11. Leo

11

LEO

Eight Years Ago

I sprawled across the lounge chair in our apartment in Hoboken, late at night. We were finished with cooking school, and I had scored my first corporate job, while Tripp had landed a gig as a sous-chef, and Lulu worked in an entry-level post with a boutique chocolatier.

“Another one. Give me another one,” Lulu demanded from her spot on the leather couch that Tripp’s dad had given him, another show-off gift. Her legs were draped over her soon-to-be-husband’s.

“You’re such a riddle junkie.” He nuzzled her hair, kissing the top of her head. My chest tightened, but I’d learned to live with the ache.

“I’m a junkie, and Leo feeds my fix. It’s that simple.” She stared at me, bug-eyed, wiggling her fingers. “Bring it on.”

I flipped to the next page in the book of riddles I’d bought for her, a pre-wedding gift I’d given her that night. Because I was a glutton for punishment. Because she was a bright, bold, daring person I couldn’t get enough of, even though I shouldn’t be taking any hits of her.

“I lose my head in the morning and gain it at night. What am I?” I looked up as Lulu took a sip of her freshly poured glass of wine, considering the riddle. I chuckled to myself as I read the answer silently.

Tripp scrunched his brow. “A snake? Is it a snake?”

Cracking up, I rolled my eyes. “Do snakes lose their heads? Does your answer even make sense?”

He scoffed. “I bet there’s some snake somewhere that loses its head. I’m sure if you looked in an encyclopedia of snakes, you’d find some weird-ass one that loses its head. Right, Lulu?”

She patted his thigh. “Tripp, I love you, baby, but you need to stop talking about snakes. I hate snakes. Even as an answer to a riddle. But it’s not the answer. And let’s hope there’s not an encyclopedia of snakes anywhere.”

“What’s the answer, then, Miss Smarty Pants?” His hands darted to her waist, and he tickled her ferociously, igniting a flurry of laughter.

It was the full-bodied kind of chuckle that seemed to move through her like a wave, from her shoulders to her belly to her legs. “A pillow, you goofball.”

He held up his hands in the air. “A pillow? A pillow loses its head in the morning?” He paused, then nodded. “Fine, it does. But, seriously. Who thinks of these things?”

“Let’s just be glad someone does. Give me another, Leo.”

“What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?”

Tripp cut in. “Did you get her a dirty book of riddles?”

I showed him the cover. “ 101 Brain-Busting Riddles for the Riddle Lover in Your Life .”

“Still sounds dirty.”

“This one’s easy,” Lulu said to Tripp. “Think about it hard.”

“If I’m thinking hard, then that is a dirty book of riddles.”

“It’s not dirty. I know what it is.” Lulu practically bounced on the couch cushions, an eager student bursting with the answer.

Tripp furrowed his brow, then shrugged. “All I can figure is it’s someone who starts out a stud but fails miserably.”

Lulu thrust a fist in the air. “Nope. It’s the letter M . Isn’t that brilliant? It comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years.”

“It is indeed brilliant,” I said.

Tripp paused, processing the riddle, then laughed. “Good one.”

He grabbed her wineglass and took a swig then set it back down on the table. “Listen, I’m man enough to admit I suck at riddles, but I am fucking awesome at feeding my woman.” He rubbed Lulu’s stomach. My jaw ticked, and I glanced at Lulu’s wineglass. It was nearly half empty now. “You want some sautéed artichokes with shiitake mushrooms and polenta? I came up with this new recipe while I was riding my bike the other day, and it’s going to make your stomach so happy that you jump me.”

She arched a brow. “Your artichokes will make me jump you? That’s what’ll do it?”

“They’ll make you come in a minute.”

I groaned. Loudly.

“Oh, please. I heard what you did to Daphne the other night,” Tripp said as he rose, mentioning the woman I’d been dating.

“Is that so?” I asked.

Tripp pumped his hips. “She was like, oh Leo, oh Leo, oh Leo . She was like that all night long.” Lulu’s eyebrows rose, and for a split second, I didn’t mind that Tripp was imitating one of my lovers in the throes of passion. Let Lulu linger on that image. Tripp continued, talking to me, “Have I mentioned I can’t wait to move in with my fiancée next week after she marries me? I can finally get away from you, Casanova.”

He acted like I had a parade of women flitting into the place at all hours. I wasn’t going to disabuse anyone of that notion.

Lulu sat up straighter, her lips quirking in curiosity. “You’re a multiple man, Leo?”

Go out on a high note. Like George Costanza. I blew on my fingernails. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

Lulu laughed. “I guess you’ve got it.”

Tripp headed into the kitchen, and I returned to the book, reading more riddles to Lulu. That was my role with her. Riddle-supplier, not multiple-O-bestower.

“What has a tongue, but never talks, and has no legs, but sometimes walks?”

A beat. “A shoe.”

“What belongs to you, but other people use it more than you?”

She hummed then her eyes lit up. “Your name.”

Shortly after the next riddle, Tripp cursed from the kitchen. “Shit. I’m out of mushrooms. Be right back.”

He took off for the store, and Lulu’s stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry. I can’t wait for him any longer. If I have to wait, my stomach is going to mutiny.”

“Best to avoid that sort of insurrection.”

“Don’t tell Tripp I’m going to snack.”

“It’ll be our secret.”

She grabbed a bag of popcorn, returned to the couch, and tossed a kernel into the air, catching it on her tongue. “I’m like a seal.”

“Me too.” I held open my mouth, and she tossed me one.

I caught it on the tip of my tongue and yanked it back, lizard-style. “Look at us. A couple of seals.”

“We have so much in common.”

“Because of that?”

She downshifted into serious mode. “No, but for other reasons. Think about it. We’re both driven, we’re both determined to succeed, we both work hard. And we both like Tripp. But I bet you can’t wait for him to move out so you can have this place to yourself.”

I couldn’t wait, and I would also wait a thousand years if I could keep having her here like this. I was a Lulu junkie. I’d take the pain for the hit of pleasure.

“You ready for next week?” I asked, choking on the question, but needing to ask it just the same. The more I stuck my finger in the flame, the less it would hurt when the skin burned.

“Yes. My mom’s giving me away. Which is kind of against the grain, but I’m totally excited about it.”

“It’s always been just you and her. You two are so close. It’s fitting that she does the honors.”

“It feels right, you know? She’s my family, and we’re tight.” She crunched on more popcorn, her expression turning somber, a touch of sadness in those mismatched eyes. “I feel bad that Tripp’s parents hate each other so much that they’ll be on opposite sides of the room. I hate how his dad is constantly trying to buy his love with gifts, but never time. And he needles his ex-wife like he wants to wear Vivian down. We have to make sure they don’t sit at the same table at the rehearsal dinner or the reception.”

“Yeah, that sucks. Vivian’s great, but I know she can’t stand being near his dad. I wish they could be there for Tripp instead of against each other.” I reached for more popcorn.

“That’s something else we have in common. Even though your family is traditional and mine isn’t, we both rely on them so much. I rely on my mom, and you on your parents and your brothers. But Tripp doesn’t really have anyone to rely on.”

“True.” When he was a teenager, his parents had fought and fought until they finally divorced, and the intensity of the vitriol was hard as hell on him.

She leaned closer to me, her eyes big and vulnerable. “That’s why we have to look out for him, Leo. We’re the family he wants. Promise me. Promise me that you and I will look out for him.”

I swallowed hard, past the bile of my own guilt. “He’s like a brother to me. I’ll always look out for Tripp.”

“I love that you see him that way. That’s how I see you guys too, and it makes me happy. You’re best friends, but you’re also brothers.”

“We are.” It was the truth, and a necessary reminder.

When he came home a little later, he finished the mushrooms and polenta, served us an amazing dinner, and cracked open a new bottle of wine. Lulu insisted we dance and toast to the sounds of Bruno Mars.

I called Daphne, and she joined us, and that made the rest of the night more bearable.

I didn’t ask her to come to the wedding with me though.

I couldn’t ask anyone else to endure being my plus-one at what was both a celebration and a funeral.

A week later, Tripp adjusted his bow tie in the hotel suite. “What do you think? Am I a handsome devil or what?”

I met his gaze in the mirror. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“C’mon, don’t I look good?”

“Yeah, jackass. Like a penguin.”

He smacked my back, laughing. “If I look like a penguin, what do you look like?”

I considered my tux, same as his except for the cummerbund. “Best man?”

“You’re like the runner-up penguin.”

I winced inside. He had no idea. “Let’s stick with best man.”

He smiled, a big, genuine one. “All right. Time to go marry the love of my fucking life.” He turned to me, tugging on his cuffs even though they were neat, his smile slipping away. “You know Lulu is the best thing that ever happened to me, right?”

My heart lurched. In moments like this, Tripp was my brother, shedding all his lightness, all his masks. “I know that, man.”

“I love her like crazy.”

“I know you do.”

“She’s the only thing in my life that’s made sense. Well, besides cooking. But you know what I mean?”

He was talking about his family. “I know what you mean.”

He stepped closer, emotion straining his voice. “I want to do right by her. My whole life.”

The guilt lassoed my waist, yanking tighter. But I’d done nothing wrong by loving her. I’d never acted on it. I shouldn’t feel so much damn guilt. Just be his friend, like you’ve always been , I told myself. “You will, Tripp. You will.”

“You really think I’m good enough for her?”

“She said yes to you. She loves you. Go make her happy.”

He exhaled deeply. “She makes me so happy.”

We left the suite and headed to the small ballroom where a justice of the peace waited.

I entered with him, the knot twisting and turning in me like a tornado.

Best man, best man.

I needed to behave like the best man.

And the best man should not be madly in love with the bride.

When Pachelbel’s Canon in D played, the attendees rose, all eyes on the woman in white as she walked down the aisle to marry my best friend.

I knew it would hurt.

I wasn’t prepared, though, for how sharply it would sting when I finally raised my gaze. It was like my insides were being excavated as I watched Lulu, radiant in a strapless dress that showed off delicate shoulders I wanted to kiss in another lifetime. She walked down the aisle beaming, her mother’s arm in hers, the way she had wanted.

Her eyes stayed on the groom. Never wavering.

He never wavered either.

Thank God all eyes were on them. No one was looking at the best man. In case anyone did, I schooled my expression so the emotions would read like pride and joy, rather than one last fleeting wish that she was walking to me.

When she joined him, he smiled and whispered, “You look so pretty.”

He was wrong though. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

And never more so than when she pledged to love him till death do us part .

I took my own vow that day. No matter what, I had to get over her. There were no runners-up in love.