Felix Ever After(75)

But still, even though I’m not sure about this, I don’t want to risk losing Declan—not again. I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d love to come to Beacon.”





Twenty-Two


I’VE LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY MY WHOLE LIFE, BUT I’VE never—not once—been upstate. I have no idea what to expect.

I meet Declan in Grand Central with a backpack of clothes on Saturday afternoon, under the sea-blue ceiling of golden stars. It’s awkward as fuck. We’ve never really spoken except for on the phone and that one White Castle lunch, so now I can tell we’re both trying to figure out how to make this new face-to-face thing work. We talk about nothing at first. How was it getting to Grand Central? Hopefully it doesn’t rain, there’ve been thunderstorms in the area lately.

We get on the train and sit down with our backpacks on the empty seat in between us. When we leave the underground tunnels, I stare out of the window as the brownstones melt away to green—grass, fields, and then finally the river, sparkling blue under the sunlight. It’s beautiful. I wish Ezra was here to see it with me.

“And you grew up here?” I ask, glancing at Declan over my shoulder.

“Until I was ten,” he says. “That’s when my dad got an apartment in the city.”

His eyes are glazed over, and suddenly, I just want to grab his hand—know what it feels like to touch him. I let my hand slip over his, and he flinches before he tangles his fingers with mine, staring at our hands intertwined. He smiles a little.

“I kept imagining what it’d be like to hold your hand, if I ever got to know who you are. If I ever got to meet you.”

He rubs his thumb over my knuckles. Even though I’d been the one to reach out, having his hand in mine—this closeness—makes me nervous now. “Is it everything you ever wanted?”

He glances up—at my lips first, then my eyes. “Almost.”

I start to lean forward a little without even really thinking about it, remembering how good it felt to kiss Ezra, but Declan shakes his head and lets go of my hand. “Not here. Not everyone’s as open as in the city.”

He goes back to staring out of the window, so I do, too—but the longer we sit there in silence, the more the heat builds in me. I want to touch him. I want to kiss him, the same way I kissed Ezra. The feeling grows in me until it feels like there’s a thunderstorm raging inside me. I can’t think of anything else.

The train follows the river, until finally we’re at the Beacon stop. A light gray cloud moves across the sky, sprinkling us with a drizzle as we hurry to the empty parking lot, and Declan points out an older BMW, the kind that might’ve been popular in the seventies. A man with white hair and hunched shoulders waits in the rain, smoking a cigarette. He has a wide smile for Declan as we get closer. They hug, and I don’t know why, but his face—he’s so familiar. I feel like I’ve met him before.

Declan pulls away, gesturing for a quick introduction—it’s obvious he just wants to get out of the rain and into the car—but the man, his grandfather, looks up at me with a smile, then tilts his head. “Ah!” he says. “You!”

I blink. Declan blinks.

“You,” Declan’s grandpa says again, with even more emphasis. “You’re the lad I met on the train. You remember, yeah? You were with your friend, and I told you about my grandson. This,” he says, turning his hands to Declan, “is my grandson.”

My eyes widen with realization. I’d been with Ezra at the time. I was pissed that this man wouldn’t stop staring, but then out of nowhere he told us about his grandson who’d come out to him and his wife. . . .

Declan’s grandfather seems to remember that I’d been with another boy then, too, but he doesn’t say anything about it—only gives me a sly grin. “You see?” he says. “I told you, you’d like my grandson.”

We slide into the back of the car, the inside smelling like leather and cologne, and Declan’s grandfather—his name is Tully, he lets me know—reaches to Declan and musses his curly hair with a grin, asking how his week’s been, before we’re on our way.

It’s so strange, being out of the city. There aren’t any brownstones, no skyscrapers—just trees and green mountains off in the distance and the never-ending blue sky.

“It’s wild, right?” Declan says to me with a grin, like he knows he practically read my thoughts. “I have to readjust every time I leave the city.”

We pull into a neighborhood where the houses get bigger and bigger, until finally it’s just a mansion every few minutes. Declan’s very pointedly not looking at me. His grandpa makes a left, into a paved drive slightly hidden by brush and trees, taking us up a small slope, until the brush clears and a blue two-story house with a gravel drive appears. I remember what Declan had told me. His grandfather had offered to sell the house, to help pay for Declan’s future, but Declan refused.

The car stops. Declan and I jump out, gravel crunching beneath our sneakers. The three of us head inside. The door’s unlocked. Shoes are neatly stacked by the entrance, next to a coat stand. An antique end table holds a sign declaring the name of this house: The Pig’s Head. I’ve never even been in a house that has a name before.

Tully says he has some reading to do before he winks at Declan with a smile, and it’s a little embarrassing how obvious it is that he just wants to give me and Declan some time to be alone. Declan doesn’t seem to mind. He gives me a tour: a gigantic chef’s kitchen with white marble and stainless steel with an eating nook, the library with a gigantic oak desk and rows of shelves of books, the parlor and the more casual living room with a giant flat-screen TV, the dining room with its place mats and candles, the guest room where I’ll be sleeping, with its own private bathroom and a gigantic claw-foot tub.