Chapter Seventeen Damion
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Poetry hits harder in New York.”
—Remington
Damion
What the hell is she smiling at?
We stood there on the platform, waiting for the express, and she was looking down at the tracks with a little half smile on her face.
“What are we staring at here?” The stench was a little stenchier than usual at the moment, the platform was packed, and a baby in a stroller to our left was screaming his head off.
Basically a typical day in the subway, but she was grinning.
“I’m looking for a rat,” she said quietly, leaning closer, so no one else would hear what she was saying.
“Why would you be doing that…?” I followed her gaze down to the tracks, where she was peering at a spot where someone had thrown wrappers and empty bottles.
“Because I want to see a New York City rat in person,” she said. “I know they’re gross dirty little things, the scourge of the city, but after seeing footage so many times of rats carrying off food they find on the subway tracks, I would freak out if I saw it happen in person.”
“You’d fangirl over a subway rat.”
“Kind of,” she said with a giggle.
I wanted to mock the absurdity of the things she was saying, but it was just so disarmingly childlike in the moment that I couldn’t.
The sound of the incoming train brought her gaze to mine and she grinned again.
“I think the train is almost here,” she said excitedly.
Like a little kid, I thought, but only said, “No shit, Nebraska.”
A few seconds later, it came to a stop in front of us. The doors slid open and we stepped inside.
The train was packed, so sitting wasn’t an option. I grabbed the first pole inside the doors, and she stood beside me.
But she didn’t grab on to anything, so when the train started moving, she lurched, stumbling into me, her hands grabbing the front of my shirt.
“Sorry,” she murmured, fast-blinking in surprise but not letting go.
Something about the feel of her fingertips and the press of her soft body as it leaned into mine sent a zap through me, a buzz of tingling awareness as brown eyes looked up, as my brain calculated the distance between her mouth and mine.
Shit.
Her perfume was suddenly all I could smell as she took over my senses—sight, smell, touch, dear Lord.
As if reading my mind, Julia widened her stance and let go of me, her cheeks going bright pink.
And it was the flush of her cheeks that made me lower my mouth to her ear and say, “Falling for me already, huh?”
Cheesy, yeah, but I swear to God she shivered.
I lifted my head and looked down at her. Had she?
She rolled her eyes, of course, but then I felt them take a slow stroll over my face, like she was thinking or looking for something.
No, dammit.
I reached down, grabbed her hand, and wrapped it around the pole beside mine. My hand resting softly on hers. Warm, soft, smooth…
Fuck.
“Always hold on to something, Nebraska,” I snapped, pulling myself out of those brown eyes.
But then her fingers moved underneath my grip to shake my hand off, and I couldn’t help myself. I winked at her.
She rolled her eyes again, but her teeth were nibbling on that lower lip like she was thinking hard.
What are you thinking, honey?
I didn’t care—I didn’t—but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about the thoughts that always looked like they were pinging around in that head of hers.
Especially as the train traveled downtown, because there was something about the way her eyes darted to the open doors at every stop.
The second the doors opened, her brown eyes were moving out to the platform as if she was checking to see where we were or how much farther we had to go.
“We’re getting off at Forty-Second,” she said to me, trying to prove to me she knew where she was going.
Adorable.
“Works for me,” I said with a shrug, glaring at the annoyingly sweet smug look on her face.
“That is so wild,” she said quietly, her eyes on a couple with two toddlers. “Both those little kids knew exactly how to step on the train, and they went right over to the seats without even checking with their parents first.”
“It’s not rocket science,” I said, noticing that the freckles on her nose were all kind of the same size. A constellation of tiny dots.
“I know that, but they’re so young. How old were you when you did this by yourself for the first time?” she asked, gesturing as if “this” magical subway ride were a beautiful rite of passage, part of some New York coming-of-age story.
“No idea,” I said. “Feels like I was born doing it.”
That was a lie.
I didn’t remember how old I’d been, but I’d taken the subway with Remi a thousand times when I was a kid.
He’d called it the “quintessential New York ride” and said it was his duty to make sure I was intimately acquainted with the city’s “gritty underground.” He gave me subway maps to study, and then we’d explore the city with me leading the way.
But whenever I took off in the entirely wrong direction, he’d laugh and say we’d get to explore new stations.
Remi had loved New York like it was an actual person, and he’d been determined to show me her every feature, good and bad.
Fuck, even the subway makes me miss him.
I glanced over at Julia and—
“Did you just take a picture of that guy?” I asked, lowering my head to her ear so she could hear me.
That’s the only reason. The quick hit of her flowery scent is just a bonus.
“No,” she said, turning her head to give me a funny look. “I was taking a picture of the poem.”
“What?” Her hair smells like Bath and Body Works lotion, I thought, like flowers and flirting at the mall.
I squinted and saw the poster hanging right above a guy in red pants. With a poem printed on it, part of a subway art installment.
But—No way, I thought as I read the words. The poem was “Thread” by Essex Hemphill.
It was one of the few poems I actually had memorized, one of those poems that seemed like it was for everyone because you didn’t need to “get” poetry to “get” that one.
Trying not to think of you
yet your face colors
every contour
of my mind.
And every way I turn
inside of a minute
I collide
with your laughter.
I am wind,
and you
are chimes.
“You like that poem?” I asked, for some reason interested in her response.
She looked embarrassed, like she didn’t want to admit it, but she nodded and said, “It’s actually my favorite poem in the world.”
She has a favorite poem.
I leaned in slightly closer. “Tell me your second favorite.”
I don’t think I expected her to have an answer, but her eyebrows furrowed for a second while she thought about it and then she said, “It’s probably either ‘On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City’ or ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’ ”
Sherman Alexie and Robert Frost.
Well, shit, I thought, uncomfortable with this knowledge.
“No comment?” she asked, watching me like she was trying to figure me out.
But what comment could I possibly have?
Do you feel the words like I do?
I straightened, needing space. “Nope.”
I cleared my throat and turned my attention to my phone.
We got off at Forty-Second, and just as we were stepping off the train, Lori—the marketing guru at the shelter—was coming on.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite volunteer,” she said with a smile. “Long time no see.”
“Right?” I saw Julia’s eyes dip to the logo on Lori’s polo—a dog and a cat wrapped around the letters ACC—as I said, “How’s it going?”
“Good,” she said. “We miss you.”
“Same,” I said, because it was true.
I’d loved volunteering at the shelter. Remi got me the gig when I was in middle school, and it’d been a dream job for a kid whose parents felt like animals and pets were a waste of money, time, and resources. Bleeding hearts, those two.
“Then come see us—you know we always need help,” she said just as the overhead voice said, “Stand clear of the closing doors.”
“Ooh, saved by the bell,” I said.
Lori was great, like the mom to everyone at the shelter, and she laughed. “Looks like.”
I could feel Julia’s eyes on me when the doors closed.
“What?” I said, looking down at her as she glared at me with narrowed eyes and a tilted head.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“None of your business,” I said.
“Do you… volunteer at an animal shelter?” Her tone made it clear that she didn’t believe I was capable of doing anything nice, let alone volunteering.
“Again, none of your business,” I said, giving her arm a little push to get her moving. “Let’s go.”
I tried keeping my eyes off her legs when she climbed the steps in front of me, but they were… distracting, to say the least.
“Holy shit,” she said when we exited.
We weren’t even in the heart of Times Square, but the fact that it was starting to get dark and the lights were so insanely bright set her off.
“Just look,” she said, grinning. She stopped still on the busy sidewalk, as I grabbed her sleeve and started her moving again.
“See, this is why I’m here,” I said. “You’re going to get trampled if you stop and look around.”
“Oh, calm down, I can handle myself,” she said, and I could tell she believed it.
I felt the bump of people around us, watched a mangy Minnie Mouse walk toward kids who were beaming with too much energy, while eager visitors wearing I NY T-shirts climbed aboard red tourist buses sporting massive Broadway show ads.
What the fuck am I doing HERE?
New Yorkers would rather be caught dead than in Times Square, and everything around me was the reason why.
Not only were the tourists wandering around way too slowly, but Times Square was where chaos met insanity at the corner of madness.
A place where the absolute pulsing, out-of-control energy of New York decided to meet up and have an obnoxious party.
There were hustlers hustling, dudes peddling fake Prada, influencers trying to get photos, cabs and cyclists ignoring the laws of traffic (though traffic laws didn’t apply in New York City), and tourists congregating in packs.
It was claustrophobic madness.
And I was standing in the middle of it.
With a girl who was acting like she was enjoying every maddening second of it.
Because Julia was beaming.