Chapter 11
Zoe took a deep breath and knocked resolutely on Dan’s door.
After that depressing and weird exchange with Jenna—all thanks to her, and not Jenna—she was definitely not feeling in the mood for a date, a drink, or even a discussion about some stupid logo.
She felt flat and sad, as well as angry and annoyed with herself, and all in all it wasn’t a very good combination, and especially not for socializing.
She was going to tank anything between them before it even started, if it ever did, she thought dismally, and it didn’t feel like there was a thing she could do about it.
The door opened, and Dan stood there, looking just the right mix of cool and relaxed.
His dark hair was rumpled, and he was wearing another band t-shirt, this one of concert dates from ten years ago, of a band she’d never heard of, with faded jeans and bare feet.
It was, Zoe had to acknowledge, a good look.
“Zoe.” He smiled, a slow, sexy smile that made her insides take a tumble despite her grumpy mood. “Come on in.”
“Thanks.” Her voice came out a little terse and she tried to temper it.
“Sorry I’m a little late.” She’d taken another ten minutes to settle her parents as well as herself, after Jenna had gone.
Now she gave him a quick and somewhat tense smile as she stepped into the living room, looking around for Sophie.
“Sophie’s at the boardgame café,” Dan told her as he closed the door. “There’s some game night going on, and Ben and Bella both invited her.” He shook his head slowly in wonderment. “I can’t tell you what it means to me, that she’s making friends.”
“That’s great,” Zoe replied, but her voice came out a little strangled. She’d been counting on Sophie being here, to keep it from being too date-like. An hour ago, the teenager’s absence would have sent a little thrill through her, but now she only felt even more downbeat and nervous.
What was wrong with her?
“Would you like a drink?” Dan asked after a pause that Zoe feared felt awkward. “I’ve got wine, beer, soda, juice, water…”
“Water’s fine.” As soon as she said it, Zoe knew it was wrong. Water did not set the mood. Water suggested you were barely tolerating being there.
“Okay,” Dan said after another pause, and then went to the kitchen to fill up two glasses of water.
Clearly he didn’t feel like he could crack open a beer while she was sipping her tap water, which made Zoe feel even worse.
She’d only been here for two minutes, and she was already ruining an evening she’d so been looking forward to a short while ago.
“Sorry,” she blurted suddenly, hanging her head in apologetic shame. “I’m not in the greatest mood right now.” She looked up with a grimace. “I think I just need to get over myself.”
“I understand about moods,” Dan replied easily enough. “You want to tell me why yours isn’t great?” His eyebrows lifted. “No worries if not,” he added quickly.
“I don’t even know why,” Zoe replied honestly. “At least not in a way I can explain coherently.”
“Well, if you feel like trying…” He handed her a glass of water. “And the wine’s here, if that will help,” he added, a semi-joke.
Oh, why not, Zoe thought with a sudden surge of heady recklessness. She didn’t want to sit here and sip her water like some sort of emotionally stunted nun. She had precious little pleasure in her life and tonight had been meant to be exciting. Different. Different because of Dan.
“Actually, I think I would like a glass of wine,” she told him, and Dan responded with a slow, lazy sort of smile that lightened his eyes and revealed the dimple in his cheek.
“Red or white?” he said as Zoe’s stomach did a little flip, simply at the sight of that smile.
“White, please.” Her voice came out in something caught between a croak and a whisper. She felt as if the temperature had gone up by about ten degrees.
“Perfect.” Dan put down his glass of water and headed to the fridge, which gave Zoe a very nice view of his butt that she forced himself to look away from.
Down, girl. “So,” Dan said once he was pouring two glasses of white, “let’s start at the beginning.
What do you think got you in not the greatest of moods? Did something happen today?”
Zoe sighed as she took a sip of wine, let the crisp taste sparkle on her tongue for a few seconds before she swallowed.
“Not really,” she said slowly. She couldn’t possibly explain about how she’d put off Jenna, not without going into a lot of detail about how probably half the population of Starr’s Fall thought they were on a date right now, and also about her parents and how she didn’t let people in her house any more.
And until Jenna had come over, she hadn’t even realized that was a thing with her.
Was it? Or had she just been protective of her parents?
Dan strolled over to the sofa, glancing back at Zoe, and she followed and sat down on one end, her legs tucked up under her, while he took the other.
“Do you ever just question yourself?” she asked suddenly.
“Like, you thought you were doing one thing for one reason, and all of a sudden you wonder if you were doing it for another, and that makes you question basically everything about yourself?” She gave a grimacing laugh.
“Sorry, that all sounds super abstract and vague.”
“No, I get it,” Dan told her. “I felt that way when Lindsay—Sophie’s mom—got custody of her.
” He held up a hand. “Let me back up. Lindsay and I divorced eighteen months ago, after several rocky years. We stayed in the same apartment for a while, though, because rent was expensive.” He grimaced. “It wasn’t fun.”
“I can imagine,” Zoe murmured. She couldn’t, not really, having been neither married nor divorced, but it certainly sounded awkward and not fun.
“Anyway,” Dan resumed on a sigh, “after a few months, Lindsay got a mega promotion at work. Huge signing bonus, all that. She bought a swanky apartment on Park Avenue, enrolled Sophie in a hoity-toity private school, showered her with presents and treats. And asked her who she wanted to live with—her, in her swanky new apartment, or me, in a two-bedroom walkup in Harlem, my bike in the hall and one air conditioner for the whole apartment.” He smiled wryly before sighing as he leaned his head back against the sofa.
“You can probably guess which Sophie picked.”
“It had to have been pretty tempting for a teenaged girl,” Zoe said quietly. She ached for Dan, who she could tell, despite his seemingly laidback attitude, had been hurt by his daughter’s choice—and apparent rejection.
“Anyway,” he resumed after a moment, his gaze on the ceiling, “afterward, I wondered if I’d given in too easily.
I thought I was honoring Sophie’s decision, but maybe I just caved because it felt easier and that was wrong.
Maybe part of me welcomed the chance to focus more on my business and not have to deal with an angry and hormonal thirteen-year-old girl all the time.
” He lowered his gaze to smile at her wryly.
“So what I’m saying is, I get it. I don’t know what reason you had for doing whatever you did, and what other reason you realized you might have for doing it, but I do get it.
” He fell silent, taking a sip of his wine, while Zoe absorbed everything he’d said, along with everything he hadn’t.
It sounded like the last few years had been really difficult, and his relationship with Sophie had been—and still was—fraught. And what had happened to Lindsay, that meant Dan had custody of Sophie again, and had moved right out of the city?
“So how long did Sophie live with Lindsay?” she asked. She was glad they were talking about Dan and not her, but she had a feeling he might turn the tables fairly quickly. “And what made you guys move here? Besides Henrietta Starr, that is.”
“She wasn’t the real reason,” Dan told her with a wry laugh.
“At least, not the main one. That would be kind of creepy and stalkerish of me, if it was. And to be fair,” he added with another laugh, “just the other day, Henrietta Starr accused me of coming here because I was after her money, of which apparently there isn’t any. ”
A bubble of laughter rose in Zoe’s throat and escaped in a hiccuppy sound. “Really? That sounds like an awkward conversation.”
“Very,” Dan agreed, his smoke-colored eyes creasing in a smile of rueful acknowledgment.
“But the real reason for moving here was a change of scene. New York was super expensive, Sophie also…” He paused, grimacing a little before continuing in a low voice, “…had some trouble at her ritzy school, and she’d been hanging around some not-so-great friends.
A change for both of us seemed like a good idea.
Plus,” he continued quietly, “Sophie has pretty severe dyslexia. She doesn’t like me talking about it, but Hollinghurst has a great program to help students with dyslexia. Her old school didn’t.”
“That sounds like a lot of good reasons to move,” Zoe told him. She could relate to some of Sophie’s troubles, and she knew in many ways she could have used a fresh start when she was the same age. She took another sip of wine, savoring its crisp taste.
“Yeah, well, that’s what I thought. I think Sophie might be coming around, in no small part thanks to you.
” He paused, his gray gaze lingering on hers as he stretched his legs out on the coffee table and crossed them at the ankles.
For a second, it felt like the moment could spin out into something else, but then Dan resumed his story.
“In terms of what happened with Lindsay,” he explained, “Sophie lived with her for a year before Lindsay got an even bigger job promotion, in Dubai. This time she didn’t dangle presents or treats—she didn’t want Sophie cramping her jet-setting style, and so she didn’t even offer.
She left about two months ago, and Sophie took the rejection pretty hard. ”