“Yep!” Jeremy said.
“I’m serious.”
“You’re full of shit,” Jeremy said, so decisively Luke gaped at him. Jeremy grinned at Alexei. “We already know you have dudes on every block between here and the Bronx Zoo.”
Luke hadn’t known, but of course that was right. Left to his own devices, he would have made some plan to take Jeremy out and would not have been able to protect them from Malcolm spies or another attack. “My dad and Sergei went Malcolm-hunting this morning.”
“Malcolm-hunting!” Jeremy repeated, like it was something delightful.
Luke shrugged. “That’s what Camille called it.”
“See?” Jeremy lifted his chin triumphantly to Alexei. “You can’t keep secrets from us; we know everything.”
“I may have taken some precautions.” Alexei’s smile mirrored Jeremy’s, warm. “But I am respecting boundaries, so you don’t have a tail. That means, if you catch sight of any gingers at all—”
“I’ll call you.” Jeremy cocked his head to one side. “No, I’ll call Sergei.”
Alexei laughed. “Perfect. And don’t go to Jersey.”
“Why would we go to New Jersey?” Luke asked.
“Millions of people go to New Jersey every day.” Alexei slipped into the car, past the door Katya held for him. “I’m sure I don’t know why.”
As Katya returned to her seat, she cast a look over the pair of them. Luke had another uncomfortable feeling she was weighing him and unimpressed with the number.
“Is this weird?” Jeremy asked as the car pulled away. “Did Alexei make it weird?”
Luke huffed. “That’s what’s going on Alexei’s tombstone. ‘Here lies Alexei Kovrov. He made it weird.’”
Jeremy giggled and turned up the street.
“I think he might have threatened me,” Luke added, following. “I mean, he made a deck of cards disappear and acted important about it. Was that a threat?”
“I don’t know.” Jeremy paused and must have realized that wasn’t comforting. “Alexei barks more than he bites.”
That was also not comforting. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Oh. I was heading home. Do you want to go to the park? We can get ice cream.”
“Outstanding.” Luke rocked his hand forward, brushing one finger along Jeremy’s palm. It was the smallest touch, but it stopped Jeremy cold on the sidewalk. Luke rubbed his hand over his upper lip to hide a smile.
“You better be careful. My brother will disappear you.”
Luke dropped his gaze. Quickly, Jeremy said, “Oh, that was weird, wasn’t it?”
Luke shook his head. “When I saw that deck disappear, it made me think of when you—when you showed me your curse.” He turned over his hand, thinking about Jeremy’s dissolving inside it.
They stopped at a crosswalk, and Jeremy leaned in, nudging Luke’s shoulder with his own.
“Is that what happened when you were born?” Luke asked. “Your family had a baby, and then—pop?”
Jeremy made a strange freezing-flailing motion, like he had to stop himself from running into traffic. “No.”
“No?”
Jeremy scraped his hand over his head. “Maybe. I don’t actually know.”
“How can you not know?”
The light turned, and Jeremy hurtled into the crosswalk. This was why you were supposed to wait three days to text. No—it was why you weren’t supposed to grill adopted people about their birth families. Luke’s mother would have given him an earful.
He caught up at the curb and said, “I’m sorry,” as Jeremy said, “It’s complicated!”
Luke grabbed his elbow, and Jeremy jerked to a stop, huffing. Half the block turned to look. This was going great. “I’m sorry,” Luke said again. “That was way out of line. I understand.”
Jeremy twisted his lips. “I know I’m weird. I know.”
“I didn’t say that.” Luke let him go, turned him back up the sidewalk to get him moving. “I don’t think that.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Sure you don’t.”
“I don’t,” Luke said. “It’s the mojo, everything your family can do. It’s so different. I can’t figure out how it…”
He stopped to think, and Jeremy looked up at him, eyes so raw and open it made Luke grave with the responsibility of getting this right. “My mom says magic is like language. People all over the world learn different languages, but they’re using the same bodies to speak. They talk about the same things. Just the words are different.”
“Okay,” Jeremy said slowly.
“I feel like I’m trying to learn to speak Kovrov, but you guys are…ants who communicate by rubbing your antennas together.”
Jeremy yelped in surprised laughter. “Oh my god!”
“Exactly.”
Jeremy picked up Luke’s hand and brought it to his face, blinking his tickling eyelashes against the back. Even as he did it he started blushing, but Luke caught his fingers and gave them a little squeeze before he let go.
“There are words in some languages that don’t translate to others,” Jeremy said.
They came to another crosswalk, and Luke stopped to consider. “That’s true.”
“And there are a bunch of sounds in other languages that are hard to make, like the German R, or sing-songs—”
“All right,” Luke said. “It’s just a metaphor.”
“You called me an ant!”
Luke gave him a smile he hoped was reassuring. “I didn’t mean it’s weird. Just different, for me. Do you have anything that could help me understand, like books or papers or—” Luke stopped as Jeremy’s face went sharp again. He didn’t answer.
“Only if you’re comfortable with that,” Luke said. “Of course.”
Jeremy shook his head and said, “I’m not,” so quietly that Luke read it on his lips instead of hearing.
“That’s fine,” Luke said. The green edge of the park, dark with shadow, rose on the left. Luke took Jeremy’s hand, good and grabbed it, and moved toward it. He stepped off the path and guided Jeremy under the trees. It wasn’t as cool or quiet there as it looked from the outside, but it was more private than the street.
“Don’t be upset. All I meant to say was hi.” Luke put his lips over Jeremy’s and his hands around Jeremy’s waist, waited through Jeremy’s sudden tension and slower relaxing, and guided Jeremy’s mouth open with his own to taste his little gasp.
It took Jeremy a long time to open his eyes. Finally, he said, “Hi.”
Luke pitched his voice low. “I’ve been thinking about that since we stopped yesterday.”
Jeremy made a strange half-laugh and dropped his head on Luke’s shoulder. “I can’t believe it was only yesterday.”
“Long night?”
Jeremy sighed. “Let’s go get ice cream.” He tugged Luke back to the path, heading into the park, and after Luke had thought the conversation was over, he added, “In Sergei’s house, it’s always a long night.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
By the time Luke walked into the kitchen the next morning, Camille was already on lunch. He’d been on the phone with Jeremy until after one, filled with warring delight at his goofy texts and horror at the slow-ticking seconds of his crossing’s midnight rule, and it had taken a long time to settle and let him sleep.
“Yes, come to papa.” Luke grabbed half her grilled cheese off her plate and took a big bite. Camille shot back a French word that would have stung anybody else, but her jinxes bounced right off Luke. He smiled as he chewed.
“Luke.” Helene lay back on the sofa. “Don’t devil your sister.”
Around his bite, Luke said, “I have to go soon.”
Helene grimaced, so Luke finished chewing and swallowed before he finished. “Alexei’ll be here. I have—”
“I know. Work.”
Luke turned one of the chairs around at the big table and sat facing her. “The Eyals again. That first family, with the little girl? He wants me to c
heck up on them.”
“That shouldn’t take long,” Helene said. Behind Luke, Camille made a wheezy scoff around a bite of sandwich.
“Yeah, we’ll see what he wants me to do after.”
Helene sat up, drawing her spine straight. “Luke Walker Melnyk.”
“Oooooh,” Camille said.
“If my only son is going to lie to my face—”
“I’ll see what Alexei wants me to do after,” Luke repeated, a band closing around his chest, “and then Jeremy wants to go to a baseball game.” He held his voice calm. Luke had asked him, had made the plan, and if he didn’t count hanging around the store or with Jeremy’s brothers—and he didn’t—it was their first real date. He held the idea of first close and tender and would rather not have discussed it with his mom.
Helene’s face was doing something Luke’s own must have done a lot: Ha! I won. Wait—now what? “Say it’s a Yankees game at least.”
Luke opened his palms. “I’m offended.”
“Is he going to wear that hat?” Camille asked. “That hat offends me.”
“If it’s not the hat, it’ll be something worse.” Luke’s voice gave him away. It was like warm syrup, slow and sweet. He sounded like all the trouble he wanted to cause.
Helene flinched back into the couch. “Luke. That family.”
“Jeremy’s not like the rest of them.”
“Neither were they when they were kids.”
Luke shook his head. She would understand if he could explain, if he hadn’t promised. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You don’t know—”
Luke’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was nothing, a snap from Short Wes, but he jumped on it to tap out of the talk.
“I am talking to you. I’ll take that phone away.”
“Good luck. I’ll go get a new one, since I pay for this myself.”
Camille made a little hmm sound like he’d scored a hit, but Helene looked furious and stood up. “You live in my house, and you will participate in my family.”
“I’m checking Snapchat. That’s it. You are the ones who always make things about betraying the family.”
“I’m not making anything about anything. I’m asking you to think—”
“I did think. You just don’t like what I decided.” Luke was surer every day, as Jeremy’s kisses got braver and Luke started to rely on his calls. They were doing something right, something real—Luke wasn’t ready to name it, but he’d never felt it before.
“You’re seventeen; you can’t make decisions.”
“You weren’t that much older than me when you met Dad! I was old enough to go to work for them, wasn’t I? All I do is—” His parents were the strictest parents he knew, and he wanted a little credit for all the effort he put into following their rules and working hard and earning money, his constant unending trying. They talked about him like this reckless animal, and all he felt was the weight of responsibility. “You just hate him because he’s a boy. You hated Max, too.”
“Max was trouble! We have been nothing but supportive—”
“You’re not being very supportive right now.” Luke’s voice dropped out of the last words, his bravado giving way.
Camille made a small, abrupt sound, like the secret he’d told might spill out of her and fill the gaps in this broken conversation. Luke turned and squinted, willing her silent; she gave him a sympathetic grimace.
Helene stood and crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Luke swallowed hard, choking the secret down. “Nothing. I just don’t know why you want to fight.”
She waited. Camille got up, rinsed her plate, put it away, and went downstairs, all before Luke or Helene moved.
“You’ll tell me when you’re ready,” Helene said. “I’ll be waiting.”
Luke stood. He was so much taller, and looking down at her steadied his wavering. “I have to go.”
She pursed her lips. “I thought Alexei was picking you up.”
“No, I’m going to meet him.” He swiveled past her, heading for the door. “I have to—I’ll see you later.”
“Luke!”
“I have to go.”
Luke tripped down the steps, slamming into the humidity in the alley. He went a few buildings down, out of sight of the windows, and crouched against the wall. It was 12:07, and though Jeremy was fine, and even happy, Luke couldn’t settle his clawing thoughts.
It didn’t make Jeremy any safer to keep the secret—it protected Sergei, or the Kovrov family. The silence and denial only closed Jeremy’s trap tighter. Luke would not be able to hang around working the edges of the crossing forever, wouldn’t help anything that way. He had to try some real magic, organize the evidence, and build a ritual. He had to talk to Jeremy, or his mother, or someone, but first he would have to decide what to say.
Luke took slow breaths until he could speak steadily. He called Jeremy, who answered the phone with a Hey that took two lilting syllables.
“Hey yourself,” Luke said. “Listen, I’ll meet you at the Eyals’. Don’t need to pick me up.”
“Oh. If you’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m already on my way.” Luke pushed himself up and started walking. He’d called instead of texting, to hear Jeremy’s voice, just because he could. It was clingy, and it should have been the wrong play. But that wouldn’t even occur to Jeremy, and if it did, he wouldn’t mind. He had about as much chill as the Sahara.
“Oh my god! Ohmygodohmygod. Spider! Luke, code spider.”
“You don’t have to say ‘code’ if there’s actually a spider.”
“It was in my hair!”
“All that running is bad for you.”
“Okay, Sergei.” Jeremy gasped. “How long do you think it’s been there? Oh my god, where did it go?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Luke crossed the street before he walked past the store. He wasn’t going to think about it right now. He wasn’t even going to look at it.
Jeremy gasped again. “I think it’s in my bed.”
Luke grinned big enough to get it in his voice. “Do you need me to come over there and smush it?”
A huff crackled in the phone. “Here lies Jeremy, murdered to death by spider poison while Luke made sex jokes.”
Luke laughed, though an alarm started wheeling through his head. Jeremy was in his room, in his bed, and talking about sex, while Luke was baking on a crowded sidewalk. All he said was, “I think you can handle it. I’m almost at the subway. I’ll see you in a minute, all right?”
“I might have spider powers by then.”
“Cool.”
“If it webs me, you have to come cut me free, okay?”
“Maybe.”
“Luke!”
He was smiling as he slid the call closed. The fight and his fit were fading already, and he let them go, turning his mind to the afternoon ahead and his work.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jeremy had figured the most expensive baseball tickets would be the best ones, but Luke set him right on that. They sat at the very top of the stadium, the last row before the sky. So high up, the air was blue and breezy, more like a midwinter memory of summer than the reality of humid garbage and sweaty pits. Luke showed him how to watch the game from that view, not pitch by pitch but as a dance among all the men on the field.
Also, in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, there weren’t many people up top with them, and whatever conditions Luke was always checking to decide whether it was safe to touch in public were satisfied. He sat with his arm around Jeremy’s shoulders, stealing kisses when the game was slow. The trick was, it seemed slower from a few stories away than it would down in the bowl.
Kissing scrambled Jeremy’s wires more than it was probably meant to. Luke moved Jeremy’s face with his hands, way more up than felt completely safe, and Jeremy hung there, vulnerable, before Luke dove in. Then something inside his chest rushed up, and his thoughts vanished in burning, buzzing white. After L
uke pulled away, he would have to use his hands to put Jeremy’s face back down again.
Between kisses, when Luke was talking about baseball or telling stories about his friends, Jeremy watched him out of the corner of his eye. Luke was high-strung in a sneaky, backward way, making a big performance of how casual he was being. Something was wrong, and he didn’t want to talk about it, which was fine—Jeremy’s life and his family and most of what he was doing here with Luke shivered on an unsteady foundation of not-talking-about-it—but there was no reason to make it such a production.
One thing Jeremy wasn’t talking about was that he’d had a fight with Sergei. (He fought with Sergei all the time; once, after a particularly bad one, Sergei had sat down on the floor next to Jeremy’s bed and said, “It’s okay, kid. You yell if you need to. I can take it.” The memory would sometimes make Jeremy ill with gratitude and other times, when he had good reason to be angry, even angrier.) Sergei had said nothing so kind the night before. What he’d said was, “You’ll never find what you’re looking for with someone like that.”
Anger changed the shape of Jeremy’s spine, made him taller—it honestly felt like his head popped off. “Someone like that! What does someone like that mean? Do you mean a guy? Do you want to talk about this?”
Sergei’s face had gone flat—no, he did not want to talk about that. Jeremy’d had this terrible feeling that what Sergei meant was black or Ukrainian or poor, and he would either say something gruesome or say something to try to excuse his gruesomeness and Jeremy would have to know that about him forever, and so Jeremy said, “Don’t ever talk to me again!” and made a run for it up the stairs.
And that was that problem well and solved, certainly not lying in wait to explode later. Pip-pip, as Alexei would say. In the yellow light of afternoon, with Luke’s kisses unraveling all his defenses, thoughts kept arriving uninvited with other interpretations of what Sergei might have meant. Someone blithely, rashly confident, beyond all reason and evidence. Someone who thought he was better than Jeremy’s family. Someone who kissed like he had to be so careful not to break anything in his sure hands; like Jeremy was hoarding all the oxygen in the world; no, like there was plenty of regular oxygen out there but Jeremy had some special, better kind; like he’d had a lot of practice.
The Uncrossing Page 14
