Like he was being watched.
He lowered his head and hurried toward Trinity Café. He saw her before she saw him. She sat at an outside table. Her tanned legs were crossed, and he noticed a delicate gold-and-diamond anklet encircling one of her thin ankles. A gift from her dad, probably. She had recently cut and highlighted her hair, and for one second, in the half dark, he almost didn’t recognize her.
If not for the Bay Sun Skeptic, the school’s alternate newspaper, he might never have talked to Karen. He had joined on a whim after his guidance counselor told him that even with his soccer skills, he’d have a better chance getting into UC Berkeley if he seemed more “well rounded.” The Skeptic was the school’s answer to the Onion, and Luc found—mostly to his surprise—that he liked writing columns and sketching the occasional cartoon.
And, of course, he liked the editor in chief: Karen.
He remembered the first time they had ever hung out. He had stuck around after a meeting at her house to help her clean up. He had been soaping up the dishes in her pristine kitchen when Karen appeared next to him, laughing.
“Luc, stop.” Karen had reached into the sink to flick soap bubbles at him. “Leave them; Leticia will clean up the rest of the mess. I want to show you something. Come on.”
It was the easy way she’d grinned at him—her hazel eyes had lit up with excitement—that made him set the towel down.
“Ready?” she’d asked, and grabbed his hand.
He could only nod, too distracted by the way her hand felt to speak. He followed her upstairs, where she opened a narrow door and they went up another set of stairs, this set very steep. They had to walk single file; the walls pressed so close they nearly brushed his shoulders. It was dark, too. He heard the slide of a lock and another, narrower, door creaked open.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Just close your eyes,” she said, “and trust me.”
For some bizarre reason, he did. Even though she could have been leading him straight out an open window, for all he knew. He felt wind on his skin—they had to be on some kind of deck. She led him forward a few feet. He could hear her breathing nearby.
“Open,” she said.
They were standing on a small roof deck. It had an ornate wrought-iron railing on all four sides, and behind it the San Francisco skyline twinkled like thousands of fireflies in the distance.
“So, what do you think?” Karen asked breathlessly.
For a second he couldn’t speak. “It’s … amazing.”
“Captains’ wives used these to watch for their husbands returning from sea. They call it a widow’s walk. Isn’t that tragic?”
He had nodded.
“Anyway, I come up here when I just want to chill. When things get too stressful. Up here, everything is okay.” As she said this, she inched closer to him, until her shoulder was touching his upper arm.
He couldn’t imagine that anything about her life was stressful. She lived in a beautiful house. Her parents actually seemed to like each other. She’d already been accepted to Stanford.
“It’s sort of … my special place, you know. Mom is scared of heights and Dad gets claustrophobic in the stairwell.” She laughed and casually slid her fingers through his. “I wanted to show it to you, though.”
Then she looked up at him and smiled.
That was the beginning.
Now Karen was talking on her phone and at the same time gesturing for a waiter to bring her more water. She did that a lot. Talked to people without looking at them, talked to Luc while talking to other people.
When she finally saw him, she muttered a quick goodbye and put down her phone. Luc leaned down to kiss her, but she barely skimmed his lips before pulling away.
Oh yeah, she was still mad.
“You’re late,” she said as he slid into the seat across from her.
“Sorry, there was a crazy serious accident on Divisadero. I think someone got killed.”
Her eyes went wide. Instantly, he could tell he’d been forgiven. She reached out to twine her fingers with his. His pulse jumped under her touch. Her hands were so soft; she used lotion on them every day. “Smell,” she was always saying. “Like cucumber and pomegranate, right?”
“Holy shit. That’s crazy. I thought you were going to pull a no-show …”
He said nothing. His attention was still on her hands. They looked delicate next to his tan, callused fingers. Working part-time at the Marina was not glamorous by any stretch; after the first week, he’d had a blister the size of a quarter on his palm.
So different.
Karen lived in the biggest house Luc had ever seen. They had gardeners and a live-in housekeeper. Luc lived in a cramped apartment with his sister and dad, where the hot water only worked about half the time and he did his own laundry in the creepy basement of the building.
They had next to nothing in common, but for whatever reason, Karen had chosen him. He still had a hard time believing it. She was one of the hottest girls in school. And he was just … normal. Run-of-the-mill. Not stupid, but not too smart either. Not a dork, but not super popular. The only thing he even remotely excelled at was soccer, and recently he’d spent just as much time getting benched for bad behavior as he did on the field. That was what it felt like, at least.
Being with Karen made him forget, at least temporarily, about all the things that were bad and wrong and screwy and cramped in his life—about the dishes in the sink and the ants nesting in the cabinets, the piles of bills shoved into the TV console, the smell of weed that clung to Jasmine’s clothing when she came home from hanging out with her new boyfriend, and the bags of empty beer cans Luc had to cart out for recycling every other day because his dad was too hungover to do it.
But forgetting wasn’t enough—not anymore. Every day he expected to … feel more for her, yet the hollowness inside him never really went away.
“So,” Karen said, with false casualness, “I might have a surprise for you tomorrow night. If you actually show on time.” She quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Oh yeah?” Luc smiled at her. “Do I get a hint?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.” She leaned forward, her T-shirt slipping down a little bit over her left shoulder so he could see the lacy black strap of her bra. The one with red hearts sewn onto it: her favorite. “Bring a toothbrush. It involves sleeping over.”
Luc felt a thrill race up his spine. A few fumbling seconds of third base were as far as things had gone between them in the three months they’d been going out. But maybe she was finally ready to go further. There it was: the power of forgetting. “It’s your birthday, Karen. Aren’t I supposed to be getting you a present?”
She lowered her eyes and smiled at him. That smile made his whole body electric; he loved it when she looked at him like that. “This is a present both of us can enjoy.”
Luc leaned forward. He felt a familiar surge of adrenaline. “I can’t wait,” he said honestly.
“Only if you’re on time,” she repeated. For a second, she looked almost pained.
They flirted through the rest of the meal—three pizza slices for him, one “skinny” slice for her—and by the time dessert arrived, a triple chocolate cake that he made her try one bite of despite her halfhearted protests, Luc felt totally relaxed. More than relaxed—happy.
Until he looked up and saw T.J. sauntering down the street. T.J. was a deadbeat DJ Jasmine insisted on calling a friend, even though he was at least twenty. Instantly, Luc’s nerves were on edge again. T.J. had that effect on him: every time T.J. came around, Luc felt like somebody had jump-started his body with the wrong cables. It was those stupid wannabe gangster clothes, the lazy smile, the hooded eyes that reminded Luc of a reptile. He knew T.J. dealt, knew that T.J. had probably given Jas the Ecstasy that sent her to the hospital. She denied it, said she’d bought it from some random guy at the party, but Luc didn’t believe her.