Chapter Twenty-Six
Daniel
I saddled up to the bar at the Riviera after playing eighteen.
“Back already?” Frank, the weeknight bartender, inquired with a raised eyebrow.
“For a bit,” was my answer.
I’d been back for a month. When I woke up and saw Wren’s note, I tucked tail and got the hell out of Boston. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay and beg Wren for forgiveness; I was as much always hers as she was mine. But I’d messed up.
“Acted like an absolute moron,” I offered up to Frank.
He placed a scotch in front of me, straight up, the way I liked it. “I’m not surprised—” He leaned on the bar and eyed me up.
“What? That I acted like a moron? Or that I’m back, playing and nursing my wounds?”
“Neither. You’ve been a bachelor for too long. I know you were married to a bitch, and what did that teach you? To react—”
“She was an ice queen,” I interrupted after taking a swig of my scotch. Between the burn, letting off some steam and calling my ex-wife names, I felt better.
“Now, you’re so used to doing whatever you want. Back here, playing every day…I see you, Danny-boy.” His gray eyes narrowed on me.
“No, it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t playing around the clock there. In fact, it might have been better had I been.” I ran my hand through my hair. I hadn’t had a haircut since I’d been back. Only thing I’d remembered to do was shave after the Fourth of July, when I’d sat around my house by myself all day.
“Was it now?”
I nodded. “I wanted to do right. Give without taking. But some NFL guy set me off.”
“Your ego is that fragile?”
“Sadly.” He refilled my scotch and set a bowl of almonds in front of me. “I got jealous like an eighteen-year-old at the prom…or whatever you American kids do.”
“You’re as American as apple pie, you’ve been here so long. Get a grip and go apologize. I can’t stand you moping around here. No one can.”
“Who talked to you?” I stared at Frank.
“Hmm? I can’t say.”
I knew it was Ryan, who was still chatting with Genie and was preparing to take her to the Bahamas for a weekend. I’d refrained from asking him about Wren, but he knew I wanted to… Every time we discussed the film, he dropped hints. “Yeah, yeah. Well, right now I’m playing golf and figuring out how to be a better man.”
He waved his hand at me. “No one better than you. Just grow up and be wiser. She’s not going to wait forever.”
“Thanks, Frank, for the chat. How about a BLT with it?”
“Right on that, tough guy.”
I ended up calling a rideshare to take me home, my head heavy with scotch and regret.
Lying on the lounge chair in my backyard, I debated calling Genie, pumping her for information. I could have Ryan put the squeeze on her, but I’d already acted like a baby once…and I heard Frank telling me to grow up.
So, I did what I’d wanted to do for a month—I dialed Birdie.
Frank hadn’t referred to me as a tough guy for no reason; I could do this.
“Hello.” Wren picked up after the third ring.
Quickly looking at my watch, I calculated it to be a few minutes after ten in Boston.
“Daniel, are you okay?”
Realizing I hadn’t said a word on the line, I cleared my throat. Of course she knew who’d called. “Yes, I’m fine. How are you? I—”
She interrupted me. “I’m good. I finished at the hospital about an hour ago. I operated today.”
In my head, I thought about what day it was. Thursday, her surgery day. Of course she’d been there late, never one to not make sure each and every patient was doing okay.
“Did everything go well?” I asked the question as if it hadn’t been four weeks since we last spoke—since she asked me to leave her house in a note.
“What do you want, Daniel? We don’t need to make small talk. It’s late and I’m tired.”
Her words didn’t come out biting. She was being honest in a way only Wren could be, but I could tell she was slightly caught off guard with my calling. There was a tiny tremble in her tone— her tell.
Closing my eyes, I could see her as if she was in front of me. Only, I wished she was. My hands itched to reach out and pull her close, to hold her and show her how much I cared. I needed her to feel how fast my heart was pounding. “I miss you. Us. All of it. Rourke, living together, making coffee…” My voice trailed off, listing all the ways I missed Wren and Boston. “It’s my fault. I acted like an ass,” I finished with.
Wren stayed quiet on the other side.
“I don’t like this separation. I felt like we had a good thing happening, and I want it back. I was jealous. It was so stupid. Please, Birdie…I love you.”
As the words rushed out of me, I realized it was the first time either of us had said the L word. No doubt I’d felt it and knew it was happening, but we’d never had labels or declarations. Wren and I met in college and fell into a hard like, and it grew into a love when we were adults. There had been so many distractions and countervailing forces, we’d never called what we had what it was. Now, I was naming it what it was—love.
“I was a fool thinking this could happen,” she said. “Us, I mean. I can’t be there in gorgeous and glamorous Los Angeles. And you, being here takes away the life you built. No matter what we are feeling.”
“I love you,” I simply said it again.
“Danny.”
Boom, there it was. My nickname.
“You’re making this hard,” she stated.
“It doesn’t have to be. I messed up. Let me try to show you I mean that and won’t do it again. I had a lot of growing up to do the last few weeks. I was emotionally stunted, but I am a man in love and I’m willing to do what it takes.” As I laid my head back, my eyes closed and the phone tucked into my chin, I decided I’d beg if that was what it took to get back on Wren’s good side.
“I care about you a lot. More than anything or anyone. But what I said is true—we did this without thinking.”
“I want to come back. I agree we didn’t map anything out. We will find a new course. I wanted to make things easy for you, and I made them harder. Like an idjit. I need to make more of a life for myself there. Branch out, network, find more opportunities other than the club. And I will.”
Just as I finished my monologue, I heard Rourke bark in the background.
“See, even Rourke agrees,” I said, and to my surprise, I was awarded a laugh from Wren.
“Danny—” There she went with my nickname again and I was putty for whatever she asked.
“Birdie, whatever you want,” I whispered in return.
“I’m sorry. Come back,” was all she said.
“On my way…”
“Now?”
“Yeah, I’m sure there is a red-eye I can jump on.”
I hadn’t packed a thing when I left Wren’s…and I didn’t take a thing this time, hoping my stuff was still in one piece and not shredded or burned. On my way to the airport, I thought about needing some sort of organizer. A packer-type person to come and ship me the rest of my stuff.
As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t coming back to California. Not without Birdie.