Chapter Twenty
Danika
“Joey, Joey look! A truck!”
The toddler takes the truck from my open palm and chucks it across the room.
“Okay, well that’s one way to treat our things.”
Jane had crawled into my lap and chosen that moment to pull as hard as she could on the earring in my right ear.
“Fuuuudge. Fudge brownies! Should I make brownies, guys?” The twins look at me like I just asked them if they think there’s an afterlife. “Right, nevermind.”
Jane is crawling up my body and onto my shoulders as Joey takes off across the room, headed straight for the front door.
“Wait, Joey, hold on!” Scrambling, I try to grab hold of the girl using my body as her own personal climbing gym so I can run after the boy trying to escape the apartment. Just as Jane climbs onto my face and blocks my view, I hear the front door open.
He didn’t.
“Joey, wait!” I cry, pulling Jane into my arms as I run toward the door. Before I can get more than a few steps, I see Arden holding Joey on his hip like he does this every single day of his life. Joey is holding the truck I tried to offer him earlier and he’s showing it off to Arden.
“Going well, then?” His smirk is annoying.
“It was until you showed up,” I huff, putting Jane on the couch so I have space to put my hands on my hips. “I thought you were working tonight.”
Arden shrugs, handing me Joey who comes to me happily. “Got off early.” He goes into the kitchen to look in the fridge, no doubt investigating for some kind of dinner.
“I was about to order food for the kids. You want in?”
He nods, kicking off his shoes and putting them by the door.
“I’ll order it. What do you want?” Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he pulls up whatever delivery app he uses and begins scrolling through the various options nearby.
The way he’s so willing to drop everything to help me is something I should really devote some time to thinking about but right now all I can think about is the two toddlers destroying our apartment.
“What do you think, guys? Pizza?”
“No!” Both twins scream in unison.
“Chicken fingers?”
“No!”
“Macaroni and cheese?”
They cheer like I’ve just told them tomorrow is Christmas morning. Arden chuckles from the doorway. “Mac and cheese it is. I can order from the diner. What do you want?”
We both place our order and then Arden comes to sit on the couch. “How long have you been watching Paw Patrol?”
“Long enough,” I reply, grabbing the remote to change the show. “What’s next, Jane? Frozen?”
Jane starts singing her two-year-old version of “Let It Go”, and I smile as I put on the classic Disney movie.
“I’m not sure if I can hang out in here if you’re going to be blasting this musical theater sh–” I hit him with a glare. “Art. Shart.”
“Shart?”
“Yeah.”
I nod a few times, a serious expression on my face until I can’t hold it back any more and the chuckle erupts out of me.
The twins have no idea why I’m laughing but they take the opportunity to laugh along with me.
Pretty soon all four of us are having a giggle fest that only a knock on the door can stop.
“That was fast,” I recall while Arden greets the delivery person. He tips in cash and then brings the food to the kitchen, immediately plating the mac and cheese into small bowls for the twins.
Coming up behind him, I can’t help but admire him. “You’re pretty good at this.”
“Well, I do have a younger sister, you know.”
“Oh please, I know Margot. She raised you just as much as you raised her.”
Arden laughs but doesn’t correct me. In fact, he knows that I know more than anyone how the two of them were raised. Due to the fact that it happened right down the block from where I was being raised. If you can call it that.
Arden hands me a bowl and grabs the other for us to bring to the twins.
“Dinner!” He calls and the babies clap their little chubby hands as we give them their bowls.
In a miraculous twist of fate, only about twenty percent of the food ends up on the couch, which means an astounding eighty percent actually landed in their tummies.
Arden and I took turns scarfing down our food while they ate theirs so that we all finished at the same time.
After about thirty minutes, I grab all the containers and start to clean up the kitchen while Arden sits on the couch with the twins.
“Probably too late for dessert, huh?” I ask as I head back into the living room but the sight I see causes a knot to form in my throat.
Arden is sitting on the couch, Jane in his lap and Joey laying under his arm. Both kids are sucking their thumbs with their eyes glued to the TV screen–Arden’s included. He looks completely natural sitting there like that. Also too natural.
Not wanting to disturb the peaceful moment, I turn to head back to the kitchen but Arden’s face stops me. “Don’t even think about it, brat. Get your assthp over here.”
“Your cleverly disguised curse words are getting better and better,” I say as I head toward the couch and take the empty seat. Immediately, Joey crawls his way over to me and curls himself onto my lap. I pull him in close, cuddling into him, taking in his baby scent.
“Did you just sniff that child?”
“Oh my god, how do you always ruin every good moment that’s ever existed?”
Arden chuckles. “Every good moment ever?”
I huff. “Yes. It’s actually quite a feat, I’m impressed.”
“And I live to impress you, brat.”
“I know,” I scoff but I can’t help the way it turns into a genuine smile. A smile that keeps creeping onto my face when I’m around a certain best friend’s older brother.
My eyes droop, threatening to close when a knock sounds on the door. Joey is passed out on my lap and I carefully shuffle him over toward Arden and Jane’s sleeping forms so I can open the door.
“Hi!” Dr. Wilson cheers from the doorway and I quickly shush her. “Sorry, hi,” she whispers. “How did it go?”
I open the door wider, giving her a view of the entire living room which houses her sleeping twins and my sleeping fake boyfriend, all cuddly and adorable. Dr. Wilson grins widely. She enters the apartment and her husband follows so they can both grab one kid each.
Quietly, without waking any of the sleeping souls, Dr. Wilson scoops up Joey and her husband is able to extract Jane’s sleepy grip from around Arden’s arm. He doesn’t stir so they head back toward the door and whisper their goodbyes, promising to venmo me for the hours I spent with the twins.
I close the door gently behind them and tiptoe back into the living room. Sitting back on the couch, I settle into a comfortable spot, sneaking a peek over at Arden. He really is gorgeous. Looking super peaceful, too. Oh well.
“Oh my god! Where are the twins!” I scream at the top of my lungs and Arden jumps up from his seat. He looks around himself to see if any hiding toddlers are there and gives me a worried look when he comes up empty.
I can’t even keep up the charade for longer than three seconds. Immediately, I fall into a fit of giggles, in between which I’m able to get out the fact that their parents came to pick them up.
“You are pure fucking evil, Danika Freeman,” Arden fumes from above me. “You think it’s funny to trick me? You think you can just get away with that?”
I’m still laughing when Arden grabs the couch pillow and smacks me in the back of the head. My laughter immediately stops. “You did not.”
Arden smirks, holding the pillow in front of him now as a shield. “I did.” His expression is playful like he’s ready to tussle. Oh, I’ll tussle.
Grabbing the pillow from behind my back, I whack Arden in the leg and head in quick succession.
I don’t even know what happens next. I’m holding the pillow in front of my face to guard me in between throwing hits and Arden is doing the same.
At some point, the pillow slips from Arden’s hands and he tries to grab mine from my arms.
I’m not letting go of it that easily though and as I pull it back from him, Arden comes along with it, his body now hovering over mine. His eyes wide. His lips inches from mine.
And I move without thinking.
Reaching up, I connect Arden’s lips to mine. It’s a quick kiss. A kiss that we’re not sure we should be doing but we’re doing it anyway. A kiss eerily similar to one we shared last year but this time, the situation doesn’t be more different. Arden’s lips soften for mine but only briefly.
As if coming to his senses, he leans back away from the kiss. Looking back and forth between my eyes, he analyzes me for a few seconds before seeming to come to a conclusion in his own mind.
“Yeah, fuck it.” Arden moves with a swiftness I wasn’t expecting, capturing my head in his hands, his lips urging mine to open for him. And they do, easily.
I’m not thinking about the consequences. Right now, all I’m thinking about is those little breaths he’s letting out as his tongue slips over mine. He bites my bottom lip and I have to hold in the moan that threatens to escape.
With Spider-man-like agility, Arden maneuvers us so that he’s sitting on the couch and I’m straddling him. We barely broke the kiss as we moved to this new position and I am happy to settle right in that sweet spot on his lap.
“Wait.” With a groan of frustration, Arden rips his face away from mine. “Hold on,” he says, pulling back in every way, shape and form. I immediately scramble off his lap, embarrassed of the position.
“Dani, just relax. Hold on.” He leans over his knees to try and grab me back but I’m out of reach. I can’t believe I just kissed him like that. I can’t believe he just kissed me like that.
“No, it’s fine. That was a mistake,” I say, already backing away toward my bedroom door. I need space. My head is spinning with soft groans and minty breath. “I was delirious from babysitting exhaustion. Not thinking straight. We said we weren’t going to do that again. I’m sorry, I—"
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“We said it last year, after…what happened. We said it wouldn’t happen again.”
“I think things are a little different now, don’t you?” Arden stands but I can’t do this. I need to get out of here. I need to think.
“That was a mistake,” I repeat, my voice quieter this time.
“Dani–”
“Goodnight, Arden.” My door is closed immediately and I put my ear right up to it. I hear a very deep guttural sigh from the living room, some shuffling and then the sound of his bedroom door closing.
It’s only then that I let out the breath I was intentionally holding.
It’s not like Arden and I haven’t kissed before.
But I can explain all those other kisses.
The first one was out of pity because I was a sad little lost girl and he felt bad for me.
The second one was because we were both drunk and stupid and lonely.
The third, just last week, was for show. Because we’re fake dating.
So what explanation can I give this kiss? Because you wanted to?
No. I can’t be going around kissing Arden just because I want to. That is not how this is supposed to be going. I didn’t sign up for real feelings.
Crawling into bed, I still can’t decide how I should handle the situation. Clearly, we shouldn’t be mudding the waters like this. Especially when we know we aren’t going to be together. I can’t be with Arden. And he’s never looked at me beyond being his baby sister’s friend.
Except literally just now, dummy.
I give myself a face palm with my pillow before shutting off my bedside lamp, plunging my room into darkness. All I can do right now is sleep. The overthinking and over-analyzing everything he does from here on out can start tomorrow.