Homewrecker

65 - 𝓭𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮

I was seated at her table for nearly half an hour, her hands still grasped around mine, murmuring back and forth to each about the lives we had been living so far apart from each other, as she put it, before I found him at the dessert table after the DJ had announced the silent disco portion of the night was over and the traditional dancing would be begin, which felt like some sort of compromise between Jason and Kimberly somewhere. He didn't look as if he was expecting me to sneak up on him, staring at the pastel macaroons skeptically before I tapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm still deciding," he said to me, almost defensively, before turning back to the macaroons.

"I don't want a dessert. I want to dance with you."

Danny was already frowning when he jerked his head over his shoulder to gawk at me. "I don't want to dance. This song sucks. It sounds like something Mom listens to."

I gave him a look. "Danny, come on. Don't make me call you Daniel. Dance with me."

He groaned then stepped away from the buffet table, reluctantly following behind me to the dance floor and glaring down at my arms as I reached out for him. His hands were awkward and warm as he tried to decide where to put them before I grabbed one and brought the other to my back. Then he was sighing, glancing around us with an almost embarrassment scowl. "This looks weird."

"You know, I really haven't seen you all summer," I told him, ignoring this. "You're always off with your friends, which is cool. It's cool you've got so many friends here, always camping or playing the lake. You're probably more outdoorsy than even me."

"We play basketball too. And I always win."

I raised an eyebrow. "Always?"

He nodded, enthusiastically. "Always. Really. Especially with my friend, Jake, is on my team."

"You're pretty independent," I remarked. "I am too, and maybe that's why we haven't talked much since I got here. But I'm trying not to be so independent. Not that you shouldn't be or anything, I honestly think it's a good trait, but it gets in the way sometimes. I just . . . I wanted to make sure the reason we haven't really talked was because you're off having so much fun, and not because you're upset that I'm living with you now."

It wasn't a thought I had been mulling over for long, but it was something that had occurred to me when I caught a glimpse of him over David's mother's shoulder as he neared the dessert table, how out of all the people I barely knew, I knew him the least.

He had spent most of his summer outside, totally disinterested in me or what was happening with my mother's murder, the politics that it had gotten tangled with, and up until that moment, I thought it was just because he was ten and it was summer. But then I started to think about when I saw him, looking over the dessert options and me at the table, knowing where things might go when the wedding was over.

And that wasn't where I wanted things to be when the night was over.

Danny shrugged, glancing off to the side. "Well, you're not really that fun. You just look mad all the time."

"I normally am," I conceded, nodding. "But you know, you're the only one here I've never actually been mad at before. You just mind your own business. It's cool."

"Who are you mad at the most?"

I sighed. "Usually, David or your mom. Or Andi."

Danny groaned. "She's so annoying."

I was smiling as the song ended and I let my hand fall away from his shoulder. "Oh, no. Someone took the last macaroon while we were dancing." When he turned to look over his shoulder, frowning, I let out a laugh. "Made you look. Okay, go, get your dessert. Thanks for dancing with me, kid."