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15. Leo

15

LEO

I don’t go home. I head to the warehouse and work on an old chair I unearthed in Croton-on-Hudson. I strip the veneer off the arms, the repetitive motion quieting my wild thoughts until my arms are exhausted.

The work centers me, and after the enchanted evening with Lulu, I’m feeling anything but steady.

When I return to my place overlooking Central Park, I shower as the clock hits midnight, then I flop down on my bed and grab my phone.

One last check.

Or maybe one dangerous hope.

I’m hoping for a text from Lulu.

Which is dumb as fuck. We’re not good night, sweetie pie people. She won’t send me a had a nice night text. That’s not what this is. That’s not who we are to each other.

Instead, I find a voicemail from Tripp’s mom, since we’ve been trying to reach each other, then a text from Dean, followed by an email from Kingsley telling me the hunt’s a little bigger than we had first planned.

I swear I can hear the boss lady chuckling over cyberspace. The woman is a hoot, and I’m a lucky bastard to work for someone who has a big heart, big wallet, and big sense of FUN, all caps for sure.

Turns out the hunt has supersized, with ten companies competing for the prize pack:

A ten-thousand-dollar donation to the winning team’s charity of choice.

A spa day, or a day at the golf course.

And last, but definitely not least, a paid week off for the winning team’s division.

Let the record reflect, there is no better incentive for any employee anywhere in the world than the prize of less work.

I write back to her, letting her know I’ll do my damnedest to make her proud, then write to Dean, giving him the gist of Kingsley’s update since he finds corporate life amusing. I email Tripp’s mom since it’s too late to call.

But they’re not the ones I’m thinking of as my head hits the pillow, nor are they on my mind when the pillow gives up my head the next morning.

My mind is a tsunami of thoughts, emotions, and memories all day Sunday as I finish the chair, and then into Sunday night as I chat with my brothers on the phone. I have to quiet these Lulu-tinged thoughts before work begins in earnest this week.

But I’ve never been terribly good at kicking her out of my mind, no matter how hard I’ve tried.

At the crack of dawn, I tug on basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes, then hit the park, toggling over to a podcast on the current ecology of the Galapagos Islands. Focusing on my personal educational goals is the ideal balm for the storm in my head.

Midway through the highlands inhabited by giant tortoises, Dean texts.

Dean: Rah rah. Go, team, go. Can you hear me rooting for you all the way across town?

Leo: With amazing enthusiasm and incredible clarity. Do you have pom-poms too?

Dean: For you, I’d consider it.

Leo: I’m honored that you take my corporate pursuits so seriously.

Dean: Oh, please. It’s not you. We started a betting pool at The Pub last night. We have all sorts of wagers going on for the Crisps vs. Chocolate scavenger hunt.

Leo: Chips, dude. Chips.

Dean : Two words I will never utter. “Chips” and “dude.” *shudders*

Leo: I’ll Americanize you in no time, bro.

Dean: And yet another.

Leo: Anyway, how much did you bet on me?

Dean: Did I say I bet on you?

Leo: Ah. Should have known you wouldn’t bet on me.

Dean: What do you expect? Once I got word that it had spiraled beyond those two companies and somehow, mind-bogglingly, had become all of the packaged food firms in New York, what was I to do? Deny myself the chance to bet on a stallion?

Leo: And who is your stallion?

Dean: Anyone but the guy on the team with the girl he once fancied.

As I crest a hill, I find the middle finger emoticon and send it back to him. If I were him, I’d poke fun at me too.

I keep up a steady clip through the park. A guy who looks familiar tears past me, seeming hell-bent on racing to the edge of the world.

Like a car whips around in a U-turn, the guy zips back to me. It’s Noah. He’s slowed to a jog at my side. “Whoa. Thought it might be you, big man.”

“You can just call me Leo.”

“Dude, you’re a fucking EVP. I’m a director of sales. You’re the big man in charge, even if we’re in different departments.”

“Hate to break it to you, but there’s a woman in charge.”

“Ha. Good point.” He smacks my arm. “Hey, you’re friendly with Ginny, right?”

“I am.”

“You know her well then?”

“Well enough. She’s a colleague and a friend.”

“Question then. Think you could put in a word for me? Let her know I’m a good guy?”

“Why can’t you do that yourself?”

“Please. I need to wear her down. It’s the only way a woman like her will go for a guy like me. Someone she works with.”

I’m not sure if the specter of an office romance is the issue with Ginny, or if she has one, or if she even likes Noah. I give Noah the best advice I can. “Just ask her out, man.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s simple. Only way you’ll know.”

He strokes his goatee as he trots. “You’re right. Damn, you’re always right. Also, no offense, big man, but you’re slow as shit. I need to go full cheetah.”

Laughing, I wave as he takes off like he has spots.

With Noah already on another continent, I return to the thread with Dean, rereading his last note, then his follow-up to it.

Dean: Anyone but the guy on the team with the girl he once fancied.

Dean: You see, I’m betting you’ll be a wee bit distracted.

Leo: Distraction is for wusses. I have a powerful mind-vise, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Dean: Fair enough. So, speaking of things you put in mind-vises, how is our fair maiden?

The answer arrives as swiftly as a Bugatti.

Lulu is mesmerizing, she’s charming, and she’s enchanting.

It’s as if I’m getting to know her all over again. Like we’re having conversations for the first time, talks that exist only between the two of us, and I don’t have to worry about crossing any lines with my best friend. Though, in the back of my mind, I’m vaulting over all the boundaries.

The woman is still off-limits, and that’s not merely because of that tangled skein of history stretching between us across the years.

It’s because I’d be a stupid ass to pursue something with a woman I now have a business deal with.

We’re team building, not team fucking. I want this partnership to be successful, and success won’t come from distraction.

Yet as my sneakers pound against the dirt path, I can’t stop thinking about last night.

The caveman part of me—hell, all of me—loves that she thinks I’m good-looking. I feel a little bit like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer did when Clarice told him he was cute. I could go skipping and jumping and flying into the air. She thinks I’m cute, she thinks I’m cuuuuuuuuuuute.

But I can’t say that aloud, for fuck’s sake.

In fact, I’d like to slap my brain for suggesting that Rudolph the fucking Red-Nosed Reindeer and I have anything in common.

I’m not Rudolph.

I’m Iron Man.

I’m impervious to Lulu.

I’m stoic and tough as motherfucking nails.

Just to prove it, I reply to Dean’s how is Lulu question with a curt great .

I exit the park, slowing to a fast walk as I hit the cobbled sidewalk.

Dean: She’s great, as in a great conversationalist? Great contortionist? Great lady? Great time? Elaborate, mate. You’re killing me.

Leo: Great friend.

As I weave past fellow New Yorkers speed-walking to work, I stare at that lie.

The last time I felt anything for Lulu, there was no one I could turn to, so I choked down all my emotions. I didn’t utter a word of my feelings to anyone until much later on, when I vomited up the pathetic truth to Dean one night over beer at a hockey game.

As that memory rises, another one does too—telling Dean helped me breathe again. To unknot the noose of emotion around my neck.

I want to move forward, not backward.

Reaching the corner, I tap out a text.

Leo: Actually . . . let me be brutally honest. I meant, great in the sense that . . . hell. You know what I mean.

My phone rings instantly.

Dean wastes no time. “Where is this coming from?” His tone is earnest, thoughtful. It reminds me that maybe I don’t need to process these new twists alone.

Besides, just because I once had monster feelings for Lulu doesn’t mean that these new ones are poised to become the same size. Hell, this pitter-patter of emotions is merely a petering-out tropical storm, a category-five hurricane that’s been downgraded multiple times.

“We just . . . we spent a little time together. Had dinner with her mom.”

“Oh. Dinner with the mum.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“But is it? Is it really no big deal? Time hasn’t entirely erased the way you feel for her.”

“It has,” I insist as I try to sort out the remains of the storm. “It’s different now.”

“It’s different because she’s actually single.”

She’s been single for a few years now. She wasn’t always married to Tripp.

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