I knew what I was doing. I knew that the Collective wouldn’t approve, and I knew that my parents would probably hit the roof if they found out that I gave my car the slip, but I had to start making some executive decisions. No other single spy in the network had a driver taking them around town, and even though I was young, I was still a spy. This was my job now, no one else’s.
“C’mon, let’s go,” I said. “You love the 6 train, admit it.”
“Better yet, let’s walk.” Jesse held out his hand to me. “You’re not too cold?”
“I’m tough,” I said. “Can’t wait to see the next act.”
Chapter 24
“Are you peeking? You’re peeking.”
“I’m not!”
Jesse’s hands were over my eyes, and my hands were over his hands, and he was doing a craptastic job of leading me through … well, somewhere. I couldn’t see a thing. All I knew is that we were inside and our voices seemed to echo in circles around us.
“I’m not peeking!” I said again as Jesse laughed. “Please don’t walk me into a wall.”
“Okay, you can look.”
I blinked a few times and saw a haphazard drywall in front of us. We were in the middle of what looked like a construction site, surrounded by bare lightbulbs, Sheetrock, and what I hoped wasn’t asbestos dust. “Wow,” I said. “Construction.”
“This isn’t quite the surprise yet,” he admitted. “One question, though. Are you afraid of the dark?”
“You realize that that’s something a serial killer would say on a first date, right?”
He gave me a gentle shove. “Little Miss Apocalypse. So you’re okay if it’s a little dark?”
“Just as long as you’re not planning on murdering me.”
“Great. Follow me.”
I held his hand (seriously couldn’t get enough of that) and followed him through a plastic sheet and into …
“Oh my God.” I gasped. “Oh my God.”
We were standing under a huge glass ceiling that arched into the night sky, reaching toward the stars. Round art deco doorways surrounded us and I hung on to the wrought-iron railing and kept looking up. “What is this?” I asked Jesse.
“It’s an old building that’s being turned into a hotel,” he said, grinning at the obvious amazement on my face. “My dad’s friend bought it, so I asked if we could sneak in. I remembered that you said you missed seeing the sky.” He waved his hands toward the ceiling. “I thought I would just try to get you a little closer to it.” Then he paused. “Too cheesy again?”
“No,” I said. “No, it’s perfect. It’s beautiful, it’s so … what’s the word? Majestic. It’s majestic.”
We stood next to each other, Jesse’s arm around me, and gazed up for what seemed like hours. “You can actually see stars,” I told him.
“I think that’s a plane.”
“No, not that. That one.” I pointed up, which really didn’t indicate anything, but Jesse nodded anyway. “Maybe it’s a planet.”
“Maybe.” He held me a little tighter and I let him. No guy had ever hugged me before, at least a guy that wasn’t my dad or Angelo or someone thirty years older than me. Jesse smelled really good, like shampoo and soap, and I rested my head on his chest and pointed again. “What’s that?”
“The Woolworth Building. Where they make woolworths.” I could hear and feel him laugh at the same time. “Just kidding, I have no idea what they make there.”
“Let’s say unicorns,” I said.
“Sure, why not? Unicorns for everyone.”
“Hooray! Hey, by the way?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m very impressed.”
He smiled and then leaned down to kiss me. “I thought you might be.”
“I just can’t wait for our second date if this is the first one!”
“Well, that’s when we do a tour of the unicorn factory,” he teased. “Spoiler alert!”
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“I have a feeling that my answer doesn’t matter.”
“True. How did you know all these buildings? This one, the Woolworth one. You’re like a weird architecture groupie.”
Jesse’s eyes dimmed a little and I saw him go somewhere that I couldn’t follow. “My mom,” he admitted after a few seconds. “She used to take me around after school and show me all the buildings. She wanted to be an architect but then she married my dad and they had me instead.”
I wrapped both my arms around his waist and held on tight. “I’m sorry. I know you miss her.”
“S’okay. Don’t be sorry.”
“Where else did she take you?”
“Everywhere. Public gardens, private gardens, old carriage houses. I just wanted to play video games back then and she dragged me everywhere. I was a stupid kid.”
“You were a kid.”
“She used to take me to Gramercy Park but we could never get in.”
What?
“What?” I said, looking up at him.
“It’s a park that’s completely locked. You can’t get in unless you have a key and—”
“No, I know what it is.” My heart was starting to race. “You couldn’t get in?”