Reaching Danny | Romantic Fiction

Chapter 1

"Marie is going to be coming home this weekend. She's been looking forward to seeing you." My mother was checking the messages on her phone as she spoke to me.

I nodded my head, barely hearing the words coming from her mouth. She had been trying to keep Marie and I together since I graduated college. I couldn't lie. I did still love her, but not the way my mother wanted me to. She had been pushing a proposal since I got this job with the government.

"You are stable now." She kept reminding me. "You two were young and made a lot of mistakes. You had to get yourselves together before you could truly be together. I don't want you throwing this away, Kaiden. She's good for you."

I sighed. "Why don't you see that I am happier without her? If I wanted to be with her, I would have called her myself."

She eyed me with an annoyed look on her face. I walked out of the house towards my black BMW I8. I had loved this car the moment I laid eyes on it at the dealership. She was my baby. I had received a text from my best friend, Charles, to come to meet him in Crofton. We frequently visited the Waugh Chapel shopping center if we didn't feel like traveling to D.C. or Baltimore. I turned up the music, driving down 301, trying to drown out the thoughts of my mother and Marie.

Marie had been my first love. I had met her in my sophomore year of college. She had been walking around aimlessly as a freshman. I had been quite a flirt back then, maybe a little corny but it worked, and walked right up to her.

"Excuse me. I couldn't help but notice the damsel in distress and I had to come to her rescue." I startled her when I touched her arm.

She had jumped a clear foot away from me before looking to see who I was. She placed a hand over her heart and spoke with a Spanish accent. "How dare you scare me! I was going to have a heart attack!"

I smiled, motioning to the papers in her hand. "I suppose I can help with both situations then. You seem lost, beautiful. How may I serve you?"

She smiled, a small blush creeping up her neck, before handing me her schedule. "I'm looking for my Lab. I was told to walk this way but all the buildings look the same. Can you help me?"

I did a quick scan of her schedule and bowed before her. "This way madam." I motioned towards my right and started walking once she took the lead.

Since our first encounter, we were inseparable. I met her after every class, even after she learned where to go. Our relationship lasted for two years and I planned to ask her to marry me. She had broken up with me right before my graduation.

"I'm not ready for this." She had said to me, handing me back the ring I had proposed with.

She avoided me after that night. I moved on after a year of not hearing from her, which she seemed to have tried to come back into my life through my mother. She was a coward, still not directly talking to me and sneaking her way back into my life. I wasn't going to let that happen.

I pulled up next to Charles' blue pickup truck that he had since high school. He was waiting for me, taking a puff out of his cigarette, before jumping out of his truck.

"What took you so long?" He asked, noticing the exhausted look on my face.

I followed along beside him as he headed into Old Navy. "Marie is coming home this weekend. I think she's staying for the summer and planning to reconcile."