“You’re not seriously going to make me watch Doctor Who, are you?” Anthony sounds legit worried.
Charlotte just laughs at him. “No, of course not. Although, it will be a very easy way to get my sisters to like you.” It’s first thing on a Thursday morning in June, so the observation deck of the Empire State Building is pretty deserted. Just beside me on my left, Charlotte and her boyfriend hold hands and stare out toward the East River, but I get the feeling that Anthony is really looking out toward England. He and Charlotte are catching a red-eye tonight, although Anthony was almost going to bail until his older brother agreed to look after their dog, Mistake. It kind of blows my mind that those two got a dog the day they met. But what really blew my mind was when Anthony and I once shared Brooklyn stories and found out that we went to the same high school (he was ahead of me by one year). Even more freaky was figuring out that his older brother, Luke the Cop, was the same Luke the Cop that Lara dated in her freshman year of college. I chose not to tell Anthony how much like a puppy dog Luke was when he was around Lara, just in case Anthony idolizes his big brother!
“Those two are funny,” Jean-Luc murmurs, putting his arm around me. I don’t think he’s let go of me since he turned up at the dorm this morning, having first spent the weekend with his dad. Absence might make the heart grow fonder — Skype and FaceTime make it grow very, very needy!
“I can’t believe you dragged me up here again,” Anthony mumbles, as he and Charlotte walk off along the deck. Jean-Luc and I walk in the other direction, coming to face the Hudson River on the opposite side.
And just like Anthony seemed to be looking at London, Jean-Luc is very definitely looking at New Jersey.
I take his hand and can tell from how tense it is that something’s on his mind. I know what.
“How was it?” I ask him. “Seeing your dad?”
He doesn’t take his eyes off the view. “Awkward at first … and often. And my two stepbrothers are kind of annoying. But they’re good kids, really — and my father is maybe not the bad guy I thought he was. You know, back in April, he offered to fly out to Paris for the funeral.” Jean-Luc’s grandfather passed away in the spring. “He and Mama talked for a long time. I think it was good for both of them — they can forget the past now.”
“So your mom’s okay with you spending the summer here?”
He nods. “She wants me to have a relationship with my dad, with my stepbrothers.” Then he smiles awkwardly, his shoulders bunching up around his ears. “Also, I think she has a new boyfriend. She met him in one of her art classes. So she’s probably happy I am out of the country.”
“Oh, she introduced you to Michel, finally?”
He turns to look at me. “How do you know about Michel?”
“Oh, please, your mom emails me every week. Sometimes, we even Skype.”
Jean-Luc just laughs, shaking his head as he looks back out to the Hudson. “Looking after Grandpapa for as long as she did must have been very tough on her.”
I squeeze his hand, pull him to me a little. “You still miss him?”
I see his jaw clench as the breath catches in his throat, his eyes closing briefly as he wills himself not to cry. “I do,” he whispers. “I think I probably always will — just like you’ll always miss your papa. It might never go away. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the present, right?”
I pull him in for a soft kiss, then rest my head against his chest, feeling completely at ease. I don’t know how long this feeling will last, but I hope it’s a long time. Especially now that Jean-Luc will be coming here in September, on a study-abroad year at NYU. I’m trying not to get too excited about that.
After a few more moments gazing out over the Hudson, I take both his hands and start leading him toward the exit. “We should go get breakfast,” I say. “If you’re going to go apartment hunting this afternoon, you’ll need all the energy you can get.”
He’s resisting, and I’m about to turn around and tell him to hustle, damn it, when I see that he’s grinning at me.
“What’s with the look?” I ask him.
“Nothing,” he says. “I just like looking at you, that’s all.”
I smile and shake my head. “Okay. As long as you see me, too.”