bullets and blood and potential catastrophe.
But as I watch Hazel and Mother fuss over the sandwiches, Emily smiling up at them as she folds napkins, I feel a tugging in my chest I haven’t felt since Angel died. Maybe it’s something like love. Maybe it is love. Hazel throws me a look over her shoulder, her half-tamed hair falling across her bright green eyes, her cheeks flushed, her smile magnetic.
I smile, lifting my hand. I just like watching you, I want to say. But then I’ll get carried away. I’ll start peeling that tank top from her tight body. I’ll pull her bra down and suck her nipples. I’ll feel the warm shelter of her center, make her close her legs around my hand, trapping it, pressed right up to her …
I shake my head. How does she do this to me?
“I haven’t had a picnic in ages,” Emily says. “How long has it been, Mom?”
I feel my belly go tight. We both know how long it’s been. But maybe Emily and Mother have gone without me, I realize. Maybe I’m the only superstitious one.
“Oh, last summer,” Mother answers, confirming my suspicion. “Now, we have an important matter to discuss, don’t we, dear?”
“Yes, very important.” Hazel beams. Everything she does right now is like an event for me. I could watch her for years. I’m lost. And I don’t want to be found. “Ham—or cheese—or both? Keep in mind, though, this ain’t your Walmart ham and cheese. This is fancy, delectable artisan ham and cheese.”
“I’m a vegetarian,” I call from the back of the room.
Emily rolls her eyes. “Good one, bro. Hysterical.”
Hazel eyes me suggestively. “I happen to know for a fact you’re not, actually.”
My sister grimaces. My mother seems oblivious. And I go rock-hard instantly.
“Ham,” I say. “I’m in the mood.”
“Seriously,” Emily wheels around to face me. “Like—ew.”
As we walk out to the car, I can almost forget. About the Irish, the Elephant, how Benjamin has gone quiet on us again, this war that seems like it’s never going to end. I can almost forget about the last time I took a woman on a picnic, the smell of gun smoke in the air, Angel’s desperate scream as the Elephant took his life.
“Hey,” Hazel says, reading me. She gives my hand a squeeze as Ubert pulls out of the gates, trailed by four more bulletproof cars. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles one by one.
About twenty guards surround the glade in Central Park, which I’ve rented out exclusively for the picnic. A large pond stretches before us, almost exactly like last time, although this afternoon I don’t feel awkward around Hazel. I now know just how stupid I was ever thinking I cared about Jasmine. At first, I don’t think I’m going to be able to enjoy it, but Hazel just won’t let up.
She batters me with her antics. “I think we should play Scrabble,” she announces, eyeing me knowingly.
“Oh, no,” Mother rushes to say.
But Emily is already beaming, propped up on cushions on the picnic blanket. She rubs her hands together, bracelets jingling. “Mother, please, don’t be so rude. If Hazel wishes to play Scrabble, let us play Scrabble.”
“Why are you suddenly posh?” I laugh. “Tone it down, sis.”
Of course, this just makes her tone it up. She tilts her head back. “I will not be spoken to thusly by a lowly peasant.”
“Thusly!” Hazel giggles. “Maybe we really are in trouble.”
She reaches into the bag and takes out the Scrabble board. Emily gives me another look, which she’s been doing all day. I told her about my plan for after the picnic, because I know she can keep a secret. Mother doesn’t know, however. Tell her you’ve got a headache and ten minutes later, the entire staff is giving their condolences. I wonder if Emily can tell I’m nervous.
It’s a big step, after all. It’s another threshold. But this one is more permanent, more meaningful.
I turn to the Scrabble board to distract myself, Mother groaning when, about halfway into the game, Emily lays down “unforeseeable.”
“Four-letter words,” Mother groans. “Do you remember when your father would say that, Carlo, whenever one of you swore? ‘Hey, four-letter words!’ If only he could see me now. I have become the queen of four-letter words.”
Hazel places down “proposal.”
“Uh-oh,” Emily laughs, giving me a teasing look. “I think she’s trying to tell you something, bro.”
“Shut up,” Hazel laughs. Her cheeks are going