me. He was everything to me. Please, everything should just go back to how it was when we were happy.
But he was resolute. “You’re my best friend,” he said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Jenny, I’m so, so sorry. I hate doing this, but I feel like I have to. The same way I knew I had to go to medical school, even though my dad wanted so much for me to be a lawyer. It’s not you. It’s just… I have to.”
It’s not you. The stupidest line in the history of lines.
I moved out the next day. Of course it was me.
Three months later, Owen proved that fact by meeting Ana-Sofia. We were having our weekly lunch, and he hadn’t said anything. I just knew. I could tell, because I recognized the look on his face; he used to look at me that way. “So you’ve met someone,” I said.
He hesitated.
“Please be honest, Owen.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think I have.”
A month later, he introduced me to Ana-Sofia, whose first words to me were, “Owen has sung your praises for so long! I’ve been dying to meet you.” She hugged me. I hugged her back.
And that’s how it’s been. I want to get away from them. I want to be close to them. I love them. I hate them. I feel hateful that I have to love them, and I guiltily love that I hate them. I vow to be busy the next time they call.
My phone rings as I pull up onto Magnolia Avenue. “Hi, it’s Ana-Sofia! Jenny, I’m so distracted, I completely forgot to ask you. I have tickets for the Alexander McQueen exhibit, and you were the first person I thought of! Would you like to go?”
That exhibit has been sold out for months. Of course she has tickets.
“Yeah, I’d love to,” I say. “Thanks, Ana!”
“Wonderful! I’ll email you details. Bye!”
I take a deep breath and get out of the car.
Leo is once again in the lounge chair. He seems sound asleep. I can tell he got up at some point, though, because he’s wearing a dark gray suit, white shirt, a striped tie. His arms are folded tight across his chest, and there’s a slight frown on his face. The wind, which has gotten nearly cold, ruffles his hair. Beside him is a bouquet of flowers.
He looks…sad. No, not sad. Lost, as if he forgot he was supposed to go to a party and just gave up, found this chair and hunkered down for the night. A well-dressed homeless man and his mangy dog.
I wonder if I should wake him.
Instead, I go inside, lugging Kendall’s dress with me. A second later, I come out again with the red plaid blanket Andreas gave me for Christmas—cashmere…it pays to have friends with exquisite taste—and open the gate.
Loki growls. I ignore him; he’s not terribly big, and he doesn’t look as if he could spring to his master’s defense without a trampoline. Indeed, his lip curls back, but the rest of him remains lying on his pillow bed.
Trying not to indulge in too much gooey tenderness—after all, I’ve known Leo for all of twenty-seven hours—I spread the blanket over him, then go back up the steps to my new home, put Pandora on Kelly Clarkson and start unpacking.
* * *
A FEW HOURS later, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Leo, holding my blanket in one hand, the bouquet of flowers in the other. “Is this yours?” he asks, lifting the blanket.
“Yes. You looked cold.”
“I was fine.”
“You’re welcome.” I give him a pointed look and take the blanket.
“Thank you.”
We look at each other for a minute. “Come on in,” I offer, and he does. “I was going to ask you to come up anyway. The living room light doesn’t work.” It’s a gorgeous fixture, authentic Victorian, I think, ivory with a leaf pattern embossed into it.
“What the hell are you listening to?”
“This? This is Toby Keith.” Leo stares at me like I’m an exhibit at the zoo. Right. He’s a pianist or a musician or a snob. “Who are the flowers for?”
“Oh. Uh, my mother. She didn’t like them.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“She decided she didn’t like orange.”
“Ah.” I wait for him to offer me the flowers. He doesn’t. “How about fixing that light, Leo?”
He sits on the couch, puts the flowers down and takes a bottle of beer out of his suit pocket, pops the top off with the opener on his key chain and sits back, putting his feet on the coffee table. “Have you tried changing the lightbulb?”
“Make yourself at home. And yes. It’s not the lightbulb.”
“Sounds like the switch is broken. Maybe a problem with the wiring. Good thing there’s a lot of natural light in here.”
“Still, it would be even better if the super would fix my light. I believe you are the super, Leo?”
“I am. But I’m not that good at fixing stuff. I got this job because of my looks.” He smiles.
“Well, then, since you’re inept, would you call an electrician for me?” I ask.
“I’ll make it my life’s new mission. Can it wait till tomorrow, or are baby sea otters dying because your light won’t go on?”
I sigh with exaggerated patience. “It can wait till tomorrow.”
He takes another drink. It’s an IPA, which I quite like.
“Bring me a beer next time,” I say.
“Buy your own beer.” He smiles as he says it, and damn, he’s just too adorable. “How’s your sister?”
Right. I sigh and sit down. “She’s… I don’t know.” I grab a throw pillow and smoosh it against my stomach. Rachel had texted me a picture of the girls earlier, all of them on the slide at the park. No note. “She says she’s good.”
“But she’s not good?” Leo says.
I pause. He was awfully nice last night. Caught Rachel, scooped her up in his arms and set her on this very couch. As I was saying, “Rachel? Rach? Rachel!” in a panicked voice, he got a damp dishcloth and put it on her forehead, then stuck around to see if she was okay. I guess he has a right to ask.
“It seems her husband has no idea who sent it,” I say.
“Ah. It was all a mistake, then?”
“That’s what we’re going with.”
He shrugs, a Gallic gesture that belies his very Irish name, a shrug that says, Ah, poor kid, people are stupid, whatcha gonna do. “She seems sweet.”
