing at the sight. It’s not unlike what my bedroom looked like as a teenager. All that’s missing is a few posters of a popular boy band.

“Things like this?” He’s got a Victoria’s Secret bra hanging by one strap from his index finger and a shit-eating grin on his face. I snag it away from him and tuck it back into the enormous shopping bag.

“Yes, things like that,” I chuckle.

“This is what you did all afternoon?”

“Among other things,” I reply defensively, reaching for two cups to pour champagne into.

“This is bringing back memories of when we were young and wealthy and married.”

“To being young and wealthy,” I cheer as I offer him a cup of Cristal. We clink them together and sip and both realize at the same time that one is not like the other.

“To divorce,” he offers a secondary cheer as a joke, but it falls somewhat flat.

“Thirty years old and twice divorced from the same person is more like it,” I utter beneath my breath before taking another generous sip.

“Well, to being wealthy then,” and he takes another sip.

“I’m sure it’s written down somewhere that toasting to our wealth is in considerable bad taste,” I playfully admonish him.

“Who cares? I like having money,” he smiles charmingly at me. “I think you do, too,” he says and takes another deliberate glance around the room.

“If it bothers you we could always go to your room,” I joke.

He smiles generously at me and puts his cup back down on the desk. “It’s getting late.”

It’s like the jokes and laughter have disappeared from the room completely.

“You’re leaving?” I ask, and I can’t help the obvious disappointment in my voice.

His brows have furrowed again and there’s an almost pained expression crinkled in his eyes and nose. “Do you want me to stay?”

Suddenly things have gotten real. I take a healthy sip of Cristal and turn to place it on the desk, buying myself some time. I run a hand through my hair, back still turned to him.

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” And he really does sound apologetic. But I’m bruised by the term of endearment and confused by my own suddenly mixed feelings.

“Nick, it’s fine,” I say at once, and turn around to smile brightly at him, though I think it is considerably dimmer than I’d tried for. “I just got caught up for a moment. I’m fine. Really.”

“I’m still here. I’ll be here tomorrow and probably the day after that. I’ll do what I can to help you get settled back in, whether that’s at your parent’s house or some place on your own.”

I nod at him politely and smile towards the messy room. “Yeah I need to make some decisions about that. And maybe put my clothes away in the meantime.”

He’s looking at me like he feels sorry for me and I can’t stand it. He didn’t fly 3,000 miles for a screw down memory lane in the sack and up until a few hours ago I was barely speaking to the man.

“Goodnight, Nick.”

His smile is warm but not absent of some measure of guilt or disappointment, either in himself or in me.

“Goodnight, Layla.”

I don’t even know what time it is. As soon as Nick left my room I set about organizing and folding and hanging up my newly acquired wardrobe, and I’m lost in distraction. There isn’t enough room for everything and barely room to hang a few items of clothing in the wardrobe. I’ve stacked each new pair of shoes carefully on top of their corresponding boxes and laid them out in a straight line against the wardrobe. I make a pile of underpants and their coordinating bras and lay them one on top of the other, matching them in pairs. I do the same with swimsuits, sorting them by style and cut, and pretty soon the carpeted floor of my beautiful hotel suite is littered in a colorful menagerie of silk, lace, and cotton.

At my side is the bottle of Cristal and random hotel cup I’ve been drinking it out of, and the sound of Lana Del Rey is pouring out from the speaker of my phone.

My feelings confuse me. The past few days have been like the most intense session of therapy of my life and for the first time in a long time I’m not burdened by the memories of the past. In fact I feel quite light in the body and fuzzy in the brain, no doubt from the champagne I’ve been selfishly drinking from without a damn care. On the one hand I’m free of pain, and on the other I’m dulling something else. Something new.

Everything with Nick is out in the open and the anger is gone. It was awful to realize my part in his grieving process but I think it was what I needed to finally snap back into the real world. Maybe it means that life can find a way to truly go back to normal again? Not the normal of living with my parents and sullenly going through the motions of an empty life, but the kind of normal where I pay a mortgage and fill a home of my own with new experiences and memories.

I went from home to school to Nick without any break, and it was only in our separations when I would live life on my own. Though to be fair, Nick was an interruption, a constant back-and-forth of every permutation of our relationship. I’ve never truly been on my own, just Layla. I hardly know where to start.

Beside me the phone screen lights up.

Can’t sleep. Still up?

Nick. My fingers touch the rose gold locket around my neck and for a moment I relive the warmth and love and kindness of his beautiful gift..

Still up. Folding expensive underwear and drinking champers to sad music. You?

His response is immediate.

Anyone I know?

Probably.

You shouldn’t drink alone.

For Cristal I make an exception.

I could come over? Maybe give you a hand with that expensive underwear?

I can’t help the cheeky smile that spreads across my face, and imagine he’s got a similar one of his own right now. Just as I start to type back a response there’s a knock at the door. Rising to my feet I feel a prickly lightness in my legs from either sitting too long or drinking too much. Maybe even both.

Nick is leaning on the other side of the door frame, eyes glossy like the getting-drunk side of tipsy, and he’s smiling wickedly, like he knows something I don’t and he’s enjoying it.

“I just assumed you’d say yes,” he grins.

“Make yourself at home.” I open the door wide and catch a latent whiff of alcohol from his breath.

“I thought you said you shouldn’t drink alone?” I ask as I shut the door behind him.

“No, I said
you
shouldn’t drink alone but what I meant is that we should at least drink together.” It’s like he’s grown another three inches since dinner and the alcohol has brought out a version of his charming personality I’d long since forgotten. He’s dominating the room, still dressed in the v-neck sweater and jeans, but minus any shoes or socks. I always did have a soft spot for his naked feet.

“Jesus Christ have you gone shopping again or am I seeing double?”

“Exactly how much have you had to drink?” I grab a hold of his arm and lead him to the desk chair - the only chair not covered in clothing - and sit him down.

“Not much, I’m just a lightweight these days,” he says as he leans back into the seat.

“
You
a lightweight? Since when?”

“Since I stopped drinking two years ago.”

“Oh”.

“I promise you I’m not out of control,” he says, as though to quell some concern of mine. Ah, yes. Crazy drinking in Vegas that lead to
marriage: the sequel
. It was easy to cut down on my own drinking after that experience; lesson learned.

“I believe you,” I say, and I do. I lower myself back down to the ground and swipe out of the music app on my phone.

“No, leave it,” he protests. “It sounded good.”

I turn it back on and it lingers up from the ground into the room and settles into the background, our own personal soundtrack.

“So.” I pull up my legs and wrap my arms around, hugging them to my chest. “Why can’t you sleep?”

“It’s not quiet enough in my head yet.” He reaches for his long abandoned cup of champagne and takes a sip.

“I know what you mean. I feel like the more I fold things the more I can process everything that has been done or said.”

“Have you made any decisions about anything yet?” He leans forward and sets his elbows on his knees, left hand supporting his chin as he looks down at me.

“I don’t know, maybe,” I sigh. “I’ve never really been on my own before.”

“Have you been here in Santa Barbara with your parents the whole time?” I can tell by the way he says
the whole time
he means since the divorce.

“Yep. For a while it was the three of us but eventually they went back to seeing the world and I was alone. I’m not really sure what I did the whole time. Part of me thinks I just sat on the couch watching the world pass by through the windows.”

“Sadly I know what you mean.”

I look down at my knees and think about the question on the tip of my tongue. It seems weird to have to ask. I’ve known Nick for so long and despite the comfort of being in the same room with him it still feels like we’re long lost friends catching up. I guess we kind of are.

“You mentioned earlier you’ve been alone?” His eyes are locked on mine they look like they’re figuring something out, such as where the question might lead us to. Have I opened a door to something? A line of questioning that will change the atmosphere between us again?

“I did. I have been.”

“I haven’t followed your career since-” I cut off. Since everything ended is what I mean, and it’s obvious he knows that.

“There hasn’t been much to follow, really. After a while I had offers for things; TV reality shows, sit-down interviews, appearances. I guess I’m more or less retired from performing.”

The way he says it makes me think it’s not a decision he actively made, but something that just kind of happened. There’s a tug of regret in my stomach at the thought of him never singing again. “That’s too bad.”

“I’m writing though, and that’s been successful. I think I prefer letting other people sing my music to singing it myself.”

“Have you been in New York the whole time?”

He nods. “Just about. It’s easier to blend in there than here.”

Yes, I recall the pandemonium his presence would create everywhere we went, especially at the height of his fame. Strange though, I thought he loved it.

“This conversation seems so sad,” I blurt out at random and I see his face pick up a bit. “We’re drinking champagne and we’re here together in the same room without crying or screaming. We should be doing something fun!”

Honestly, I don’t know where it’s coming from. I must be drunk. Nick smiles at me and I think I see a bit of a spark in his eyes again. He pushes back a mess of dark blonde hair from his forehead and leans back into the chair before taking a sip of champagne.

“Fun like what?”

I search the ceiling as if the answer is hiding there somewhere between the wooden beams. “Honestly, I have no idea. What did we used to do for fun? When we were younger and dumber?”

“Whatever we wanted.” His voice is deepened and he’s looking at me with hooded blue eyes. It’s obvious there is an undercurrent to his words as I can practically feel my skin responding as it always has before.

“Ugh, maybe we
are
getting old?” I abruptly stand up and kick off the shoes I forgot I was wearing. “I think I’m already having hot flashes,” I joke. My skin has warmed considerably beneath the cashmere sweater and I’m not sure if it’s from the temperature, the alcohol or him. I grab for the hem of the sweater and I yank it off above my head, tossing it onto a nearby chair with a few items folded neatly on the seat cushion.

“Nice shirt,” he says, and the shit-eating grin is back. “Maybe you should keep it since you’re so obviously in need of clothing.”

“Honestly I forgot I was wearing it. What’s with all the fitted clothing by the way?”

Nick looks down at his sweater and jeans and then back up at me. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I shrug animatedly. “It’s just different for you.” Or maybe fashion has changed that much in the past few years? He used to be all about being comfortable; sports jerseys, loose jeans, comfortable sneakers. He wasn’t quite as polished as he appears to be now. But then again, was I?

He stands and stretches his long frame out into the room. “What, don’t you like it? You know, I got fat for a while,” he says through a grin.

No way.
“I don’t believe it,” I shake my head.

“When you’re not touring and working out every day you tend to get on the flabby side. I hate to say it but after our divorce I kind of let myself go.” I can’t imagine it. He’s thinner and more muscular than I remember him and it’s difficult to picture him ‘flabby.’

As he stands in front of me I can plainly see that wherever he did let himself
go
he certainly came
back
from. I can just make out the faint outline of seriously toned abdominal muscles beneath the fabric of his sweater. Even his pants are sitting on his hips suggestively, and I wonder if that’s purposeful or just part of his frustratingly natural attractiveness.

“Have I let myself go?” I wonder out loud. It never occurred to me to look and until I saw my reflection before dinner tonight I don’t even think I remembered what I looked like. Nick steps forward and reaches out his hands for my waist slipping his fingers around my hips and pulling me toward him until I’m just inches away.

“You’ve never looked better.” The way he’s staring at me… No one has or could ever do the things he does to me with just a look. Not that I would have noticed if anyone else had even tried.

“Are you going to kiss me again?”

Nick’s eyes are darker, filled with unspoken intent. “Only if you want me to.”

I swallow and open my mouth to let in more oxygen. I can smell the warmth of his cologne clinging to his skin and it’s like a memory, dark and sensual and exciting. His eyes explore my face, waiting for permission.

“I want you to.” I touch his cheek with my fingertips and feel my way down along the edge of his jaw, tracing the line to his chin and up into the space beneath his lips. His mouth opens and his bottom lip brings my finger up to rest between his lips. He kisses it, then takes my hand in his and places it on the back of his neck, pulling me into him until I’m flush against his body and I can feel the movement of his chest as he breathes against my own. His hands cup around my face just beneath my jaw and he’s tilting my head back. He kisses me softly, the pressure nothing more than a feather’s touch. I part my lips and take his top lip between them, pulling softly. When we kiss again I feel the caress of his tongue against mine.

I am all sensation. Cheeks flushed. Skin heated. Lips tingling. He opens his mouth and I’m in him, tasting him fully, remembering the feel of him all over again as our tongues explore each other.

My hands roam his neck, palms brushing over short bristles of hair at the nape, fingers moving through longer strands of silken hair. My fingers tangle in his hair and gently prod his scalp while my thumbs rub the sensitive skin behind his ears.

Nick moans into my mouth and I open mine more, wanting to taste as much of him as possible. Five fingers are digging into my waist and I feel him pulling me even closer to him until there is nothing left between us but the very fabric of our clothes. As I breathe in and out I can feel the friction it creates between our bodies, and his arousal is hard against me.

He pulls my face back from his and I’m disarmed by the depth of desire in his face. His eyes are heavy and his lips pink and wet from my tasting me.

“This is the point where you either tell me to stop, or I take off your clothes,” he says through heavy breaths. I sober at his words and in one moment of clarity realize he’s giving me an out. I can say no and things will go no further. Or we can go on and do what we’ve always been good at; consume each other wholly.

“I choose you taking off my clothes.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he says, and his mouth is on mine again, kissing with an increasing urgency like I might disappear from within his arms. I’m not going anywhere, and I hold his head to mine as if to tell him so.

His fingers brush up beneath my borrowed tee shirt and expertly unhook the fastening of my pants, drawing the zipper down as far as it will go, several inches below my belly button. He’s beneath the thick fabric at the waistline and hands are moving down my backside, grabbing handfuls of satin and skin.

Nick traces his fingertips down the backs of my legs, bringing my pants down with them. I step out of each leg and he throws the pants away carelessly before moving back to the tops of my thighs.

“You’ve always had the softest skin.” His breath is hot against my flesh and I moan a little at the sensation. He places a kiss on my satin covered hip, then stands again, fingers toying at the hem of the shirt. He moves under the fabric and up, fingers splayed as they crawl over my ribs and up into the cups of my satin covered breasts.