I shook my head. “I know. I really do. But it’s Pavlovian. I keep doing the same thing, over and over again. It’d be naive to expect new results. I can hope. But I can’t expect. This could be the best thing to ever happen to me, and I hope it is. But I’m not wrong to be scared.”

“Lila isn’t Ali.” He called me out quietly, sternly.

“No, she isn’t. But this is the first time I’ve involved my heart since Ali, and we all know how that turned out.”

“I know you’ve been conditioned to think you’re not worth more than a night, but have you ever stopped to consider they never wanted more because you were so sure it couldn’t be?”

“Maybe,” was all I was willing to concede. “I want to be the one to make Lila happy, and I finally have the chance. We’re together, really together after all our skirting around our feelings. Trust me when I say that I am relieved. Relieved and hopeful and finally happy, happier than I’ve been since…well, since I don’t know when. It’s just not so easy to believe my luck won’t run out, that’s all. But I won’t let her go without a fight.”

“No, I don’t think you will. I’m only saying all this is in your head. Who knows—maybe you’re soulmates and everything will be a cakewalk.”

“We’ve been official for less than twenty-four hours. I hardly think that constitutes being soulmates.” I shook my head at him, laughing. “I might be dumb, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Saying what?”

“That you’re dumb.”

“Because what do I know? I’m just a gardener who lives with his mother.”

“And I’m just a fuckup who couldn’t hold down a job. Oh, and who also lived with his mother.”

“Lived, past tense. Plus, you went to college and moved away and lived on your own.”

He pinned me with a look. “You could have if you’d wanted to. Why not just own the fact that you didn’t want to?”

“Because it doesn’t matter what I want. It matters how it looks.”

“To who?”

“To people.”

“To Lila?”

“You know how it is, Luke,” was all I said.