Chapter 14
February
Two Months Until The Wedding
“Thanks, Arnold.” I take the steaming cup of dark, bitter coffee and lift it to my lips.
It’s truly terrible, but it does the job.
Bodegas are a dime a dozen in the East Village, but I’ve been coming to this one for five years and can’t skip out on Arnold now.
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the perfect walking distance from my apartment, or the ugly but endearing red signage with sloppy hand-painted lettering, but at this point, my loyalty is cemented.
“You don’t look too well, Elzbieta.” He’s the only one aside from Babcia to call me by my full, given name.
“Yeah, late night.” Mostly spent tossing and turning in my bed after the successive conversations with Trip and Carter.
These men are pulling me in opposite directions, like I’m a rag doll and they each hold one of my arms. Keeping Carter happy is familiar, and something I’ve always been good at.
We have a rhythm, a way we operate that’s comfortable and safe.
But Trip is a total mystery. Exciting, but anxiety-inducing in a way that sets my insides on fire.
I take another sip and grimace against the bitter taste, hand Arnold cash, and tell him to keep the change.
“Go ahead.” I wave at the woman standing behind me. Her eyes widen and she shakes her head before lowering her gaze to the floor.
“Who are you talking to, Elzbieta? Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Arnold’s forehead creases.
I look back and the woman is gone. A shiver snakes its way down my spine and I wiggle my limbs. “Fine. Thanks, Arnold.” I make a mental note to hydrate and get more sleep.
Double-wrapping my scarf around my neck, I step out into the chill.
The coffee burns my hands, but in this weather it will soon be lukewarm.
The caffeine and windchill are whipping me back into shape after the drinks last night.
I head in the direction of Tompkins Square Park and my boots make prints against the light dusting of snow on the oversalted sidewalks.
The park comes into view. It’s quieter and less grandiose than Central Park, but this is my park.
Birds that haven’t migrated chirp in the tree branches.
An older couple scatters birdseed on the ground.
I breathe in the fresh winter air. This is something I love.
Something that’s only mine. I’ll start identifying them, one by one, the versions of New York not requiring a golden ticket, the sights and scenes available to everyone, that have always been available to me.
The way Arnold greets every customer with the same smile that says, You are welcome here.
A couple of toddlers resembling oversize marshmallows in their snowsuits make snow angels on the ground. A tall man in a checkered peacoat leans against a bare tree, one dark curl falling into his…
I inhale. Last night, outside the bathroom, things between us felt different, felt—
“Knew I’d find you.” There’s a slight slant to his mouth.
He’s so real. There’s stubble on his jaw and I know exactly how it would feel against my hand. Could feel the pomade if I slid my hands through his hair. If I—
I reach up and my gloved hand falls right through his neck.
“Hey, watch it!” Trip laughs and the air itself shifts to accommodate the sound.
“How did you know I would be here?”
“You’re a creature of habit.”
“And you’re learning my habits now?” I swallow. Better to crush this hope beneath my heel before it grows into something unruly.
“Some of them.” He smirks. “I think I’ve got most of the good ones down. Still holding out for the bad.”
“I bite my fingernails when I’m nervous.”
“See, now I feel like I know you.”
“Well, what about you? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He pauses, considering. “I pick the occasional wedgie.”
“Gross! Maybe you need some new underwear.”
“Easier to just go commando.” He steps in front of me on the path and his hands graze my elbows, light as wind moving against my sleeves. “I’d like to take you somewhere. May I?”
I nod my head, words catching in my throat.
Trip lifts his hand toward my cheek before slipping it back in his pocket. “It’s not far from here.”
—
We walk several blocks in easy silence, the snow falling around us and muffling the sounds of the city.
The lightness in my chest is welcome after the tense conversation with Carter last night.
Individual flakes stick to the ends of my hair, on my scarf, and to the sleeves of my camel coat. Trip remains untouched.
He stops me when we reach an old stone building. The East Village is a conglomeration of old and new, but this one looks like it’s been here for at least a century.
I take a step toward the cherrywood double doors, but Trip does a short whistle through his teeth. He points to the side of the building, and I follow him around to an industrial metal door with a keypad.
He tells me the code and I type it in, not sure why my fingers are shaking.
Trip and I have had many moments alone together.
Me being the only person who can see him pretty much necessitates it.
So why does this time feel different? His words from last night ring in my mind. I don’t shy away from what I want.
I pull the door handle, but it sticks, even when I put my weight behind it.
“It’s finicky. Here.” Trip moves behind me and places one hand on the door near the seam, the other on the handle. “Mimic my motion.”
I overlay my hands on top of his, that familiar, warm buzzing as they move through his and touch the cold metal of the door.
“Now just lift it a little, like this.” He raises his hand and our arms join.
The outline of his coat sleeve halos mine, but other than that it’s as though his arm disappeared.
I follow his lead, my hand numb with vibration, like it’s fallen asleep.
There’s a satisfying click of the latch sliding out before the door swings open under the pressure of my hand.
“There you go.” Trip steps back and there’s an inexplicable cold at his absence. “This way.”
The door opens to a dark stairwell that winds several stories up.
I take the stairs two at a time, and just like that day at Ruby’s, Trip humors me by walking them with me.
By the seventh story, I’m short of breath.
I side-eye Trip, who could basically float his way to the top of this building if he wanted to.
Blessedly, we only climb one more flight before reaching another door at the end.
Trip holds an arm out, indicating for me to go first. “It won’t be locked.”
I swing the door open with much more ease than the outside door and pause on the threshold.
The walls are glass panes, separated by metal frames. Warm lamps give the room a golden glow, light dancing on the endless green in front of me. It’s a garden. In the middle of winter.
“It’s a greenhouse,” I say.
“Do you like it?” Trip’s voice hovers just to my right.
I step inside, closing the door behind me and bathing in the warmth flooding my extremities, my cheeks.
“It’s beautiful.” I look back at him, and if the gold light shines on the leaves, it absolutely radiates through Trip.
He’s glistening—his skin a golden tan, the lamplight hovering above him in a halo. An angel.
“How did you know about this place?” I turn, taking in the view from all angles. Outside, the snow is still falling, but in here, it’s paradise.
He shrugs. “My grandfather owned the property.”
“Owned?” I wince as soon as the word slips out.
Trip only chuckles. “Yes, owned. It passed to me when he died.” He kicks at an errant tulip bulb on the floor and his foot goes right through it. “I still own it, technically.”
Right. Because he’s technically still alive. Though I doubt that detail will help me if I’m caught trespassing. Oh, don’t mind me, the owner’s ghost let me in.
The heat permeates my jacket. I shrug it off and unwrap the scarf from my neck, laying them on one of the nearby pallets. “So, he left you in the will?” I fidget with my sleeve and look at the floor. “Your grandfather.”
“Yeah.” He breathes a laugh and runs a hand through his hair. “That son of a bitch. Threatened to write me out if I didn’t help him with the curse and then didn’t have the backbone to follow through with it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
He tilts his head back toward the ceiling, exposing the length of his tan neck. “No.”
“What happened with you two?” I run my fingers along the wood grain of the pallet, unsure if this is off-limits territory. “Were you close? Before?”
He sighs and continues to look at the ceiling. “He was everything to me. I looked up to him most of my life. After our dads died, he took Carter and me under his wing. The two of us were inseparable and my grandfather was like a god to us both.”
I don’t press the issue. The unspoken what changed? hangs between us.
“He just, he became obsessed with this curse. Stopped living his life. Stopped being the same man I knew.” He lowers his head.
“And his family, we just became pawns in his game. Pieces he could move around to try and solve his problems. In my mind, he didn’t see us for the humans we were anymore, just tools through which he could prevent his demise, ensure the success of his company.
Carter took his side, and I blamed him for not having the backbone to disagree with our grandfather.
For always taking the easy way out. It drove a wedge between us.
” He sighs. “But in the end, I guess John Coldwell got the grandson he always wanted.”
“You resented him for it. Using you like pawns.”
“No.” He meets my eyes. “I hated him for it.”
“And now? How do you feel about it? You’re looking for a solution to the curse yourself.”
“I want my life back. I”—he swallows and flexes his hand—“I want…things I didn’t before. Maybe I can sympathize a bit more. He was getting old, he was facing down his own mortality, just like I am. It can make a man desperate.”
The emotion in Trip’s eyes tells me just how vulnerable he’s feeling.
“Maybe—” He breaks off, his voice hoarse.
“Maybe I can understand how that kind of desperation stems from love, the kind of thing that sets your insides on fire to think about giving up.” He sinks to the floor and braces his back against one of the tables.
“Am I an asshole that now, given everything, I would agree to help him—would change my mind?”
“No.” I sit down next to him. “You didn’t know. Listen—after Ruby’s, when I said you chose yourself over your family—”
“You were right.” He sighs. “I still question where the line is, though. At what point is it just blind loyalty? At what point do we need to put ourselves first?”
My mind drifts to Babcia’s apartment in the Bronx. “I suppose the answer is different for everyone.” I glance sideways toward him. “Not everyone has the means or freedom to prioritize themselves. They rely on their family and their family relies on them.”
He nods. “I suppose. Maybe something’s wrong with me. Maybe I’m selfish. I didn’t speak to him for a year, Elz.” His voice comes out as a whisper and he buries his face in his hands. “We didn’t reconcile before he—”
“He knows, Trip. Somewhere out there.” I wave my hand in the open air. “He knows how you feel.”
Trip cocks an eyebrow. “You really believe in the afterlife?”
I shoot him a look that says, Are you kidding me? He lets out one of his full laughs and I swear it completely rewires my brain.
Trip tilts his head backward, resting his wrists on his knees.
We both stare straight ahead but are mere inches from each other.
I place my hand on the floor in the space between us, testing the invisible boundary.
We can’t actually touch, but this closeness, this vulnerability, is something I’ve only ever seen a glimpse of with Carter.
A smile spreads across my face. “I bet you take all the girls here.”
He snorts. “I’ve never taken anyone here.”
It hits me like a small hammer to the chest. Stop.
Stop. Stop. I can’t—won’t—feel things for this man.
He’s not even here. He’s hundreds of blocks away in the hospital.
With a soft cotton gown and too-long hair.
I won’t let myself hope for anything more with him, other than helping him solve his family’s curse.
But I know what he meant earlier. About the thought of losing someone setting your insides on fire.
Carter, Libby. Carter is who I stand to lose in all this.
Trip turns his head toward me, his nose so close it would take a single movement to taste his lips if it were possible.
“What?” His eyes soften and he studies me.
“We’re running out of time, Trip. The wedding’s in two months.” I don’t need to voice what comes after that. “We should probably be looking for the diamond right now.”
He nods and pulls away from me the slightest bit. “I have an idea. The Carmichaels have a key. In their typical paranoid way, it opens some kind of chest or safe, or whatever. That’s where I would look next.”
“And you have this information how?”
“I know where the key is.”
“Not an answer, but okay.”
He examines his knuckles. “I need you to pick Sabrina’s brain for where the safe is. If it’s in London, we’re screwed. But this close to the wedding, there’s a chance it’s here.”
“Okay,” I breathe. And like that, we’re back to business.