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He stopped chopping the lettuce and furrowed his brow at me. “Wouldn’t youwantLayla to convince her to go with you?”
“I don’t want Lyndi to beconvincedof anything she’s not comfortable with. Even that. But again, it doesn’t matter.”
“Liar.”
“That’s not exactly breaking news, is it? Kind of my thing.” The second I said it, the familiar words reminded me of Lyndi.
Man, I’m in deep.
“Itcouldmatter,” he said, resuming his chopping.
“Of course it can’t.”
Zac picked up the cutting board and slid the lettuce into a large bowl. “Why not? You should tell her how you feel.”
“I can’t.”
He added some carrots to the salad. “Again, why not?”
“Because,” I said, gesturing with the brush and wincing when I accidently flicked barbecue sauce at him. “Sorry, but you said it yourself, she doesn’t want to leave, and I’m leaving. And even if she did, I don’t want this either. I don’t want somethingrealwith Lyndi. My life was fine before all this. In fact, so was hers. Everyone else just needs to butt out.”
“You’re a mess, dude,” he said, wiping barbeque sauce off his arm.
“Tell me about it.”
“And even with all that crap you’re telling yourself, you wound up feeling something real anyway.”
I sighed. “Lucky me.” Finished with the ribs, I nodded at the salad. “You done prepping the rabbit food? Maybe we can eat these ribs before they fall off the bone by themselves.”
“Come on, man, you’re telling me if she suddenly didn’t care about leaving, if that wasneveran issue, you wouldn’t just push through whatever it is that’s keeping you from wanting a real relationship?”
I glared down at the ribs like this was their fault. “It’s not that easy.”
“Take it from me. Itisthat easy. I think people would rather hold onto the feeling that they’re right than let go and be happy. And I know this because I freakinglearned my lesson. When I think about everything I put Layla through because I thought I was right about how it would end… man, I’d kill for a do-over.”
Grayson must have won the race, because he jumped up from the couch and started doing a victory dance, calling all of his uncles “big fat losers.” I watched as they pushed him around and they all laughed, the carefree smile on Gray’s face hitting me right in the chest.
Zac was right. I was a mess. And since I’d already told Lyndi about my family and my repeated losses and it had actually made me feel surprisingly better the next day, I figured maybe it was time I told my best friend, too.
I put my hands on the counter between us and braced myself. “My dad’s sick, Zac.”
He froze, his jaw clenching tight for a second before his face morphed into that pitying expression I’d spent years avoiding. “I’m sorry, dude. How sick are we talking?”
“Stage three lung cancer. He thinks he’s a goner, but the docs still have hope. I’m with them.”
“Well, me too, then. But still, evenwiththat, you gotta be honest with Lyndi. Doesn’t that tell you life’s too short?”
I rolled my eyes, annoyed that he was missing the point. “No. Listen, I’m not gonna get into it, but I’ve already lost my mom and brother. And now with my dad… all this just tells me life’s short, end of story. I can’t… Iwon’tget close to someone only for me to lose her too.”
The surprise followed by utter sympathy all over his face was almost enough to make me take it all back and say I was joking. He stepped around the counter and reached out a hand, then thought better of it and crammed it into his pocket instead. “You don’t know you’ll lose her, man.”
I stood straighter. “I do. Trust me, I see a lot of breakups in my line of work.”
“Yeah, but you also see tons of examples of it working out. All I’m saying is, next time you’re around her, try to hang out with her without all the rest of this weighing you down. And yeah, bythisI mean all that loss that I know you don’t want to talk about, so I won’t even try. But just do me a favor and try to imagine what it would be like if the only obstacle was your orders.”
“Yeah? And what am I supposed to do about those?”
He pursed his lips and thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But even if you had to have a long-distance relationship until you got out, wouldn’t that be better than nothing?”
I turned away to bring the ribs to the table, unwilling to entertain it. I had no idea if Lyndi would be down for something like that, and even if I wasn’t burdened by my past, I wasn’t sure I wanted to put myself out there like that only to get shot down.
Realizing the conversation was over, Zac picked up the salad he’d mixed and set it down next to the ribs. “Well, play it by ear.”
