She’s more knock ’em dead than any silver-screen stunner. More than Mae West, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn herself, even in blue leggings that stop below her knees and a pale-yellow T-shirt that falls off her shoulder.
I step inside, entering a kaleidoscope. A ruby-red fleece blanket is draped across a purple couch. Pillows are piled high on the ends of that sofa, towering and teetering like Jenga blocks. Picture frames stand proudly on nearly every surface—images of Lulu and her mom laughing at a bookstore, Lulu and her colleague Cameron at their first shop, Lulu and Mariana on the beach. I can’t help it—I scan for one of Lulu and Tripp, but find none.
An unexpected dose of delight zips through me. This discovery makes me happier than it should, so I do my best to wipe that cocky smile off my face as I peer around, noticing magazines stacked across a small table and books rising sky-high on a shelf.
Lulu is not a neat freak. Lulu is like a suitcase that you sit on to try to close, but bright emerald-green scarves poke out the corners, a fuchsia-pink heel sticks out one side, and a polka-dotted dress spills from the zipper.
Everything is a little bit messy and wild.
In the kitchen, a mint-green KitchenAid mixer takes center stage. A steel canister holds utensils and whisks, and the counter is shiny and spotless. An open pack of chocolate tells me she’s already been experimenting with concoctions this evening. The scents of vanilla and almond tell me she’s made something delicious.
“The whole place—it’s very you. Like you stamped it with an ink pad.”
She shuts the door. “Lulu’s lair. Enter at your own risk.”
I laugh. “I’ll consider myself warned.”
“But will you heed the warning? After all, you’re here.” She raises her chin and looks at me with challenge in her eyes.
“I’m here. I suppose that means I’m not entirely risk averse.”
A smile tries to sneak across her lips, but she seems to tuck it away. “So . . .” She exhales, waiting. She’s waiting for me.
Of course she is.
It’s my move.
She served first earlier today.
I drum my fingers across the foyer table. “What are we doing?”
“Right now? Talking.”
“You know what I mean.”
She shrugs, looking as helpless as I feel. “I don’t know.”
“I mean, are we on the way to dating or something?” That’s the strangest thing to say. How can I begin to conceive of Lulu and me dating? What would a date look like? We’ve done so many things together already.
“Do you want to date?” she asks.
“Do you?”
We’re two racquetball players, volleying, neither one wanting to cede.
She heads to the kitchen, grabs a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, and pours two glasses, then stops. “Do you want wine instead?” But she answers her own question before I can. “I’m not having any.”
I wave it off. “I’m good.”
And it’s refreshing. To take it or leave it. We can both walk away from wine.
She hands me a glass, and I drink. She drinks too.
When I set it down, I try again. “What do you want, Lulu?”
“I want a lot of things. I want us to date and go out and kiss like the world is ending. I want us to laugh and run on the beach and chase the moon.”
God, they sound like all my dreams, but I can hear the but coming. There will always be one with the two of us.
She takes another sip. “But it’s foolish, right? How could it be anything but foolish if we were together? My life was mostly a mess for the last decade,” she says softly, desperately. “I lost out on so many opportunities and chances. I finally have one. I don’t want to risk it.”
I swallow roughly. I don’t want her to risk her chances either. “We need to make it through this partnership. Whatever is happening between the two of us was probably all stirred up stuff from the past.”
She looks at me quizzically. “The past? What would be stirred up from the past?”
I realize my mistake, and I backpedal, since I don’t want her to know how long I’ve wanted to kiss her. “I meant since we’ve known each other so long. Been through so much. Been friends and all that stuff.”
“I hear you, but just so you know, there was nothing stirred up from the past today for me. That was all present-day stuff. I never saw you that way in the past. You’re not offended, are you?”
I breathe a huge sigh of relief for two reasons. Because she isn’t on to me, and because I don’t want her to have felt a thing for me when she was with him.
“I’m not offended at all.”
She takes a drink of water then sets down the glass. “Are we still friends?”
I laugh. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder for us to be un-friends.”
She smiles. “Good. I’m famished. Do you want dinner?”
