Crescendo

Chapter 29

Daniel sped down the road, his eyes staring straight ahead.

"Are you okay?" I asked, already knowing the answer. It was stupid, but what else could I say?

After catching Daniel's dad sucking Stella's face off, Daniel stormed out of the house. He hadn't yelled or screamed. In fact, he hadn't said anything in the last fifteen minutes. It was more unnerving than the alternative. I cleared my throat when he continued the eerie silence.

He jerked the car, switching lanes, and a pit formed in my stomach. He was mad, more than mad, really. He was furious, and I had no way of defusing the bomb. I wouldn't have gotten in the car with him if I didn't think he was at risk of driving off a bridge.

"Are you okay?" I asked again, louder this time, and Daniel scoffed in response.

"No, Blair, I'm not okay." Right, maybe I deserve that, I thought. I nodded, eager to shut up again, but Daniel continued. "I don't understand why you're talking to Jay again."

I stared at him, bewildered. That's what he's mad about? "We're just friends. I told you."

"Right," he said, clicking his tongue. "Like we're a business deal."

I shifted in the passenger seat, watching traffic fly past us. "What do you want me to say?"

"You tried to figure out if we were more, and I couldn't give you an immediate answer, right?" he asked.

"Right."

He nodded. "What if I can give you one now?" He turned slightly, his eyes meeting mine momentarily before we nearly rear-ended a Hyundai. Daniel caught it just in time, but my stomach still lurched.

When I recovered, I shook my head. "I don't know..."

"Please," Daniel cut me off. "I didn't mean to upset you the other day."

"I know you didn't mean to," I sighed.

"Then why did you go off and meet with him?" Daniel asked, bitterness in his voice.

Still, I shrugged, and the seatbelt slid against my neck, likely to leave a mark. "He kept asking, and I needed to know what he had to say."

Daniel's grip tightened on the steering wheel. I pretended not to notice. "And?"

"He was apologetic," I said. I considered telling him everything, the whole truth, how Jay had professed his love for me and supposedly wanted me back, but that would have to wait. It wouldn't help the situation. Although pulling off the highway had significantly helped my anxiety.

Daniel drove up to my condo. "I get it," he said. "I just think..." his voice trailed off, and his green eyes watched the sky. "I just don't know what I'll do if you're not around anymore."

My heart sank. "I'll be around," I said. "Me and Jay were..." The words got stuck in my throat. I wanted to say we weren't together, and we wouldn't be. But I wasn't certain. Instead, I cleared my throat. "Why don't you park?" I asked. "You shouldn't be alone right now, anyway."

Daniel turned, looking at me. "You're inviting me inside?"

"Yeah," I laughed. "Pretty sure if you got on the highway again, you'd end up flipping your car. At least this way I could keep an eye on you for a little while."

He hesitated.

"Come on," I said, grabbing his hand. "Let's go."

***

"What's your favorite book?" Daniel asked while resting his head on the back of my sofa. We had spent hours drinking seltzer water—the fancy kind that Stella insisted I drink instead of soda—and eating Cheez-Its.

I scrunched my nose. "I don't know," I said, unable to think about anything but his presence in my house. "Maybe I don't have one."

He huffed. "All authors have to have a favorite book." His mood had improved since coming upstairs.

"And I can't say my own?" I asked.

He chuckled. "No, but that would have been clever."

"I don't know. I guess I like 1984," I said. The condo was chilly; hence, the blanket was draped over us. I told Tess not to stop by, for fear that she'd run into Daniel and ask him a million publicist questions.

He rolled his eyes. "Liar."

"What?" I asked.

"Nobody's favorite book is 1984."

"You can't possibly know that."

"Hell yeah, I can. The same way I know that Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture isn't anybody's favorite piece of music."

I scoffed. "You're a snob."

"And you're basic," he said with a grin. "Tell me the truth." His leg pressed against mine, and I sharp static ran up my spine. Although I had tried to push away my memories of our night together, my will was worn down with each touch.

"Charlotte's Web," I said. "My mom read it to me a lot as a kid, and I make sure to keep a copy by my bedside table." Even now.

He nodded, raising his seltzer. "Now that's a favorite book."

"Whatever," I said, laughing lightly, enjoying his company. I bit the inside of my cheek as silence bubbled between us. Finally, I worked up the nerve to ask what I wanted to know. "Why weren't you mad at your dad?" I paused, trying to find the right wording. "I mean, anybody else would have lost it."

Daniel stared at me, his eyes finding mine. Then he shrugged. "My dad is... complicated."

"Meaning what?" I asked.

"Meaning that he would do anything to get under my skin, including Stella." He tapped his index finger against the glass bottle in his hand. "The thing is, she's going to cause him more trouble than I ever could."

"Yeah, she does seem rather problematic."

He laughed. "Yeah, that's a nice way to say that."

"I try," I said, just as I received a text and my sofa cushion buzzed. Daniel's eyes darted to the phone, but he didn't say anything. I picked it up, read the message from Jay, and tried not to give away my impression. But Daniel knew.

"Is that Jay?" he asked, his tone already shifting. His friendly demeanor was replaced with curiosity and annoyance.

"Yeah," I said, tucking my phone away under my thigh. "He was checking in on me."

Daniel forced himself to nod. "He must really care about you to check on you every fifteen minutes."

I sighed. "He wasn't like that when we dated. I think he's just..." I paused, choosing my words carefully, "concerned."

"Concerned about what?"

You. "Me," I lied. "After we broke up, I didn't have any time to be mad. So I just went to work. And then I found out he was engaged, then married, and totally moved on without so much as a word." I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. "And months later, I got an invitation to a housewarming party, his party. At first, I wasn't going to go. I didn't understand what the point would be, but I changed my mind at the last minute. By then, I had already been going to AA meetings. I was sober, and my book was being edited. Things were looking up, and maybe it was stupid, but I thought that Jay and I could be friends. So I went."

I sucked in a breath, reliving the moment I stepped through Jay's front door. The entrance to a life, his life, that I had no part of. "I went to the stupid housewarming party, and I met his bubbly wife. I was there less than fifteen minutes before Jay yelled at me, blamed me for everything that happened between us, and said that he couldn't believe I got sober after he left. As if it was my fault that the pain he put me through was enough to change my life." I clicked my tongue. "And I think now he's trying to make up for that."

"Is that possible?" Daniel asked, the anger disappearing from his eyes.

"No. There's no making up for it," I said. "He hurt me, but I don't see a reason to stay angry." I had tried that. It wouldn't have been easier.

"I can," Daniel said, clearing his throat and running his hand over my leg, warming me all over. "But that's probably just me being selfish." My thighs rubbed together, and I found myself wanting to be selfish, too.