He walked around the bench to sit where Penn had gotten up from, letting out a small groan as he fell much too close beside me. Our shoulders brushed for a brief second before he settled the inch between us. “Kids really like to hold grudges, don’t they?”
I shouldn’t have been relieved he sat down. I shouldn’t have chased the feeling of his arm brushing mine. I hated myself for it. “She gets it from me.”
Dalton chuckled, and my stomach flipped over on itself at the sound. “You don’t hold grudges.”
No, because when he’d tried to kiss me at Lydia’s party, I would’ve let him—if it hadn’t been at the expense of disappointing my friends.
My phone chirped as a text came through, and I fished it out of my back pocket to peer at the screen.
Jamie
Are you at home?
no, I’m with the kids at the playground
Jamie
The one by your house?
no, the biscayne park one
“How’s the drawing coming?” Dalton glanced over atmy open sketchbook, where I’d forgotten to close the lid. “Did you finally move on from drawing people dying, DD? Thank God. That much has changed in a year?”
Self-consciousness ate at me, nibbling away at my skin until I finally did flip my sketchbook closed. “I still draw it,” I said, packing as much confidence as I could into looking up at him. “I have a perfect model for my next sketch, in fact.”
“I’ll pose for you if you want.” Dalton nudged me with his elbow lightly. “But, hey, it’s notthatweird, apparently. My Intro to Psych course talked about how sometimes coping mechanisms for grief can seem… intense.”
Great, so now he was psychoanalyzing me. Maybe Iwasn’trelieved he’d sat down. “Glad you finally accept my weirdness. It only took three years.”
Dalton laughed, the sound entreating me to join in. I resisted, sliding my fingers down the bumps in the spiral of my sketchbook. “I’m glad it’s summer vacation,” Dalton announced, stretching his arms up over his head. “College was rougher than I’d expected.”
“Oh, it was rough, was it? It wasn’t parties every day and girls throwing themselves at you and your chiseled jawline?” ASU did have quite the reputation for those who were looking. At least, that was what endless spirals on Google and Reddit told me.
Dalton grinned, and his arm came down to rest alongside the back of the bench, brushing against my shoulder blades. “Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?”
“Jamie’s jawline is just as sharp as yours.”
I hadn’t intended for it to, but that wiped the smilefrom Dalton’s face. We both turned toward the playground, using it as filler in the dead conversation. I should’ve cut it off the second he sat down, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk away. That was the problem with Dalton Giovanni. He could walk away from me, but I never figured out how to turn my back on him.
“I wish I could say I’d never expected you two to get together,” Dalton murmured after a moment, quietly stepping onto a topic that felt like a landmine. One wrong move and everything could explode. “But… well. I’m not surprised.”
Of course he’d say that.I’ve been in love with Daisy since Nell and I switched schools freshman year. Jamie really did not think that through. “I’m surprised you didn’t get a girlfriend at college.”
“No one was like you.”
Dalton could’ve kicked me in the chest and it would’ve hurt less. “I’d hope not,” I muttered. “You dumped me.”
“Daisy.” Dalton’s voice was quiet and strained, and I stilled. Not DD.Daisy. “Can you… look at me?”
Drawing in a breath, I met the soft gaze of my ex-boyfriend, bracing myself for a blow. It’d been the same feeling when I’d opened my door that day in August and had found him on the porch, carrying a box of our things and a small, polite smile on his face.
There was no smile on Dalton’s face now. “When I ended things last year, I really looked at it like a pause. Not a full stop.”
A pause.A pause. “You’re trying to say ‘it’s been fun’ was your way of putting us onpause?”
Dalton scratched his neck. “Okay, yeah, I could’ve worded it better?—”
“You think?”
