“For fuck’s sake,” Nick growled, picking up his speed.
An old woman crossed herself as I ran by, followed by a group of Japanese tourists who made sure to stop and snap my picture on their way back to the bus.
Perfect, just perfect!
I yanked the jacket around me tighter, but actually gave them a little wave as I tore into the street, following after my naked client as he jumped cars, dodged pedestrians, and generally did the ‘super-hero chase’ thing down the midnight streets of New York.
“Nick—stop!” I screamed. “Just let him go—it’s over!”
But men like Nick weren’t programmed to give up. If anything, my hopeless resignation only made him run faster. With his hair streaming out behind him, he leapt over a fire-hydrant and darted around a curb—running like his life depended on it.
“There will not be,” he leapt over construction grate, “a single picture,” he ducked the shower of sparks that followed, “of you naked. I swear it on my—”
And that’s when he fell into the fountain.
“Nick!” I shrieked, skidding to a screeching halt on the wet tile.
It hadn’t been his fault. As he’d rounded the corner, a young mother with a stroller had made her way out of a restaurant. Unfortunately, it was at a place where the sidewalk suddenly bottlenecke
d with no warning, and the only way to avoid them, was by leaping over the railing entirely...and into the water.
He was lying on his back by the time I caught up with him. His wavy hair floating around him as he floated miserably on top of the freezing water. Ironically, every tourist within seven blocks had appeared from nowhere to take pictures. The cameraman, of course, was long gone.
“Nick,” I said again, gazing down at him in dismay.
His eyes were closed, but his face perked up when he heard my voice. Instead of answering, he chose to tilt the other way—surrendering himself to the karmic gods as the fountain began to overtake him. By now, a little cloud of mustard and hot dog grease had begun to color the water around him—making him look like a highly edible piece of performance art.
I stifled a smile, clutching his jacket tighter around me.
“Honey...” It was the first time I’d ever used the word, and he perked up with that as well. “Do you want to maybe get out of the fountain? We can get you dried off?”
His lips twitched, but he remained stationary. Lying there like some kind of water-logged Greek god, caught off guard and drowned on a hunting trip. Riddled with condiments.
“What’s the point,” he sighed. “He got away.”
The crowd tittered, and I tried not to grin. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how despondent he might actually feel—it was like the guy couldn’t stop performing.
“Just because he got away, doesn’t mean you have to die of hypothermia.” I thought it was a pretty solid argument—the logic was sound. “Why don’t you...paddle this way, and you and I can catch a cab back to the Upper East Side.”
One eye opened, followed by another.
“The Upper East Side?” he repeated questioningly. “Isn’t that where we are?”
I shook my head regrettably. “I’m afraid you left Manhattan entirely. By now, we’re probably somewhere in Queens.”
The crowd tittered some more, and even Nick had to smile as he pulled himself slowly to his feet and began wading my way. It was then that the tittering gave way to genuine shock as some people recognized him, and those who didn’t, were bowled away by his body nonetheless.
What the fuck was this? Some kind of secret photo shoot? A social experiment in the making? See how long you can keep from touching the models?
As usual, Nick was either oblivious or immune. I, for one, kept it together until he stepped onto the sidewalk beside me, leaving freezing pools of water in his wake.
“You look like James Bond,” I comforted. “You know, if James Bond worked somewhere in the Arctic, liked hot dogs, and fell down a lot.”
Nick flashed me a wry smile, one that failed to reach his eyes.
“That’s funny—you look like you lost all your clothes in a game of Strip Poker.”
Simple, yet direct.