Chapter 8
Danielle
As soon as the backpack landed on the table, Lila spun around and took aim at the kitchen. She reached into the pantry and came out with a bag of chips. When she headed for her bedroom, Danielle called out before she made it to the hallway.
“Nope. No crumbs in the bedroom,” she said. “I already have to fight you to clean up in there. I don’t want to deal with critters, too.”
“Fine,” Lila said with a huff.
Whoever said older teenagers held the market on attitudes never met a thirteen-year-old.
“What’s for dinner?” Lila asked.
“Spaghetti.”
Lila sat at the bar while Danielle began pulling things out to prep dinner. She still had plenty of time, but if she got the meat sauce started, she could let it simmer while she helped Lila with her homework in a little while.
Danielle pulled out the skillet and placed it on the stove while Lila crunched loudly on a chip.
She was still in her school uniform, the green polo and khakis of the feeder school to Danielle’s high school.
Lila’s straight blonde hair trailed down her back and looked like it could use a good brushing.
“How was school?”
Lila shrugged. “Okay. Except Rylee was sick, so I had to partner with Jamie for our character interviews.”
Danielle’s stomach clenched. One sick kid in middle school was rarely just one sick kid. Especially when that sick kid was your own kid’s best friend.
“Do you know what Rylee has?”
“I don’t know,” Lila said. “Like a cold or something.”
“Is it bad?”
Lila shrugged. “I don’t know. She said she doesn’t feel too bad, but her mom said she has a fever.”
Great. Rylee had come over last weekend, and since it was Thursday, they were probably safe on that. But they spent every day together at school, so Lila could have easily picked up whatever this was during the week.
“I’m sorry to hear she isn’t feeling well,” Danielle said, pulling a can of spaghetti sauce from the pantry.
“She said she gets to watch YouTube in bed all day. Lucky.”
Danielle decided against arguing that it isn’t lucky to be sick. There would be no convincing Lila otherwise if her friend was watching videos throughout an illness.
Lila put her half-eaten bag of chips on the bar and placed her phone in front of her. She scrolled for a minute, then stopped and pointed at the screen.
“This is the one I want for my birthday.”
“Lila, if that’s a snake, I’m not looking at it.” Danielle pulled the ground meat from the fridge. “And we already talked about this.”
Not only was the idea of a snake in the apartment appalling to Danielle, let alone the feeding it part, there was no way the apartment manager would allow it. Lila had pointed out there wasn’t a “no snakes” clause in the pet policy, only a weight limit, but Danielle was pretty sure it was implied.
“But it’s so cute,” Lila said. “Rylee said she might get one.”
“Then you can visit Rylee’s.”
“Fine,” Lila said, followed by a bit more scrolling. “Then I want those for my birthday.”
Danielle walked over to the bar, which wasn’t a far walk. Their apartment was small, but it was enough for just the two of them.
Lila was pointing at an ad featuring silver hoop earrings with an intricate pattern etched into them. Without looking it up, Danielle knew they were way out of her budget, even for a birthday gift.
“Lila, I don’t know…”
“Not those,” she said. “But like those.”
That she could maybe do.
“We’ll see,” Danielle said. “They are pretty.”
“Jamie has some like that. I saw them today when we were doing the partner thing.”
Danielle barely heard her daughter. She was lost in the memory of a previous conversation about earrings.
She’d barely thought about Morgan at all this week. Last week had been another story. But now she was in Danielle’s head again. Whispering at the edges of her thoughts.
“Hey, Lila. Question.”
Lila stopped scrolling and tilted her head at her mom. “What?”
“What do you think about me getting a second set of earrings?”
Lila’s face scrunched as she processed the question. “Okay?”
“I mean, would it look silly on me? Like, am I too old or something?”
“No.” Lila giggled. “It would look pretty.”
Danielle smiled at her daughter. She could be prickly at times, but there was still a sweetness to her that Danielle hoped never grew jaded.
Lila crumpled her bag and hopped off the stool. She tossed the bag in the trash can and grabbed her phone. “Going watch videos with Rylee.”
“Half an hour,” Danielle said to Lila’s back as she walked down the hall. “I want you at the table in half an hour for homework.”
Lila’s bedroom door closed behind her, leaving Danielle alone and in silence in the kitchen.
The skillet was heated now, so she threw in the ground meat and began breaking it up while it browned. Every once in a while, she stole a glance at her phone lying on the counter a few feet away.
This was silly.
She wanted the thing. Lila told her the thing wasn’t a big deal. And Morgan had told her she’d be happy to help her get the thing.
So what was holding her back?
She refocused her attention on the meat, since she knew exactly what was holding her back.
Seeing Morgan again would be a bad idea.
She was just beginning to get her out of her head after one encounter.
What would happen after a second? Especially a second encounter in a physically closer situation?
No. That would only complicate things that didn’t need complication.
Because the truth was still that nothing could come of this.
Even if Morgan had been interested—and she’d been clear that she wasn’t—Danielle didn’t have room in her life for a relationship.
She had teaching and Lila’s soccer practices and spaghetti-making and all the other things on her spinning plate.
That hadn’t changed in a week and a half.
How had a set of earrings become so confusing?
Easy. Because it was never about the earrings.
When she was younger, Danielle’s life had been filled with chaos and adventure.
Mostly the little things. Like never taking the same route to school, never ordering the same thing from any fast food menu, or never hanging out in the same place most nights a week.
A lot of that just came with the territory of being a college student.
And even then, she craved more structure and normalcy even through the endless nights of parties and cramming for exams.
In a lot of ways, Lila had saved her. Danielle still had her mother for help back then, but she was a college student with a baby.
Predictability and routines had helped them both function and thrive in those early years.
And difficult as it had been to finish school with a baby, Lila returned order to Danielle’s life, and she never missed those chaotic days she left behind.
But now? Lila was older now. Maybe they could start shedding at least some of that orderly blanket Danielle had wrapped them in.
And it was just earrings. It wasn’t like she was going to upend their lives by piercing her ears. It was past time to try something new again.
Danielle left the meat to brown for a second and reached for her phone. She found the text she was looking for and stared at the name for a second.
Who was she kidding? This was never about the earrings. Not really. Because she could go anywhere else if being around Morgan was a problem.
But she didn’t want to go anywhere else.
Hey, Morgan! Danielle, from Melanie and Kim’s thing. I’d like to get my ears pierced after all, so I was wondering if the offer to do that still stands? I mean, I’ll pay you. Just wondering if you’ll do it?
She quickly sent the text, then slid her phone away on the counter, immediately regretting every single word, the length of her rambling, and the idea in the first place.
Those were too many words. Too many sentences.
Oh, gosh, should she have written all of that in full sentences? She was an English teacher. That was about as informal as she got most days.
She didn’t have to second-guess herself for long. After hearing the ding, Danielle reached for her phone on the counter and read the reply.
Sure. Least busy at night. Like 7 to close at 8. I’ll be there tonight through Saturday.
Saturday is great!
Weekends were easier to swing than weekdays. And it wasn’t like she had anywhere to go on a Saturday. She was sure she could get Gerri or Melanie to watch Lila. Assuming Danielle’s budding social butterfly wouldn’t have sleepover plans.
See you then
Danielle slid the phone away again and put her hands over her mouth.
Why was this such a big deal? It certainly wasn’t about the piercing itself. No, it was the woman doing the piercing that had Danielle’s insides in knots.
But she needed to get that under control. Lila still needed a lot of her time. Just keeping them both fed and the house moderately clean was more than she could handle on top of lesson plans and grading papers and all the other things in their lives.
Even if that wasn’t true, Morgan had already made it clear she wasn’t interested in a relationship.
She was still going to go Saturday night. Absolutely. But she needed to stop thinking about Morgan.
She needed a distraction. Something new and different in her life that wasn’t a beautiful woman.
Wait.
There was another offer.
She grabbed her phone one more time, but this time she texted Melanie
Still thinking about that book club? I’m in!