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Danny heads straight to my kitchen. I drop the food on the table, drop Danny and Freya’s bags in the room next to Mina’s, and head to my room to shower. When I come back down, Danny and Freya are eating croissants.
We talk about movies for a while, because Freya has questions and opinions, but when our conversation turns to industry gossip, she gets bored and wanders off.
“Mina left you?” Danny finally asks in a gentle tone at odds with the sheer size of his tattooed ass. It isn’t a question. He’s heard everything from someone. Possibly from Mina.
I nod.
“That sucks,” Danny says with a shake of his head. “You two were good together.”
We were. It sucks. I thought losing my job was the worst thing that could happen to me. Turns out my imagination was lacking. Now I get the fun part of learning how to live without her.
“It’s for the best,” I say even though I don’t believe it, getting up to refill our coffees.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Danny asks, twisting in his chair to gape at me.
“Language!” Freya calls out in a sing-song voice. When I look up—and up and up—and see her clinging to the rail of my staircase, my heart leaps into my throat.
“What is she doing up there?” I hiss at Danny.
He glances her way and shrugs. “Climbing.”
“If she falls—” The open stairwell goes from the basement to the second floor. Waist-high metal railings wrap around the stairs, but where Freya’s climbing—up on the second floor—if she falls, she’s small enough she might go through the gap straight down to the basement. My ceilings are high and my room is half a floor above the rest of the second floor, so it’s a nearly four-story fall on a body only three and a half feet tall.
Danny brushes croissant crumbs off his chest. “I’ve been watching her climb since before she could walk. Thousands and thousands of mini-heart attacks, man. I know what she’s capable of, but more importantly, she knows what she’s capable of.”
I trust Danny’s assessment of his kid, but it’s like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. He gets it about his spawn and lets her go, trusting her capabilities. Why can’t Mina—or my mom or Nic or my twin—get it about me?
“You know,” Danny says after a moment where we both watch Freya climb back down to the landing, “sometimes she goes too high. She gets herself into unfamiliar territory and she gets scared. The fear sticks her in place and I have to remind her she can handle it. Sometimes I have to climb up and show her how. Other times, she works it out herself.”
I take a sip of coffee. “She’s lucky to have you.”
“When was the last time you were so scared you got stuck?” Danny asks.
I shrug because I can’t remember. I like the thrill. It doesn’t scare me—it invigorates me. It pushes aside everything else and for a few blessed moments, there is a calm focus in my head.
The last time I felt fear? Real fear? Probably the day my homemade zip line came apart and Jessie landed on Nic. The metal pipe I’d found for a handle hit him near the eye and there was so much blood. Jessie was screaming, and I didn’t know if she was hurt or scared for Nic. I froze up. Didn’t know what to do.
Nothing since.
Yeah, I was scared to tell Mina how I felt for years, but that’s a different kind of fear. Not what Danny’s talking about. Right?
“Think about it,” Danny says, tapping his temple like I’m missing something.
My phone rings and any hopes that it’s Mina die when I see who it is.
If I don’t answer, I run the risk of Mom hopping on the next flight to LA and I’ll be in even bigger trouble for messing up her schedule.
“I’d better take this,” I say.
I go to my room and flop across my bed. It smells like Mina and sex and all things good that now make me incredibly sad. “Hey, Mom,” I say flatly, putting the phone on speaker and pulling a pillow over my head. Might as well take a nap while she yells at me.
Over the next twenty-four hours, the following texts appear on my phone:
Jessie (Evil Twin): I swear to god Timbo, do not make me come to LA
Nic: You need to call Mina and work this stuff out. Better yet, come over.
Jessie (Evil Twin): Hey dickhead, if you don’t respond to my texts I am going to book the next flight and you’d better go into hiding because when I get my hands on you . . .
