Undeterred, my mom arches a brow at him. “You. She meant you.”
A grin hijacks his face. “Well, thank you.”
He doesn’t seem to stop smiling, not as we eat, not as we talk, not as we laugh and catch up and my mom shares stories of her new students and her boyfriend and the life she’s living so richly now.
As she’s always done.
Even when her life turned upside down when she was pregnant with me at eighteen, she never stopped pursuing her dreams. And she’s never stopped encouraging me to live my best life.
Right now, right here, this is the closest I’ve come in a long time to feeling like I might be on that path.
Something else occurs to me too. Even though we’ve never done this before—dinner with Leo, my mom, and me—it feels like old times. Like good times. Like no one is waiting for the other shoe to drop at the end of the night.
When the evening ends, my mother says good night and heads home. Leo takes the subway with me then walks me to my apartment.
As we near the stoop, time seems to mock me.
I want to stop the clock. To live in this moment where everything feels possible. Where the evening won’t need to end.
So I lap up the last few seconds of tonight, looking at Leo. The moonlight sketches his face, illuminating his cheekbones, his eyes. I like the way his hair falls, how his gaze hooks on me, how his lips part softly when he speaks. I look at him in a whole new way.
That way terrifies me.
For a million reasons.
I choose the well-worn path, the friendly one that’s familiar. “Wednesday morning. You, me, and the team. We’ll be ready to own this scavenger hunt.”
“So ready.”
“Like we better be.”
“The readiest.”
“Good night, Leo.” I lean in and give him a quick kiss on the cheek, and for a hair’s breadth of a second, I swear I hear a hitch in his breath.
Or maybe it’s in mine.
When we separate, he gives me that lazy, handsome grin. “So you think I’m good-looking?” His dark eyes twinkle with something like desire.
Tingles spread their wings and fly down my chest, then soar to the night sky. “I’m not blind, Leo.”
We say good night.
I turn around and don’t look back because of all those millions of reasons.
15LEO
I don’t go home. I head to the warehouse and work on an old chair I unearthed in Croton-on-Hudson. I strip the veneer off the arms, the repetitive motion quieting my wild thoughts until my arms are exhausted.
The work centers me, and after the enchanted evening with Lulu, I’m feeling anything but steady.
When I return to my place overlooking Central Park, I shower as the clock hits midnight, then I flop down on my bed and grab my phone.
One last check.
Or maybe one dangerous hope.
I’m hoping for a text from Lulu.
Which is dumb as fuck. We’re not good night, sweetie pie people. She won’t send me a had a nice night text. That’s not what this is. That’s not who we are to each other.
Instead, I find a voicemail from Tripp’s mom, since we’ve been trying to reach each other, then a text from Dean, followed by an email from Kingsley telling me the hunt’s a little bigger than we had first planned.
I swear I can hear the boss lady chuckling over cyberspace. The woman is a hoot, and I’m a lucky bastard to work for someone who has a big heart, big wallet, and big sense of FUN, all caps for sure.
Turns out the hunt has supersized, with ten companies competing for the prize pack:
A ten-thousand-dollar donation to the winning team’s charity of choice.
A spa day, or a day at the golf course.
And last, but definitely not least, a paid week off for the winning team’s division.
Let the record reflect, there is no better incentive for any employee anywhere in the world than the prize of less work.
I write back to her, letting her know I’ll do my damnedest to make her proud, then write to Dean, giving him the gist of Kingsley’s update since he finds corporate life amusing. I email Tripp’s mom since it’s too late to call.
But they’re not the ones I’m thinking of as my head hits the pillow, nor are they on my mind when the pillow gives up my head the next morning.
My mind is a tsunami of thoughts, emotions, and memories all day Sunday as I finish the chair, and then into Sunday night as I chat with my brothers on the phone. I have to quiet these Lulu-tinged thoughts before work begins in earnest this week.
But I’ve never been terribly good at kicking her out of my mind, no matter how hard I’ve tried.
At the crack of dawn, I tug on basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes, then hit the park, toggling over to a podcast on the current ecology of the Galapagos Islands. Focusing on my personal educational goals is the ideal balm for the storm in my head.
Midway through the highlands inhabited by giant tortoises, Dean texts.
Dean: Rah rah. Go, team, go. Can you hear me rooting for you all the way across town?
Leo: With amazing enthusiasm and incredible clarity. Do you have pom-poms too?
Dean: For you, I’d consider it.
Leo: I’m honored that you take my corporate pursuits so seriously.
Dean: Oh, please. It’s not you. We started a betting pool at The Pub last night. We have all sorts of wagers going on for the Crisps vs. Chocolate scavenger hunt.
