Chapter Twelve #2
Marin jumped in. “You know that response right there is proof positive that you won the boyfriend lottery. Forget Greece. Forget Paris. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real gold standard.”
I knew they were right. Leo had exceeded my expectations, though to be fair, they weren’t particularly high to begin with. It was still early days, and he was on his best behavior. But that wouldn’t last. His true colors would surface soon enough. They always did.
However, walking away wasn’t as easy as it should have been.
For once, the usual impulse to cut and run felt .
. . off. But that didn’t change the facts.
This had to end. For the radio show, for my career, for everything I’d built.
No question, I had to make a clean break today.
Then Leo would go back to South Africa or whatever magical realm he’d appeared from, and I could go on with my regularly scheduled life.
Marin pushed back her chair, still catching her breath. “Oof, my ribs hurt from laughing so hard. Sorry, but I have to kick you guys outta here. Quick cleanup, then I need to go grab the kids.” She stood, stretching and shaking off the last bits of energy from her laugh attack.
“Oh, wow, I didn’t realize how late it was getting. I should go too, then. The nanny leaves at four on the dot,” Jada said, already packing up the racks and mah-jongg tiles with practiced precision.
“What about you, Elliot?” Stella asked with a sly grin. “Oh, never mind. You’ve got Mr. Wonderful waiting at your apartment, just itching for you to make good on that text.” She bounced her eyebrows provocatively and offered a not-so-sly grin.
Jada and Stella collected their things and left together, while I lingered behind to help Marin clean up.
“You can head out,” Marin said. “I’m just going to toss the rest of this into containers.”
“I don’t mind helping. I’m not really in a hurry,” I replied.
Marin paused, mid–Tupperware burp, and eyed me skeptically.
“Why not? No disrespect to Tyler, but had I been the one who had gotten that swoon-worthy text from Leo, you’d see my outline imprinted on the wall like in one of those old Road Runner cartoons.
” She snapped closed one of the plastic lids on the peanut butter cups and turned to me.
“You doing okay? I know opening up yourself . . . your life to someone has been a big change for you.”
There it was. A flicker of recognition, like Marin could still make out the person I used to be. The one I was before Leo had mysteriously materialized.
“I can see . . . anyone can see, he’s a good guy. But that doesn’t mean he’s right for me. You don’t understand. Now is not the time to let my feelings cloud my judgment. I can’t afford to lose myself right now. Everything I’ve worked so hard for is at risk of slipping through my fingers.”
“Is that another way of saying ‘everything you’ve built to protect yourself from getting hurt?’”
“What does that mean?” My defensiveness taking on more of a biting tone.
“Elliot, I know you. You can put on a brave face for everyone else, but I see the pain Matty left behind.”
Matty.
The scar that kept splitting open, no matter how many times I tried to stitch it shut.
Matty and I grew up side by side. As the son of my mother’s best friend, Izzy, he and I had been thrown together since we were in diapers.
Like most boy-girl friendships, ours went through all the phases.
We started off inseparable, then hit that awkward the-opposite-sex-is-gross stage around twelve.
Everything shifted again at thirteen, when Matty kissed me during a game of spin the bottle at Marin’s apartment.
We didn’t speak for about six months after that, paralyzed by mutual embarrassment.
But by the time we both ended up at the same high school a year later, we managed to find our way back to each other.
It wasn’t until junior year, at Mom’s third wedding, that anything romantic really happened between Matty and me.
This one was small, just her closest circle.
Izzy, of course, and Matty. We all crammed into a narrow back room at a restaurant in Little Italy where the waiters sang opera between courses and the house Chianti came in wicker-bottomed bottles.
By the time dessert rolled around, cannoli cake, Mom stood up to give a toast. She called Vic the love of her life and said she finally understood what real partnership looked like. Everyone clapped. Except for me. I just couldn’t pretend.
I grabbed a bottle of wine off the table and slipped away, down the long staircase to the kitchen and out into the alley behind the restaurant. That’s where Matty found me a few minutes later.
Even from outside, we could hear Antonio, our singing waiter, serenading the newlyweds with “Che Gelida Manina,” the famous love song from La Bohème, which I only knew because my mother’s second husband thought himself to be an opera aficionado.
“I love this one. I wish I knew what they were saying, though,” Matty had said softly, his eyes closed as he took in the song.
“If I’m remembering right, I think Rodolfo is telling Mimi about his love for her, how he dreams of their life together,” I’d told him.
It was then that Matty asked me if I’d ever thought of him as more than a friend, something I’d wondered about countless times but had never been brave enough to risk.
He was solid, dependable, a steady presence, the exact opposite of the revolving door of men in my mom’s life, not to mention my own father, who had never really been around with any consistency.
I’d never wanted to jeopardize what we had.
But then, that night in the alley under the big, glowing full moon, Matty had kissed me, and everything had changed.
We fell in love. A passionate, all-consuming kind of love, like Mimi and Rodolfo.
For as much as I had been trained from my youth to see love as fleeting, I truly believed he was my forever.
Until a few years later, when he betrayed me in the worst way possible.
Marin’s voice broke the silence, pulling me back to the present. “You’re still carrying Matty with you, aren’t you?”
“No. Of course not. That’s all in the past.”
“I hope so. I really do. You know, when you think about it, relationships really aren’t that different from mah-jongg.
You have to discard a tile to be able to draw a new one.
And you, my friend, have got a really great new tile waiting for you at home, complete with a sexy accent.
I just don’t want you to let the past keep you from .
. . playing the game. Know what I mean?”
I pulled Marin in for a hug. I understood what she was trying to say.
And maybe, in another time, her words would’ve shifted something.
But right now, I couldn’t shake the certainty that I had to walk away from Leo.
For all the reasons I’d told myself were true: my career, my reputation, the deals I’d fought so hard to land—my book, Sirius, everything.