“What now?” I ask. “You want to walk some more?”
“I need some water.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m not sure what I was thinking, not getting drinks from Sly. Come on.” I rise and hold out my hand.
She takes it, and tingles shoot through me. Something about this woman’s hands…
I grab her trash from her and throw it in the nearby waste receptacle. Then we walk.
And I realize where I’m headed.
Twenty minutes later, we’re in front of my building.
19
Katelyn
“Katelyn…” Luke says.
“Yeah?”
“This is where I live.”
It’s a tall building composed of red brick. How long have we been walking? We were supposed to get something to drink.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Honestly, I didn’t mean to come here. We were just walking, and…”
“We weren’t talking.”
“No. Not really. I don’t want you to think that…”
“That you brought me here for sex.”
“Right. That. I don’t want you to think…that.”
“I don’t.”
To my surprise, I find my words are true. I don’t believe he brought me here for sex.
“Let me get you a cab.” He walks toward the street and raises his hand.
A yellow cab stops.
“Here you go,” Luke says.
Except I’m not ready to leave yet. I want to stay with Luke. I want to be with him. I don’t want anything else. No sex, of course.
But I want…
I want another of his soft kisses.
I don’t know how to ask for anything I want, though, so I smile weakly and slide into the back seat when Luke opens the door of the cab for me.
I meet his gaze as the cab lurches forward.
And Luke gets smaller and smaller.
This isn’t what I wanted.
This isn’t what I wanted at all.
Visiting my cousins in Brooklyn is always fun. They live in a large brownstone, on the upper floor. It gets so hot in the summer, but we didn’t mind when we were kids. The second floor is enormous, and we also played outside in the cobbled streets, wishing for a fire hydrant to burst open. It happened once or twice each summer, and I always loved it when it happened during my weeklong visits.
I just turned eighteen, and I was heading to the airport to fly to New York for a week. A week at the brownstone with my cousins. Sure, most of my friends were beach bumming in LA, but there was something about Brooklyn in the summer that called to me.
Maybe just because it was different.
I’m too old now to run across the cobblestones splashing around the fire hydrants. Too old to play stickball in the street.
But still I love Brooklyn.
Jared and Anthony aren’t my actual cousins. They’re second cousins. Our grandfathers were brothers. I have no siblings or actual cousins, as my parents are both only children.
I love Jared and Tony like they’re my brothers, though. Plus, there’s something about the kids in Brooklyn.
They’re happy. They don’t care if there’s nothing to do except play stickball in the street. They’re real.
I looked forward to the week at the brownstone every summer. Until I turned fourteen. Then I got a job as a lifeguard and I stayed home that summer and the next two. My last summer before college, Mom asked me if I’d like to go see Aunt Agnes and the boys.
I jumped at the chance.
This time, I’m older. A legal adult. Jared’s sixteen, and Tony’s seventeen. No stickball and no fire hydrants. In fact, I don’t see much of Jared and Tony anymore. I hang with Aunt Agnes and I read a lot of books.
In the fall, I’ll begin college at Columbia, and I’ll probably see Aunt Agnes and the boys a lot on holidays. Much easier to go to Brooklyn than to get all the way across the country to LA. I’ll still go home for the summers, though. As much as I love the weeks in Brooklyn, I love a summer on the beach more.
Aunt Agnes makes spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Her specialty from her grandmother in Sicily. Jared and Tony eat in silence.
“Cat got your tongues?” Aunt Agnes says.
Uncle Bruno doesn’t say anything.
Uncle Bruno never says anything.
It’s that kind of family.
Tony turns to me. “Jared and the guys and I are going to a movie tonight. You want to come?”
“Sure,” I say surprised they want to spend any time with me.
They’ve been distant since I got here—nothing like the previous summers.
“Great!” Tony flashes me a smile.
Both he and Jared have grown into handsome young men. A lot different from the skinny kids I used to run through the fire hydrants with.
“We’re going to see the new Black Widow movie,” Jared adds. “We figured you’d like that. A strong woman, and all.”
I simply nod. I’ve never considered myself a strong woman. Before now, I never considered myself a woman at all. I’m still in my teens.
Tony rises from the table and kisses Aunt Agnes’s cheek. “Thanks for dinner, Ma.” He nods to Bruno. “See you, Pop.”