Chapter Seven
I stopped short of opening the door to my first-floor apartment. “I wasn’t expecting a guest, so—”
Danny tilted his head, leveling his half smile. “I’m not going to judge.”
He said that now, but he had no idea what he was about to walk into. If the arched doorway hadn’t clued him in, he’d soon see the apartment complex was literally a hundred years old. My apartment was less than six hundred square feet and had an air-conditioning unit protruding from the wall that worked when it wanted to.
I unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. Nat’s clothes were strewn across our couch. The most probable scenario was that she had tried to pack early for South by Southwest but stopped at some point because she couldn’t decide what to bring. Since I wasn’t there to help her talk through her options, she had ditched the clothes until I came home. This would’ve all been fine if Danny wasn’t behind me.
“Make yourself comfortable,”
I said as I swooped up as many of Nat’s clothes as I could hold. “The restroom is down the hall if you need it.”
Danny nodded as he crossed the threshold into my space and placed the food on the kitchen counter. Like most of our guests, Danny was drawn to the living room, which Nat had decorated with props she’d stolen from every set she’d been on. I left Danny there while I ducked into Nat’s room. I dropped her clothes on her bed and searched her desk. There was nothing but an assortment of pens and notes she wrote to herself. I wasn’t trying to be nosy but couldn’t help noticing that the note right on top, ironically enough, had “Don’t forget passes and clothes”
scribbled on it. What would she do without me?
As Nat had requested, I picked out a few tops and pants for her to change into. I sent her a quick text asking for her ETA and let her know we were on the way back. She reacted to the message with a heart, which told me nothing other than that she was probably in between takes if she responded that quickly.
When I reentered the living room, Danny was flipping through the playbill from a small play Nat had performed in with East West Players. Seeing that he still mouthed words as he read had me feeling some sort of way. I wasn’t sure what way, but then Danny’s face revealed a guilty smile, like I’d discovered him snooping when I was the one who’d been caught red-handed.
“I went to the opening night. Nothing like live theater, right?”
I wasn’t sure why I said that. I’d suddenly been overcome with restless energy that had nowhere to go. I hung Nat’s clothes over the back of the couch and dabbed my forehead.
Danny slid the playbill back onto our bookshelf and picked up the earpiece that Nat wore in the Beyond the Dark pilot. It was the only episode in which her character wore it because someone realized how impractical it was for a scientist to wear such ornate jewelry during space missions. “Interesting things you’ve got lying around.”
“Yeah. Never a dull day around here.”
I took the earpiece from Danny and returned it to its rightful place, trying not to think too much about the brush of our fingers during our exchange. “Sorry. This one’s very special to Nat.”
“These too?”
Danny pointed at a pair of red Solo cups, the same ones Nat and I were holding in The Summer Before Last.
“Don’t tell me you’ve seen it.”
Danny replied with a cheeky smile. “I had to. How often do you see someone you know act in a movie?”
“Yeah, but you could tell it was going to be bad.”
The movie centered on a bunch of dudes renting a beach house to have one last great summer together before college. It was ninety minutes of horny bros trying to get laid. It wasn’t cutting-edge material.
Danny shrugged. “Your cameo made it worth it.”
I had no idea what to say to that. I cleared my throat. “It’s only a cameo when the part is played by a celebrity.”
My explanation seemed to make the awkwardness worse. Confusion flashed in Danny’s eyes. God, why couldn’t I accept the compliment? Before I could rectify it, Danny changed the subject. “Did you find the passes?”
Right. The passes. “Let me check the kitchen.”
This was the perfect distraction to keep me from fixating on how I fumbled our conversation.
I didn’t need to go very far to see that the passes weren’t in the fridge.
Nat had been wrong on both of her guesses.
The passes were under our fruit bowl.
She must’ve left them there after her morning banana.
I stuffed them in my jacket pocket and was about to fetch Danny when the spicy spaghetti reminded me of its presence.
Damn, it smelled so good.
I opened the bag and twisted noodles onto a fork before I put the rest in the fridge.
I managed to steal a delicious bite without accidentally giving myself a tomato stain.
It was a small win, not adding injury to my dirty suit. I contemplated changing my clothes, but I caught the time on our microwave. We had to go.
“Found ’em,”
I announced. “Let’s go—”
As I stepped back into the living room, Danny was picking up the plexiglass diamond-shaped award I’d received from FreeStream earlier that year to recognize my ten years of service. It was an oversized paperweight now.
“See? I did work there,”
I said to plead my case for my little white lie. I removed the clear plaque from Danny’s hands and ran my fingers over my etched name. “I should have tossed it in the trash.”
“It’s impressive that you stayed that long,”
Danny said.
“And look where it got me. In the end, it didn’t count for anything.”
I put the award back in its place on the bookshelf. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a downer. I try to be positive. Sometimes I’m relieved that I don’t have to go back to that job, but I’m also scared. I don’t know what’s next.”
“It’s okay to have conflicting feelings about it.”
Danny’s face softened with sympathy. There was something precious about his face that made me want to hold it close. People talk about looks that could kill, but Danny’s could soothe. “You experienced a loss. It’s okay to grieve.”
“Is that what this is?”
I’d experienced setbacks before, but they hadn’t felt like this. Getting laid off felt like having PMS-grade mood swings every day. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
The one feeling I was certain of was that I was tired. I’d spent the beginning of my career delivering mail, answering phones, doing anything to please my bosses in hopes of getting the slightest chance of moving up. I molded myself into whatever other people wanted me to be. I played the game and it worked. I wouldn’t have gotten the referral to FreeStream if my old bosses hadn’t liked me. But if I tried really hard to look at this unemployment phase as an opportunity to pivot into something else, didn’t that mean I’d have to work my way up from the bottom again? My body felt heavy at the thought. I’d already paid my dues.
“If it’s not grief, then maybe you’re having a midlife crisis,” he mused.
“I’m not in a position to get a sports car at the moment.”
Danny made a clicking sound as his mouth pulled into an awkward smile. “Probably a good idea, given your driving record.”
“Oh shut up,”
I said with a laugh. “You have to come up with new material. I’m telling you, I’ve changed.”
“So you say.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, though there was no heat behind them. It was a verbal poke in the ribs I was used to getting from Danny. I missed the way we used to bicker. It used to all feel so easy. “I swear. I’m different now.”
I waited for Danny to retort or smile this conversation off, which he’d do if he didn’t have a comeback ready. But instead, he rested one hand on his hip and the other on the bookshelf behind me, creating a semicircle around me. “Not too different, I hope.”
He said this with a light and airy huff, transparent in its sincerity.
Nostalgia was doing a number on me, because the first thing I thought about was another time when we stood this close, slow-dancing at the Spring Fling. We hadn’t planned to go together. I didn’t dress up, opting for jeans with a nice top. Danny gave me a hard time for working at a dance, and when I wouldn’t leave my post, he sat and hung out with me.
“But you have to dance at least once,”
he’d said. “You can’t come to a dance and not dance.”
When I finally agreed, the next song happened to be a slow song. Danny didn’t even have a reaction to it but just held out his arms. We’d always have that one dance together.
My heart raced from the unbidden memory. Even though it happened decades ago, the same overwhelming mix of confusion and excitement took over my senses.
“Why did you invite me tonight?”
I blurted. I had to know. I had too many memories that blurred the lines of our friendship, that had made me think he cared about me, only for us to go our separate ways. It took a lot of time and effort to keep those memories at bay, to put them far enough away to fade. I didn’t have enough bandwidth to relive adolescent feelings. It was hard enough the first time.
“Why did you come?”
Danny asked, more curious than accusatory. I rolled my eyes at this blatant attempt to dodge the question, but then he added, “I thought you’d never come back.”
I’d really dug my own grave when I shouted that for the whole school to hear. But it wasn’t like I’d had some master plan to give him the silent treatment for twenty years. Did he forget that he left town after graduation without telling me? “So you didn’t think I’d show up?”
“No. That’s not it.”
Danny’s dark brown eyes sank into mine, inadvertently starting a staring contest. I could’ve looked away, but then I’d have to contend with the soft hair that framed his unfairly handsome face. My hands itched to reach for him and see if he’d lean into my touch. But I kept them at my sides because I had to stay strong. I needed answers first.
“Can’t I come and see an old friend?”
Danny leaned in, giving me a close-up of the tick in his jaw. I braced myself for another fight, but his eyes lowered like a surrender until all I saw was the fan of his long lashes. “Is that all we were?”
The sliver of vulnerability, that hope in his voice utterly disarmed me.
“No.”
That simple little word took all of the air out of me. Now that it was out in the open, I remembered why I never talked about my feelings for Danny. I couldn’t take them back if I had been wrong. I hated being wrong.
Danny’s eyes flicked up, searching mine like he had to make sure he heard me correctly. I was almost offended how surprising this was to him. Friends didn’t usually go around kissing each other, for one thing. But I couldn’t completely fault him. Back then, we couldn’t wrangle our emotions. We kept them right beneath the surface until they exploded out of us like a cannon set to destroy everything in its path. If we’d learned anything from our mistakes, it didn’t have to be that way this time.
“Is that what you thought?”
I asked. If we were finally going to ask the questions, we might as well be thorough.
Danny shook his head, paying special attention to my mouth.
I pressed my hand firmly on his chest before I lost myself to my baser instincts. I wanted so badly to kiss him and pour everything into it. Years of regret and wonder and missed chances. I wanted him to feel it all. But kissing Danny had dismantled years of friendship in a matter of months. I couldn’t let it cloud my judgment when I was trying to get to know the person he was now.
“We should go,”
I said. Disappointment washed over Danny’s face. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but then his phone pinged. I couldn’t read the message since it was upside down from my view, but I caught Mariana’s name. It was enough to snap me out of this haze.
I patted my pockets, making sure I had everything I needed and fished out my car keys. “Come on.”
I nudged him out of my apartment. “We don’t want to keep anyone waiting.”
“Rachel.”
I got in my car and turned on the ignition. Seeing Danny again was more than I had bargained for. I wanted to get some closure, not reopen old feelings.
“Rachel,”
he repeated after he sat down and buckled his seat belt. “Can you stop?”
“We’re going to be late,”
I said and put the car in reverse.
“Let them wait. I didn’t come for them.”
I stepped on the brakes, leaving the car halfway in the street. This direct side of Danny was new, and it was like my brain couldn’t handle it while driving at the same time. It was a jolt to the system, injecting new life into something I thought was gone. Sounds were coming in louder and lights were brighter.
I realized a second too late that these sensations weren’t all in my head. A car racing down my street had crashed into the back of my car, sending it spinning. I couldn’t tell what was left or right. By the time the airbags deployed, the only thing grounding me was my seat belt, cutting into my skin, and Danny’s hand gripping mine.