Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [143]
“He told you that?”
“He doesn’t have to. I just know my dad. Don’t worry about Dylan Lashay. I promise you that he’s out of the picture.”
“So if you don’t worry about Dylan, what are your nightmares then?”
“My nightmare isn’t about me getting hurt, it’s about me not getting to you until it’s too late.” He looked at her, but her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “What are your nightmares about?”
“That you don’t get to me until it’s too late.”
He said, “Looks like we’re occupying the same mind at night.”
She gave a hint of a smile but still wouldn’t look up.
Gabe said, “Sometimes it’s so vivid, I wake up in a cold sweat. The relief I feel because it’s only being a dream is overwhelming. God, I’m a mess.”
Finally Yasmine garnered enough courage to look at him. In a tiny voice, she said, “Well, you’re the best-looking mess I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
“Thanks for saying that.” Gabe felt his throat swell up. “You know, Yasmine, we’re not always going to be this young.” He swallowed hard. “If you promise me . . . that when you’re eighteen . . . you’ll come to me—you’ll come to New York and we can be together and we can give each other a real chance—then I swear I will wait for you. And you know what? It won’t even be hard. Just like Jacob worked for Rachel, the years will seem like days because the reward at the end is so perfect.”
He stroked her cheek.
“Promise me that you’ll come. I don’t want to go on like this. We’re both in bad places right now. Let’s be wrecked together.”
Yasmine didn’t talk for a long time. Finally she nodded. “I promise, Gabriel. When I’m eighteen, I’ll come to New York to be with you.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.” Her fingers sifted through his long hair. “And you’ll wait for me?”
“I swear I will wait.” He took her hand and planted it with kisses. “I still love you madly. The more I’m away from you, the more I realize that.”
She managed a tearful smile. “I love you, too.”
Gabe let out an exhalation of utter relief. “New York is a good place to go to school anyway. There are zillions of colleges.”
“My parents will never pay for me to go to college in New York.”
“You get whatever scholarship you can and I’ll pay for the rest. I have money.”
“I won’t take money from you.”
“Why don’t we worry about that in three years?”
Yasmine thought for a moment. “Maybe they’d pay for Barnard. It’s a girls’ school.”
“Barnard would be great.” He looked at her. “Did you know they have a music program with Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music? You could study singing.” A pause. “Do you still sing?”
She shook her head no.
“Now that is criminal. You have to come, Yasmine. Hannah goes to Barnard. She loves it.”
“You see Hannah?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen her about once a month. She tries to feed me. If you go there, she’ll show you the ropes.”
Yasmine nodded, then gave out a heavy sigh. “You know, my parents will disown me.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Yes, they really will.”
He kissed her hand again. “Yasmine, when the time comes, have a little faith.” She regarded his face. “Give me a chance to win them over. I can convert. I know some Hebrew, but I can learn to be fluent. I can learn Farsi. I can eat koobideh and Persian rice with a broiled tomato. I can arrive unfashionably late and give ridiculous parties where you don’t start eating until eleven at night.”
Yasmine laughed through her tears. “I would never ask you to convert.”
“Why not?” Gabe answered. “You should ask me, because it’s important to you. People are always reinventing themselves. I mean I can’t change my skin color and I wouldn’t give up music for anyone, but everything else in my life is negotiable.”
“You would convert for me?” Her voice was timid.
“I would certainly and absolutely convert for you. My program is filled with Asians, Russians, and Jews. I might as well join a gang.” His eyes focused on her face. “More than that, I’d love to be part of a God and a culture that produced a girl as