“Wendy didn’t go with you?” I asked tentatively.
He huffed a laugh. “Wendy couldn’t be bothered to listen to an old woman talk. She was too deep in her own head for anyone but herself.”
I didn’t know what to say because I had nothing nice to say. So I asked a vague question in the hopes I’d avoid saying the wrong thing. “Do you miss it?”
“LA? Nah. I loved living there, but I don’t think I’d go back.”
“All that sunshine’s a bummer, huh?”
A chuckle. “You have to drive everywhere. There’s no decent public transportation. The highways are a parking lot. And the people are just … I dunno. Different.”
“Different how?”
“I can’t say without sounding snobbish.”
I laughed. “Now you have to tell me.”
His nose wrinkled. “It’s just like New York in that status is a thing. What neighborhood you live in defines you or what kind of car you drive in LA—that sort of thing. But the difference is, in New York, nobody even sees you. There, everyone’s watching you, measuring you up, and putting you on a shelf. From the old lady in the rainbow-striped thigh-highs digging through the sushi at Whole Foods to the model in stilettos and fur coat in Target in the heat of July.”
“Do you miss your old Russian neighbor?”
“Yeah, but I send Zhenya postcards every few days. I’ve even gotten a few back,” he said proudly, reaching into my pocket too quickly for me to be shocked. When his hand came into view again, my keys were in it.
“Postcards, huh?” I smiled at his back as he glanced at my keys and unlocked the door to my building.
“She really liked the one of the Statue of Liberty. I told her to wait until she saw the one of the skyline. I’m making her wait,” he said with a smirk, pulling open the door.
“Cruel,” I said on a laugh.
We climbed the stairs without speaking as I imagined him sitting in a dusty apartment with a little old lady, listening to her talk about her life.
Every day, Luke surprised me. It seemed to be a knack of his.
I didn’t think I’d ever enjoyed being so wrong.
My keys were still in his hand, so he unlocked the door to my apartment with the first key he tried.
“How’d you do that?” I asked as he opened yet another door for me like the gentleman I’d never thought him to be.
“What?”
“Figure out which key it was?”
“Well,” he started, following me in, “this one and this one are keys to the shop.” He displayed it. “And this one is less worn, so I figured it was for outside. Those tend to get replaced more often. And I figured this one was for your house. The teeth are nearly worn smooth.”
I gaped at him.
He smirked. “I had a job as a locksmith for a minute after high school.”
With a roll of my eyes, I laughed. “Of course you did.”
“Tess?” Dad called from back in the apartment. “That you?”
“Hey, Daddy. In here,” I called back, setting down my haul on the kitchen island.
Luke set his beside mine, but he was taking in the apartment. “Man, this place hasn’t changed at all. That same old wallpaper. But the plants … holy shit, Tess. It’s a jungle in here.”
I chuckled. “They were Mom’s.”
“Can’t get her to even prune them,” Dad said, wheeling into the room with a smile on his face. “Hello, son. How are you?”
When he got close enough, he stopped, extending a callused hand. Luke took it, the knot of their square hands pumping.
“I’m good, sir. And you?”
“Little hungry. No chance there’s a hamburger somewhere in that bundle of flowers, is there?”
I gave him a look. “Did you forget to eat again?”
He shrugged, looking cowed. “I was in the middle of the commissioned officers, and I couldn’t quit until I finished. Couldn’t very well leave the beach on Normandy without its leaders, could I?”
I kissed him on the forehead and made for the oven to set the temp. “I left dinner in the fridge. All you had to do was put it in the oven.”
“You always take care of me, Pigeon.”
Once I had the fridge open and my hands were full of casserole, I kicked the door closed with a thump.
Luke leaned in as I pulled off the foil, wetting his lips. “What is it?”
“You can’t be hungry. You just ate almost an entire pizza.”
“What?” he asked innocently. “My mother says I’m a growing boy, Tess.”
I laughed. “This, Luke Bennet, is Betsy’s Super Tuna Noodle Saproodle.”
Dad groaned hungrily. “If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have made a meal off pistachios.”
“Well, you have twenty minutes to work up your appetite.”
“You’re welcome to join me, Luke. We’ll be eating off that casserole for two days, easy,” Dad said.
“I’d love to,” Luke answered with a smile that made my heart do a loop-dee-loop. “I was just telling Tess I can’t believe this place hasn’t changed at all. That’s the same couch we used to play Mario Kart on.”
“Still have it,” I said. “Play you after dinner.”
“You mean, you’ll lose to me after dinner,” Luke corrected.
A laugh burst out of me. “You never could beat me, and I know you’ve got to be rusty. Dad and I play at least three times a week.”
“And she can’t beat me,” Dad added. “So I’ll beat you both after dinner.”
Luke and I locked eyes, spitting out, “Dibs on Donkey Kong,” at the same time.
Then we were all laughing.
Luke looked around the room, scanning everything with the gears in his head whirring. “You know, it wouldn’t take much to get this place out of the nineties. Eighties?”
“It was Betsy’s mom’s before we lived here. A lot of this was nostalgic. I think that wallpaper and the curtains are from the seventies. All recent decades are represented.” Dad smiled fondly, looking around the room. “I’ve thought about remodeling forever, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
This time, my heart had a very different reaction—a painful squeeze. He’d never admitted that to me, never even mentioned it. And the thought of changing this place soured my stomach.
Luke smiled, completely unaware. “Honestly, it wouldn’t take much. The floors are in great shape. But we could paint all the cabinets, maybe splurge on countertops and appliances. There’s a warehouse discount place in Hell’s Kitchen—we can get stuff cheap. And I know a girl whose dad does stonework. Countertops, flooring, that sort of thing. I could install crown molding real easy, just for the cost of materials. I’ve got all the tools,” he said, almost to himself, too deep in his imagination to even seem to remember we were there. “We could pull the wallpaper, paint … it’d be like a brand-new place.”
The pizza we’d eaten for dinner climbed up my throat. “We couldn’t ask you to do that,” I said, hoping he’d agree.
It was like I didn’t know him at all.