Now That I've Found You - Kristina Forest Page 0,49

for a morning.”

Wait a minute. She knows we aren’t actually dating? She tricked us!

Ruby laughs at my shocked expression and pats Milo’s shoulder as he wishes her goodbye.

* * *

Esther basically forces us to take containers of extra food when we leave, and I feel bad when I promise her that I’ll call my parents if I don’t hear from Gigi by the end of the day. What I actually plan to do is find a way to get in touch with James Jenkins. He’s one of the last people Gigi talked to before she left. He has to know something.

“Esther and Ruby are big fans of yours,” I say to Milo as we walk back to the subway.

He shrugs, smiling a little. “They’re sweet.”

“According to Ruby, you’re charming, just like Henry.”

He chokes out a laugh and looks away, embarrassed. “You heard that?”

I try to hold back my laughter. His embarrassment intrigues me. “Let’s see just how charming you really are. Can you say Henry’s famous line for me?”

He stops walking, so I stop too. He leans down so that his face is level with mine. My silly little heart goes thump, thump, thump. He blinks at me, and I hold my breath, waiting. Then, just as he opens his mouth and I expect to hear those swoony words, he laughs and simply says, “Nope.”

I blink as he starts walking away. “Nope?”

“I’m not Henry,” he says. “I won’t even pretend to be.”

But then, as we wait for the subway, he reminds me to put my sunglasses back on and uses his MetroCard to swipe me through the turnstile. He’s not Henry, but I can begrudgingly admit that he is something.

As we ride the train for the third time this week, I think about the conversation from our first subway ride and how it went unfinished.

“Do you really think that Gigi is lonely?” I ask.

He glances down at me, and I’m wondering if he’s going to evade the question like he did before. But he says, “The day I first brought groceries to your grandma, I was nervous, of course, because she’s Evelyn Conaway, you know? Mr. Gabriel was all like, Don’t stay too long or annoy her. Just drop off the food and go. But as soon as your grandma let me in, she just kept talking to me. She asked what I did other than deliver groceries, so I told her about the band. She told me she worked at a speakeasy when she was around my age.”

“Don & Jake’s,” I say.

Milo nods. “Yeah, Don & Jake’s. She asked if I wanted to listen to some records, and I thought I should say no because Mr. Gabriel told me not to stay longer than necessary, but I just had this feeling that she wanted to spend time with someone, that she was tired of spending so much time alone. So I stayed, and we listened to Curtis Mayfield. Every time I dropped off her groceries, we’d listen to a new record. I guess we bonded over music.”

“Okay,” I say, absorbing this. I imagine Gigi, sitting at home alone, just waiting for someone to come along and talk to her. My heart aches. “But how did that turn into you staying with her?”

“She was just trying to help me out.”

Again with the vagueness. “And you said she doesn’t stay inside all the time. I could have sworn that Gigi hadn’t left her house in eight years. Where does she go?”

“Nowhere too far,” he says. “Sometimes she brings me with her to Esther’s, and every now and then she’ll want to go for a walk in Central Park. But she always wears these weird outfits so that no one recognizes her. Big hats and glasses.” He pauses. “Kind of like what you’re doing now.”

“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “I’ve put that together too.”

All this time, I thought that Gigi never went anywhere unless Frank was around to drive her. But why did I just assume that this was true? It’s not like she ever said so herself. She’d just been adamant for so long about not coming back to LA; I thought that meant she never went anywhere.

When we get off the subway and walk up Gigi’s street, the same black car is idling a few houses down.

“That car is still here, hours later!” I hiss, pointing.

Milo shrugs. “I really think you’re reading too deep into this.”

But then, as if the universe wants to help prove me right, the driver-side door opens