“…Hey,” I try. “Can I come in?”
Wordlessly, he steps aside.
I walk over and sit on his couch, which is new and looks like a nicer, more expensive version of the one he had before. “Wow. No longer slumming it, I see,” I joke.
“I could say the same about you with my sister,” he says.
I groan. “Dude.”
He looks at me unflinchingly.
“I was gonna come here and apologize, but Mia was right. I should call you out.”
“Me?” he asks, outraged. “You?—”
“—you told me I wasn’t good enough for her, Leo. Me. Your best friend. You know me better than anyone in my entire life, and even then, you didn’t think I was good enough for her. You thought I would hurt her?—”
“Youdidhurt her, you fucking asshole?—”
“I did hurt her, and I’ve apologized to her, and we’ve worked through it and we’re working through it together, because we’ve known each other our entire lives, and we owed it to one another. Will you work through it with me, here, now, too?”
He sighs, scrubbing his face.
I take that as a cue to continue. “Leo, I love you, man, but you didn’t believe in me or trust me or take me seriously with her, and honestly, it’s not just with Mia. It’s kind of become a new pattern with things—with her, and my job, and my gym, my relationships. You never let it go. Never let me live things down. What the fuck happened?”
He’s silent for a long moment, thinking, and I’m really fucking grateful for it, for his giving me the time I’m due.
“I think it started when we moved apart. It kind of felt like… I was moving forward in life. In adulthood. I was becoming successful, and you were still kind of doing the same thing we’d been doing since college.”
I digest this. “I think it’s kind of messed up that you’re imposing your definition of success on me. Just because I wasn’t making even half of what you were making doesn’t mean that I’m not successful. I had two full-time jobs. I started my own business. It’s taken off.”
“I get that. I’m sorry about that. I know that and see that now,” he concedes. “But with all the women you were fucking around with?—”
“But I was happy doing that! At least until I wasn’t. I didn’t have any fucking time to hold anything serious down. And even if I did, I didn’t want to! Not until Mia, at least. Why couldn’t you just respect that? And I’ve said this to you before. I was always very clear with my partners before anything ever happened. We always set the ground rules before doing anything, and the rules were never broken, and no one was ever unhappy.”
“They were never broken until Mia.”
I sigh. “Yeah. But I love her and I trust her more than anyone I’ve ever been with before. And she’s an adult woman who can make her own decisions, and if that includes breaking our ground rules, and we both agree to breaking them, then who are you to say that I’m some sort of man-whore fucking women over all over the city?”
He reverts back to silence, looking at the coffee table in front of us.
“Listen. I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest with you. I’m sorry that I made Mia cry, but that’s between me and her. But that’s about all that I’m going to be fucking sorry for,” I say, wearing my Hot Girl pants. “I’m not sorry that I fell in love with your sister. I’m not sorry we’re together now. I’m upset and sad and disappointed that you’re upset with me, but I’m not going to apologize for that.”
He looks at me, his eyes the same exact blue as his sister’s, a twenty-year-old scar through his eyebrow from a particularly exuberant soccer tackle. “I’m sorry, too,” he finally mumbles.
“What was that?”
“I’m sorry, too,” he says, a decibel louder.
I grin. “For what?”
“For not being a good friend. For not taking you seriously.”
“How about for resorting to violence in your anger?”
“I’m not sorry for punching you in the face, no.”
“That’s not verysuccessful adultof you.”
