“Do it, then, man. Just do it.” He lifted a glass of iced tea and offered it to clink with mine.

My iced tea.

I tapped my glass. “See? I’m a good boy.”

“Keep it up, man. Keep it up.”

“I will. I absolutely one-hundred-percent promise that I will.”

I could turn over a new leaf. Tonight, I was going to start over. I hadn’t had a drop in a few weeks. I was trying. I would keep trying. This was the beginning of a new life.

And hell, in this new life, Leo could be with Lulu. I could see them together. I knew he was in love with her, even though he denied it that one time I brought it up. I needed to tell him that promise was dumb. She wasn’t mine. She hadn’t been in a long, long time.

He didn’t need my permission. Didn’t need my blessing. I wanted him to be happy. Hell, he was the best friend I’d ever had, and he should have the world.

“So, that woman I met recently? Amy?”

I nodded. He’d mentioned her a few times. “The one you wanted to ask out?”

“I started seeing her. She’s pretty cool.”

I sat back and listened as he told me about a new woman.

Some other night I’d bring up Lulu, just in case things didn’t work out with Amy. My buddy would end up with Lulu. I was sure of it.

After all, there’d be time.

There was always time.

39LULU

A sound whispers across the tiled floor, a kind of whoosh.

I blink open my eyes, figuring it’s the wind from the ocean. We left the windows open, and my room is closest to the beach.

I sit up. “Cameron? Mariana?”

No one answers, and my skin prickles. This is that moment when girls do something stupid in a horror movie.

“Cameron?”

I call his name louder then flick on the lamp by my bed.

Is that a postcard on the floor?

A dash of hope flutters in my chest. I fling the covers away, and I am that girl in a horror movie.

Only I’m not.

Because this is a different story. It’s a story where the girl chases a Chagall.

I get out of bed, kneel, and pick up the postcard.

It’s an image of the artist’s L’anniversaire, a gorgeous, dreamy painting of two lovers floating above the floor, kissing, enrapt.

The painting Leo said he’d get me next time.

My heart thunders in my chest, wild mustangs stampeding across the earth. Please let next time be now.

I turn it over.

“Next time, I’ll give you a Chagall.” That’s what I told you, and I meant it. And I hope you’ll forgive me.

For what?

I open the door and find a trail of Chagalls across the living room floor, postcard after postcard. I pick up the next one.

I love you.

The next one.

It’s always been you.

And another, as my heart starts to glow.

I tried to stop loving you. I think I succeeded for a while. But you’re you, and you’re wonderful, and I fell in love with you all over again.

One more.

And this time? It’s better. Because I didn’t fall alone. I fell with you.

Tears slip down my face as I grab the next card, following the trail.

I fell madly, joyfully, enthusiastically in love with you, as you fell for me.

I grab the next one as the glow spreads from my chest all the way through me.

I still can’t believe I’m writing this. I can’t quite fathom that I’m not experiencing this solo. Have I mentioned it’s so much better to love you when you love me back?

“I bet it is,” I whisper, grabbing one more.

I don’t think I can compare the two. Loving you from afar was painful and exquisitely torturous. Loving you near is wonderful and exquisitely blissful.

A smile commandeers my face. My whole being. I’m almost at the deck, where a night breeze blows and stars light the sky.

I pick up the last one.

This is new love. I love who you are now. I love your spirit, and your humor, and your wild ideas, and I love your endless, beautiful heart and your profound capacity to love.