The Pull of Destiny (19 page)

“I think it’s
sweet,” I said shyly.

He shot me a
crooked grin. “Yeah, just one of the perks of being a big brother, I guess. You
got sibs?”

Biting my lip,
I shook my head hesitantly. Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. My mom had abandoned
me when I was just a child and I had never known my dad. Maybe, in their
Celsi-less lives, they both had children and were living quite happily without
me. I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to think about that.

“No,” I
replied.

Luke nodded. “I
think Faith might be the only person in the world who looks up to me,” he
mused, rubbing his chin.

“That would be
nice.” He looked at me, a distracted expression on his face so I elaborated.
“Having someone who looks up to you, I mean.”

“Yeah, if
you’re doing the right thing.” He stood there for a minute, a pensive look on
his face.
A penny for your thoughts.
“I haven’t really been the best
brother to her lately. But- I’m trying.” He sighed and glanced at me. “We
should probably get started.”

“I’m ready when
you are,” I said, wondering what was going through his mind. He probably
regretted not being a better brother to Faith, but from what I had just seen,
he looked like he was doing a good job of making up for it.

Before I could
say that (not that I would have known where to start) he turned to me,
motioning to me to follow him as he walked out of the living room. “C’mon.
Let’s go to my room. I’ll show you my list first, and then we can play.”

Me in Luke
Astor’s bedroom?
If his fan club found out, forget hate mail, they would poison my lunch!

I was glad that
he didn’t mention anything about Faith and her ‘girlfriend’ talk. That would
have been awkward. Even though I knew it was just inane babble from a kid, it
was still embarrassing for me.

With a
flourish, Luke opened the door leading to his room and stood aside so that I
could walk in. I stepped into Luke’s room. The blinds were shut and the lights
were on, bathing the neat bedroom with fluorescent light. To my surprise, there
was a picnic blanket laid out on the floor with a platter of sandwiches,
cookies and a pitcher of juice set neatly on it.

“Did I or did I
not outdo myself?” Luke asked behind me. “I didn’t make the food, but I set the
picnic out. C’mon, you gotta give me props for that.”

I turned to
grin at him as he closed the door. “You did this?” I asked, pointing at the
food array. He nodded at me, throwing himself on his bed as he rummaged on his
bedside table and held up a small notebook.

“That’s all me.
Try a sammitch before you check out my list. They are
so
good!”

Well, he
did
offer...

I leaned down
and picked up a ‘sammitch’ and bit in. Tuna.
My favorite
. I closed my
eyes to savor the taste, almost forgetting that I was standing in the middle of
a room with a boy who was probably laughing at me right this second.

“You really
enjoy your food, don’t you?” Luke asked, looking amused as I opened my eyes,
flushing.

“I was hungry.
I didn’t have lunch.” Realizing how that might be construed, I hastily added
“Not because we didn’t have food, but because I didn’t have time to make myself
something to eat.”

Oh, God, I
sounded like a moron.

“Dude. The
food’s there for you to eat. Knock yourself out,” Luke said generously, waving
his hand in my direction. “I’ll be upset if you don’t eat anything.”

“Yeah, that’d
be kinda rude of me,” I agreed heartily, taking another bite of the sandwich.

Patting the
empty spot next to him on the neatly made bed, Luke said, “Come, sit down.”
Hoping he couldn’t hear my heart rate speed up (it seemed to do that every time
I got a hint of his fresh, clean scent, go figure) I sat down next to him. He
handed his notebook to me. “Here’s my list. Don’t laugh,” he warned me, leaning
against the headboard of his double bed.

I took the book
and opened it as Luke became engrossed in throwing and catching a hackey sack.
Pursing up my lips, I scanned his list, a pen in my hand. His writing was small
and neat and the goals he had achieved he had written done next to them. “You
want to bring sexy back?” I had to ask, raising my head to look at him. He
laughed, spreading his hands in a supplicating manner.

“I’m trying!”
he said.

Personally, I
thought that he had nailed it. When he wasn’t looking, I wrote a small ‘done’
next to it. He would thank me later.

“Join the mile
high club,” I read aloud, noting the ‘done’ written next to it. Luke snorted
with laughter and I shook my head. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“I told you not
to laugh,” he chided me; flinching as the hackey sack hit him in the face.

“I’m just
saying,” I grinned. There was still a lot that he hadn’t done and I bit my lip.
Time to get cracking.
“We should get started on that game.”

Sitting up,
Luke threw me a controller and gave me a cheerful sideways glance. “You ready
to kick Halo’s ass?”

I nodded.
“Let’s do it!”

Luke grinned.
“I love your enthusiasm.”

Unfortunately,
enthusiasm was not enough to help us beat the last level of Halo 4. Two hours
and countless try’s later, Luke put down his controller and conceded defeat.

“I can’t do it
anymore,” he said, pulling at his hair in mock frustration.

“Don’t give
up,” I told him, even though I personally felt that if I had to see Master
Chief one more time I would go loco.

"Is that what it says
on your locket?" Luke asked absently. I looked at him as he lay on his
back, his arms behind his head. He was staring at my locket, which was hanging
right above my-gulp-chest.

"No. My locket says
‘feel the pull of destiny'," I said, running my finger over the engraved
words that I knew from memory. Luke grinned.

"That's deep. But-
what does it mean?" he asked.

I shook my head.
"Maybe one day I'll figure it out," I said softly.

Luke grinned.
“That’s deep,” he whispered, his green eyes on my face. “So, tell me. About the
whole piano thing. You planning to study music after high school? Maybe go to
Julliard or something?” Luke asked me, turning on his side till his body was
facing me, his hair falling into his eyes. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge
to brush it out of his eyes and sat on my hands.

“I wish I could
go to Julliard,” I said wistfully. “But I know my limits, financial and
otherwise. I’m probably not going to do anything related to music.”

After all,
hadn’t a little birdie told me that even though I went to private school, I
would always be a ghetto child? That was true, though. I rarely agreed with
Nate on anything, but I couldn’t deny that.

“Why? You got
talent!” Luke was now on his stomach, his chin propped up in his hands as he
looked at me. “I think if someone from Julliard heard you play, they’d be
beating down your door, trying to get you to join their school. I mean, I think
you’re really good.”

I flushed. That
meant so much to me. “Thank you, Luke,” I said softly.

“Don’t sell
yourself short. They have scholarships and stuff. You might end up being
lucky,” Luke continued.

“Maybe,” I
shrugged. I doubted it, though. Me, at Julliard? Only in my dreams.

“So if you
don’t do music- what you planning to do after high school?” Luke wanted to
know.

“Something to
do with kids,” I decided. “Maybe train to become a teacher. Or a daycare
supervisor.”

Luke laughed.
“Yeah? Better you than me, I think I would go insane, hanging out with kids all
the time. That’s cute.”

I hugged my
knees to my chest, looking down at him. “I just think that’s the kind of job
I’d like to do. Or I could be a social worker. What about you?”

“Well, from the
day I was born, my dad was supposed to groom me to take over the family
business coz apparently, it’s tradition in our family,” Luke started, frowning
slightly. “But somewhere along the road, he decided that I was no good and
would be useless, even if I did manage to get hold of the company. I’m 17 years
old, CiCi, and my dad hasn’t ever sat me down to tell me what he does every day
at work. Personally, I think he just plays golf all day. But the point is,
someday I’m expected to take over the company and I don’t even know anything
about it.”

“Maybe he’s
waiting till you turn 18,” I suggested. I had never heard Luke sound so bitter.
Bad relationship with his dad? Couldn’t he see how remarkable his son was?

Luke laughed
derisively. “Yeah right. He’s setting me up to fail. The man can’t stand me
because I remind him of my mom, and he hates my mom. So for the past 12 years,
he’s been giving me shit just because I have the same eyes as her, the same
smile as her, even the same dimples as her.” He snorted. “My dad’s a jerk. I
swear, the minute I turn 21, I’m out of here.”

“Where are you
gonna go?” I asked curiously. His dad didn’t sound like a nice person at all.
More like a ‘Nate’ type of guy.

“Travel the
world. That’s what I see myself doing. I’ll have enough money, I won’t have to
work. Maybe dad will groom Faith to be the CEO of his stupid company, I don’t
care. I’m gonna be in Grenada, soaking up the sun.”

“You sound like
you’ve got it all planned out,” I said.
Lucky him.
I hoped he would
write me a postcard when he was on his tour of the world. Then again, after his
operation, he would probably forget about me once his life was back to normal.
C’est
la vie, Celsi
.

He nodded, a
small smile on his face. “Yeah. When we were dating, Joanna and I would talk
about stuff like that all the time. What we were going to do as soon as our
trust funds kicked in, where we would go, people we would meet. Her home life
is pretty crappy too, her stepdad is a jerk. So we- kind of found each other
because of that.”

I wouldn’t have
pictured polished, refined Joanna having anything wrong with her perfect
existence.
Never judge a book by its cover.
I guess rich people had
problems of their own to deal with.

“You know, I
always wondered why you two broke up,” I mused out loud, then blanched.
Uh-oh.
Why had I said that out loud? “I mean- you don’t need to tell me- actually, forget
I said anything.”

Imbecile!

Luke shrugged
lazily. “No, I don’t mind. We broke up- well, she dumped me actually.”

“Really?” I had
to ask. “Why?”

Because Luke
and Joanna had been the most envied couple at Dalton for over a year. Good
looking, rich, connected, hard partying- everyone had wanted to be in their
shoes. Then overnight, they weren’t a couple anymore and nobody knew why. The
grapevine never found out why they had broken up, or why they kept hooking up
randomly in the supply closet after they went their separate ways.

Luke wrinkled
his nose, a slightly embarrassed look on his face. “Because I couldn’t say ‘I
love you.’”

That was so
unexpected that I burst out laughing. “Sorry,” I spluttered as Luke shot me an
amused look.

“You can laugh,
but it’s true. And when I told her that I couldn’t say it coz I had to mean it,
she really got pissed off.”

“You could’ve
just faked it,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. Some things you had to
mean before you said them. Luke echoed this.

“I guess I
didn’t love her coz I couldn’t say it,” he said regretfully. “Sad, but that’s
the way it goes.”

True.

***

Three
sandwiches later, I was ready to leave for work. Luke insisted on coming with
me, slipping his feet into a pair of sneakers. “Nobody’s gonna laugh at me just
coz I’m wearing PJ bottoms,” he pointed out as we walked out into the lobby.

“I hope not,” I
laughed, stealing a glance at him. He looked undeniably hot with his bed head
hair, teddy bear print pajama bottoms and an AC/DC t-shirt.

Hey, it’s New York
City, people dress even weirder than that!

The limo pulled
up to Nino’s Deli, my workplace and I got out, Luke following.

“This is where
I work,” I told him. “Nino makes the best subs in Manhattan.”

No boasting.

“Really? I
gotta buy one, then. What do you recommend?” Luke asked, a grin on his face as
he shut the door. We started walking towards the store.

“The special.
Always a good choice.”

“Man, my eyes
are stinging,” Luke complained, rubbing them with the heel of his palm.

I opened the
deli door and stepped in, talking to Luke over my shoulder. “Too much
video-oh!”

My sentence
ended in a gasp and I came to a dead stop, staring at the counter. The deli was
empty apart from old surly Nino, the owner, and Nate, who was glowering at me.
I shook slightly, goose bumps rising on my skin.
Oh no.