Birthday Suit

by Lauren Blakely

  Fucking tree.

  Fucking Tripp.

  That was five days after we’d gone to dinner at a hot new restaurant he’d been raving about. The Red Door. He’d gotten us into The Red Door, and the fucker hadn’t even been drinking that night. He had iced tea, and he gave me hope.

  Hope that he was finally turning the corner.

  Five days later, he was gone.

  Tonight, I pace through my apartment, wishing I could get in a cab uptown, bang my fist on the door of his pad, and tell him I’m taking her out, and that’s that, then go to the batting cage the next day with him and laugh about whatever had cracked us up that week at work.

  Like we used to.

  There’s so much we used to do that we’ll never do again.

  And I’ve dealt with all of it. I’ve mourned him, missed him, and moved on.

  But that promise—that stupid promise—hangs over me.

  He can’t grant me a thing anymore, and I don’t know that Lulu can either, but at least I can see her, talk to her.

  That’s a choice I do have.

  I head downtown, straight for Lulu’s home, texting her that I’m on the way.

  She buzzes me in. Tension coils in me as I walk up the steps slowly, as if each successive footfall will sort out the mayhem in my mind.

  It’s a mess in there.

  More than ten years after I met her, I finally kissed the woman I’ve loved.

  The woman I can’t get out of my head.

  She’s back in full force, the deed to my heart in her hand, and I need to know what she’s going to do with it.

  I reach her floor, scanning for 3B. I locate it instantly when I spot a neon-pink Christmas stocking hanging from a door. In felt-tip pen on the cuff are the words “Feel free to drop any assorted packages, bills, or winning lottery tickets here.”

  I let myself imagine her apartment. What does a Lulu-only place look like? Colorful, vibrant, teeming with all the things?

  I knock, and she opens the door right away, dropping into her best Mae West impression. “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” She takes a beat. “Oh, you’re already here. Come in.”

  “Why, thank you very much,” I say, Cary Granting it back to her.

  She’s more knock ’em dead than any silver-screen stunner. More than Mae West, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn herself, even in blue leggings that stop below her knees and a pale-yellow T-shirt that falls off her shoulder.

  I step inside, entering a kaleidoscope. A ruby-red fleece blanket is draped across a purple couch. Pillows are piled high on the ends of that sofa, towering and teetering like Jenga blocks. Picture frames stand proudly on nearly every surface—images of Lulu and her mom laughing at a bookstore, Lulu and her colleague Cameron at their first shop, Lulu and Mariana on the beach. I can’t help it—I scan for one of Lulu and Tripp, but find none.

  An unexpected dose of delight zips through me. This discovery makes me happier than it should, so I do my best to wipe that cocky smile off my face as I peer around, noticing magazines stacked across a small table and books rising sky-high on a shelf.

  Lulu is not a neat freak. Lulu is like a suitcase that you sit on to try to close, but bright emerald-green scarves poke out the corners, a fuchsia-pink heel sticks out one side, and a polka-dotted dress spills from the zipper.

  Everything is a little bit messy and wild.

  In the kitchen, a mint-green KitchenAid mixer takes center stage. A steel canister holds utensils and whisks, and the counter is shiny and spotless. An open pack of chocolate tells me she’s already been experimenting with concoctions this evening. The scents of vanilla and almond tell me she’s made something delicious.

  “The whole place—it’s very you. Like you stamped it with an ink pad.”

  She shuts the door. “Lulu’s lair. Enter at your own risk.”

  I laugh. “I’ll consider myself warned.”

  “But will you heed the warning? After all, you’re here.” She raises her chin and looks at me with challenge in her eyes.

  “I’m here. I suppose that means I’m not entirely risk averse.”

  A smile tries to sneak across her lips, but she seems to tuck it away. “So . . .” She exhales, waiting. She’s waiting for me.

  Of course she is.

  It’s my move.

  She served first earlier today.

  I drum my fingers across the foyer table. “What are we doing?”

  “Right now? Talking.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She shrugs, looking as helpless as I feel. “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, are we on the way to dating or something?” That’s the strangest thing to say. How can I begin to conceive of Lulu and me dating? What would a date look like? We’ve done so many things together already.

  “Do you want to date?” she asks.

  “Do you?”

  We’re two racquetball players, volleying, neither one wanting to cede.

  She heads to the kitchen, grabs a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, and pours two glasses, then stops. “Do you want wine instead?” But she answers her own question before I can. “I’m not having any.”

  I wave it off. “I’m good.”

  And it’s refreshing. To take it or leave it. We can both walk away from wine.

  She hands me a glass, and I drink. She drinks too.

  When I set it down, I try again. “What do you want, Lulu?”

  “I want a lot of things. I want us to date and go out and kiss like the world is ending. I want us to laugh and run on the beach and chase the moon.”

  God, they sound like all my dreams, but I can hear the but coming. There will always be one with the two of us.

  She takes another sip. “But it’s foolish, right? How could it be anything but foolish if we were together? My life was mostly a mess for the last decade,” she says softly, desperately. “I lost out on so many opportunities and chances. I finally have one. I don’t want to risk it.”

  I swallow roughly. I don’t want her to risk her chances either. “We need to make it through this partnership. Whatever is happening between the two of us was probably all stirred up stuff from the past.”

  She looks at me quizzically. “The past? What would be stirred up from the past?”

  I realize my mistake, and I backpedal, since I don’t want her to know how long I’ve wanted to kiss her. “I meant since we’ve known each other so long. Been through so much. Been friends and all that stuff.”

  “I hear you, but just so you know, there was nothing stirred up from the past today for me. That was all present-day stuff. I never saw you that way in the past. You’re not offended, are you?”

  I breathe a huge sigh of relief for two reasons. Because she isn’t on to me, and because I don’t want her to have felt a thing for me when she was with him.

  “I’m not offended at all.”

  She takes a drink of water then sets down the glass. “Are we still friends?”

  I laugh. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder for us to be un-friends.”

  She smiles. “Good. I’m famished. Do you want dinner?”

  “I won’t turn you down.”

  She grabs items from the fridge then sets to work. Lulu slices the tops off small green peppers, tosses them into a skillet sizzling with olive oil, and sautés them with some salt and pepper. The pan sizzles, and she stirs.

  She scoops up a pepper onto a spatula and brandishes it. Wiggling an eyebrow, she asks, “Can you handle the heat?”

  That question feels like the doublest of double entendres. “Bring. It. On.”

  “You’re so tough.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” If she knew the armor I had wielded over the years, she’d think I was made of metal.

  She blows on the pepper then dangles it in front of me. “Catch it?”

  “Do it.”

  She tosses over a pepper.

  I’m a frog. I stick out my tongue and catch it.
It’s hot, but I’ve never had trouble handling spice.

  I bite into the pepper, and it nearly scalds my tongue, but I crunch away, chewing with as much of a smile as I can muster, even as the green goodie torches my mouth. She watches me, appreciation etched into those eyes.

  “Impressed?” I want to impress her. Hell, if we were in the 1950s, I’d be the guy on the beach, flexing his biceps for the girl.

  “Don’t you know? Nearly everything you do impresses me.”

  And the bicep curls worked.

  Nice job, self.

  She stretches for a cupboard, reaching to grab an open bag of popcorn. She dips her hand inside, then backhands a kernel my way. I bend, catching that on my tongue too. “Now that is doubly impressive. In fact, I might need to enter you in a competition at SeaWorld.”

  “Arf, arf,” I say, imitating a seal.

  “Speaking of sea creatures, I have on my dolphin panties today.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Want to see?”

  What the hell? The woman just said we need to stay in the friend zone, and now she’s offering to show me her panties. Can we say women are confusing?

  “Is that a trick question? Are you testing me?”

  She laughs. “What’s the answer?”

  I move closer. “I always want to see your underwear. So don’t ask a silly question again.”

  “What if I want to see your underwear?”

  “You’re like an open flame, Lulu.”

  She laughs. “I know. Sorry. Grab me the green beans?”

  We shift gears, and I help her as she stir-fries green beans, sautés chicken, plates it all, and sets the table. It’s just us and this delicious spread she’s whipped up—and the big elephant in the room.

  Our kiss.

  We only discussed if it should happen again, not how much we want it to. Her words from earlier echo—I want us to date and go out and kiss like the world is ending.

  The elephant is trundling across her apartment, rattling the pictures on the walls. We eat, and the tension spreads across my shoulders. This tiptoeing won’t do. We aren’t some guy and girl who met at a bar. We aren’t coworkers who’ve known each other for a year and finally gave in to the wild flirtation we’ve had in the elevator. We are people who talk. We use our words.

  After we finish, I say, “We should really talk about the elephant.”

  “It was a particularly wonderful elephant.”

  That’s the oddest compliment I’ve ever received for a kiss, but I love it.

  “It was.” I replay that kiss for the five thousandth time today. I stare at her lips, remembering how they felt against mine.

  “You’re looking at my mouth,” she whispers.

  A weight slides off my shoulder and thuds to the ground. It feels like freedom. I can look at Lulu and speak some of the truth. “Your mouth is quite lush. Soft. Inviting.”

  She shivers, swaths of her curly hair falling across half of her face, curtaining her green eye. I reach an arm across and tuck the curls behind her ear as best I can. I want to see into those eyes. I want to read them. “Lulu, what are we doing?”

  She stares up at me from underneath those long lashes. “Remembering earlier today?”

  “It was mind-blowing.”

  “Was it really that way for you?” There’s a vulnerability in her tone, as if she doesn’t quite believe it could have been spectacular for me.

  She has no idea that it was everything I’ve ever wanted and a thousand times more. Because it was real. Because it happened now.

  Between only the two of us.

  Because it didn’t come when we were helping Tripp or grieving Tripp.

  It came from living.

  I circle back to her question then give her my answer. “It was that way. It was the only way.”

  “What happens next?”

  That’s the question. It keeps hanging in the air, and it’s going to demand a thorough dissection. Saying How could it be anything but foolish if we were together? isn’t enough of an answer.

  Her foot slides up my leg. I arch a brow. “Lulu, are you playing footsie with me?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” She looks ridiculously innocent.

  “That’s not friendly.”

  “It’s a foot, Leo.”

  “Your foot is not friendly.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re not turned on by my foot, are you?”

  “No.”

  She gives me a sly stare. “Are you sure?” She rubs her foot closer to my crotch. “Because it feels like you might be.”

  She is dangerously near my erection, and yes, I am indeed turned on by her foot. Big surprise. This woman has done it for me for years. “Lulu . . .”

  “Sorry, I thought maybe you had a banana in your pocket.”

  I laugh. “You’re not helping matters.”

  I reach under the table, grab her foot, and run my hand over it, kneading the sole. She groans, and it sounds sensual, like she’s a woman who loves to indulge—in food, in pleasures, in riches of the senses. She leans her head back, her long, glorious neck exposed as she closes her eyes. I want to learn if the coconut that I’ve smelled on her for ages is there when I kiss the column of her neck, the hollow of her throat. I knead harder into her foot.

  “Don’t do that. It’ll make me moan and groan.”

  “You’re already groaning. You’re already killing me.”

  She opens her eyes. “I can’t help it. You have strong hands, and they feel good on my feet.”

  She sits up straighter and sets her hands on the table. I let go of her foot.

  “Leo, I don’t think I realized how attractive you were before, and I’m glad I didn’t. But it’s all hitting me at once. And right now, I kind of want to jump you. I want to throw the plates to the ground, crawl across the table, and straddle you. I want to grind against you and kiss you all over and do all sorts of very bad things to you.”

  I sit stiller than a statue, absorbing the sizzle of those words.

  If I ever thought my resistance was going to be tested, this is the moment, and whatever shred I possess is fraying at the seams. “There’s literally nothing I want more.”

  She stares at me with heat in her eyes.

  It’s nearly enough to melt the last thread of resistance.

  But her next words halt me in my tracks. “But I have plans, and I have a chance to finally focus on them. I don’t want to lose my focus. That would be foolish. Don’t you think?”

  And there it is—the reluctance.

  I have enough of my own to feed an army. I can’t take on the burden of hers too. I can’t give in to all this heat if it’s seasoned with both our reluctant lusts.

  “Maybe I should go before we do something foolish.”

  I wait for her to echo me, as I know she will.

  She swallows and breathes out harshly, repeating my assessment. “Yes. You probably should.”

  Somehow, I find the will to stand, but I can’t locate the strength to leave just yet. “Do you want me to clean up?”

  She squeezes her eyes shut. “No. You should probably leave.”

  That’s exactly what I do.

  22

  Leo

  That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

  Like shit-they-do-in-the-movies tough.

  It was on the same level as hacking into Las Vegas’s traffic system in five seconds, pulling someone up from quicksand using only one arm, or jumping through a glass window. I bet if I tried that last one, I’d just bounce back with a loud thump.

  But I can’t bounce back, and I don’t have a clue how to move forward.

  In the morning, I rise before dawn, hoping to run off this pandemonium of thoughts and banging cymbals in my head.

  I circle the reservoir, trying to drain my brain of last night, of Lulu, of all the things I want to say to her.

  As I near the end of my run, a familiar set of footsteps roars by.

  Squeals.


  Stops.

  “Yo!” It’s Noah. “Hey, slowpoke.”

  “Hey, cheetah.”

  “I’m breaking through all my land speed records. Also, I owe you a big, huge, massive thank you. I knew you were the man.”

  “What are you thanking me for?”

  “Your brilliant, genius, insanely awesome advice to ask out Ginny.”

  I arch a brow. “She said yes?”

  “She let me buy her pretzels. And they were the best pretzels under the sun. It’s a start, right? Gotta start somewhere.”

  That is true.

  That is very true.

  In fact, maybe that’s my new rule to live by.

  Start somewhere.

  “Whatever it takes to get the girl, right?” he adds with a wave as he takes off to the other side of the world, flying on those Mercury legs.

  Taking action.

  Making a start.

  And the commotion in my head clears instantly.

  I don’t need to take a back seat this time.

  After a little googling upon my return home, I know what I want to say to the woman I was in love with for the better part of a decade.

  You have to start somewhere.

  23

  Lulu

  Kickboxing with my friends always clears my head. I’ve never been a solo exerciser. I like the company and the chatter. I like the girl power, and I instruct Mariana not to mention men at all.

  She gives a thumbs-up. “Man-diet morning. Got it. I vow to only discuss frivolous things to keep your mind off whatever man is driving you crazy.”

  “You’re a true friend.”

  At six in the morning, Mariana and I sweat our way through a killer class that elevates my heart rate to skyscraper levels. We speak in our exercise shorthand, the cardio reducing us to quick, bullet-like sentences as I tell her briefly about Heavenly, how the new line has started to come together over the last few weeks, the flavors I’m trying, as well as the hunt.

  When we hit the cool-down phase, I can breathe and talk more normally. “Plus, business at the shop is strong. I can’t really complain about anything, so, ya know, I won’t,” I say as I stretch.

  “Considering my newest client just paid me an obscene retainer, I won’t complain either. But I did donate ten percent of it to Little Friends, the local animal rescue.”