Whiskey for Elephants

8.

Okay idk how I feel about that last bit but here's another, back with ya girl Danika
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Two Weeks before the Airbnb
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"Hello, Ronald." I say, rolling my chair up to my desk. I open a few webpages and documents and wait for a response.
"Danika! Hey!" He was white girl wasted. "This is for work?"
"Yes sir. What did you guys do today?" I ask, fingers on the keyboard, ready to take note.
"Hmm. Well this morning all of us on the bus had McDonald's in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. I took a couple pictures with some fans. I can't remember their names." His voice trailed off on the word 'names.'
"Did you fuck one of them?" I ask.
"No. I have Willow, member? Member my Willow baby?" I sign and pinch the bridge of my nose.
"Yes, Ronnie, I remember. Any paparazzi?"
"Couple photographers at the show a while ago. The usual guys though." I save the document to the folder Tour '18. "Danika, we're doing Airbnb's right? Which one is mine?" I look it up. "It's the one next to Tylers."
"Oh. That's the sellout show right?" I chuckle.
"Yeah. I'm getting a hotel."
"What hotel?"
"I don't know. Haven't decided." After a while we hung up. However, before we did, he went on his 'Im A Shitty Person' spiel.
"I am such a dick Danika. I'm a shitty dad for pushing this tour stuff on Willow. I fucked up the one relationship with a woman who gave me a baby. Man. Let's not get into the whole ex addict thing."
"Ronnie. Go to bed. Take a nap."
"You're right, I love you Danika. You're the best publicist."
"You don't love me weirdo. Goodnight."
"Night Danika."
That night, after I left my office, I ran into a new intern. She was standing in front of a photo of Ronnie, talking on the phone with her mom, "I can't believe I finally did it, Mom. I'm here." There was Euphoria in her voice and I was humbled. Here she was, grateful to just maybe run into him once and I was working with him day to day and I completely lost that gratefulness.
Why? Was I scared I'd do exactly what I was already doing? Having fun and worrying about him all at once? I couldn't let myself inhibit the experiences and opportunities thrown my way.
"Oh i didn't see you standing there, Ms. Durant! I'm sorry, I know being on the phone is against the rules-"
"You're completely entitled to celebrate with your mom."
"You work with Ronnie right?"
"Just got off the phone with him. He's okay. Willows Okay." I say, hoping I covered all the bases.
"How do you not succumb to your star struckness?"
"When your two year is up, ask me again." I say, smiling and walking away.
When I got home, I laid in bed, scrolling all the way to 2014 on Ronnie's Instagram. I read old fanfics. I looked at tweets. I read old articles. Watched old interviews. I reminded myself why I wanted the job. Why I took the endless coffee trips, why I cleaned desks and shredded papers. In a lot of people's eyes, I was the most lucky girl ever. Now here he was, man of my dreams, trying so desperately to get me to just relax and be friends. Maybe more one day.
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Now
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When he opened the door to the Airbnb, I didn't know why I expected him to expect me there.
It took a while to get it through his head that I wanted to nap and he was more than welcome, but when it did... After I saw the look on his face, sorta in pain and grateful, we walked to the bedroom. Willow was already aware, so we climbed in bed. While I was getting comfortable, Ronnie mumbled something like, 'comfortable yet?'. When I was situated and as close to him as I could be without any weirdness with the kid around, it took me a minute to fall asleep.
"Danika. Can I ask you why you're here? I mean.."
"Shhh. I'm trying to sleep." I place a hand on his face. He frees an arm and moves my hand.
"I'm serious. Before you were all- not like this." I sit up as high as I can.
"When I was younger, I'd kill to be exactly where I am now. I loved you so much dude. I loved watching you grow into the person you are now." He kept a hold of my hand and was playing with my fingers while I talked. He was listening. "I'm just so high strung and I'm so scared of letting the hurt I experienced due to myself go that I just am SO tense. I was so worried about emotions. So worried about losing my only way of contacting you if I got fired."
"If you didn't get the internship, I would have said something to you eventually. I would talk to you when you were old enough. You've always gotten my attention." He says, somberly. "I've always had an eye on you. For once, I wish my kid wasn't here." He laughs darkly.
"Ronnie-"
"I just want to have a more serious talk with you about this without killing her sleep schedule more." He kept ahold of my hand as we both adjusted. He ended up pulling Willow over between the two of us.
When we woke up, Willow had wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs were against Ronnie's back. One of my arms draped over his side, held there by his grip on my hand. My legs were tangled with his. He was watching something on his phone.
"Ronnie, I have to pee." I say, as quietly loud as I can.
"Me too. I was just waiting for you to wake up. She sleeps through everything, I wasn't sure about you. I didn't wanna wake you up." He says, grogginess in both his eyes and voice as he turned to look at me. He reached over, chuckling, as he pulled Willow off of me.
"DIBS!" I whisper yell. I get up as fast as I can and sprint around the bed.
"Wait! No fair! I've been up for thirty minutes!" He says, gaining on me.
"Nope Nope Nope!" I vocalize as I slide into the bathroom and close the door. "Ha!"
"Damn it!" He says pounding the door, laughter soon following. "Fucking asshole!"
"Go make me food." I say, pulling down my pants.
"Okay whatever you say, boss." He says, still chuckling. When I heard him walk away, I let myself pee. I washed my hands and walked out. When I got to the kitchen, Ronnie was in fact, cooking.
"Watch this for me while I use the bathroom please?" He says turning and handing me a spatula. He'd just put the egg on and the whites weren't even white yet.
After he came back he took the spatula back and set it on the corner.
"I'm totally going to sound like a sap when I say this," He starts. "But are we like, a thing? If so, why? I didn't ask you out, that's something I want to do. Are you worried about the age gap?" I was turning my Spotify favorites playlist on while he listed numerous questions. He'd forgotten the eggs.
"Ronnie," I said. "The eggs."
"SHIT." He turns around and flips them. "My point is we've got a week to figure this weirdness out, because it IS weirdness and I know you told me why things changed but now I've got like, performance anxiety-" as he said that, Get Me Out fills the void. I start to chuckle because of the lyrics; 'but I'm handsome and cocky.' And the man I'm looking at is filled with a lot of panic.
"Dude. Relax. We've still got a whole ass show to plan for and we're expecting Chrissy still." I walk over to him and wrap my arms around him.
"THIS ISNT HELPING DANIKA." I stood there and hugged him anyway, despite my hatred of hugs. He was warm underneath my arms, still mumbling about he needed to define things. His body was defined by the years of exercise he did. I rain my hands down from his shoulders to the small of his back, where his shorts were sitting low on his waist. His skin prickled at the movement of my hands and his voice faded into steady breathing.
"Better?" I say, lifting my chin up to look at him, he nods taking another deep, steady breath. I squeeze him once more and he now hugs me back. Warmth.

We stood like that only changing positions when one of us heard Willow moving around and for him to finish cooking for the three of us. When food was done, he went to wake Willow. I set the table and got the syrup and milk out. I start a pot of coffee for myself.
"Say good morning to Danika Willow." Ronnie enters the kitchen, carrying her on the left side of his body. She was rubbing her eyes and waving. Ronnie sits her down.
"Will you get her a glass of milk?" He asks me, fixing her a plate. I grab a glass and pour her some milk. Ronnie sets the plate in front of her and then we both start our own.
We eat chattering about Willow. If she was excited for school, if she was sad about leaving her dad, what she wanted to learn. She got bored pretty quickly.
At about six thirty that day, Ronnie went to the gym and I sat with Willow watching some kid show. I checked my Instagram and as I'm scrolling, there's that picture of Willow and I that Chrissy took.
'Cool publicist Willow?😂' was the caption. I liked it and continued to scroll. Pictures of Ronnie and the guys. I refreshed it and he posted a prework out picture. I liked it.
What did I want from this revival of fangirl me? Was it really a revival? I was the only one denying myself. I didn't know what else to do-so I called my therapist.
"Hello, Belinda?"
"Danika! How's the tour life? Are you tracking your emotions?"
"Yeah. I just need some advice regarding a situation."
"Shoot. This ones on me. You've done good this year."
"Well.." And I spilled all the details of the last few months. "But now I don't know how I feel about anything. I know that I was being ungrateful and mean but now I feel like I'm diving to deep into the refresher course."
"What do you want? If this guy did turn his life around, takes care of his daughter the way you say he does, and has a great co parenting relationship with his ex then what's stopping you from just taking this risk?"
"I think I'm more worried about EVERYONE else involved." I looked at Willow. "If it ends up being a temporary thing, I don't want it to have been a temporary thing after so many years together. I don't want resentment to build. I can always bounce back with the proper resources. I'm just worried about everything else. Ronnie comes from a broken home, broken childhood and I don't want willow to experience the same thing because things didn't turn out for the best."
"Well. You'll never know until you take the leap. Communicate, have family meetings. Include the mother. He was right when he said you need to take this week to get to know each other, especially if you both agree on the fact that you two are both stubborn in your own ways. You have also said that you have fun together. That you apologize to one another. Swallowing your pride is the hardest part. Take this week, call me."