33. Leo

33

LEO

That didn’t exactly go as planned.

Then again, I didn’t plan a damn thing. I simply hoped and clung to the edge of the boat in a battering sea.

Maybe not the best plan.

But I do have an ace up my sleeve—the last ten years of acting.

My poker face might not have been foolproof, but it’s pretty damn good, and so is my immunity to her.

I do my damnedest to dial it all the way back up. I don’t watch Lulu walk away. I don’t linger on her silhouette as she heads south on Central Park West, blending into a slew of New Yorkers.

I know this drill. Been there, done that, have the jacket.

I’m a fucking pro.

I simply turn, head into the park, and rejoin the teams at Strawberry Fields, as if my life didn’t just capsize courtesy of an overturned secret.

Ginny sees me and offers a sympathetic smile. I’m not sure how much she heard, or how much RaeLynn spewed to the crowd.

Nor do I care.

I shove my feelings down and make it through the end of the hunt, when I learn we finished in second place on today’s challenge, and yesterday’s last-place finish brought us down a notch overall. Kingsley and her sister announce the winning team.

News flash—it’s not mine.

Finger-Licking Good is victorious, and George nearly leaps for joy when his name is announced.

I pat Ginny on the back then Noah too. “Better luck next time.”

I go to the office and reacquaint myself with the familiar lineup of spreadsheets, contracts, deals, calls to return, calls to make, and conversations to have—conversations I drown myself in so I don’t have to think of Lulu.

I refuse to think of Lulu.

All my years of training pay off.

I don’t think of her at all.

By three in the afternoon, I’m leaning back in my chair, and I’m chuckling with a chocolate supplier over a meme he just showed me. For the record, cat memes are always funny.

Everything is fine here, thank you very much.

Just another day of normal.

Another day of I’ll get through this .

As six in the evening draws near, there’s a rap on my open door. Ginny pops in. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.”

“Call me crazy, but you look a little . . . how shall we say . . . like you’ve been sucking on lemons all day.”

That sounds like a better way to spend the day than fighting off thoughts of the woman I love.

Wait.

I’m not thinking of her.

I pick up a pen and twirl it between my thumb and forefinger. “Nice to see you too.”

She steps inside my office. “Are you bummed out about how the scavenger hunt ended? Because we’ll live.”

“No, I’m not. It’s fine. It’s whatever.”

“‘Whatever’? You’re not a whatever person.”

But maybe I should be. Maybe I should say whatever to this whole upturned mess, since I don’t know how to fix it.

“I’m turning over a new leaf. Thinking of becoming a whatever person.”

“Is this because of what happened in the park?”

I say nothing.

She shuts my door, moves some papers, and parks herself on the edge of my desk. “Listen, you didn’t ask for my advice.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“But I’m going to give it to you anyway.”

“I had a feeling you would.”

“The father of my child?”

I sit up. She never mentions him. Never talks about him. “Yeah?”

“He didn’t get his act together when I told him I was pregnant.”

“Okay.”

“But now he wants to be in my kid’s life. Now. When she’s ten. And can you add up what that means?”

I’m good at math, but I have no clue how to perform Ginny’s arithmetic. “No. I can’t.”

She pauses dramatically. “It means he missed ten years of her life.”

“But Lulu’s not pregnant.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“Do you want to miss ten years of your life?” Ginny leaves the question trailing behind her as she hops off my desk and squeezes my shoulder. “A bunch of us are going to this new place up the street that has pinball games. Let me know if you want to join us.”

“I’ll think about it.”

But the more I think about it, the less I want to be with anyone tonight.

When moonlight blankets the city, I shut off the light in my office and leave, the last one to do so.

Once I’m home, the silence of my apartment cinches unwelcome arms around me. I try to pry them off, but it’s powerful.

I’m not in the mood for silence.

I’m not in the mood for anything.

I turn to the walls in my home. “Fuck off.”

I walk into the kitchen and talk to the counter, the fridge, the stove. “Fuck off.”

I pivot around and pass the picture of Tripp and me at his restaurant. I stop to stare at it. Somehow, somewhere, I’m vaguely aware of words I could say to his image—thoughtful, caring words.

Those don’t come. Others hiss from my lips.

“Most of all, fuck you.”

But I don’t think he’s the one in the photo I’m speaking to.