But someday.

Maybe even someday soon.

And tonight I want that thing you do that makes them.

27LEO

I meet up with Dean at the gym during lunch. As we climb endless steps, I give him the bare minimum update, and he raises a most curious brow.

“And does this mean you’ll be telling her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? As in, Lulu, I had it bad for you for years, and by ‘years,’ I mean for-fucking-ever.”

“That’d be a hard no.”

“That little detail will remain vault-level intel?”

I tap my skull. “One hundred percent.”

“And why’s that?”

I feign baring my soul to her. “Oh hello, Lulu. I think you’re the cat’s pajamas, and I have for years. Including, but not limited to, the day I met you, every time we hung out, and oh, also during your wedding to my best bud. Want to bang tonight?”

Dean pretends to swoon. “You had me at ‘hello.’”

I stare at him as I climb another level on the machine. “You do know I wasn’t whacking off to her under the table at the wedding reception?”

“But after the reception when you were home alone, right?”

I shoot eels from my eyes at him.

“Fine, fine. I’m not saying you ought to serve it all up tonight and wrap it with a pretty bow. But is it right going into a relationship, or whatever this is, without being completely honest?”

“There’s honesty, and then there’s stupidity.”

“Why is it stupid to let on that you fancied her for the better part of a decade? It’s kind of romantic.” He bats his lashes. “It’s you. It’s always been you. They just don’t make shows like Friends anymore. Was there anything better than Rachel and Ross finally getting together?”

I point furiously at him, as if his words have turned into alphabet soup in the air. “That. Right there. Life isn’t a Friends episode. And what if Ross was creepy? What if maybe in retrospect it made him look like a pathetic sad sack?”

“Ross? Never.”

“I’m serious. Imagine me telling her. I’m the guy, then, who harbored a massive fucking secret from his best friend—and also from her, and she’s a good friend too. A great friend.”

“You make a fair point. I suppose the alternative is you could suffocate under the weight of the secret forever and ever. Do that.”

I sigh heavily as I climb the five hundredth set of stairs. “I don’t want her to look back on everything we’ve done together and scrutinize it through the lens of this new information. And I don’t want to freak her out and make her wonder if every little thing I’ve said to her meant something else.” My blood heats, boiling like a kettle left on too long, and I’m whistling. “I just want to move on from the past. I can’t keep dredging it up.”

He hits the button to slow the cycle on his StairMaster. “Yeah, I get that. Embrace the present. But soon enough, it’ll come out. Just think about it.”

I relent. “I will.”

“But one more question. Why are you going for it now? If last night was a line in the sand, what changed today? Or did you get too horny to handle?”

I make a jerking gesture with my hand. “I can handle horny, thank you very much.”

“Bloody hell if I can.” He looks at his watch. “Speaking of, Fitzgerald has a game tonight. I need to go give him his good luck charm.”

“Do I even want to know what that is?”

“Oh, you might. It’s when⁠—”

I wave him off. “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Mark my words. You’ll be wondering what it is.”

His question weighs on me the rest of the workday. Not what good luck charm Dean gives to his husband, but the other one.

Why am I going for it now?

As I replay the scavenger hunt earlier today, my answer to why now? lies in something unexpected. I want her to know, so I send a text in the afternoon, choosing directness.

Leo: Do you want to know what changed for me?

Lulu: Of course.

Leo: Noah.

Lulu: What does Noah have to do with anything?

Leo: When he grabbed the backpack and took off running. He just went for it.

Lulu: Am I the backpack?

Leo: I think you might be the backpack, Lulu.

Lulu: Are you going to go for me?

Leo: Yes.

I set my phone to silent and power through the rest of the workday. When I turn it back on, I find a missed call from Tripp’s mom.

My finger hovers over her contact info, and I’m this close to returning her call. But it can wait till tomorrow. I don’t want to be in that world tonight.

When I return to my place to shower, I walk past a picture of Tripp and me at his restaurant, some random night, and make a choice—to put him out of my mind.

Tonight, I choose not to think about that promise I made.

28LULU