just anticipated the question I’d been about to ask.
“Great,” I said, realizing how glad I was the timing was working out. I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Cary, not yet.
“It shouldn’t take that long to get to the West Side,” Cary said as he unlocked the bike’s compartment and pulled out the helmets. “I think the fastest way will be to cut through the park.”
CHAPTER 15
Stevie
So I think we should cut through the park,” Mateo told me after we’d been riding on the subway for a few stops.
“Oh,” I said, glancing down at my feet and trying not to wince. “You… do?” The pain in my feet had only gotten worse on the walk from Columbia to the subway, my feet hurting with every step I took, like I was in the book version of The Little Mermaid. I had been praying that we’d just take the subway right to the Upper East Side and that there would be very little walking—or at least a cab—to get us there.
“Yeah,” he said, looking up from his phone. “Otherwise, we’re basically going to have to backtrack to get one of the shuttles to cross to the other side of town, then go back up again—much easier this way.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, trying to look excited by this possibility and not like I was in extreme amounts of pain.
“And plus,” he said, reaching out to ruffle Brad’s fur. The dog was sitting on his lap, as he had done for most of this subway ride, in which he’d basically become the mayor of the 1 train. He was perched there, looking around, and everyone who passed through stopped to give him some attention, including a very tough-looking guy in construction clothes. “Fluffy!” he’d yelped, pointing to Brad, who waved his front paws in response. “This way the Senator gets to go for a walk.”
“The Senator?” I asked, feeling like I’d missed something.
“Senator Bradford B. Higginbottom,” Mateo said, pulling Brad into the crook of his arm and scratching his belly.
“Is that… his real name?”
“I wish. No, it’s just what I call him. He’s the junior senator from North Dakota with big plans.” As he spoke, he waved Brad’s paws around like he was gesticulating. “And when he’s barking a lot, I call it filibustering.” I raised my eyebrows, and Mateo laughed. “It’s one of those things you do with a dog, I guess. Margaux does this whole thing about how he’s a talent agent in Hollywood.”
I nodded and looked down at my lap. The nicer and funnier he was, the more retroactively ashamed I was about all the dinners when I barely deigned to talk to him. “Thank you for this,” I said, after taking a big breath and making myself say it. “For helping me. It’s really—really nice of you. You didn’t have to. And I feel like I’ve ruined your night.”
He stopped making the dog’s paws move and settled him back into the crook of his arm. “You have to stop apologizing,” he said firmly. “This is all Mallory’s fault, and you never should have been pulled into any of it.”
“But still. I’m sure that you had better things to do—”
“And especially after Stephen cancelled your birthday dinner, to have this happen tonight… the last thing I was going to do was leave you to work it out alone.” As we’d walked to the subway, I’d filled Mateo in—skipping over the fight with Kat, but bringing him up to speed on everything else. “We’ll get this sorted out,” he said with such confidence that I couldn’t help but believe him. He nodded toward the subway doors. “This is our stop.”
We got off at Eighty-Sixth Street, and I limped off the train, following behind Mateo and trying not to be too obvious about the fact that I was maybe dying. “You okay?” he asked, turning to look at me as he zipped up his motorcycle jacket.
“Fine,” I said automatically, even though I was very much not fine.
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh,” I said brightly, and in that moment in which I was lying my face off, I suddenly missed Kat so much it took my breath away. She would have seen right through me—taken one look at my face and known the truth—and then not given up until she’d fixed the situation. She would have insisted we stop and buy Band-Aids, or flip-flops, and she would have bought a pair for herself, too, so I wouldn’t be alone and embarrassed. I never wanted to make