by Mara Wells
“But think, if you give me a second chance, you can make me pay for what I did our entire lives. Wouldn’t that be satisfying?”
Danielle’s long bangs brushed against his cheek. “It’s not about that. We’ll have to break up eventually. It’s better to do it now.”
There were so many things wrong with what she’d just said, he didn’t know where to start. Before he could decide, Monica showed them a new move where Danielle spun around in front of him and repeated the sit, stand, kick on the other side. Another march around the chair, and the dance ended with Danielle straddling him, their faces inches from each other.
He owed Sydney. Big time. Like a million dollars.
Monica made them practice three more times, then she put the music back on.
Etta James’ emotional voice, the bluesy song, the repeated references to making love. Knox was transfixed by how Danielle took it all in, performing her walk, her rolls, with a sensuality that heated his blood and sent it pumping to the place she would be in one, two, three…
She landed on his lap, and he used her waist to boost her back up. He watched her spin, her short hair spinning around her, then she repeated the move on his other side. He wanted to pull her in his lap and keep her there until both of them were breathless. But they weren’t alone, so he pushed her back up and she disappeared behind his chair. He forgot his next move, and then Danielle was back, leg sliding over his thighs, across his straining fly, down his hip. His breath caught.
Danielle sat, her softness against his tense thighs. Her breath came hard and fast, more than their short dance warranted. Her hands were supposed to land on his shoulders, and she was supposed to arch backward. Instead, she cupped his cheeks in her palms, her eyes dark with desire.
“Come home with me.” His words came out so rough he wasn’t sure she understood him.
Smiling, she arched back, giving him the best view in the room. His heart couldn’t decide if it wanted to stop or beat itself out of his chest. The combination made him breathless, or maybe it was simply Danielle. She smiled at him upside down in the mirror, and that did it. His heart stopped cold, and he probably died, because the next thing she said was, “No. But you can buy me a coffee tomorrow.”
Somehow, they got through the last few minutes of class. Said their goodbyes. Even though they’d already given Sydney money for a generous tip that she’d prepaid online, he slipped Monica another twenty. She winked at him and said, “Go get her, Papi.”
If only it were that simple. But coffee was a start.
Chapter 27
It was hard to be unhappy with a pile of puppies in her lap. As soon as she’d gotten home from the dance studio, Danielle had sat cross-legged on the floor of her dining-room-turned-puppy-pen and let Flurry’s brood clamber over her like she was nothing more than a mountain that needed climbing. She had no idea how long she’d been in her puppy bubble, but she was no closer to sleep than before. Images of Knox in that chair, watching her every move with such intensity, burned in her mind.
Who was she kidding? It wasn’t her mind that was burning. No, other parts of her burned, too, and the memory of straddling Knox and holding his face in her hands didn’t do anything to put out the flames. She’d come so close to kissing him, under the bright lights of the studio, in front of Riley, Caleb, and Monica. She’d come so close to going home with him. Her older self would thank her for keeping a clear head during this whole debacle. No binging, no regret later. Her present self, though, was sad.
Junior, the one who most looked like his papa Sarge, sprawled across the top of her thigh with a sigh that shook his whole body.
Danielle tipped a finger under his chin. “I know how you feel, squirt.” It had been a long week with no fewer than three meetings with potential landlords who sent her on her way as soon as they heard how many dogs she had. Plus, there was her round-the-clock puppy-watching schedule. At nearly seven weeks old, they didn’t need the constant care of the first month, but there was still a lot to do with eight puppies. Staying out late for the burlesque lesson tonight had been fun, but the strain of seeing Knox, and feeling Knox, and thinking about Knox had made her too jittery to sleep even though she was exhausted to the bone.
“Get it? Bone.” She flipped one of the puppy’s ears. “Aren’t I hilarious?” Tilly agreed by using needlelike puppy teeth to nibble on her thumb.
Flurry and Luna lay on big dog beds under the window, both fast asleep. It was past midnight, and a sliver of moon shone through the glass. As they often did, and more intensely since their night together, Danielle’s thoughts drifted into memories of Knox. Not the hazy, gilded memories she’d carried for over a decade, replaying in her mind to figure out what she’d done wrong, which exact moment was the one when she should’ve seen that the forever she and Knox so often talked about wouldn’t last even three months after their high-school graduation.
When had he stopped loving her the way she’d loved him—with all the earnest passion of her eighteen-year-old heart? It didn’t matter how many times she replayed their time together, she never found the moment. The ending always came out of nowhere, always hit her with the force of a hit-and-run accident where she was a scooter and he was a Mack truck.
No, these days her mind drifted to the kiss on Eliza’s lawn. The smoldering looks at the dog park. The awe on his face when the puppies were born. The rightness of sitting next to him in the VA waiting room, like time hadn’t passed and she was still his go-to person. The night she spent in his bed. She wished she knew what she was feeling now, if it was real or just old memories influencing her present behavior. Was she overthinking things? Was there a way they could be together that wouldn’t end in heartache? She wished she could talk to him. Well, she would. Tomorrow. She’d promised. But after weeks of avoiding him, afraid she wouldn’t stick to her resolve to spare them both more pain, tomorrow seemed too far away.
Danielle picked up her phone, and one of the puppies bumped its nose against the back. The time flashed at her. Too late to call. Wasn’t it?
But one thing they’d always shared was their love of the night. If she was still up, her bet was that he was, too. She took a chance.
Pretty moon tonight, right?
She held her breath while puppies climbed her belly like a mountain. Gizmo stuck his nose into her armpit and immediately fell asleep. Junior sprawled across her collarbone, nuzzling his face into the side of her neck.
Her phone dinged, and she let out her breath. Not a text, though. A picture.
An old picture. Back-to-school dance, senior year. Knox wore dark-wash jeans and a crisp button-down. She smiled up at him in her peach lace sundress with the high-low hem, her hair pulled up in a sparkling barrette, wisps framing her face. A yellow crescent moon hung in the background, a cutout taller than the both of them, against a black backdrop with twinkling lights for stars.
I loved that dress, she typed. She’d loved him, too, but when it came to confessions, she figured better to start small.
The dots bounced. And bounced. The puppies settled around her, falling asleep one at a time until she was the only one awake in the room.
I loved you in that dress.
Her heart raced at the reply, enough so that Junior lifted his head and darted out his tongue in a quick lick before settling back down again. Was she brave enough to do it? To admit what she was feeling and damn the consequences?
I loved you in those jeans. I loved you. Period.
She’d done it. Not that it was such a big revelation. She hadn’t been shy about telling him back then. But now? Now she was one letter away from admitting how she really felt. Sure, she’d loved him back then, but did that equal loving him now? Danielle was afraid it might. She was afraid that once again, she felt more for him than he felt for her and that once again, he’d break her heart. Tonight had proved that like last time, she couldn’t stop herself from falling
. But did her feelings—then or now—even matter? Like the old song said, sometimes love’s just not enough.
I loved you, too.
His response was quick. She wanted to hit FaceTime, to see him in real time, to judge his expression. Was his admission simply acknowledging the past or was he, like Danielle, springboarding from the old emotions to new ones?
It killed her that the only way to find out was to trust him. It killed her to know that she couldn’t.
* * *
Now what? Knox stared at his phone, both thrilled and appalled that he and Danielle were batting the L-word around again. Sure, they were using the past tense, but it must mean more than that, right? Why else dredge up the old feelings? For his part, he’d done his best to ignore them, especially the first few years in the Corps. But now that he’d seen her again, tasted her again, he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever walked away in the first place.
Stupidity. It was the best answer he could give. It was the only answer he had. Well, that wasn’t true. Stupidity and pride and his mom cheering him on every step he took away from Miami Beach and Danielle Morrow. Wouldn’t it be funny if he moved to Atlanta with Danielle? His mom would keel over. His mom. He still couldn’t get over what she’d said to Danielle, how those words still haunted Danielle—and now him. Lucky? They hadn’t been lucky.
How different would his years in the service have been if he’d known Danielle was at home waiting for him? Or if she’d moved with him from base to base? If they’d had kids? Would he have re-upped as many times? It was too late to think about those things, to wallow in regret. What was done was done.
His phone dinged, and his heart pounded in response. Would she move from the past tense to the present? Was this how dating worked now? Everything done by text? It was both safer and scarier at the same time. He wished he could see her face. He wished she’d come home with him, and they could’ve had their own private burlesque show in his bedroom.
But she hadn’t, and the notification wasn’t a text. It was a photo of the puppies, all snuggled against her side. He could see the curve of her waist and the slight rise of her belly in the photo.
Ding. Good night.
Sleep well, he texted back, strangely deflated. He’d thought they were working up to something, but like so many things with Danielle, he had no idea what was actually going on. See you tomorrow.
She didn’t reassure him with so much as a thumbs-up. He stared at his phone for a long time, and he woke up with it still in his hand.
* * *
The Coffee Pot Spot probably wasn’t the best place to fill out college applications, but she didn’t actually expect to finish them today anyway. She was only using the soul-sucking activity as a way to kill time until Knox showed up. The coffee shop was loud and crowded, and she was on her second round of the Beatles covers playlist blasting down from the speakers in the ceiling. But there was coffee and a definitive lack of puppies being too adorable to concentrate, so Danielle took a long sip of her latte and read the directions one more time.
High-school transcripts? She knew it wasn’t an unreasonable demand for a college to make, but humiliation swamped her nonetheless. She was thirty-three years old. What was she thinking, applying to the local community college? The first time she’d applied to colleges, her high school had taken care of anything. It was so long ago, and there’d been a counselor to help her. Even if she did somehow get in—an outcome she doubted not because she thought an open-access school would reject her but because she wasn’t sure she’d ever correctly complete the online application—she’d be over a decade older than her classmates. She’d be the old lady.
If she waited, she’d be even older. And homeless. If her dad was the only landlord who’d tolerate her running a rescue on his property, then she had to earn the right to stay. She needed an acceptance letter in less than two weeks. There was only one way to get it.
She took a deep breath and opened up a new browser window. Her high school had to have some kind of website, right? If nineteen-year-olds could figure this out, so could she. A handful of clicks and a few bucks later, her transcripts were on the way. Feeling quite accomplished, she ordered a second latte, this time with mocha because she deserved it, and moved on to the next session.
Personal essay. God, she’d worked so hard on her first one, back in high school. It’d been a thing of beauty, filled with all her passion and focus. The years working at her dad’s clinic, the summer she’d interned at the wildlife sanctuary, her lifelong, unwavering goal to become a veterinarian.
The latte arrived, via a gangly but friendly young man who was smart enough to set the drink down out of the spill range of her computer, and Danielle savored the dark sweetness. Hopefully, the additional caffeine would get a few extra brain cells firing. What happened to the girl she used to be? Her life didn’t lack passion and focus, as her father had implied. Homestretch was everything to her. Even now, she missed the comfort of a large dog leaning on her leg.
The difference was ambition, she supposed. After the miscarriage, the diagnosis, the rounds of unsuccessful attempts to control her condition, her focus shifted inward. Understandably so, she reminded herself. She’d been right to delay college admission. What kind of a roommate would she have been, crying all the time? What kind of student would she have been, too depressed to get out of bed for days at a time? No, she’d done the right thing. She had nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, she should be proud. She could’ve stayed that girl forever, but then Florida outlawed greyhound racing and she’d found a new passion—her greyhounds.
That sounded like it could be a personal essay. Danielle typed the word ambition at the top of her page and jotted down a few notes. Took a couple sips of latte. Checked her phone, which she had on silent.
Busy? Knox’s text asked. Ready for that coffee?
Danielle gulped down more caffeine. They hadn’t talked, really talked, since the bridal shower. That should’ve been the end. But distance plus burlesque lessons plus their late night texts equaled an unsolved, and possibly unsolvable, problem. Could she be with Knox, even for a short while, to explore their undeniable attraction without wanting too much from him? They weren’t kids anymore. The thirties were not about messing around. Knox needed someone he could spend his life with, and she, well, she was damaged goods. Literally missing pieces of herself. When he looked at her like he had last night—as if she wasn’t merely a snack but an entire buffet, and he was a starving man—she felt whole in a way she hadn’t since she was eighteen. What if she told him, and he didn’t leave? Could she take the risk? She shouldn’t hope, but hope swelled in her anyway, a balloon without a tether threatening to pull her too high.
Her hand shook as she opened up her phone. The extra caffeine, no doubt.
Sure. She could waffle about college-essay topics later. Already at the Coffee Pot Spot.
Be there in a few. Wait for me?
Danielle’s pulse sped so abruptly that it had to be the caffeine hitting her system. Wasn’t that her problem? Always waiting for him? Her fingers hovered over the keys, typed: Sure.
A happy face? Danielle stared at the screen for a long time. Of all the strange things between her and Knox the last few weeks, the happy face might be the strangest. She sent one back to him so he could enjoy the weirdness. They were not happy-face people.
In her own texts, Danielle preferred to use the dogs or the occasional holiday emoji. What was next? The blowing-kisses face? She shook her head at the absurdity.
A few terrible paragraphs of her personal statement later, Knox slid into the chair across the round table from her.
“How’re the puppies? Did they get a good night’s sleep?” His smile took over his face, all those teeth and, God help her, dimpled groove lines.
Danielle took the last gulp of her latte. Puppies she could talk about for days. “Great. Lively. Adorable. Honestly?
It’s hard to be away from them.”
“I can imagine.” Knox’s eyes searched her face. For what? She wasn’t sure. She attempted to project cool competence, a cautious friendliness. Not a desperate longing and wish to launch herself across the table at him. How many more nights might they have had together if she hadn’t pushed him away so soon?
The waiter showed up and Knox ordered an Americano. “For you?”
She held her hand over the top of her empty mug. “Better cut me off. I may not sleep tonight as it is.”
“Decaf?” The gangly waiter’s Adam’s apple bobbed on the word.
“God forbid.” Danielle laughed at how she and Knox said the same thing at the same time.
“Jinx,” Knox said before she could. “Now you owe me a kiss.”
Danielle felt the flush rise on her skin, so she busied herself with saving the document on her laptop to cover the memories flooding her mind.
* * *
Homecoming banners decorated the high-school hallways, and for the first time in three years, Danielle was excited about it—all of it. The game, where she’d get to watch her boyfriend play. The dance, where she’d get to dance with her boyfriend. The drive home, where she’d get to make out with her boyfriend. Yeah, Danielle was into the whole boyfriend thing. My boyfriend. It’d been three weeks since their first kiss, and she still wasn’t used to the words. She whispered them to herself, holding her calculus textbook against her chest while trying to remember her Spanish vocabulary words for the quiz she had right before lunch.
“Watch it!” Angela Bowers plowed into Danielle, a full body slam that sent Danielle to the floor in a sprawl of limbs and scattered papers from her notebook.
“Sorry, I—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Suddenly, Knox was there, looming over her in all his tallness and winning-football-team swagger. He dropped into a squat to help her gather her things. “Angela’s just—”