Page 28 of The Getaway List
Jesse laughs, opening his mouth as if in protest, but just then Luca asks, “Who’s Lily Thorn?”
“Lily Thorn!” says Mariella. “Animal-rights activist! Beauty guru! TikTok air-fryer queen!”
If Luca was startled at her enthusiasm at first, it seems to be catching on now, because it wrestles a grin out of him.
“She’s also the star of the Tides of Time TV show,” says Tom, when Luca turns to us for clarification.
“That book series Riley almost got that tattoo of on her arm,” says Jesse.
Luca’s eyes widen on mine. “You almost got a tattoo?”
Tom turns to me and says, “Wait, of what?”
“More importantly, where?” Mariella asks.
“Thought about it, time-stone mantra, left ass cheek,” I say, answering all three questions in turn. Off Tom’s disbelieving look and Luca’s mildly astonished one, I add, “All right, more like my forearm. Point being, Tom and I are very obsessed with this series and were very, very bummed not to be a part of this walk when it happened, because it was, in fact, Tides of Time themed—all the stops were places they used the time stone to travel to in the series.”
“Bummed” being the understatement of the year. I was fifteen and in the prime of my “nobody understands me” phase. Doors were slammed. Guilt was felt. Now that I highly suspect this was just the first among many Tom-and-Riley get-togethers my mom intentionally prevented, I wish I could retroactively un-guilt myself for it.
But I guess if we’d gotten our way four years ago we wouldn’t be with this ragtag little group—Luca with an honest-to-god legal pad poking out of his bag (“I read somewhere that’s what your mom uses for ideas!” he told Tom excitedly), Mariella wrestling with several lenses to capture the goings-on in the park, Jesse unironically holding the map he took from me upside down and looking more hopelessly confused than he’s ever been.
Tom meets my eye with a close-lipped, conspiratorial smile. The same one we used to give each other over the heads of all our friends when we were younger, and even then we were easily the tallest of the bunch. Sure, back then it didn’t make my breath stutter in my lungs for a hot second, but it’s a comfortably familiar feeling just the same.
Our first stop is Belvedere Castle, an honest-to-god miniature castle just chilling smack in the middle of the park. Instead of climbing up the back of it first like all the other tourists are, Tom makes us go around to look at the front of it.
“Holy shit,” I say. “The cutaway shots in the series didn’t do this justice.”
The castle is tiny but raised on an unexpectedly high cliff that juts out of the otherwise flat park, looking over a little pond that’s so still today we can see the reflection of all the greenery around it like it’s a mirror. It looks like it was pulled right out of a fairy tale. I half expect any number of Disney princesses to be in some kind of cursed sleep once we reach the top.
“Well, they were preoccupied running from time worms at the time, and in 1930s floor-length gowns no less,” Tom points out. “Hard to enjoy the view.”
“I have an embarrassing confession,” Luca says gravely. “I never read Tides of Time as a kid.”
“You should be embarrassed. My god,” I say, turning to Tom. “I can’t believe we’re being seen with him in public.”
Tom laughs and tells Luca, “I know it’s technically for the younger set, but I bet it’d still be up your alley. The characters grow up in it. It starts when they’re eleven and ends when they’re eighteen.”
I try not to smirk at eighteen-year-old Tom luring a convert into the Tides of Time cult as earnestly as he did at eight and add, “It would definitely make for good story inspiration. The plots are absolutely wild but somehow all come together to make perfect sense.”
Luca nods, pulling out his legal pad and writing TIDES OF TIME—READ!! in very aggressive scrawl. “And it’s like—time travel? Fantasy? I mean, what is it you liked about it?”
“I don’t like it, I am it,” I tell him. “And yeah. It’s kind of a mix of fantasy and sci-fi and even some good old-fashioned rom-com, toward the end. They really leaned in to the whole will-they-won’t-they thing.”
Luca nods and says, “Sort of like you and Tom when you almost kissed the other day?”
I let out a choked laugh, but Luca’s cheeks flush so immediately that it’s clear he was going to be waiting for an opening to ask this all day. Mariella’s jaw drops from behind him, eyes lighting up with mischief and a clear you’d better spill your guts right now or we’re going to discuss this later. I don’t bother coming up with an excuse at first, fully expecting Jesse to tease either one of us, but he’s looking into his phone.
“Oh, that was—not what it looked like,” I manage.
Luca’s suddenly biting down a smile. “It wasn’t?”
Tom nods and says very seriously, “I was getting Riley’s opinions on well-crafted faux-marble cheese plates and needed to lean in to hear her better. It’s not a subject to be taken lightly.”
Everyone lets out a laugh at that and Tom points us toward the castle so we can walk around and climb up the stairs in the back. Jesse’s head pops up from his phone, brows furrowed for a split second before he meets my eye and smiles so easily I might have imagined it.
“All cool?” I ask.
“As a cucumber,” he says easily, falling back into step with us.
