The Pull of Destiny (88 page)

“Never assume anything
because you just never know,” he said loftily, wagging his finger in my face.

Giggling, I swatted it away.
“I would love to have dinner with you, Luke,” I gushed, my voice tinged with
sarcasm. “It would be an honor, my pleasure, the most exciting thing in-.”

Luke's finger against my lips
was more than enough stimulus to stop me from talking, right in the middle of
an extremely sardonic monologue. My breath stuttered in my throat as he looked
down at me, smirking.

“I thought as much. I
always
could shut you up by doing this,” he snickered.

Jerk.

Restaurant.

“So how long are you staying
in New York for this time?”

Luke and I were seated in an
upscale restaurant in Manhattan. The music was low, the atmosphere was relaxed
and best of all, it was just me and Luke. No Seiko, as I had originally
assumed.

Not to be mean, but thank God
.

I had nothing against Seiko (
keep
telling yourself that, Celsi
) but every time Luke had visited, she had been
stuck to him like glue. This was the first time in years that I was having some
one-on-one face time with him and I was surprised at how quickly the
conversation slipped into easy bantering mode, just like old days.

I guess some things never
change.

Luke glanced up from his
steak and wiped his mouth with a napkin before answering my question.
“Indefinitely,” he replied casually, not knowing how close I was to jumping
from my seat and doing a fist pump.
Wait, how long was indefinitely? Please
be forever!
Even though I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing Luke every day if
he lived in New York, at least he would be living in New York and not in Japan
or England. “I’m here to launch my new foundation.”

“Really? Good for you!” I
caught myself smiling dotingly over the table at Luke and, mortified, stabbed
at my salad. “Um- what’s the basis of your foundation?”

Man, I needed to quit with
the Luke adoration. Hopefully he didn’t notice.
Yeah right.
Luke noticed
everything
, especially me, when I was making a fool of myself over him.

“Well, we’re dealing
primarily with Medecins Sans Frontieres to provide better quality of life in
places which have been hit hard by natural disasters. Like Haiti, New Zealand
and Japan. We want to make sure that people have access to clean water, food,
clothing, basic medical care and shelter.” Watching him speak, I realized that
his vision meant a lot to him and I smiled. I guess he was no longer the
shallow guy he never really wanted to be. Luke had definitely done some growing
in the past few years. Running a hand through his hair, he grinned at me. “I
figured I’ve got to use my trust fund money wisely. What do you think?”

Speaking from the heart, I
said, “If anyone can see this through, it’s you, Luke.”

After all, I had witnessed
firsthand the drive and determination he had shown while working on his bucket
list. If anything, his foundation should be a walk in the park for him.

“Thanks, CiCi,” he said
gratefully, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “I think it’s about
time I started setting good examples for Faith. You know, since I’m her father
figure and all.” His face grew thoughtful. “Although, I think she’s the one
setting examples. You know what she did last week? Tossed all of her toys into
boxes and asked Hope to take them to ‘that place I played when Luke was in
hospital’.”

My eyes widened. “The
daycare?” I asked. Now I knew where all those almost new Barbie’s and toy cars
came from! The new daycare administrator told me the box of toys had been a
gift from a ‘mysterious benefactor’.

“Yeah.” Luke nodded,
grinning. “I’ve got a feeling that the new Astor generation is gonna prove to
be beneficial in the charity sector.”

As if just realizing that his
hand was still covering mine, Luke hastily removed it, a flush staining his
cheeks. Chewing thoughtfully on a tasty strip of chicken, I wondered why he
looked so flustered. “How
is
Faith doing these days, anyway?” I asked,
remembering the last time I had seen the adorable little brunette at her
father’s funeral. Her big brown eyes had been filled with tears as she solemnly
told me that her daddy wasn’t coming back. Her acceptance of the inevitability
had nearly made me cry. Even at a young age, Faith had proved to be wise beyond
her years.

“Oh, my God, she’s such a
sweetheart. She just turned ten a couple weeks ago and she’s the tallest kid in
her class. I thought she was going to be a tiny terror for her entire life, but
she just shot up all at once.” His eyes shone as he talked about his much loved
little sister. “It was hard for her to deal with the fact that dad was gone at
first, but she’s adjusting really well. She’s participating in the statewide
spelling bee. I’m really proud of her.”

“I know she’s probably
excited that you’re coming back home. Are you going to move back into the
penthouse?”

Luke shook his head. “No, I
want to get a small apartment. I’ve gotten so used to living by myself that
moving back into the penthouse would probably drive me stir-crazy. Obviously,
Hope would rather have me move back in, but I told her that I’m a grown man now
and I want my freedom. Faith knows she’ll be welcome at my place whenever she
wants.” A chuckle. “She’s waiting for me to pick a place so that she can come
over and decorate her room.”

“Just watch, she’ll be moving
in before you know it,” I pointed out.

Luke heaved a mock sigh. “I
know, right?” He grinned. “Oh, well, I can always invite you over too, right?
Have a play date or something.” As I tried to stop my mouth from falling open
in surprise at his random way of inviting me over (or at least, that’s what I
think
he was doing) he continued. “She would totally love to see you again. You were
her hero after my aneurysm thing, taking her to the daycare.”

“I would love to see her
again, too. We always had a bond.” I grinned cheekily across the table at Luke.
“I guess it’s because we both had to deal with you.”

Luke stuck his tongue out at
me childishly. “So how about you? You settled into your new apartment yet?”

“Yeah. It took a while to get
used to the new hood. I grew up in that building, my neighbors were like my
family, so it was a difficult change to make.”

“Wasn’t easy for Aunt Kelly
too, huh?” Luke asked, tapping his chin.

I nodded. “She didn’t want to
leave our old apartment, but I wasn’t going anywhere without her,” I told him,
smiling slightly as I remembered how difficult it had been to get her into the
cab to drive over to our new place.

“How’s she doing?”

Tucking an errant wisp of
hair behind my ear, I said, “She’s good. Doesn’t work that much these days,
which is good. So she has more time to catch up on her movies and soapies.”

“That’s good. You’re pretty
awesome, taking care of her like that.” I glowed at the compliment from Luke as
he continued. “How about Enrique? How’s he doing?”

I quickly filled Luke in on
my strengthening relationship with my father, telling him about the wedding and
how I was the bridesmaid. “And it’s all thanks to you,” I enthused, gazing at
Luke while trying to keep my admiration of him in check. “If you hadn’t found
him for me, things would have been so different.”

“You deserved to know him,”
Luke shrugged self-depreciatingly, like he hadn’t done anything special. “I
mean, he needed to know that he had a daughter and after what you went through
with Nate...” His voice trailed off and he looked at me musingly. “Speaking of
Nate, what happened with him?”

Letting out a deep breath, I
stared at the spotless cream tablecloth. “Well, after his six month stint in
jail, he went to rehab for a month. Court ordered. After that, he was on
probation for three years. Went to college and got a diploma in Community
Counseling. He works at AA now.”

Surprise mingled with
admiration flitted onto Luke's face and I had to smile. Doubtless he was
expecting that I would say something negative about how Nate had managed to run
his life into the gutter after his prison release. In all honesty, sometimes I
was surprised that Nate had dusted himself off, turned over a new leaf and was
now helping people with the same problems as he had once had. After I got back
from my summer vacation in Los Angeles, Nate had requested to meet with me,
talk and apologize for everything, including blaming me for Rhea’s death. It
took me a while to forgive him (how do you just erase years of physical abuse?)
but after seeing how intent he was on turning his life around and making things
better, I started rooting for him. He went back to his old girlfriend, Tori,
who was now pregnant with his child.

“Wow,” Luke said
appreciatively, nodding. “I’m pretty impressed.”

We continued to chat, our
coffee getting cold as we kept finding other subjects to chat about, both of us
unconsciously trying to extend our time together. It was as if we knew that after
we opened the time capsule at the Empire State Building, the magic would be
over.

“Will Seiko join you here
once you get settled?” I asked Luke, trying to keep the rank jealousy out of my
voice. All I wanted to know is if she would be okay with me going to visit Luke
from time to time, I promise.
I mean, since he’s invited me over and all.

Luke popped a cherry from his
fruit salad into his mouth before replying. “We broke up,” he said casually,
like it wasn’t a big deal. “I thought I told you.”

Meanwhile, my hand froze with
my fork en route to my mouth, eyes bulging with shock.

Say what now?

“You what? When?” I
spluttered.

Shrugging, Luke said, “About five
months ago.” He shot me a lopsided grin. “I guess I found out that she wasn’t
the one and I didn’t want to keep leading her on.”

My heart jumped in my chest
at the way he looked at me when he said ‘she wasn’t the one’ but I tried to
stay cool. Luke was single? Did that mean anything for me?

“I thought you didn’t believe
in soul mates,” I quipped, relieved that my voice sounded normal. Inside I was
a mass of conflicting emotions, none of them making sense. I still loved Luke,
had never stopped. Was there a possibility for us to rekindle what we had once
had now that he was single or was I just reaching?

Luke's grin widened. “I
learnt from the best, CiCi.”

Empire State Building

It was windy on top of the
almost deserted skyscraper and I shivered in my lightweight jacket. Ever
gallant, Luke shrugged off his jacket and slipped it onto my shoulders, ignoring
my feeble protests.

“You never
did
know
how to dress for the weather,” he chuckled, squeezing my shoulders lightly as
he walked me to a quiet corner. I pouted playfully, remembering the times when
Luke had forfeited his jackets and hoodies because I got cold.

Ah, the good old days.

Quick to defend myself, I
said, “I thought it would be warm tonight.”

“Why would you think that?”
Luke snickered loudly. “It was raining yesterday!”

I narrowed my eyes suddenly,
raising one eyebrow as I looked at Luke. “How do you know?” I asked
suspiciously. “Weren’t you in Japan yesterday?”

“Weather Network,” Luke
explained in a ‘duh’ tone, but I was positive he was blushing as he tried to
turn the subject back to my dumb statement. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Rolling my eyes, I said, “It
was raining and science proves that when it rains, the next day will be
sunny-.” I stopped talking, stalled by the amused expression on Luke's face.
He’s
laughing at me again!
“Okay, you win.”

“You’re still as cute as hell
when you make shit up,” he chuckled, pinching my cheek playfully.

“I wasn’t making anything
up,” I lied, keeping a straight face.

Smirking at me, Luke twisted
open the capsule with a flourish as my heart thudded with excitement. I watched
as he reached into the capsule and scooped out the zip locked contents. How I
remembered that day we had put our treasured items in there. Five years on, we
were about to revisit that day.

He immediately located my
locket and walked behind me to fasten the necklace around my neck. I ran my
finger over the heavy heart shaped locket, shivering as Luke's fingers brushed
the nape of my neck.

“Did you ever find your mom?”
he whispered into my ear.

I could hardly trust myself
to speak from being so close to Luke, but I forced myself. “Yes and no.”

Slipping his hands onto my
shoulders, he turned me around till I was facing him, looking quizzical. “Is
she- was she-?” he started, unsure of how to pose the question he wanted to
ask.

“Yeah. She’s dead.”