Destiny Gift (The Everlast Trilogy) - By Juliana Haygert Page 0,44
entered the café.
He glanced at me, his intense stare pulling out my soul. I forgot how to breathe. Averting his gaze, he picked a table at a corner next to the large glass window that looked over the park outside.
Oh, I knew exactly what would please him. I walked up to him, tucking my order tab in my apron pocket. “A tall mochaccino and double fudge doughnut?”
His eyes went wide. He smiled. “That will do.”
I whirled around, pressing a hand to my chest. After picking up his order, I went back to serve him. Luckily for me, the café was quiet, and when he gestured to the chair across the table, I sat down.
Twirling my hair around my finger, I blurted out, “Are you all right? You’ve been gone for over a week, and I kept thinking you would have one of those attacks and I wouldn’t be able to help.” His gaze was fixed on me and I flushed, realizing I had confirmed that I cared about him.
After swallowing a bite of doughnut, he answered, “I was looking for a clean river, lake, or sea nearby. My grandma wanted her ashes sprinkled over clean water. But I couldn’t find any. I’m guessing I’ll have to go overseas for that.”
“If you’re thinking about going overseas, maybe you should go to Italy and look for clean water there. I think your grandma would be happy about that.”
His brow creased. “She would.”
“You missed your classes last week, then?”
“I’ll begin at the med school in the fall. For now, I’m only with the res—”
“The research team, yeah, I know. You should have come to the research team almost a year ago, but you didn’t because of your grandma. But, when the doctors told you to transfer her here, you transferred here too.” Realizing what I had done, I put a hand over my mouth.
He almost dropped the mug he was drinking from, his eyes fixed on mine. “How do you know that? Not even my grandma knew that.”
Now the damage was done. Might as well keep going. “I know that too. She argued with you and gave you a hard time until you accepted coming, even if it meant leaving her behind. But you couldn’t leave her. She was the only family you had left.”
“How?” His gaze searched mine for answers, and I could see the lines of suspicion in his forehead. “How did you know my name? My favorite music? My favorite coffee drink? My favorite movies?”
“I know everything about you, or almost everything.”
“Could you elaborate on that?” His tone was more brittle, like we were back to the snapping-at-me phase.
“Well. I don’t know. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”
He seemed to consider his next words. “It depends, if you classify being able to heal my aches and nausea as craziness, then we’re both crazy and it doesn’t matter, does it?”
It made sense. After all, what did I have to lose? After taking a deep breath, I confessed, “Since I came to New York, almost eleven months ago, I’ve been having visions about you. Visions, not dreams. I’m fully awake when they happen. And, during these visions, we talk for hours. You tell me about yourself. We spend a lot of time together.”
“Are you sure it’s me?”
I laughed. “Want to put it to the test?”
“It’s a possibility.” He sipped from his mug, his expression still wary.
“Just answer true or false to my questions.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“Your favorite color is white.”
“True.”
“Your favorite food is five-cheese homemade lasagna.”
“True.”
“Your father and his parents were born in Italy. They came to the U.S. when your father was still a toddler.”
“True.”
“You keep a photo of your parents and yourself under your pillow and a smaller one in your wallet.”
“True.”
“You have a crescent moon shaped scar on your knee from falling out of a tree when you were seven.”
His eyebrows went to his hairline. “True.”
“You should have been with your parents during the assault, but you got distracted in an electronics store across the street. Your best friend, Jason, was killed in a car accident, and you should have been with him. You were on your way to Lauren’s house when a tornado formed, but she had just called and asked you to run an errand for her, which caused you to be late and miss it. And you feel like you should have gone with them.”
Some time passed before he answered, “True.”
“The last time you slept with a girl was almost a year ago, and you