by Ella James
The guys alternate between ribbing Luca and reassuring him. Dani hugs Ree, who keeps saying she’s fine, just fine. And then we’re really up—we’re approaching the top of 4 New York Plaza, and all around are blinking lights and gleaming steel and glass. Luca’s eyes flip open, meeting mine before he glances out the window. As soon as he gets a good look at things, he squeezes them shut again.
“I get sick from trains,” he says, and gives this soft, embarrassed laugh.
I squeeze his hand then lean in closer—so my mouth is near his ear and nobody can hear me. “You’re not really in a helicopter. You and I are at a carnival. It’s just the two of us—we’re on this ride that kind of makes you want to hurl but kind of feels like floating in an ocean. Do you know the one?”
He nods, and cracks open one eye so he can see me when he smiles. I smile back, and then I watch as he looks out the window again.
“This is better than the train, I think,” he murmurs.
“It is?”
He nods, wiping his palm on his pantsleg as he blinks at the city through the window. “Better view.”
The gang is still talking. Even Ree, who, thankfully, seems to be handling the helicopter almost as well as me. They’re on the topic of who lives over on Kings Point, and Jace tells everyone that the author F. Scott Fitzgerald used to, which I knew already.
That’s the flow, then there’s an ebb where Luca and I wade out of the conversation…just enough so we have space to look at each other again. He’s smiling, and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m so hungry for him, I feel almost sick: dizzy and overheated. I look down at our clasped hands. His is curved around mine—large and protective.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin descending. Tighten your seatbelts and we’ll be at our destination in another four or five minutes.”
Luca lets a breath out, smiling when our eyes catch. I rub the tips of his fingers, and he rests his head against the seat’s back.
“Thanks,” he murmur-whispers, and I lean my cheek against his shoulder to tell him he’s welcome.
This house is a castle. Three levels of rose-beige stone with grand, arched windows and massive mahogany doors. It’s shaped like a vertical rectangle, with four tall, cylindrical towers guarding each corner. The towers are topped with pointy, witch-hat-looking roofs and covered in crawling ivy.
The balconies on the west-facing towers hang over the Long Island Sound. Water sparkles below them, sloshing gently as boats slice through the inky water, their wake rippling outward.
I could stay out here all night, inhaling the river smell, letting the autumn air sink through my gray pants, through the fabric of my soft green sweater. It’s cold, but I like that. I like that I hear people chatting above and below me—people out on other balconies—but I’m alone on this one.
I lost track of Luca. Maybe an hour after we arrived, he offered to get me a virgin daquiri. I saw him talking to Max by one of the coolers; then they disappeared into the crowd.
I tell myself I don’t care. I think of Becca—what’s she doing at home?—and I get the frozen feeling I have sometimes, knowing what will happen. It’s like being on a train, and I can’t get off. And I know it’s going to crash. And I’m not sad. I’m only bracing.
I think of my dad calling home from the office before I left to go with Dani for the night.
“Be careful tonight—all nights, but especially right now. We don’t need to split our focus.” By which he meant he and my mom don’t want to worry about me in addition to Becca.
Sometimes Dad will say, “We didn’t know things would be like this,” as if to imply that if they had known about Becca’s disease, maybe they wouldn’t have chosen to bring her into the world at all. I don’t know why he says that. I never said I was upset or that I thought they should have known. Our family isn’t normal, but I don’t care. All I want is for them—my parents—to just…be around. And talk and stuff. But no one is, and no one does, and that, they can control. But they choose not to talk to me. Or Becca. Dad picks work and Mom picks her appointments.
“Hey, you.”
I look up, finding Luca in the doorway between balcony and bedroom. He’s wearing a crooked smile and looking like all kinds of hot with his dark hair sticking up from how it dried after his post-game shower. I tell myself to play it cool, but I can’t help the way my gaze laps up and down him, taking in his slightly snug black tee and faded jeans and sneakers.
Why do guys look so good in plain clothes? Or maybe only the hot ones do. And he is definitely hot.
I swallow as he moves onto the deck, a panther stalking to where I am by the rail. He’s so close, and he’s smiling, clearly looking me over, and I’m having trouble breathing normally.
“Hi,” he says again, and I realize I haven’t spoken.
“Hi there.”
He hands me my drink—in a red Solo cup. His sparkling eyes feel hot on mine. “You okay?”
I nod, and it’s not untrue. I’m glad I came out tonight, and I’m even gladder that he’s here beside me.
He casts his gaze over the sound, focusing on a light I see across the way—a boat or barge—before his eyes return to my face.
“Did you need some air?”
I smile. “Something like that.” After I lost track of Luca, my friends went different ways. Dani bumped into her melodramatic cousin Maya, who pulled D into a bathroom to talk about some “crisis.” Ree and I wandered into a big, stately library where someone had set up strobe lights, and she bumped into this girl she met at the skate park last summer. When someone turned on music, I left them and made my way upstairs.
“I like balconies,” I say.
“Yeah?”
I nod, cringing inside. I like balconies. Who says that?
He laughs, leaning on the rail, his big body angled toward mine. “What about them do you like?” He’s grinning, as if he can read my mind.
I cover my too-warm face. “I mean…I guess just the ivy…and the water. And—okay—sort of the lack of people.”
“Not a people person?”
“No. I mean, I am a people person. I just…I sometimes need a break from all the people talking at once.” Luca’s face looks rapt, not bored, so I continue. “My friend Ree calls me a both-i-vert. Because I’m sort of extroverted, sort of introverted. What about you?”
“Both-i-vert.” He smiles. “I like that.” His tongue flits over his lower lip, and I think he bites the corner before meeting my eyes. “I don’t know…I’m kind of both, too. I like doing shit with friends, but I can also kick it with a book.”
“What kind of books do you like?”
His lips twist as he looks down at the iron railing. “Now we’re talking secrets.” He arches his eyebrows, and I laugh, wanting to die at my own utter lack of coolness.
“Oh, so this is really good then,” I say. “Are we talking Artemis Fowl?”
He grins, shaking his head.
“Harry Potter?” He smiles. “Gossip Girl? Oh, I know!” I snap. “Anne Rice.”
“I like Anne Rice,” he says, so I guess that’s not the secret.
“Manga?” I try.
“Eh.”
“No?”
He gives me a crooked grin. “I might have read some with my brother.”
“Psshh. You know you’re watching all the anime.”
He smirks. “Maybe.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re a reader.”
He gives a loud, low laugh, his chin tipped up. “What, did you think maybe I can’t read or something?”
“Can and do are different things.”
“True is that.” He says it in a Yoda voice, and it makes me laugh.
“You a Star Wars fan are.”
He shrugs.
“You like sci-fi and super nerdy stuff. That’s what you really like,” I say, just fishing.
He gives me a brief grin, and I note that he didn’t comment.
“Do you read on the trains?”
/>
He nods, looking like I just made him confess something outlandish.
“Have you read Merrick?”
He grins.
Guess he really does read Anne Rice. “What about Blood and Gold?”
He nods once, eyes fixed on the water—as if he can’t look at me while he’s confessing.
“Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire?”
He laughs. Now he looks up at me, and he’s definitely embarrassed.
I decide to push more, just because I’m feeling wicked. “Sleeping Beauty?”
His smile disappears. “Don’t tell me you’ve read that,” he says—and his voice is rough and low.
“You think I can’t read it, too?” I feel heady as I lean beside him, propping my forearms on the cool, iron railing. I look at the water, wondering what spot his pale blue eyes are locked onto.
“Don’t tell me about it,” he says, and my heart begins to gallop.
“Do you think I’m…bad for reading it?” Now I feel embarrassed at my rash admission. I’m not sure there are any books more erotic than the Sleeping Beauty trilogy from Anne Rice.
Luca’s hand reaches for mine, closes over it and squeezes. “Of course not.” He lets go and straightens up, then turns toward the door.
My throat tightens as I feel him stepping right behind me. “It’s not bad,” he says quietly. “It’s too much. For me.”
“I don’t get it,” I whisper. But I’m lying…because maybe I do.
“I’m your fake boyfriend, remember?”
My cheeks burn with shame. So I misunderstood this.
“I’m not—” I feel him step back. “We’re not…”
“Not what,” I force myself to whisper as I straighten my spine.
“I’m not really…good for you.”
“What do you mean?”
He laughs, but it’s a cold sound. “You don’t want me thinking about you. This way.”
I turn around to face him. “What do you mean?”
Light from the bedroom door spills all around him, making him look like a shadow.
“Why would you say that?”
He shuts his eyes. His hand comes to his forehead, and he rubs his temple on the hurt side of his face.
“Because of that?” I whisper.
“No.” It’s almost groaned. “Because of other shit.” He says that darkly, as if it should speak for itself.
“You don’t like me?”
His jaw tics. “I like you.”
“You don’t…want me?”
“Oh, I want you.”
I take a small step toward him.
“You’re fucking beautiful, Elise. And you’re all good. You have a good heart. That’s what my Nonna would have said.”
“And you don’t?” I’m close enough so I can touch him, so I do. I wrap a hand around his wrist and pull his arm toward me. His hand balls loosely into a fist, and I press it just under my throat.
He shakes his head. My eyes fall to where his Adam’s apple bobs, and so I almost miss the way his eyes gleam. “No.”
I hug him. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s too much, but it feels right. He goes still, his body rigid as I press my forehead to his shirt. I can smell detergent…and him. “I don’t think that’s true at all,” I tell him, with my eyes squeezed shut. “You’re very good. Remember Pandy? That was the nicest thing someone has done for me in ages.”
My throat aches as I listen to his heart pound underneath the cotton of his T-shirt. This is a boy who lives with misery, the same way I do. I can feel it. When he smiles, it’s real and kind. I can tell he’s good.
He starts to breathe a little faster. When he steps back, I let him.
“I’m sorry.” His words are thick.
“For what?”
I can feel him moving toward the door a half second before he does. So I step closer.
“C’mon. Stay out here. We can talk about Anne Rice or Stephen King, or anything you want.”
He blinks twice, as if he’s waking up. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes, please.”
He nods, staring past me. His jaw flexes.
“Come sit with me.”
His eyes are somber, but he does as I ask. He sits beside me on the stone floor of the balcony. When I hold my hand out, he takes it, threading his warm fingers through mine. He looks at his lap, rubs at his knee.
“Did you hurt your knee at the game?”
“Last year.”
“Playing football?”
He nods. He won’t look at me, even as he presses our joined hands to his thigh.
“Do you like playing?”
“Yeah.” He still looks slightly dazed, but this time, his gaze catches mine for just a second before dropping back to our hands. “I like the team.”
I squeeze his hand. “I like your hands. They’re big and a lot warmer than mine.”
His fingers rub mine gently.
I close my eyes. “Like that.”
Chapter Five
Luca
She’s got her body leaned against mine, and I’m holding her hand.
I don’t know why. I got freaked out and acted weird and tried to tell her. Tell her…how I am.
When she said she likes those Sleeping Beauty books, it got to me. To my dick specifically. And all I could think was what would happen if I let myself push things. If I let myself…have what I want.
Dirty books or not, it turns out Elise is pretty damn nice, which is good and bad for me. Good because she already seems to have forgotten that I was spazzing not five minutes ago. Bad for me because she’s soft. And she smells good.
Elise. She likes balconies at night and naughty books. She’s got nice friends and a nice house and parents who might be dicks but it’s safe for her there, I bet. I think about that, and it makes me think of what I told her about my eye.
No, no, nope. I don’t let myself go there. But part of me does. It’s like a penny you throw in a fountain and it flutters near the top then sinks because sinking is what metal does in water. Part of me sinks. I can’t get that part to come back up—even for her. I know I should walk away. It’s a bad idea for me to get to know her.
But I don’t.
I’m always thinking of myself in some way or another. Like right now. I love having her up against me. How her head feels on my shoulder. So I tell myself that she’s enjoying it too. I’m rubbing her hand, and she likes it. So it’s okay.
I take another deep breath, try to banish my darker thoughts.
“You know what I think sometimes?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head, avoiding her eyes.
“Probably at most, we’re not even a fifth of the way through our lives right now. Isn’t that weird to think of? Whatever or whoever we feel like we are right now, we’ve got a whole other four-fifths of life left. Even people our parents’ age—no one’s life is locked in.”
My eyes throb…because I want to believe her—more than anything. But I know that’s not how it works. Maybe for someone like Elise. But not for me.
I feel her eyes on me as I stare at the bedroom door in front of us. Then I look down at her and make myself say something normal. “That is weird to think about. One-fifth, though, wow.”
“Do you think that’s a lot?”
I shrug. “It seems like a lot.”
“I guess so. But most of it is just totally unwritten. And I think this first fifth or so of our life is for scouting locations, you know?”
I think so, but I want to hear her explain it, so I shake my head.
“It’s like—do you ever think how Paris is just sitting there, and you could walk around on those streets right now if you were there? But since you’re not, it’s just going on being Paris without you. Australia is just there with waves rolling in. And as big as New York City is, Tokyo is three times as big and half a world away. I think about London and San Francisco and all of these places, and they’re out there just waiting. Even though I know they’re not waitin
g for me specifically. But they could be. If I wanted them to be.”
I feel her let a breath out. “All the options, all the possibilities make my brain feel tired. It seems crazy how we have this giant world, and we’re in one single spot, having just this one experience.” She sucks a deep breath in. I hear the smile in her voice as she says, “Do you think that sounds crazy?”
Crazy? “No way. I feel the same way sometimes.” Except those aren’t the places waiting for me.
“It’s just like…narratives. I think about things like that, since English class last year. There are these…I don’t know, like infinite possible narratives. For every person and then for all the other people. So many options. Life is nothing but a bunch of choices.” She swallows and goes quiet. “I feel like I have none. But I’m not trapped. That’s not true. I’m trapped but it’s my own trap. Because we could do anything, at any time. That’s what’s true,” she murmurs.
She heaves this big sigh, but it’s quiet. I ask her, “What would you do if you could pick anything, Elise O’Hara? What’s your number one choice?”
“Provence. France,” she adds helpfully.
“That was fast.”
“It’s been my place for a while.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to rent a little stone house with one or two rooms and exposed wood beams and no dishwasher. And then I want to read. I want to read one book per day. And eat fresh bread and drink grape juice and eat apples and walk in lavender fields.”
“Maybe that’s why you like balconies.” I’m not really one for making assumptions. But she seems like someone who likes speculating; I can do that, too. So I push myself to say the thing in my head. “Maybe what you like isn’t the balcony. It’s the view.” She looks up at me—I can feel her eyes, even though I don’t have the nerve to look into them. “Maybe you like looking out and picturing the locations. Where the boats are going. Where they could go.”
I don’t really plan to press my face against her hair. I do because she’s soft and small and smells so fucking good, and I think she seems sad.
Something shifts inside the house, like I guess someone changes the song, so I feel the base start bumping through the balcony’s floor, reminding me of where we are. We’re not alone, but it sure as shit feels like we are. Elise curls up a little more against me, and I shift us so her head and shoulders are on my lap, so I can wrap an arm around her back and run my fingers through her dark hair.
