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A giggle takes me off-guard. “Stop.”
“It was your idea.”
“I never said you should take out a billboard. What would you even be advertising? You don’t need a girlfriend.”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s a PR campaign to get the cops to leave me alone.”
“They don’t leave you alone because you’re always breaking the law.”
“And because they’re part of a corrupt institution whose main purpose is reinforcing the status quo.”
We walk along the path. Soft footsteps come up behind us. A voice callson your left,and Jameson moves into my space to get out of the way.
The runner goes past, his neon shirt disappearing into the shadows up ahead. Jameson watches him go.
“Mason used to run track,” Jameson mentions. “When he was in school.”
“Before he fell?”
“Yeah. He was pretty good at it. Not fast enough to get a scholarship or anything. He just loved running. He’d drive into the city to run here.”
“In Central Park?”
“He likes the path. He couldn’t run for a long time after his knee was destroyed, but after he met Charlotte, he hired a coach to help him figure out how to do it again. You should see it sometime.”
“I should…watch him run?”
“You should. He’s not that good at it anymore.”
“Okay, then—”
“But he grins the whole time. This giant, goofy grin, like he’s having the time of his fucking life.”
“Iwouldlike to see that.” In the short amount of time I’ve spent with Jameson’s family, his oldest brother has looked like a loving dad to his baby and an intense, over-the-top asshole who’s willing to threaten a sheriff for daring to put his younger brother in a holding cell. I’ve seen him laugh at Downton Abbey and tease his wife and get into heated discussions about wedding venues with Gabriel, who’s basically Mason’s opposite. He always seems playful and flirty and sings a good quarter of the things he says to his family. “I can’t quite picture it.”
“I know, right? Not when he has it out for somebody.”
“That’s really good for him, though.”
“It is.”
The path goes around a curve, and we follow it. This is the kind of warm summer night Central Park was made for. You could walk for hours listening to the crickets. It seems farther from the traffic and the stores and the apartments than it is. The trees are probably a good buffer for city sounds.
“Anyway,” Jameson says. “As far as I know, I’m not Jesus Christ. If I was, I’d have probably been able to fix Mason’s knee, and Gabriel—” He cuts himself off. “I’d have been able to heal the cat, not just…accompany it.”
“Accompany itwhere?”
His smile fades. It doesn’t turn into a frown, exactly, but I can tell he’s remembering, and there’s an emotion other than joy attached to that memory.
“Are you talking about all that stuff I said?”
“Yes. I am talking about all that stuff. Do you—” There’s the strangest feeling in my throat. “Do you actually think that’s where people—or animals—go when they die, or were you just guessing?”
“I saw what it looked like. In my head.”
“Like a vision?”
“Like a picture? I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It seemed like the right thing to say. There were hands, though, and for some reason…” Jameson narrows his eyes, as if he’s peering into his memories. “These hands looked bizarrely familiar.”
