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I’M GRINNING LIKE a kid who just found a pound coin from the Tooth Fairy under his pillow. I should probably be dwelling on a hangover or icing my stiff hand, but I couldn’t give a shit about any of it.
The jug under the coffee machine is almost full. I take out two cups and wait. Last week I felt like I was on the very edge of the cliff of sanity. I’d thrown so much away and couldn’t have the one thing I truly wanted. It was like I was standing on the tips of my toes and looking down to the rocky crash-landing below, knowing there was no way out. Trapped. But now…
As if on cue, my phone beeps again as I receive a text.
CALL ME.
I don’t want to hurt Connie; I never did. I just want to have this moment, not thinking about the shit I’ll have to deal with when Dayna and I go back home as a couple. Jay will probably kick ten bells out of me. Or try. Connie, there’s no way around it, she’ll be sick over it.
I shake my head as if it might physically rid me of everything I’ll have to face. Right now, all I want is for this goddamned coffee to hurry up so I can go back to my room and the angel who is currently taking a shower. Hopefully, for a breakfast of that very same woman.
It’s almost comical how I’ve screwed this up so many times. Not this time.
Impatient, I pour what coffee has already brewed into the two cups. A drip hisses as it touches the hot plate. I head back to my room, coffee in hand.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
Dayna charges out of the room right at me. I rock back, saving the coffee but confused as hell.
She stands in front of me, her eyes clouded with tears that haven’t fallen. She stares at the cups I’m holding, then at me.
She thought I left.
My words don’t come quick enough. She runs upstairs, wearing my bottoms and a t-shirt, her hair wet. My mind is stuck in an incoherent frenzy. I just fucking stand, gormless, turning left and right, not knowing what the hell to do.
When my brain finally kicks into action, I dump the coffee back in the kitchen and bound up both flights of stairs to the top floor, three at a time, desperate to set her straight.
I tap a knuckle on the door to her bedroom, as if she’s going to invite me in. Then I go ahead and open the door. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed in front of the window, her back to me. She looks small in my t-shirt, and I have an overwhelming need to hold her. But that’s not Dayna. She’d take it as pity, and she wouldn’t want that.
I suddenly wish I’d put on a shirt with my jeans. I feel crushed enough without physical exposure. God, why didn’t I just wait until later for coffee? Of course she thought I left. That’s all she knows.
“Dayna.” I make a move into the room but stop short of going to her. “I went to get coffee. That’s all. I didn’t leave. I had no desire to leave.”
If not for the rise of her back as she takes a deep breath she’d be perfectly still.
“Last night, was… I’ve wanted that for—”
“Don’t, Clark. Don’t feed me bullshit. Please.” She stands and turns to face me. The sight of her tears is like a blunt dagger to my gut. “Last night shouldn’t have happened. I’m not blaming you. I… I wanted it.” She swipes the back of her hand across her cheeks quickly and lifts her empty suitcase onto the bed, opening the lid. “But it shouldn’t have happened.”
She pulls her clothes out of her wardrobe in one bulk, hangers still attached.
I don’t move. I just watch her, trying to work out my next move and coming up blank. “What are you doing?”
She throws the clothes in the case. “I’m leaving.”
“But it’s your birthday weekend. Your flight is tomorrow. Dayna, this isn’t necessary. Stay. We can talk this out.”
She keeps packing, and I start to panic. I have no fucking idea what to do or say and I’m freaking out. “You don’t have to do this.”
She stops and looks me in the eye. A look that I think I’ll remember for the rest of my life. “I can’t do this, Clark. I can’t be back here.”
There must be something I can say. Some kind of speech about trying, about doing things differently this time around. But nothing comes.
“I’ll go.”
She swallows hard enough that I see it in the hollow at the base of her throat. “It’s your chalet.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to tell you I shouldn’t have come. I’m glad I did. I’m not sorry about being here or last night. But I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t ever want to hurt you again, Dayna.”
