Page 42 of The Getaway List
Tom shakes his head. “Just one other thing I was looking for,” he says, “but maybe we can find some on the way.”
He reaches forward then and suddenly, unexpectedly settles his hand on the crook of my neck. I lean into it without thinking as Tom’s thumb grazes my collarbone, his eyes settled on a spot just above it.
I stop breathing and we both go very, very still until Tom clears his throat.
“You’ve got some…”
He eases his hand away to show me. There’s a streak of bright green chalk on the pad of his thumb, and a warmth on my neck where his hand was that’s spreading all around me, a slow inferno.
“Right,” I manage. “I, uh—biked past a big chalk mural in Union Square. They were letting anyone grab a piece and join in.”
Tom smiles and there’s something so unmistakably fond in it that the heat in me is starting to simmer, like it’s planning on sticking around.
“You always know where the action is, huh?” he says, before abruptly reaching up and rubbing the chalk from his finger on the tip of my nose.
“Hey!” I protest as his smile hooks into a smirk, and he makes off with the cart toward the register.
“Don’t worry,” he calls back, “it suits you.”
It decidedly does not, but something pleases me about it so much that I don’t make any move to smudge it off for the rest of the day.
Chapter Fourteen
A few hours later Jesse, Tom, and I have ducked up the slim stairwell to the karaoke joint in the East Village that he and the band slept in the night they got locked out. It’s deceptively larger on the inside, dim, blue-lit hallways thrumming to disjointed beats that swell and muffle every time someone opens or closes a door. We don’t have to wait long until Mariella and Luca arrive together, which is not too surprising—she told me the two of them were going to check out some street art in Bushwick. What is surprising is that Mariella seems uncharacteristically subdued, her eyes grazing the floor, and Luca is looking around at all of us with mild “help me” eyes.
When I glance over at Tom, his eyes are already on me with the same unease brewing in them.
Mariella’s managed to smile by the time we’re looking back, though. “Is this a birthday party, or are we luring Hansel and Gretel to their deaths?” she asks, looking at the mountain of candy on the table with the binders full of songs.
“Neither of the above. This is, in fact, a ritualistic humiliation of Tom Whitz, who needs at least three Take 5 bars in his system before he’ll let loose enough for Disney karaoke,” I say, hoping to get a laugh out of her.
But Mariella’s already distracted again, aiming a pointed look at Tom that I can’t quite read. I take this as a sign I should leave Tom on Mariella detail, seeing as she’s still technically more his friend than mine.
“Hey, I think I’m gonna grab some soda from the bar. Anybody want some?” I ask, and then without waiting for anyone to answer, I say, “Luca?”
“Yes, yeah,” he says, following me out.
I don’t have to wait too long until we’re out of earshot, considering a group is screaming Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb” loud enough to wake the dead down the hall.
“So did I imagine the weird vibes when you and Mariella walked in?” I ask.
“No,” says Luca, half-relieved and half-miserable to be asked. He fiddles with his watch, staring back at the door to our room. “I think she’s mad at me? And I don’t know why, which is bad because I say a lot of things, so I can’t figure out which thing might be the one she got mad at? But whatever it was I think it was from some other day, because she was like that when we met up.”
“Then it’s probably got nothing to do with you,” I say fast, because Luca looks like he’s one thought spiral away from drilling a hole in the floor.
“Or maybe it does and I can’t figure it out because I’m a monster.”
I pat him comfortingly on the shoulder and say, “All right, that’s a little dramatic, even for a writer.”
Luca’s spirits lift marginally at that. While we’re waiting for the bartender to finish pouring an alarming number of lemon drop shots for a bachelor party to get to our sodas, I peel off to figure out where the bathrooms are and see just how deep the hallways in this place go. I don’t make it very far before I hear familiar voices coming from a small lounge area at the end of the hall.
“I don’t know why you checked in the first place.”
Tom sounds not quite upset, but definitely exasperated, which gives me immediate pause.
“What, and you’ve never been curious?” Mariella asks back.
“Not enough to go looking at it,” says Tom. “And I kind of wish you hadn’t told me you did.”
