Flynn
Kat pulls Adrian out of the bathroom and into the living room, where he regards me with a glower when I walk out.
“Get out,” he growls and tosses my shirt, sweater and jacket at me.
I hesitate because I don’t want to leave Nadia like this. I want to be with her through it. To sit beside her and hold her hand and distract her with something benign that helps her shift.
But she said she wanted me out, and I do suspect Adrian would kick my ass if I tried to stay.
Fuck, he throws a mean punch. I don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me rub my jaw although it’s starting to throb.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. She can’t do this with you. Now get out.”
I hesitate a moment longer then leave the apartment. I step into the elevator and hit the button for the underground parking lot.
I honestly don’t care about getting punched.
I’m in trauma over Nadia’s trauma. I want to fix it for her.
Fix everything.
Dammit, now I’m one hundred times more invested in making sure she gets everything she wants out of our non-relationship.
She needs sexual healing? I’m her man.
She needs a friend? I will be with her through thick and thin.
Hell, if she needed a boyfriend, I’d be that for her, too.
I don’t take the time to examine that thought because it’s irrelevant. She doesn’t want a boyfriend. She’s just trying to get through her days.
The elevator doors open, and I step into the parking garage. Something about Nadia’s breakdown makes me need to call my mom. I pull my phone out and dial her number as I walk to the van.
How many times have I been with her in moments like that? Dozens. Maybe more. At age sixteen, I was the guy who drove her to the psychiatric treatment center to check herself in because Story had the flu. I visited her there. Sat with her when she got out.
The episodes were scary when I was little, but I learned to lean into them. To show up for her. Hold her hand. Distract her. Lay my head on her shoulder.
“Flynn! How’s my favorite son?” she answers. I’m her only son, so it’s a little joke of hers.
“Hi, Mom. You sound good.” I open the door to the van and climb behind the wheel but don’t start it up.
“I am good. My friend Dan spent the night last night.”
She means boyfriend. My mom doesn’t really know how to do casual sex like my dad and me. She gets attached and then broken-hearted. It’s hard to watch.
Thank fuck neither Story nor Dahliamy two sisterstook after her. Story used to be more like me, but now they both are in serious relationships.
“That’s great, Mom. Is he still there?”
“Yes. I’m making pancakes. Want to come over?”
“Eh, no. I don’t want to interrupt. Have fun with Dan.”
“Hang on. What’s going on with you, sweetheart?”
“I just called to hear your voice.”
“Aw, I love you, Flynn. But you can’t fool meI know when something’s on your mind.”
I grunt my agreement.
“What is it? What happened?”
“There’s a girl…”
“Oh.”
I resent the surprise in my mom’s voice, even though it’s fully warranted.
“We’re just friends,” I clarified. “Nevermind.”
“Hang on a second.” She pulls out the mom voice that makes me straighten up and pay attention even though I’m twenty-two years old. “Tell me about her.”
“She’s Russian, like Oleg. She lives in Story’s building and comes to our shows. I really like her.”
“Go on.”
“Well, something bad has happened to herlike a sexual assault kind of thing. She had a panic attack when we were, ah…”
“Oh.” My mom correctly interprets my hesitation. “Flynn, sweetheart, I’ve told you before. You don’t have to have sex with every girl you like. Some can just stay friends.”
I grunt. Not what I wanted her to say.
“You are such a nice guy. You like everyone you meet. You’re friendly with everyone. Sex isn’t the only way to show that.”
“Gee, thanks, Mom.”
I definitely shouldn’t have brought this up.
“No, listen to me. It sounds like this girl is already struggling emotionally. She doesn’t need you to screw with her head and her heart. Maybe don’t try to jump in the sack with this one, okay?”
Something pierces my chest at that and opens up a wound I didn’t even know I had.
Why is everyone so sure I’m going to hurt Nadia?
I don’t hurt women on a regular basis. I really don’t. I’m honest. I communicate. I make my intentions clear.
And my intentions are usually…that nothing will come of us. That’s truly the way I live my life. I don’t try too hard because big dreams equal big disappointment. I learned that rule from my dad.
I don’t try at relationships. I don’t try at a career. I don’t try with the band.
And I believe it’s precisely that flow state that’s created our current success. I mean, we couldn’t have manufactured what happened with getting paired with Skate 32. It was a lucky break when Chelle and Nikolai brought the Youtube skate stars to see our show, and they wanted to collaborate with a couple videos for their fans.
So maybe that’s the answer. I’m trying too hard here. I can’t fix things for Nadia, and any time I try to succeed at something, it just gets difficult. “Yep, you’re right,” I tell my mom.
“What else is going on with you?” she asks.
“Nah, that’s it. Go have your pancakes. Love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart. Come by and see me soon.”
“Yep. I will. Bye, Mom.”
I start the van and drive home to my apartment. I lived with Ty and Lake until Story moved in with Oleg, and then I took over her apartment. I walk in and toss my keys on the table by the door.
It’s weird living alone. I sort of hate it because I’m a social guy. I grew up with two sisters and a very dramatic and unstable mom and a dad who brought musicians in and out of the house at all hours. I thrive in chaos.
I also party too much, so my apartment is more of a place to crash than a home.
The place is a disasterpizza boxes litter the coffee table. Empty beer bottles are all over the place. There are three roaches in the ashtray.
After being at Nadia’s place, I see it through new eyes.
Or maybe I’m wondering how she would view it, if she came over. I start picking up the beer bottles and throwing them into the recycling box.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about Nadia coming over. She won’t.
She shouldn’t.
My mom was rightwhether my intentions were pure or not, having sex with Nadia was a mistake. My first instinct had been right. Keep her in the friend zone. Especially because she’s a girl I care about more than most.
Nadia
I ruined everything.
I am so humiliated.
It took an eternityat least forty-five minutesbefore the screeching gears, hyperventilation and tears stopped. Then I just curled up on the bed, unable to move.
Kat makes chamomile tea and brings it to my room with a soft knock on the door. When I ignore her, she comes in and sets it on the dresser.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly.
“No.” I huddle on the bed, looking through the open window shades at the blue water beyond. The Lake Michigan vista seems so expansive. So inviting.
I often keep these shades closed because the world feels too big when they’re open. But Flynn opened them today, which makes me loath to close them again. He showed me possibilities beyond this bedroom. We even walked to the lake!
“May I give you a hug?”
I don’t really want one, but I also don’t want to refuse my brother’s new girlfriend. She’s only been here a few weeks, but she’s already family. She’s Adrian’s whole world, and she loved me right from the start. She doesn’t judge where I am. She wants to help. I know some of that comes from guilt because her dad ran the sex trafficking ring that I was enslaved in. But most of it is just who she is.
I roll over to face Kat and sit up when she comes to sit on the bed to embrace me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” I start to cry again. “I don’t know. I asked him to have sex with mejust as friendsand he agreed. But he was on top, and it triggered me. I freaked out, and then Adrian punched him. So now I’m sure he never wants to see me again.” I cover my face with my hands. “I am totally humiliated.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Kat says. “Flynn seemed really concerned about you.”
I groan.
“Adrian shouldn’t have attacked him. Maybe I can get him to apologize.”
“No,” I protest. “Adrian needs to butt out of this. It’s none of his business.”
“I know, you’re right,” Kat says. “I told him that. He’s just worried about you and trying to protect you.”
“Has he ever considered that his worry doesn’t help me? I think it makes things worse.” My vision blurs with fresh tears. As I speak the words I realize how true they are. It’s Flynn’s assumption that I am fine, that I can go outside, that I can walk to the lake, that makes me believe it’s possible. When Adrian assumes I can’t do anything, I believe him.
“I’m sorry.” Adrian stands in the doorway, a tattooed forearm propped against the frame, his muscles bulging beneath his Henley.
He wasn’t always like thisso dangerous and angry. I did this to him.
We’ve always looked out for each other. Our mother died of cancer when we were young, and our father drowned his grief in alcohol. We became close because we were all we had to rely on.
Adrian worked hard to get a degree in engineering and had a job doing maintenance and repair on ships. He was always tough and resourceful, but my kidnapping turned him into a killer. He’s done things I don’t want to know about. He joined the bratva to have access to the resources necessary to find me. And in the process, he became a much darker, more deadly version of himself.
I suck in a hiccuping breath. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”
Pain etches in the lines around Adrian’s eyes. I know he wants to fix it, but his overprotectiveness isn’t helping.
“You need to let me do this in my own way.”
His brow wrinkles. “Because you’re doing such a good job of it on your own?”
“Adrian,” Kat admonishes.
“Sorry,” he says. “But seriously Nadia, is it working?”
Maybe he’s right. My way was a total disaster. But that doesn’t make his way right, either.
“Adrian, please go. I just want to be alone,” I say.
He nods and leaves. Kat hesitates.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text. I almost never receive texts, so I snatch it up to look at the screen, then show it to Kat. “It’s him.” All of the slowness in my world speeds up. I open the text.
“He says hey. What does that mean?” I understand the English word hey, but reading context into a text message might be beyond my language level.
“He’s reaching out.” Kat gives me a smile of encouragement. “It’s just an opening. Sort of an invitation for you to respondbut without pressure.”
That sounds exactly like Flynn. As I hold the phone in both hands, some of the leaden weight in my body melts away. Kat slips off the bed and leaves the room as I type the word hey in response.
Can I call? he texts.
Heart thudding, I hit the call button next to his name. He answers with the same word he texted, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Warmth floods my chest even though it’s one word. Hearing his voice changes my state faster than seems possible.
“I’m really sorry about Adrian,” I say. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s cool. Are you okay?” There is so much gentle kindness in the question that I have to fight back tears again. But they feel so different this time. They’re not filled with bitterness and defeat. It’s more the watering eyes that comes from knowing that someone cares about me.
“I’m okay,” I choke. “I’m sorry, I”
“Don’t be sorry,” he cuts in. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You told me something bad happened to you.”
He says nothing more as if leaving space for me to fill in without the pressure of a question. He’s not asking, but he’s available if I want to talk.
“Yes. Something bad happened to me,” I say. “Something really bad.”
“Yeah.” That’s all he says. Again there’s an openness. So much space here in the room, so much invitation between us. I’m not suffocating.
I don’t tell this story, ever. I’ve told pieces to Adrian, but he already knew the meat of it. I never had to start from the beginning.
What was the beginning? Oh. I remember.
“You know that wedding dress shop I told you I worked in?”
“Yeah.”
“I worked late sometimes. We had rush orders, and wedding dresses can’t be late, you know? So I was there alone until midnight one night.” I swallow, not wanting to go on. “I locked up. I walked toward my car, and someone grabbed me in the parking lot.”
I hear Flynn suck in a breath, but he says nothing.
“I fought. I know what they sayfight for your life because once they get you in a vehicle, no one will ever see you again.” Images flash in front of my eyes. The three men who closed in on me. The light they used to blind me. “I slipped on ice trying to get away. When I fell, I banged my knee on the pavement.” It’s funny, I’d forgotten about my knee until now. Gospodi, it swelled up like a balloon. So did my face where they hit me until I blacked out.
I push back the torment. There were so many torments, but that one seems the freshest. The very first violence inflicted on me.
I clear my throat. “I, uh, passed out. And when I woke, I was chained to a bed.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. I must be leaving my body just to tell this story.
A strangled sound comes through the phone, and Flynn’s breath rasps in, but he seems to hold back whatever he was going to say.
“There were other women. I don’t know how many.” Fourteen of us survived. That’s how many were left when Adrian freed us. They hit us and drugged us and sold our bodies many, many times.
“No.” Flynn’s voice is a broken whisper. I don’t want to give him this pain. It’s too much to give anyone. Too horrible to recount.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear this. It’s…not a good topic.”
Flynn says nothing, and I assume he agreesthat it was too much to lay on him. But then he says, “Tell me the rest.”
“The rest.” I draw in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “They put us in a shipping container on a boat.”
The crew raped us every night, all night, as payment for our passage. I wanted to die. My days and nights were one long nightmare. Because they kept us drugged, I was confused and hazy and sick all the time.
“Fuck.”
“Somehow we ended up here in Chicago, in the basement of a sofa factory.”
“What?” Flynn sounds shocked.
“Yeah. Chained to cots again. With choke collars and leashes. Customers came in and used us there.” One customer came for me every night. The same horrible man. The one with the cigars.
Gospodi. I can’t tell him. The image of the fat man’s sneer flits before my eyes, and I hear the clang of metal in my ears.
To keep the panic at bay, I keep talking. “We never left. Never saw daylight. Didn’t know where we were, other than guessing America because the customers spoke English.”
Flynn says nothing. He just leaves a big space of silence for me to go on if I choose.
Faintly, in the distance, I still hear the clink of metal. The tightness in my chest that precedes a panic attack.
I push on, wanting to get to the end of the story without freaking out. Keep it short and get through the worst of it. “I lost all hope. I thought we’d never get free. Me and the others. But Adrian found us.”
“Thank fuck.”
“Da. He freed us all and burned the place down.”
When Flynn still leaves the space open, I give him the last shocking tidbit. “Kat’s father was the leader of the sex traffickers, and Adrian kidnapped her as bait, so he could kill her dad.”
“Jesus,” Flynn mutters.
“But he fell in love and brought her home instead.”
I hear Flynn’s soft breath on the other side. He’s here with me. Listening.
“Her dad is awaiting trial in Europe, but Adrian got him to pay five million dollars for her before he went to jail, and the three of us split the money.”
“Wow.”
The story sounds unbelievable, even though I lived through it. I know it’s all true.
“So…That’s why I am sort of broken.”
“You’re not broken,” he says immediately as if it’s fact. “You’re definitely not broken. Far from it. Nadia, you’re brave and bright and full of life. You’re just coming out of your chrysalis. I already see your wings.”
“What is chrysalis? I don’t know this word.”
“The cocoon a butterfly comes from.”
I smile against the phone. “Thank you. I like that. You make me forget what I am. Or maybe you make me remember who I used to be. Except we can never go back, can we? So it’s not who I used to be, but who I will be.”
I’m rambling, but Flynn seems there for it.
“See? You’re a chrysalis about to become a butterfly.” I hear the smile in Flynn’s voice.
“Can we try again?”
When Flynn hesitates, my heart jumps into my throat and clogs my breath. I bunch the blankets in my fist and pull them up to my chin.
I did ruin things. Why would he want to try again with me? I made a total fool out of myself and got him punched in the face for his efforts.
“Everyone thinks I’m going to hurt you,” Flynn says after a few beats.
I still can’t breathe. I force out a little shaky exhale, remembering how it works. “What do you think?”
“I want to do this with you.”
My heart resumes its beating.
“And I would never hurt you. At least not purposely.”
“But?” I ask because I still hear the hesitation in his voice.
“But I don’t do relationships.”
I try to ignore the heat rushing to my face, the tears that want to fall again.
Is he saying no? Is this our breakup? Of course, we can’t have a breakup because we never were an item to begin with. I latch on to that fact and offer it back to him. “I’m not asking for a boyfriend. I told you that. I’m in no shape for a relationship, anyway.”
“Yeah, same,” Flynn says.
“Why don’t you have relationships?” I ask.
“It’s just too much pressure, and I can barely be responsible for my own life.”
I sense a cop-out there, and I want to call him on it, but not while we’re dancing around the topic of us.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend?” It’s none of my business, but I just shared my ugliest secret with him, so it seems only fair to ask him to share something back.
“I had a girlfriend in middle school,” he says. “She was my first.”
“First girlfriend?”
He gives a rough laugh. “Yes, but I meant the first girl I had sex with.”
“And what happened?”
“It got really intense.” Flynn’s voice is low and gravelly like this secret is just for me. “She was super possessive and freaked out on me if I didn’t call her every day after school or if I did anything with anyone else. Things got pretty bad before I finally broke it off.”
“I guess you’re the kind of guy a girl wants to hang on to,” I say. I certainly understand the urge. To be in Flynn’s field of attention is to bask in the sunlight. He’s definitely a guy worth keeping.
But I don’t ever want to be that clingy girl to Flynn. I won’t be.
And then I wonder what it would take for Flynn to feel that way about a girl. What kind of woman would make him get possessive the way Adrian is possessive of Kat? What female could make Flynn want to be with her all hours of the day? To want to know where she is and what she’s doing at all times. To want to be her everything.
“How old were you when you had this girlfriend?” I don’t know what middle school means in America.
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen? Oh God,” I laugh. “I was stupid with boys at fourteen, too. I’m not sure you should completely write off relationships based on that experience.”
He gives a low chuckle. “Maybe not, but I’m not looking for anything intense.”
Again, I want to call bullshit. He isn’t afraid of intensity. He’s unflinching in the face of my panic attacks. In the face of getting punched in the face for trying to calm me down when I freaked out after attempting sex. He’s the opposite of afraid. I want to root out the real reason behind his reluctance to take on a girlfriend, but I shouldn’t care. I don’t want that, anyway.
I finally work up enough courage to bring up the topic of sex with me again. “So, was that a no? I don’t blame you for not wanting to try again with me.”
“Nah, we’re definitely having sex. I’m totally down.”
My heart skips a beat. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“We’re going to the burlesque show Thursday, right?” he reminds me.
A fluttering in my chest starts up. We have a date. One I wasn’t sure was even happening. “Yes.”
“The Storytellers have our rehearsal at the Kremlin on Thursday this week,” he tells me.
My heart flutters just knowing he’ll be in the building in a few days. Thursdays have long been the highlight of my week for those chanceor sometimes orchestrated to seem like chancemeetings with Flynn in the hallway before or after.
“We could hang out after rehearsal and then go to the show.”
“Yes,” I say as if he’s asking me to marry him. I don’t know how us watching the burlesque dancers will turn into sex, but it doesn’t matter.
I’ll be with Flynn.
There have been many days these past months when I could barely get myself out of bed because of depression and anxiety, but when I’m with Flynn, I feel like I’m alive again.
“Great. I’ll see you Thursday.”
Thursday. Four long days away.
“Yes, okay. See you Thursday.”
I end the call and press the phone to my chest. I have a date.
Non-date. Whatever.
I’m going to see Flynn again, and maybe this time, I won’t freak out.