The elephant is trundling across her apartment, rattling the pictures on the walls. We eat, and the tension spreads across my shoulders. This tiptoeing won’t do. We aren’t some guy and girl who met at a bar. We aren’t coworkers who’ve known each other for a year and finally gave in to the wild flirtation we’ve had in the elevator. We are people who talk. We use our words.

After we finish, I say, “We should really talk about the elephant.”

“It was a particularly wonderful elephant.”

That’s the oddest compliment I’ve ever received for a kiss, but I love it.

“It was.” I replay that kiss for the five thousandth time today. I stare at her lips, remembering how they felt against mine.

“You’re looking at my mouth,” she whispers.

A weight slides off my shoulder and thuds to the ground. It feels like freedom. I can look at Lulu and speak some of the truth. “Your mouth is quite lush. Soft. Inviting.”

She shivers, swaths of her curly hair falling across half of her face, curtaining her green eye. I reach an arm across and tuck the curls behind her ear as best I can. I want to see into those eyes. I want to read them. “Lulu, what are we doing?”

She stares up at me from underneath those long lashes. “Remembering earlier today?”

“It was mind-blowing.”

“Was it really that way for you?” There’s a vulnerability in her tone, as if she doesn’t quite believe it could have been spectacular for me.

She has no idea that it was everything I’ve ever wanted and a thousand times more. Because it was real. Because it happened now.

Between only the two of us.

Because it didn’t come when we were helping Tripp or grieving Tripp.

It came from living.

I circle back to her question then give her my answer. “It was that way. It was the only way.”

“What happens next?”

That’s the question. It keeps hanging in the air, and it’s going to demand a thorough dissection. Saying How could it be anything but foolish if we were together? isn’t enough of an answer.

Her foot slides up my leg. I arch a brow. “Lulu, are you playing footsie with me?”

“What’s wrong with that?” She looks ridiculously innocent.

“That’s not friendly.”

“It’s a foot, Leo.”

“Your foot is not friendly.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not turned on by my foot, are you?”

“No.”

She gives me a sly stare. “Are you sure?” She rubs her foot closer to my crotch. “Because it feels like you might be.”

She is dangerously near my erection, and yes, I am indeed turned on by her foot. Big surprise. This woman has done it for me for years. “Lulu . . .”

“Sorry, I thought maybe you had a banana in your pocket.”

I laugh. “You’re not helping matters.”

I reach under the table, grab her foot, and run my hand over it, kneading the sole. She groans, and it sounds sensual, like she’s a woman who loves to indulge—in food, in pleasures, in riches of the senses. She leans her head back, her long, glorious neck exposed as she closes her eyes. I want to learn if the coconut that I’ve smelled on her for ages is there when I kiss the column of her neck, the hollow of her throat. I knead harder into her foot.

“Don’t do that. It’ll make me moan and groan.”

“You’re already groaning. You’re already killing me.”

She opens her eyes. “I can’t help it. You have strong hands, and they feel good on my feet.”

She sits up straighter and sets her hands on the table. I let go of her foot.

“Leo, I don’t think I realized how attractive you were before, and I’m glad I didn’t. But it’s all hitting me at once. And right now, I kind of want to jump you. I want to throw the plates to the ground, crawl across the table, and straddle you. I want to grind against you and kiss you all over and do all sorts of very bad things to you.”

I sit stiller than a statue, absorbing the sizzle of those words.

If I ever thought my resistance was going to be tested, this is the moment, and whatever shred I possess is fraying at the seams. “There’s literally nothing I want more.”

She stares at me with heat in her eyes.

It’s nearly enough to melt the last thread of resistance.

But her next words halt me in my tracks. “But I have plans, and I have a chance to finally focus on them. I don’t want to lose my focus. That would be foolish. Don’t you think?”

And there it is—the reluctance.

I have enough of my own to feed an army. I can’t take on the burden of hers too. I can’t give in to all this heat if it’s seasoned with both our reluctant lusts.

“Maybe I should go before we do something foolish.”

I wait for her to echo me, as I know she will.

She swallows and breathes out harshly, repeating my assessment. “Yes. You probably should.”

Somehow, I find the will to stand, but I can’t locate the strength to leave just yet. “Do you want me to clean up?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “No. You should probably leave.”

That’s exactly what I do.

22LEO

That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.