“Maybe.” Alexei squinted into the darkness so long Luke thought he wasn’t going to reply, but he said, “There’s nothing to repair. No reason to go back in. It’s over.”
“If you think so.” Luke agreed but didn’t want to—they were supposed to have fixed something, freed a loop that closed too tight around Jeremy. “I wanted to help. I wanted…”
Alexei nodded. “Listen, Annie was bad. We all were. But she wasn’t evil. She wouldn’t have wanted to become—” He paused. Uncertainly, he said, “Maybe that changed. Maybe she’s free.”
Luke’s breath shuddered. If there was meant to be comfort in that, he couldn’t find it. Alexei stopped talking, smearing his fingers across his lips.
“You loved her?” Luke asked.
Alexei made a low noise in his throat and let another pause stretch. “Maybe she never had a chance from the second her brother found out. I’m going to keep blaming him, if you don’t mind.”
If he had to guess, Luke would still have said it was Malcolm who had ruined the ritual—gone in with the off-kilter thought in his mind, the brick that had turned and brought the whole tower down. He didn’t say it, though—because there was nothing Alexei, or anyone, could do right now, and it would only give Alexei another thing to hurt over. “I made all kinds of mistakes trying to protect Jeremy,” he said instead. “And Camille crossed him with the doll trying to protect me. If she’d slipped even a little… It’s just luck it worked out all right. It’s just luck—”
“That it didn’t work out for me?” Alexei shook his head and stood up abruptly. “Here is what I know, witch doctor. You are going to have a bad night. And tomorrow morning, you’re going to wake up, and you’re going to decide who you want to be.”
Luke stood, too. Alexei’s eyes were startlingly close to his level, as if Alexei had gotten shorter—though it must have been Luke who had gotten taller. “Is that how you deal with everything?”
“Me? Fuck no. I’m going to Vegas, first flight I can catch.” Alexei reached for the door. “Now get inside and give Jeremy a goddamn kiss.”
Kiss? Luke had created this night, convincing Jeremy they needed to unwind all this because it was wrapped around his crossing, and there was only one more step to see if he was right.
Luke noticed the key between his fingers—he’d reached under his collar and started rubbing it unconsciously. He’d thought because it was a key, there must be a lock—a room—a treasure. But Jeremy had already told him. It was just a shape.
Uncrossing, when it worked, was like finishing a puzzle or untangling Christmas lights, watching the disorder resolve into a single, understandable object. This was not a crossing—it was an avalanche, fearful desperation and misfired intentions collapsing together to trap Jeremy under the rocks.
Luke could not imagine walking in there, putting his mangled hand on Jeremy’s sallow face, and making magic. They hadn’t fixed anything—and, worse, they still hadn’t had a conversation without arguing, hadn’t looked at each other in pure daylight and chosen. It wouldn’t be a kiss at all with both their families hovering outside the door, waiting to see if Luke would fail, yet again, to break Jeremy’s crossing.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Inside, Jeremy had fallen asleep, and Sergei was carrying him up to bed as Camille blew out the last candles in the dining room.
Helene took her children to the hospital, where Camille had a concussion test and Luke got eight stitches in the palm of his hand. They hurt so much more than the cut. He named each stitch for the Kovrovs and Malcolms, bitterly glad he’d have a scar so he would never forget what they’d lost.
He told the nurse he’d closed his hand over a knife. When the man pointed out that didn’t explain the blisters on his palm or the human claw marks on his face, Luke only shook his head. He was too tired to lie, seeing a dead girl in the dark every time he blinked and blank emptiness when he tried to imagine a way back to Jeremy. But it was the wrong play—both Luke and his mother had to answer questions from multiple pinched faces about his family and how he hurt himself before they let him go home. He passed out in the cab and woke up shouting, reaching for Camille as she bled in his dreams. Alexei had not lied: it was a bad night. Four a.m. was witching when Luke finally reached the cold, narrow comfort of his bed.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Jeremy slept for most of the next day and through the night, but when his strength came back, it was like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. He woke up zipping with hectic energy. The whole house was quiet, so he went for a run, his feet drumming the pavement a-live-a-live-a-live.
When he walked back into the kitchen, Sergei’s jaw dropped like a stone. “What the hell are you doing?”
Jeremy’s pulse slammed in every part of his body. Did running always feel like this? “I almost died.”
“I know,” Sergei said. “I was fucking there. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
Jeremy wasn’t going to sleep—he was going to stay up every night and count the stars while he had them. He was going to call Luke and—well, definitely say something.
He checked his phone as he went back to his room. Short Wesley had posted a picture of himself delivering drinks (the caption said “potions”; Jeremy guessed horchatas) to Luke and Camille. They had matching stiff white bandages, Luke on his hand and Camille on her forehead, and sleepy bags under their eyes.
Also on his phone, he discovered Alexei had gone out. There were paparazzi photos of him acting like a toolbag—sloshing expensive champagne in a shiny suit, keeping a boy and a girl on each arm but not kissing anybody.
It took some convincing to get Sergei to find a safe car—he saw Malcolms in every shadow—but eventually, Jeremy went uptown. He found Alexei in front of the TV, slow-moving and faintly unwashed but mostly himself.
“TMZ posted the dumbest picture of any human that has ever been taken,” Jeremy informed him, making coffee. “And it was of you.”
“A Kovrov always delivers his best.”
Jeremy brought him a cup of coffee on the couch. Alexei took a long, slow sip, his eyes drifting heavily closed.
“Have you even slept?” Jeremy asked.
“Nightmares,” Alexei said, clipped.
Jeremy waited, but Alexei was quiet. He looked awful, cheeks sunken and skin gray, with heavy bags under his eyes. Jeremy’s heart squeezed, for him and for Luke and Camille, injured in those pictures. Jeremy had not fixed himself, but he might have broken everybody else. “What do you think happened?”
“Well, once one photographer’s got your tail—”
“Alexei.”
He shut his eyes. “I don’t know. Probably something I should have done years ago. Maybe it would have turned out differently.”
“How? That’s what I don’t understand.” Jeremy stood up, though he had nowhere to go, and paced to the wall of windows. It was drizzling, a cloud pressed against the glass. “What did we do wrong?”
“I don’t know, my prince. I certainly should have had Katya outside the room, rather than the house. Maybe I should have had Helene or Malcolm build the ritual. Maybe I shouldn’t have let Malcolm in at all. Maybe there was no way to change it without my father there. Maybe I made too many mistakes the first time around to fix this time.” Alexei paused. “I keep thinking I should have made Luke give his blood in the first place. And then I think, if I had, and he’d been entirely out of weapons at the end…”
He looked at Jeremy’s face in a thoughtful, disconnected way, like Jeremy was a painting instead of a person.
“Alexei—”
He snapped his head away. “There’s a limit to my interest in discussing it.”
“But what if—”
“I swear to god, Jeremy Kovrov.”
Jeremy stepped away from the window but couldn’t cross the room. “Maybe you could still fix it somehow. Get her back.”
“We did get her back.” Alexei put his coffee down so he could rake both of his hands through his hair, wiping away everything he didn’t want
to think about. “Corey Malcolm, my father, and I killed a girl, and the worst any of us will have to suffer for it is feeling bad. You don’t need to try to make me feel better.”
Jeremy came back to the couch and sat down, leaning against Alexei’s shoulder.
“There is one piece I can’t figure out,” Alexei said, more gently. “Why did Luke wake up, when none of the rest of us did?”
Jeremy pressed his fingers to his lips. They burned, anticipation and something like guilt wound together inside him. “Because I kissed him.”
“Ah.” Alexei paused. “Fairy-tale rules. Just like he said.”
Jeremy shook his head. Luke’s fairy-tale rules had been about anointing someone king—about power and who would take it. But Jeremy hadn’t been powerful. “I was just desperate. But so was Maeve, in the prayer we saw. And you, when Annabel disappeared.”
“Mmm.” Alexei dropped the subject like a too-small shoe. “Did you and the young man try again?”
Jeremy shook his head. He’d had the nerve when he thought he was dying, broken. But now he was full of hope again, and it was so much harder to bear. “I guess I should call him.”
Alexei waited for more before he said, “I guess you should.”
Jeremy twisted his fingers. “It’s like all the pressure from the first one times a million. I need everything to be perfect first.” The first time, he’d been terrified Luke might discover his secrets. Now, Luke knew it all—the curse and the weirdness and Jeremy’s family and all their failures—and his choice would cut right to Jeremy’s heart.
“Everything and perfect?” Alexei nodded. “It’s good to set reasonable standards.”
Jeremy whacked his arm around Alexei’s chest, head-butting his shoulder in a cranky hug. “In stories, it always works all together. There’s the kiss, or the big feat, or whatever, and it works and the curse is broken and the whole kingdom gets restored and there’s, like, sunshine and violins—”
“I’d like to institute a ban on that talk in my home.”
Jeremy huffed, but stopped.
Alexei scratched him behind the ears like a puppy, a gesture so familiar it hurt Jeremy’s chest. “Call him. You don’t have to fix my life and the family’s whole history. You can have this.”
“I have your permission?” Jeremy tried to laugh.
Alexei shook his head, still serious. “You don’t need my permission.”
Jeremy sighed. It was his decision—no one would take the responsibility or the blame. “I’ll call him. Should we order some food? You look really terrible.”
Alexei gave him a censorious look, but he picked something from the Thai menu Jeremy pulled up and went to take a shower before the food came. Jeremy chewed his lip and glared at his phone.
He called Luke.
It rang for a long time, and Luke answered a touch breathlessly, like he’d run to another room. “Hey, you. How are you feeling?”
His voice was warm and rich and sent a tingle down Jeremy’s spine. “I’m okay. How are you? I saw you were hurt.”
“Nah, I’m all patched up. I’ll be fine. I’m glad you called. I feel better already.”
Jeremy smiled in spite of himself, at Luke and his lines. It was so sweet and so normal, suddenly Jeremy knew just what he wanted. He’d known all along. “Okay. I’ll call you a lot. I like hearing your voice.” He took a deep breath. “Luke, will you be my boyfriend?”
There was a long quiet on the other side. Jeremy’s heart swelled so much he hugged his knees to his chest to hold it in, biting down on the fabric of his jeans.
“On one condition,” Luke said.
Luke deserved a lot more than one condition, after all Jeremy had put him through. “What’s that?”
“Let me take you out next week. Maybe…Tuesday?”
Jeremy grinned into his knee. He had no idea what day it was, but he said, “Of course.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
The evening could not have been more beautiful, a breath of autumn cooling the summer sky. The sunset glowed a dusty pink, especially on Jeremy, rosy and ethereal wherever the light touched him. Most of Park Slope was out on such a pretty night, so Jeremy walked close. The back of his hand kept brushing Luke’s, sending sparks up his arm.
Jeremy had a seasonal hot chocolate that wasn’t supposed to be waffle-flavored but definitely smelled like it. The scent floated up every time he took a sip, making Luke look over and watch his lips touch the lid of the cup.
He wanted to kiss Jeremy so badly his teeth ached, but he had a plan and the kiss was still several blocks away. Real date—check. Leisurely walk home—check. Next: kiss him good-night at the door, gallant and sweet; send him inside for Marta to fuss over him; float home on the subway. He wanted to do this one right, savor it.
He still wanted Jeremy’s crossing to fall away. He imagined a kiss on the stairs, a flash of light, that bracelet cracking and falling on the ground. The good-night and the floating. He could see just how it should be.
Luke smelled waffles. He watched Jeremy’s lips on the cup and his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed. He put the crossing in a box and put it on a shelf inside his head, and thought about all the other things he wanted that kiss to be, too. He was going to kiss Jeremy clear of the nervous way he kept hesitating before he touched Luke and, if he was lucky, he was going to make Jeremy do the thing where his knees gave out and he melted into Luke’s arms.
Luke touched his own lips and looked away in time to catch another person squinting at them. “Have you noticed people keep glaring at us? I thought Park Slope was more evolved than that.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sadly, Jeremy said, “I think it’s my hat.”
Luke laughed. “We can always burn it.”
“No!” Jeremy clapped a hand over his neon-green head. “I think…this is embarrassing. I got photographed with Alexei wearing this hat the other day. We were on some blogs. I think people are recognizing me.”
Jeremy clearly didn’t like it, so Luke stifled the part of him that did. “Yeah? Where were you with paparazzi?”
“He took me out to dinner.” Jeremy paused, and his hand brushed Luke’s with more purpose. “I made him take me out to dinner. He was brooding.”
Luke nodded. He’d been doing his share of brooding.
Jeremy took Luke’s hand and squeezed. “It’s okay to be sad. Everyone was messed up. Sergei broke three plates.”
“Camille’s having the time of her life. She hasn’t done a chore in days, keeps claiming head injury even though the doctor said she was fine.”
“She earned it.” Jeremy swung their hands together and let go as Luke was about to start wondering whether his palm was getting sweaty. “Alexei was so weird I had to come home and break a plate, too.” His fingers brushed against Luke’s wrist.
Luke’s long gray days settled down in perspective. “You break plates when you’re mad?”
“I thought I’d try it. It didn’t help. Except then Marta kicked me and Sergei out of the house, and we went to the diner for a while. That helped a lot.”
“There it is. I love that. Jeremy, the only thing keeping me up and moving right now is that I decided to be as brave as you.”
That got Luke another oh—three on the night so far. He was collecting them like little trophies. Jeremy veered away to toss his empty cup and returned. Before he could reach for Luke’s hand again, Luke moved closer, touching his lower back. They passed an older gay couple walking the other way and one of the men grinned at them. “He likes my hat,” Jeremy said.
“I think he likes your boyfriend.” Luke let the word hang there, and they both watched it float by.
“Probably. And my hat.” Jeremy wiggled into Luke’s arm, and the hand on Jeremy’s back slid around to his hip. It slowed them down, and it took them a long time to walk the last block to Jeremy’s house.
By the time they got there, Luke was stoned on Jeremy’s warmth and closeness, the animated way he moved. Luke had to remind himself
: the plan was kiss and leave. What, why was that the plan?
At the brick steps that led up to the door, Jeremy turned and pressed a hand against Luke’s chest to hold him away. “It wasn’t pretty, but it was real magic. We changed something important.”
“He said he thought Annabel was free now,” Luke said. “I can’t decide if that’s the most patronizing thing I’ve ever heard or the most hopeful. I want it to be true so bad.”
Jeremy considered that quietly, taking his time, and Luke was already grateful that he’d get a real answer instead of some empty comfort. “Free is a really big word,” Jeremy finally said. “But she’s not trapped anymore. I think that matters.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jeremy’s voice lifted. “Everything I do now, I’m like, would my ancestor who crossed the ocean to get me here think this matters? Maeve didn’t cross the ocean so you could sleep in! Maeve didn’t cross the ocean so you could eat three cheese sandwiches in two days!”
Luke laughed. “I think she did.”
Jeremy smiled up at him. “I helped Alexei as much as I could. You helped Annabel as much as you could. And I think it matters.”
The high note of Jeremy’s vibe was clear in the air, brighter than usual, or brighter compared to his bracelet cutting in and out like radio static. “Whatever happens,” Luke said, “you matter to me.”
“Do you practice all these lines?”
“Yeah, because you like them so much.”
Jeremy muffled a laugh with his hand, and when he pulled it away, his face was different, with big, solemn eyes. “Either way, I want you.”
Luke would show up at this house every day if he had to. He didn’t care what destiny said—he had chosen, he would choose again. And that? That felt like true love. He put his lips close to Jeremy’s ear and said, “I would choose you every time. That’s what’s true.”
Jeremy answered with his fingers curling into Luke’s shirt. Luke took Jeremy’s hat off his head and held it against his back, bringing him close, and touched his cheek to tilt him up.
A smile stretched across Jeremy’s face, so Luke gave him some space to relax. He waited there, paying attention, watching Jeremy’s mouth go soft and his chest lift. This was his favorite part, the moment right before the kiss.
The Uncrossing Page 30
