I nodded. “Do you have any advice?”
“No,” Maddie said succinctly. Great.
“I will say this,” she said. “If the only reason you don’t want to pursue anything with Daniel is because of Sienna, then you are wrong. The easier thing would be to tell Sienna how you feel and go from there. And before you do that, you have to make sure that there’s something worth telling. It is merely my opinion.”
Her opinion was on track with what I had been thinking. There was no point in telling Sienna and creating a bridge between us if Daniel and I were going to remain friends. Being away for a week had my heart grow fonder for something that wasn’t even real.
Deep down, I knew I was a goner the moment my lips had touched Daniel’s for the first time.
Chapter 17 - Eve
I waited for Daniel outside Bella Luna, the restaurant where we had eaten our first meal together. I had arrived fifteen minutes earlier. I had been worried I was going to be late so, naturally, I arrived early. Which I was now regretting. Downtown was full of people, even though it was Wednesday. It wasn’t just professionals; it was tourists and college students, going in and out of clubs and bars. I looked down at my watch for the hundredth time. Five more minutes. I checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t received any messages from Daniel, and that the volume was turned up in case he called.
I was almost expecting him to call and cancel due to an emergency. God, I was so nervous I was sweating and it was a perfect seventy-five degree outside with a light breeze. I needed to stop thinking about Daniel and think about something else. Kittens. Yes, kittens usually did the trick. Soft, fuzzy little cats. Aaand, now all I could think about was Daniel shirtless and holding a cat. Perfect. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and tried to distract myself by people watching.
“Well, color me shocked, you came.”
I turned around at the exclamation and there he was, looking dashing in a navy suit. Coincidentally, we matched. I was in high-waisted blue jeans and an off-the-shoulder navy blue crop top with ruffles around the neckline.
I hated how right he was because I had wanted to cancel about ten times today. It was just too much. The feelings I was starting to have, the need to see him and be with him, it was just too much on top of everything else. But I didn’t want him to know that.
“I decided to have mercy on you,” I said with a casual shrug.
Daniel placed a hand on his chest and looked at me gratefully.
“Your sacrifice is appreciated. I will be forever grateful.”
I gave an elegant nod. Daniel’s eyes roved over my face and looked me up and down. His eyes met mine and despite the heat in them, I shivered.
“You look…” Daniel trailed off and his bottom lip disappeared into his mouth. “Beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“Thank you,” I said., blushing lightly. “You don’t look too shabby yourself.”
Daniel looked down at the suit he was wearing. “This old thing? I just threw it on, since you liked the other one so much. I believe you said it was ‘very GQ’.”
I hummed. “Humility is becoming on you.”
“Hey, you think women who look like you compliment me all the time? Let me live in the sunshine glow of having a sexy woman like yourself be attracted to me.”
I threw my head back and laughed and laughed. That was the funniest thing I had heard in a long, long time. I laughed until my stomach ached and I was out of breath.
“Thanks, I needed that,” I gasped, wiping away a tear.
Daniel was staring at me with a straight face. “I’m serious.”
“And I’m Liz Taylor.”
“Liz Taylor? Really?”
“She was beautiful, classy, and she had all those diamonds. I am not a diamond girl, but damn.”
“Should we go in?” Daniel asked, nodding at the restaurant’s door. And just like that, I was nervous again. I nodded, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. This felt like a date I wasn’t prepared for.
Daniel opened the door and waved his hand for me to go in ahead of him. I stepped through, noticing his clean, wintry scent. I got in line and he came to stand next to me. He looked around the restaurant. We were meeting early, so it was pretty crowded in here. Only a couple of tables were empty.
“Do you want to grab a table and I will order?” Daniel asked.
“Sure. Order me the special, and the empanadas, and also the mac and cheese and a diet coke,” I said. I paused and looked up at him. Daniel didn’t even blink at the amount of food I ordered, which was too much for one person to eat, and simply nodded. Maybe he thought it was weird and he didn’t want to say anything because this was technically a date.
Grrr. I always did this. I tried to fit myself to meet other people’s expectations. According to the therapist I had seen as a teenager, it stemmed from my feelings of neglect caused by my biological mother. I felt I wasn’t enough because she had always chosen her husband’s happiness over what was best for me and her. If I wanted to eat, I was going to eat.
I watched Daniel standing in line, feeling awkward just sitting and waiting for him. I also watched the people who watched him. Turning their heads and following with their eyes, subtly and not so subtly. When Daniel turned around and winked at me, I felt a thrill run down my spine. Did he notice the way people watched him? Did he even care?
Once he had ordered our food, he carried over our tray to our table. I tried not to notice that he had ordered less food than me. After all, he had abs to maintain and I had no such qualms.
When he sat down, I steepled my fingers under my chin and looked at him with all the seriousness of a woman conducting an interview.
“Daniel, what would you do in the event of a zombie apocalypse?” I asked.
Daniel loosened his tie and popped open the top two buttons of his shirt. Under the bright lights, I noticed his suit wasn’t plain navy, it was checkered. He opened the box containing the mac and cheese and once again, I noticed his hands. Was it weird that I found his hands sexy? Maybe. I didn’t care, either way.
“I can’t tell you that,” Daniel said, with all seriousness.
That surprised me.
“You can’t?”
“Nope. It’s a family secret. I could get disowned,” he said, still serious. I remembered what he said about his family being crazy and how many times Sienna had said the Reid’s were a particular brand of eccentric. I wasn’t sure if he was joking.
I sat back against my chair, opened my mouth, closed it. Daniel handed me a fork and I took it silently. Daniel saw my stunned expression and smiled ruefully.
“I’m not joking.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table.
“Wait, so your family has prepared for the zombie apocalypse like doomsdayers?” I asked in a low voice.
“Just another charming eccentric quality that made everyone think we’re crazy.”
“I love it,” I said simply.
Daniel chuckled. “You keep saying that, but wait till you see a group of us in the same room. It’s a fish market.”
I smiled softly and took a bite of my mac and cheese. I should have been sick of mac and cheese. There were times in my childhood when all I had to eat was mac and cheese for days and days. The boxed kind, too. I should have hated the sight of it. I didn’t. It was comfort food for me, something to remind me of how far I had come.
“I don’t have a big family,” I said. “Just my parents and brother. No grandparents, no aunts, uncles, or cousins. It’s nice to hear about your big, crazy family.”
“You are the first person to tell me that, so thank you,” Daniel said. “I know they are crazy. We’re all crazy, eccentric, damaged. In the end, they are my family and they accept me for who I am.”
“Who are you, Daniel Reid?” I asked softly, tilting my head. “Aside from being GQ hot and a doctor of infectious diseases.”
Daniel leaned in, folding his arms on the table to mi
rror me. The only thing between us was the tray of food and even that felt as if he was too close and too far, at the same time.
“As you know, I am the oldest. After me, there’s Emily, Sienna, and Kailin is the youngest. She was my parent’s divorce baby and didn’t grow up with us. I was expected to be the responsible one and in some ways I was. Sienna and Em like to screw up, a lot. When I was in seventh grade, I tested above the grade average and the principal suggested I skip two grades, so I graduated high school at sixteen. Then it was on to UCLA, after that Northwestern. I’m allergic to strawberries, I don’t like bananas, I am partial to vanilla ice-cream and I have been in three serious relationships.”
“Are you close to Kailin?”
Daniel shook his head. “She’s always lived with my mother. Another thing about me, I have a complicated relationship with my mother. It’s more like a non-relationship. She wasn’t meant to be a mother.”
The bitterness in his voice made me reach out and place my hand on his. He turned it so that my hand was placed firmly in his. He sounded so sure that his mother wasn’t meant to be. Was that true of my mother, too? She was just a teenager when she had me. Maybe if she had waited until she was older and in a steady relationship, things would have turned out differently. Maybe not so much.
“Are you close to your stepmother?” I asked.
“Lisa? Yeah, she’s amazing,” Daniel said, frowning slightly. “She took on my father and his unruly kids and his ice queen ex-wife. Lisa is a saint. Have you ever met her?”
“No, never had the chance,” I said. Talking about his family just reminded me that he was my friend’s brother, not that I had forgotten. If things worked out tonight, I would call Sienna first thing tomorrow morning and tell her the truth. It was a coward’s way out, and I was fine with that.
“Did I pass the test?” Daniel asked, cheekily. “Is it your turn now?”
Shit. It should have occurred to me that when I asked him questions, he would ask them in return. I wasn’t ready to tell him about me, and I knew how hypocritical that seemed. I wanted him to reveal all of himself and keep myself cocooned in the safety of my secrets. That’s why none of my other relationships had lasted. I was unwilling to share.
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“Everything,” Daniel replied immediately. “Who is Evelyn Darling?”
I should be glad that he was letting me tell my story my way. I wasn’t. Who was Evelyn Darling? I wasn’t sure I would ever know.
“I’m still figuring that out. I will give you a general overview of the road so far. I was born in a small town in Tennessee, lived in Nashville until I was twelve, then moved to Los Angeles, then San Diego for college, and my parents now live in Orange County. I started baking when I was seven or eight. It was the only thing I was good at, something I could control and was in charge of. Something that I did instead of something that happened to me. I am afraid of large bodies of water, I don’t have any allergies that I know of, and when I was sixteen, I got into an accident while riding my bike home from school. Nothing major but I did end up with a cool scar on my right leg.”
I purposefully didn’t mention that I was adopted. Then he would have asked what happened to my mother, what happened to my step-father, did I have any other family. I was aware that I had trust issues and I couldn’t make myself vulnerable. It was early days. Hell, I wasn’t even sure this was going to go anywhere after this night was over.
“Shit,” Daniel breathed. “What caused the accident?”
“Soccer Mom,” I said. “We were both equally responsible. She had been stopped at a stop sign and didn’t look before driving on and I should have stopped but didn’t. Luckily, she wasn’t going fast.”
“She should have looked before driving off. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the one responsible. It’s a good thing you weren’t seriously hurt,” Daniel said. He squeezed my hand and his concern warmed me from the inside.
“My parents wanted to sue her for everything she was worth. I talked them down.”
“That was nice of you.”
I shrugged. “She was a single mother. She needed the money more than we did.”
I pulled my hand out of Daniel’s. Not wanting him to think that I was doing it deliberately—because I didn’t want to be touching him right now—I reached for my diet coke. I put my coke and picked up my fork, urging Daniel to do the same.
We were quiet as we ate, the sounds of the bowling alley, and everyone around us like a cacophony. I watched Daniel eat for a minute, chewing on my lip thoughtfully. I still couldn’t figure out what he wanted with me. I was weird and awkward and he was a brilliant doctor who had a life together and on a clear trajectory. But he listened to me.
I liked talking to him, and being with him, and bantering with him. I usually only had this kind of fun with my girls. It was hard for me to believe that Daniel was a potential boyfriend. That’s why I was so reluctant to move things forward. If I liked him this much now, I stood no chance if we dated. My heart would be his before I even made a conscious decision to do so.
“Tell me something that no one knows about you,” I said.
Daniel looked up at me, his brows furrowed in thought.
“I donated my bone marrow,” he said.
I almost dropped my fork.
“You did?”
“Yeah. When I was an intern, a patient came in who had leukemia. She was ten and watching her be brave and her parents’ struggle made me think there was more I could do than just be a good doctor. I wasn’t a match for her but there was another patient another time.”
Wait, did I think I could wait until we dated before I fell in love with him? What an idiot I was. Daniel was kind and brave and amazing. I bet he never forgot to recycle and aware of his carbon footstep.
“You’re a good person, Daniel Reid,” I said.
He smiled wryly. “Not really. The only reason I told you that story was to impress you.”
“Did you donate because you thought you would have the chance to impress a woman someday?”
A long pause, then he shook his head. “No.”
“See, a good person.”
“Maybe I did it because I’m a bad person and I’m trying to make up for my bad deeds with good ones.”
I rested my chin on my hand and watched him carefully. The noises around us dimmed until it felt like we were the only people there.
“Okay, then tell me something bad about you,” I said.
Daniel shook his head again. “I want you to like me and that will be counter-productive.”
It was being counter-productive now. Why did he have to say he was a bad person? My overactive imagination was drawing up the worst scenarios. And here was where my trust issues came out to play. Something in the careful way he was watching me made me think he wasn’t talking in hypotheticals.
“How bad are we talking here? Did you hurt someone on purpose?”
“Not on purpose, no,” he said, frowning. “Mistakes were made.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. Forgiveness comes down to how big the mistake was. If you hurt someone or someone suffered because of you, there isn’t a lot you can do to earn forgiveness.”
Daniel tilted his head. “Are you speaking from experience?”
I blinked at him. Looked around the restaurant at all the other people gathered there. Took a moment to wonder about their lives. That always made me feel better, thinking about other people’s lives. Overall, I had a pretty good life. I had a great family and amazing friends. My formative years left a lot to be desired, the effects of which I felt to this day.
“I have trust issues,” I said to Daniel.
“I would never have guessed that about you,” he said, his mouth tilting up in the corner.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m serious.”
“I know. You did accuse me of stalking you, multiple times.”
“My trust issues make this,” I said, waving a hand between us. �
��Very hard.”
Daniel looked down at the table in thought. I held my breath. As much as I wanted him to admit that things between us wouldn’t work, the giant rock in my stomach told me I was lying to myself. He had things figured out, he knew how to do this whole adult thing. I wanted him to look up at me and tell me that we could work things out. Let’s give it a chance. There were no guarantees and taking a chance never hurt anybody. I needed him to tell me that and guide me through it, just like he had that night when he led me into the water. If I was left to make the decision myself, I would chicken out.
Finally, he looked, his eyes snaring me and holding me still.
“Do you want to get ice cream?”
Was that a euphemism for something? It didn’t matter. This gorgeous man was asking me to get ice cream with him and even I wasn’t crazy enough to say no.
Chapter 18 – Daniel
Eve walked beside me, our arms brushing against each other. Each time it happened, a felt a jolt of electricity in my body. I did not doubt that this woman was amazing and special. The two weeks I had waited for her message had been well worth it, if, in the end, I got to be with her. Before that could happen, I still had my work cut out for me.
The surprising thing was, I was fine with waiting. Me, who had never been the most patient of people. I was fine with waiting for Eve to come to me on her terms, to take as much time as she needed. This was the easiest relationship that I had ever been in, and it wasn’t even a relationship yet. I spent more time thinking about Eve, then worrying about what I would say when I saw her.
Everything in my body wanted to reach out and grasp her hand. I wanted everyone to know that she was mine. I just didn’t think her trust issues would allow her to hold my hand. She needed to trust me and like a fool, I wanted to tell her all the mistakes I had ever made. I almost had back at the restaurant. When she turned those big, innocent eyes on me, I wanted to give her whatever she wanted. The only thing that stopped me was the very real possibility that she would never want to see me again.
Not My Type : Golden Girls 1 Page 14