Page 74 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
I wanted to dive in head first.
Now, I’ve finally reached
the deep end, but it’s empty.
Next time, I won’t take too long.
Damian wrapped an arm around my waist. “Are they all like this?”
“Like what?”
“Sad.”
“Just these ones.” I wondered if showing these to him hurt more than they helped, but he needed to see them. I needed to show them to him.
So, instead of stopping, I angled my body so he blocked the view of me from everyone outside the alleyway. I wore a bralette, which I snapped at the straps and slid off me. My nipples formed tight little buds that pressed against my shirt, but other than that, I was okay enough for public consumption.
I placed the bralette into his other pocket and scraped my nails slowly against his thigh through the fabric. He let out a groan, and I pushed past him before he could say anything. The next tile laid where Stuyvesant Town, Gramercy, and Murray Hill met.
Under a canopy of green leaves, Damian read the tile. “If I had a second chance, I wouldn’t need another one.” He turned to me. “Do you think these are all written by the same person?”
“The ones I’ve shown you? Yes. But there are so many more around the city, and I doubt they’re all written by even a handful of people.” I grabbed his hand, though my thighs and calves ached from the walking. “Two more.”
“My incentive,” he reminded me.
I turned to him, wrapped a hand around his neck, and kissed him. It was the kind of kiss people usually only achieved after years of dating. Part passion and steam. Part familiarity and comfort. Under the canopy of the trees and leaves that surrounded us on every side, it felt picturesque and more intimate than any other naughty gift I could give him.
His tongue slid into my mouth and stroked my tongue, and I sighed into him before pulling back. “The last syndicate meeting is in an hour and a half, and we have two more tiles.”
I led the way to the next tile, at the border of Midtown East and the Upper East Side, near Central Park. It read:
Reality feels so permanent.
I wish for a reset button.
That time machines exist,
like in the Toynbee Convector.
“I’d give you another incentive, but it took us forty-five minutes to walk here, and it’s an hour walk to the next one.” I couldn’t believe we’d already spent hours walking around the city to see a few tiles, of which we had no clue the significance of.
“Fine, but I get a question first.”
“We can walk and talk.”
He took my hand, and we began our walk down the length of Central Park. “What’s with the tiles?”
“Every time I’d miss my mom at boarding school, I’d send her a letter with a wish. I never got any letters back, but when I saw Maman, she’d take me into the city for an adventure. They always ended at a Toynbee tile.”
“So, they make you feel close to your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Are you gonna give me any more than that?”
“No. It’d ruin the big reveal.”
About a minute from the next tile, I finally spoke again. “The tiles my mom would take me to were mine. The letters Maman got never had responses because she’d respond to them with the tiles.”
