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“Take me home,” I demand.
“We can’t just ditch them,” Lainey says gesturing to Spencer, Will, and Jax in the car behind us.
“They’ll understand.”
Wow. An hour ago, I never imagined I’d say any of this. Never would have risked offending anyone. And here I am pissing off my sister and abandoning people I might consider becoming friends with.
Lainey is mad at me. She’s gone silent. Never a good sign.
I try starting up a conversation asking about her classes but she’s too upset. So, we ride the rest of the way in a silence that’s extra quiet after it stops raining.
I’m afraid she may never talk to me again
But then she drops me off at Daniel’s and I’m not sure what to think.
“I’ll be here until Sunday morning,” Lainey says as I climb out of the car. “Let me know if you have time to see me before I leave.”
“I will. I mean, I’ll try. Work—”
“I know.” Lainey’s phone dings.
“It’s Spencer.” A smile suddenly curls Lainey’s lips.
“You know,” I say, “you deserve to be happy too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I lean in and kiss my sister’s cheek. “Love you. Have fun tonight.”
“Love you, too,” Lainey says begrudgingly but also somehow completely sincere.
When she’s at the end of the street, I wave one last time before she turns the corner. Lainey may not like my choice but she loves me. Maybe not today but someday, we’ll be okay again.
∞∞∞
“Well, that could have gone better,” I say coming into Daniel’s apartment.
When I don’t get a response I check the bedroom and bathroom to see if Daniel didn’t hear me behind a closed door but the rooms are empty.
I call for him again just before I find him sitting on the couch facing the TV, turned off.
“Daniel?”
“Come sit down,” he says in a tone that brings a lump to my throat and sweat to my palms.
I stand at the end of the couch. “What—what’s going on?”
“Please. Sit.”
“Umm… No. Not until you tell me you’re not about to say what it sounds like you’re about to say. Because I swear if the words, ‘we need to talk’ come out of your mouth—”
“But we do.”
I pace at the end of the couch. Wanting to run. Scream. Hit something. I don’t know what else. But I have to do something before I burst out of my skin.
In the kitchen, I pull out the mixer, flour, sugar—ingredient after ingredient—dumping them in the mixing bowl without bothering to measure.
“Riley,” Daniel says standing up and coming to the kitchen. He puts a hand on the one I’m using to mix the haphazard dough I realize I didn’t put eggs into. I tear away from him and open the fridge. “Just listen. I think you’ll agree—”
