: Chapter 25

Now that the presentation was over, I could get back to job hunting, apartment searching, and figuring out how to break the news to my parents.

Daniel wasn’t home yet, so I did my nightly thing and sat in bed, as snug as a bug cocooned in a blanket while searching job links. Around nine, the front door opened and closed and the lock clicked. A dim light from the living room seeped through beneath the bedroom door. It wasn’t the thousand-watt overhead lights with their blinding intensity, but the mellow, low-level bulb from the corner lamp.

Daniel didn’t make any noise. He didn’t get his usual cup of water from the fridge or slide his keys across the counter or drop his messenger bag beside his desk. He was uncharacteristically quiet.

I threw off the covers and slipped out of bed. I quietly drew open the door and watched his broad frame drop to the couch. He threw his head back to rest against the couch and released a long, pent-up, frustrated sigh.

I frowned and pulled the door all the way open.

As I walked toward him, my toes digging into the plush carpet and my skin shivering in the sudden chill, he didn’t seem to notice me. Not until I stood beside him and touched his shoulder.

Daniel startled and stared up at me as if he’d forgotten where he was. His brow creased with worry lines, his mouth turned down, but his eyes…they glistened with sadness, and my heart turned heavy and desolate.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, taking another step to stand in front of him.

He groaned and his arm immediately went around my waist, pulling me closer so that I stood between his parted knees. Without a word, in the smoothest of motions, he drew me into him as he scooted to the edge of his seat and hugged me, his forehead against my chest.

Words tumbled up the back of my throat, and my hands hovered in the air above his shoulders, near his head. I froze at the unexpected intimacy, the touch, the feel of Daniel flush against my skin. His warmth seared through the thin fabric of my clothes.

As soon as he shuddered out a breath, I wanted nothing more than to comfort him.

It was the most natural thing in the world to become one with him, to hug him against my chest as the weight of his forehead pressed against my collarbone.

He didn’t say anything for a long time. He didn’t budge an inch or shift a centimeter as I ran my fingers over his hair.

I touched my cheek to the top of his head and whispered, “Daniel?”

He took a deep breath and muttered, “I love how you say my name.”

Another minute of silence went by before he pulled back, just enough to look up at me. I continued to rub my fingertips through his hair just above his ears, massaging his scalp with my fingernails. His hands never left my waist.

I tilted my head to the side. My hair cascaded over his shoulders. “What happened?”

His chest inflated until he released. “My dad is so damn controlling. I keep saying I’m a grown man able to make my own decisions, yet here I am. Maybe it sounds stupid out loud.”

“Maybe you just need to say it out loud to work through it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”

“That’s kinda how this works.”

“What is ?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure, but when you care about someone, you care about their problems.”

He didn’t say anything after that, and that was okay. Sometimes we needed to be held, and it was enough for now.

It didn’t matter how long we stayed like this, motionless, silent. It didn’t matter if my legs were aching or if my slightly bent back started to cramp. I wouldn’t move. I didn’t want to let him go.

“You should come to bed,” I found myself saying. “Sleep might help.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his lips brushing the skin just below my collarbone, sending shivers across my skin.

“Yeah.”

“Can you stay a little longer? Like this?”

“Of course,” I replied and glanced down as he tilted back.

Our lips paused mere centimeters apart. He pressed his lips together and I knew exactly what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing.

I’d really missed Daniel. My body missed him, my soul, my entire being. I could tell by the way he fixated on my mouth that he wanted to kiss me, even as I gently cupped his face.

He arched upward and I expected to feel his lips press against mine. Instead, they gingerly kissed my neck. My breath was lost to me.

His hands slipped down the backs of my thighs and hooked behind my knees, brushing the right spots, pulling first my right knee up and onto the couch, then my left knee, until I was straddling him.

I clamped down on a moan. Opening for Daniel was as intoxicating as any high.

He settled me onto his lap as his lips moved up my neck to my jaw. I trembled from the sheer amount of exertion it took to control myself. My hips were aching to roll into him. My back was begging to arch into him. My mouth hungrily awaited his. My skin demanded to be free and flush against his.

My body screamed to continue, to see where this led because it knew without a doubt where we would go. But my logical reasoning stirred awake.

not His breathing went from tranquil and level to a little faster, a little more abrupt as his lips met my neck, as his warm hands went up underneath my shirt and spanned my back.

I bit down a moan and tried to see through the fog inundating my thoughts. “Tell me what happened with your dad?”

Daniel groaned and leaned back. “How’s my dad cock-blocking this right now?”

I smiled and slid off, sitting beside him while he kept a hand on my thigh.

He closed his eyes. “He has this idea of what he wants me to be. He always says it’s the best for me, but it’s really the best for him and his image.”

“Parents have high expectations.”

“Yours forcing you onto your not-really-a-boyfriend?”

“I’ll find out tomorrow when I tell them.”

“I don’t think they will.”

I shook my head. “Me either. Maybe this’ll help you as much as it helps me?” I jumped up and grabbed the guitar from the corner. It was much heavier than it looked and definitely too large for my arms. I sat beside him on the couch as he dragged a hand down his face.

“Since when do you play?” he asked.

“Since ten seconds from now.”

Daniel draped an arm over my shoulder as I got comfy against his side, the guitar on my lap, my fingers trying to strum. It was easy to glide fingers over the strings, but making music was another story.

He chuckled. “You’ve really improved.”

I elbowed him, but he wrapped both arms around my waist to get a hold over my hands and moved my fingers through various keys and notes. All right, so it was much harder than it appeared to play, and coordination? I could use surgical instruments to repair tears, but I couldn’t strum two areas on a guitar at once.

After several minutes of Daniel quietly laughing at me, I stretched my fingers. “How do you not have calluses?”

“I use a pick.”

“Will a coaster work?” I leaned across the coffee table to grab one of the thin coasters, but he pulled me back against his chest and promised, “Not exactly the same thing.”

He readjusted me in his arms so that my hands were at my sides while he played around me. “Let me show you something.”

I picked up the tune right away. “Wow. That song was huge back in college.”

“Funny, right? How we can hear a song that we haven’t heard in forever and suddenly be singing every word and feeling everything we felt when we first heard it. Remember what we were doing when this song played?”

I bit my lower lip. “At a college party. It was too loud, too crowded, and people kept bumping into me. Ugh. I can’t remember why I was there.”

“Pretty sure Liya or Brandy made you go. But that was the first time we’d seen each other, at a party.”

My head fell back against his. He pecked my temple, sending shivers through me, and ran a finger lightly up my goose-bumped skin. “You saw that I was uncomfortable and took me outside.”

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders so that I was snug against his chest. “The relief on your face when I did that. It was like you’d held your breath the entire time until we got out of there.”

And that was the first time Daniel had touched me out of nowhere, a hand to my lower back to usher me out and keep others from bumping into me. It wasn’t in greeting or farewell. I hadn’t minded that touch at all. It was the first of many, many touches to come.

He kept playing. I yawned.

“You should get some sleep,” he suggested, shifting me away and putting the guitar back.

“What about you?”

“I can’t sleep. Might as well get some work done.”

I yawned again. “I’ll stay up with you.”

“No. Go to bed. Look at you.”

“I can sleep here while you work. I heard the couch is very comfortable.”

He shook his head, bent down, and scooped me into his arms without effort. “It’s late and you have work in the morning, literally life-and-death decisions to make.”

“I’m not an old woman. I can manage to stay up past ten,” I argued as he lowered me gently onto the bed.

“We all know you hate staying up that late.” He winked down at me, kissed my forehead, turned off the lights, and closed the door behind him.

*  *  *

The next morning, I awoke to Daniel beside me. This time, he woke up with my alarm at five in the morning.

“Sorry,” I muttered, turning the alarm off, shifting back toward him, and kissing his cheek before realizing what I’d done. I froze, wondering if I should apologize or pretend that we weren’t slipping back into couple mode.

“It’s okay. I wanted to get up at the butt crack of dawn,” he mumbled, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me back into him.

“Are we snuggling?” I asked.

“Heh. I think so.”

I melted against his side. “I was going to go for a run…”

“Okay.” He pushed the covers off.

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s go for a run.” He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the edge.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Afterward, I’ll make you the best frozen waffles you’ve ever had in your life.”

I laughed. “You’re slipping, chef.”

Our run turned out to be more of a walk through the neighborhood while holding hands. It was dark and cool, but plenty of cars and pedestrians were out. I kept glancing at Daniel in search of any signs of how he was feeling about his father and their business and what I could do to help. In all this concern for him, the focus on finding work and an apartment took a back seat.