CHAPTER 40: PEACE: BUT THE OTHER WAY ROUND

Chapter 40

JULIAN POLE

By the time the train crossed back into Brooklyn, the world already looked smaller. The skyline was just a bunch of gray teeth again, but the kind I’ve gotten too used to staring at. I told myself to stop thinking about him somewhere between Queens and Atlantic Ave, but my brain didn’t get the memo.

When Marco dropped me off this morning, he told me to text when I got home. He said it in that casual, older-brother way, like he didn’t want me to notice that he was checking if I was okay. I did. But a short text. I didn’t trust my fingers to say something that wouldn’t sound like missing someone I wasn’t supposed to miss.

Luka’s house smelled like home when I got there. He left the door unlocked, which meant he was either too lazy or too confident that no one in our neighborhood was crazy enough to rob a cop’s kid. His mom was at work, and the place was quiet except for the washing machine in the back, turning slow and loud.

"Dude, you look like shit," Luka said as soon as I stepped inside. He was in sweatpants and no shirt, hair still damp from a shower.

"Love you too," I muttered, dropping my bag by the couch.

He squinted at me. "What happened to your face?"

"What?"

"There’s like—" he gestured vaguely at my jaw, "a scratch or something. You fall in love or fall in a ditch?"

I brushed my fingers over the skin. There was a faint mark from Jace’s stubble or maybe when we were wild again last night. I didn’t answer. Luka didn’t push.

"Rico’s coming over," he said. "He said he had something to tell you, but you can tell him first. You look like you’ve been holding something in for a week."

I gave him a look. "It’s been five days."

"Five days too long."

He tossed me a towel. I caught it automatically. "Go shower. You smell like travel and regret."

"How do you even know what regret smells like?"

He didn’t answer he just looked me up and down

"Stupid" I muttered walking off to the bathroom.

By the time I came back out, Rico was already there, sprawled on the couch with a sandwich in one hand and his phone in the other. He looked up when he saw me, grinning. "The prodigal son returns. You good?"

I sank into the armchair across from him. "Define good."

Luka passed me a mug of coffee. It was too strong, but I drank it anyway. The caffeine hit my empty stomach and made my heart thump like I was running.

They both stared at me like they were waiting for something. Rico was the first to say it. "So... what really happened? You didn’t spend Thanksgiving with your aunt, did you?"

I sighed. "No."

Luka raised an eyebrow. "Then where?"

There was a long pause. The kind where you know the truth is going to sound like a bad idea even before you say it. I put the mug down, rubbed the back of my neck, and said quietly, "Queens."

Rico sat up. "Queens? What the hell were you doing in Queens?"

I hesitated. There was no clean way to explain any of it. Not without lying again. So I didn’t. I just started from the beginning.

How I planned to go see Jace, how I’d gone through Marco to get in, how I snuck into the dinner as a server. I told them about the mask, about the lights, the speeches, the fundraiser bullshit, and how Jace didn’t even know I was there until I served his table.

Then I told them about the bathroom.

Not the details, not the kind that mattered only to us but the look on his face when he saw me. How it wasn’t shock, not really, but something heavier. How he kept saying I shouldn’t have come, but still touched me like he’d been waiting for it.

When I finished, the room was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator.

Luka broke it first. "So you just... went into a mafia dinner to see him?"

"Pretty much."

He rubbed his face. "Julian. Bro. You have no survival instinct whatsoever."

Rico leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "And nobody saw you?"

"I don’t think so," I said, but my voice didn’t sound convincing even to me. "The event was packed. Cameras everywhere, but everyone was busy pretending to care about charity."

"Man," Luka muttered, "you’re lucky you made it back in one piece."

Rico looked thoughtful. "Jace’s family, they’re not the type to let something like that slide, are they?"

"No," I said quietly. "They’re not."

There was a long silence after that. They aren’t judging me but they’re worried enough to start thinking of backup plans.

Finally, Luka got up and went to the kitchen. I heard the clatter of dishes, the sound of him opening the fridge. He came back with a half-empty box of leftover pizza and dropped it on the table. "Okay," he said, sitting down again. "So what’s the plan?"

"What plan?"

"The one where we make sure you don’t end up in a river," Rico said dryly.

I almost laughed. "I’m fine."

Luka rolled his eyes. "You’re not fine. You’ve got that look again. The one you had last week when you were pretending to study but were actually trying to text him every five minutes."

I didn’t answer.

"You love him," Rico said. It wasn’t a question.

I took another sip of coffee, but it had gone cold. "Yeah," I said finally. "I do, alot."

No one spoke for a while. Luka leaned back on the couch, his arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it might give him answers. Rico drummed his fingers on the armrest, thinking.

"Okay," Luka said after a beat. "If you’re gonna keep seeing him—and I know you are, ’cause you’re stubborn as hell—then we just gotta make sure you’re smart about it."

"Smart how?"

"No solo missions," Rico said. "You text us when you leave, when you get there, when you come back. No more sneaking into events full of armed psychos."

He’s saying it like I’m going to sneak around again. But who knows.

"I can’t involve you guys in this."

"Too late," Luka said. "You already did."

I looked between them. "You really think you can help me with this?"

Rico shrugged. "Probably not. But we’ll try anyway."

And just like that, it was decided.

We spent the rest of the evening pretending we weren’t talking about something dangerous. Luka ordered takeout. Rico kept scrolling through social media, showing us random memes to fill the silence. I laughed when they laughed, but my head was somewhere else.

Every sound in the apartment reminded me of him — the hum of the radiator, the clink of a mug, the faint creak of the bed when I shifted. The echo of his voice.

Later, luka and Rico were already fast asleep on the couch. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. The pizza box sat half-open on the coffee table. My phone screen glowed faintly beside me, one unread message from an unknown number.

Don’t use this line again. Burn it. – M

Marco.

My chest tightened. I deleted it immediately, then lay back down, pulling Luka’s old blanket over my shoulders. The house was quiet again.

I told myself everything would be normal. Classes will resume by next week. With coffee, pretending to study and pretending not to check my phone every hour. Everything will be normal. I told myself it was just a few more weeks until winter break, just a few more exams, just a few more days.

But even as I closed my eyes, I knew the truth.

Nothing about this was normal anymore.