Page 4 of Once Upon a Beast

Layla

“Talk me off the ledge, El, I’m freaking out,” I said to one of my best friends, Ella.

“Layla, sure, what’s going on? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I honestly have no idea how to answer any of those questions. All I know is that my father asked me to see him.”

“Did you and your father have a fight? What happened?” Ella asked.

“My father and I are fine, as close as ever. It’s the apartment he wants to meet him at.”

“Okay,” Ella said slowly.

I knew I wasn’t being helpful about giving her all the information, but I was having a hard time processing it, much less finding a way to articulate it.

“He wants me to meet him at Nic’s apartment,” I said.

“Nic. Nic’s apartment? What? Why? When? Are you going to go? Layla! What the hell?”

“Welcome to where I am, so glad to have you here. Shoot. I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m sorry. I’m freaking out. I have no idea why my father would ask to see him there of all places. I don’t know what he wants, all he said was that he wanted me there immediately.”

“Did you try to get out of it? Layla, I need you to come help me figure out my flower arrangement. It's an emergency. You really can’t go to Nic’s apartment.” Ella said.

She was clearly lying. Ara had taken over all the flower arrangements and almost all aspects of Ella’s wedding to her billionaire boyfriend, Dax Moore. It was sweet that Ella would try and come to my rescue and I seriously contemplated taking it, but I wouldn’t. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my father and even if I wasn’t mentally ready to see Nic, I wanted to.

“I already told my father I would go. I’m standing outside Nic’s apartment complex, trying to get up the nerve to go inside.”

“Is it a dark and scary castle with clouds over it with thunder and lightning?” Ella asked. “Be sure to take pictures of how it looks, Ara will want to know. And how Nic looks too, if you can.”

Ella and Ara both knew all about my history with Nic. We had been inseparable when we were kids. The only time we didn’t hang out was the few weeks every summer that I had gone to summer camp. He had hated me going and when we were growing up, he had been jealous of the friendship I had with Ara and Ella. He even would get moody every time I went to New York to visit Ara.

We knew everything about each other and had helped each other through countless crises through the years. More importantly, we had laughed and shared memories that I still thought about fondly. I always thought he and I would be friends forever. I had imagined what it would be like when we hung out with our spouses together. I imagined our children being just as close as we were. I thought we would always be there for each other.

Unfortunately, I was the only one who felt that way. Our senior year in high school, Nic’s father was arrested and sent to jail for twenty years. I had wanted to be there for him. I had wanted to help him through it. He had been close to his father, almost as close as I was with mine. He had been there for me when my mother died; I had wanted to be there for him.

Nic hadn’t returned any of my calls or texts. He ignored me when I came to his house. He wouldn’t look at me when we were at school. When he left school two months before we were supposed to graduate, he locked himself in his family’s home, at least until the government took it away, and wouldn’t talk to anyone, except my father.

I told myself he was hurt and needed time to figure everything out. I assured myself that when he was ready, when he wanted to talk, he would call me, touch base, do something. He never did. It didn’t stop me from still reaching out occasionally, but after a year of trying to talk to him and him never responding, I gave up.

It was hard to let him go. Luckily, I had Ara and Ella to lean on. Without their support, I would have fallen apart. They kept me busy, as did school. I threw myself into doing what I always wanted to do. I had moved to Queens and went to St. John’s University to get my degrees in library information and science. It hadn’t been easy but I loved the work. When I was done, I moved to New York City. I had found a small but charming studio apartment and was able to buy it with money I borrowed from my father.

Things had been going well. Soon after I moved to the city, Ella joined us, moving in with Ara in her apartment. She found a job with her now fiancé, while Ara worked on becoming a doctor. I loved living in the city. I loved being able to see my friends daily. We went to happy hour, museums, shopping, or whatever we wanted to do.

I had tried dating but it had ended in disaster and I had given up. I accepted the fact that I didn’t need a man in my life. I had everything I wanted: a job I loved, an apartment that kept me in the city, and friends I could see whenever I wanted. I didn’t need anything else.

Sure, occasionally, I would hear about Nic and his successes and wonder what could have been for us. But I was happy for him, I was glad he had gotten out from under his father’s shadow and made a name for himself. In the last ten years, he had been extremely successful. He had changed his name to his mother’s maiden name. It was a smart move but people still knew who he was. I think it helped that he had been so young when his father had gone to jail that no one thought he had anything to do with it.

My father had stood by him, helped him out, and the two of them had run a successful company for years. It had made them a lot of money but also helped people in the process. I knew Nic and, while the money was nice to have, he was doing it more because he wanted to help people. He wanted to make amends for what his father had done. He had succeeded in spectacular fashion. Even if we weren’t friends anymore, I was still proud of the man he had become and all he had accomplished.

I missed my friend and I still thought about him a lot. It was hard not to when my father worked with him. Dad was good about keeping us separate. He hardly ever talked about work around me and he never mentioned Nic. I wasn’t sure if it was because Nic asked him not to, or if my father knew it was too painful of a subject for me.

Until now.

“No. it’s a completely normal looking apartment building. There are no gargoyles or sphinx outside. There isn’t a secret passage you have to go to in order to get in. I’m not going to take a picture of the building or him. The rumors are all false,” I said.

For a man who did a lot for his community and was very wealthy, he wasn’t very social. He hardly ever went out and when he did, he avoided getting his picture taken at all cost. It had only added to the mystery of the man. There were stories that his face had been disfigured in a skiing accident right after his father had gone to prison. Or that he had burned his father’s home in Aspen to the ground and had almost died in the fire, leaving over half of his body covered in burn scars. None of them were true. But when you added in the fact that some of his first business dealings had been cutthroat and ruthless, it had only added to the stories that he was a beast of a man, not only in business, but in real life.

The man was an introvert. It was one of the things that had made us such good friends. We could be happy for hours, days, weeks even, staying inside, reading books, playing games, or just talking. He wasn’t a partier, he had never been, and that wasn’t going to change just because he had a lot of money. He was smart and used the mystery of his life to his advantage, but that didn’t stop my best friends from teasing me about it.