“It doesn’t look like all bad news,” I began as I plopped down on my couch next to Nicole.
They were already burritoed into two of the throw blankets that they’d bought for the back of my couch as decor—I had no idea blankets even could be decor, but here we were.
“What do you mean?” Their gaze perked up and swung over to me. “Did they find out who it was?”
I shook my head. “That will probably take some time, but everything has been frozen for now and the credit bureaus have been alerted. No further damage can be done at this point.”
“No further damage,” they repeated my words with a tone of frustration. “That still means I’m out everything in my checking account.”
“And, uh…” My words trailed off for a moment as I considered how to break the rest of the news to them. “Your savings account was also emptied.”
They sat up straight suddenly, the blankets falling to their waist. “Please tell me you’re joking. D, say right now that you’re joking.”
“I wish I was.” God, I hated seeing them like this. I was doing everything I could on my end to unravel this nightmare they were experiencing, but even I couldn’t make her money come back from the black hole it had vanished into. “You can stay here as long as you want, though, and if you need help making bills meet over the next few weeks or months or whatever, I’m your man.”
Nicole frowned slightly, and I immediately felt like I’d said something wrong. “I’m not taking your charity, Demetrius.”
“Why? Or why not? It’s not like this situation is on you, or something you did,” I reminded them. “You’re a victim right now. You need help.”
Nicole’s eyes flared like I’d just slapped them. “I am not a victim. Yeah, obviously I didn’t cause this or want this, but nobody makes me a victim.”
The intensity in their tone took me by surprise. “It’s not a bad thing, Nic. Life happens. Shit happens. It’s okay to ask for help.”
“This isn’t the same thing as asking to wax your balls,” Nic shot back. “We’re talking about my entire ability to provide for myself and be independent. I don’t need some man sweeping in and saving me from…from what? We don’t even know what’s happening right now. It would be stupid to jump to conclusions. Maybe it’s just a mistake with the bank and on Monday morning, it’ll all be back in my account. Completely solved.”
I scooted a few inches closer to them on the couch. “Nicole, it’s not a banking mistake. I’ve had my agents speak with the bank, with your account representative. There’s video footage of someone at an ATM withdrawing your money with a duplicated version of your debit card.”
Their face paled slightly, but then they set their mouth in a thin line. “How is that even possible? My debit card is on me at all times. It’s in my wallet right now—I already checked.”
“That doesn’t matter.” I leaned a bit closer and slung my arm across the back of the couch behind their shoulders. “There are shitty people out there who know how to clone that shit or steal your card numbers and replicate it. It’s not impossible. It takes skill, and it’s not something that the average pickpocket thief could do, but it’s still possible. I’ll get you an RFID blocking wallet going forward to be safe.”
Their lip quivered, and I saw their eyes darken as they turned away from me. “So, you’re saying that someone targeted me.”
I waited a beat before I responded. “It’s looking that way.”
Nicole curled into my side, pushing away the blankets that were taking up space between us. “This is so fucked up, D. It’s not like I’m out there rolling in it. Who targets an average Joe? That’s just…that’s just cold.”
A sigh escaped my lips as I let my arm drop down around their shoulders. “Unfortunately, that’s the most common type of scam out there. It’s a lot harder to steal from the rich and famous, so thieves are often targeting low-hanging fruit.”
A sharp elbow dug into my ribs. “Did you just call me low-hanging fruit?”
“But, like, really nice-looking fruit,” I offered, laughing now and edging away from the sharpness of their elbow. “Christ, your elbows are sharp. I think you cracked my rib.”
“I did not,” they insisted, leaning away to look at me. A pause fell between us for a moment as Nicole’s eyes dipped down to my mouth, then returned. Their tongue slid across their bottom lip and then they cleared their throat. “I’m sorry, Demetrius. All of this is totally unfair to you. It’s not your job to take care of me.”
“I’m not taking care of you, Nicole.” Something about the way they’d said that didn’t sit right with me. “You’ve done everything for yourself your entire life, and it’s…it sucks, honestly.”
Their eyes lifted to mine again. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Bullshit. I was calling absolute bullshit. My family history had its issues—for example, my mother passed away during childbirth with my younger sister. Being raised by only a father and having two sisters certainly shaped me to be a specific version of myself—one that I was proud of. But Nicole? I knew their back story. Nicole’s parents had stopped speaking to them after learning that Nicole identified as non-binary right before their fifteenth birthday when Nicole had refused to wear a dress at their Quinceañera. The moment Nicole turned eighteen, their parents had sent them on their way and never checked in again. The term non-binary itself can mean a lot of different things as I’d learned since getting to know Nicole, but for Nicole it simply meant the absence of any gender identity at all. They didn’t feel akin to male or female or any other type of gender identity. They just felt like…Nicole Flores.
And I really liked Nicole Flores just as Nicole Flores.
My younger self might not have been as open, but between Nicole and my sister Yasmeen being a prominent lesbian in Northern Virginia who owns a lesbian queer bar, I’d been more than a little exposed to a diversity I hadn’t allowed myself to experience before. That also included asking myself some hard questions about who I am, and who I want to be perceived as. I wouldn’t say I have those answers entirely yet, but I’m working on it.
Watching the way Nicole had battled familial hardship and gender discrimination was something that stuck with me and pushed me to explore for myself.
“I didn’t say it was the end of the world, but it was the beginning of the rest of yours.” I turned my body just enough to be partially facing them. “I’m not trying to sweep in and rescue you. You don’t need that, and you’ve spent your entire life proving exactly that.”
A shadow of hurt passed across Nicole’s expression at my words, like the memories of their own past were coming back to haunt them in that moment. “When you say it like that, I sound like some sort of freakish loner.”
“Not even remotely,” I continued. “I’m just saying that no one sees you as some sort of easy target, Nic. I know that this might feel that way—and we’re going to find whoever the asshole is that did this—but you’re still one of the strongest and most impenetrable people that I know.”
“Impenetrable?” Their brows furrowed as they looked at me. “What do you mean?”
I paused for a moment to think about what I meant, but whatever I was saying, I wanted it to be positive. Hell, I saw it as positive. Nicole was a fierce entity to tangle with and despite how close we were, there was no doubt that they lived their life in a silo. “I just mean, you’re your own person. You don’t need anyone else, you know? You just…you’re Nicole. You’re like an island in this insane fucking ocean of people and drama in D.C. You’re a league of your own.”
The expression on their face could only be described as crestfallen. Nicole shook their head emphatically and then stood up from the couch, immediately turned around and saddled my lap—one knee on either side of my thighs on the couch.
I leaned back and placed my hands on Nicole’s waist, unsure what else to do or how to react. Hell, I was unsure how we’d gotten in this position to begin with—not that I was complaining.
“I don’t want to be an island, Demetrius.” Their voice was throaty and desperate and sexy and sad, and when Nicole’s mouth pressed against mine, I didn’t know how to do anything else except bask in their embrace.
Soft kisses exchanged between us as I welcomed them into my space and my hands slid up their back, pulling them closer to me. A groan left Nicole’s lips and I felt my core ignite at the rumbling of their vibrato against my skin.
“Is this too much?” Nicole’s words whispered against my mouth, but they didn’t pull away and they didn’t stop, and I didn’t want them to.
I could barely find my voice in that moment, but when I did it was barely above a whisper. “Absolutely not.” I sat up straighter and pulled their chest against mine, trying to remove any gap or hesitation between us. “It’s not close enough, actually.”
I don’t know where that admission came from, but it was out there and Nicole’s response was everything I could have hoped for—and everything I hadn’t even known I was hoping for. My validation seemed to charge the air between us, and electricity sizzled like we were plugged into one another…and in every way, it felt like we were.
Their fingers gently slid down one side of my face, and we took a moment to just stare into the other’s eyes—as if daring one of us to blink and stop all of this before it starts.
But this had already started.
“Should we go to your room?” Nicole asked, a breathlessness to their request.
Holy f-bomb, yes. Yes, we should absolutely do that.
I nodded furtively because words had dried up in my throat and speaking was the very last thing I could handle in that moment.
Nicole’s lips returned to mine, and I tightened my grip on their waist as I lifted us both off the couch. I could feel their thighs clenching against me so as to not fall, but there was no worry about that. I wasn’t going to let go even if the entire world imploded in that moment.
When we reached the bedroom, I waited until I felt my knees hit the side of the mattress before slowly lowering Nicole to the top of the bedspread. Again, a fucking bedspread that they had bought me because apparently seeping with just a bottom sheet and that light blanket I’d stolen from a Holiday Inn once was unacceptable.
There was literally nowhere I could go in my life—or in my own house—that wasn’t touched by Nicole. This felt like a moment we’d been waiting for forever…or maybe it was just what I’d been waiting for.
I stayed vertical for a moment, grabbing at the collar of my shirt behind my neck and lifting it over my head before tossing it to the floor next to us.
There was no confusing the fire in Nicole’s eyes when my shirt was off—and I was damn proud of how hard I’d worked at the abs and pecs they were currently looking at. I could be honest for a moment and point to the pressure my father always put on me to have the perfect physique as someone in security, but none of that mattered right now. When Nicole was looking at me, none of my normal body insecurities came up—the ones that a man, let alone a Black man, could never talk about. Instead, I felt like Nicole’s eyes turned me superhuman.
I was electric in their presence, with an energy surging through me that felt underserved, but everything about the way Nicole looked at me told me that wasn’t the case.
I lowered my body across theirs as they shimmied out of their shirt as well—no bra, because Nicole didn’t believe in those, and I fucking loved that about them. Their breasts were perky and perfect, and begging for attention as I lowered my mouth around their nipple.
“Ah!” Nicole gasped the moment I made contact with their skin, arching their back to bring themselves closer to me.
I obliged, because how could I not? My lips closed around their supple skin, and I pulled it into my mouth with light suction, allowing my tongue to flick back and forth across the tip.
They were groaning again, and this was the most intimate thing we’d ever experienced together. It had been years of platonic friendship, and somehow, somewhere, that seal had been broken in an instant.
I didn’t have the time or attention to consider how that had happened. All I knew was that I was here, we had crossed the line, and I didn’t want to ever walk back to where we were.