The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(53)
I think it would be better if I didn’t go too. Maybe, if I pretend Luke doesn’t exist, and if I pretend it for long enough, I’ll finally stop missing him. But when Danny pleads with me to come, I don’t feel I can say no.
It takes a series of buses and then a cab to get to the hotel in Fresno, so it’s almost nine by the time I arrive. The team is just getting back from dinner when I walk in, but I can tell something’s wrong.
Danny isn’t smiling as he crosses the lobby to me, and Luke simply turns on his heel and walks away, his fists clenched.
“Come on,” says Danny, grabbing my bag, morose for reasons I don’t understand. He already checked me in, since I wasn’t old enough to get the room myself. My stomach is in knots, wondering if Luke told him about coming into the diner all summer, or if he mentioned his last night on the beach, when I thought he might kiss me. Nothing ever happened, but it sure doesn’t look great that we kept it all to ourselves.
Using the keycard, he enters the room and sinks on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
“I asked Scott, the offensive coordinator, to put me in because you were coming. He said no. They’re not renewing my scholarship.”
I take the seat beside him and squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry.” I silently thank God I didn’t leave for LA as planned. I guess that’s my silver lining: I didn’t get to go to LA, but I get to be here with him in his time of need—I get to repay a little of my debt.
“I don’t understand.” His voice cracks as he buries his head in his hands. “What did I do wrong?
Why am I being punished?”
I think of the platitudes the pastor and Donna would offer now: God works in mysterious ways; When God closes a door, He opens a window.
I know how much I hate hearing them personally, how they feel less like an attempt to console and more like a warning that I’ve complained enough and it’s time to stop.
I could suggest he isn’ t being punished, that hard things happen in life, and his hard things aren’t even all that bad—Luke has suffered far more than Danny has—but it’s not the time for that either.
“I’m so sorry, Danny. I don’t even know what to say.” I lean my head on his shoulder.
“Sometimes it seems like you’re the only part of my life that’s gone right,” he says as he rises. He crosses to the mini-fridge and pulls out two tiny bottles of vodka, opening one and drinking it without a word, flinching at the burn.
And then he opens the other.
“What…are you doing?” I whisper. “You don’t drink.”
He slams the second one and reaches back into the fridge. “You want one? You were always
wanting to drink with everyone. Here’s your chance.”
I frown at him as I kick off my shoes and fold my legs beneath me. “Maybe I wanted to have a beer at a party, Danny, but it’s supposed to be fun. Not angrily drinking straight vodka.”
“We’re out of vodka.” He fishes more bottles out. “Now I’m drinking straight gin.”
My stomach tightens. I’m happy to sit here with him, and I’m happy to try to cheer him up, but I don’t like where this is heading. “Please stop. This isn’t you.”
He sets the unopened gin on top of the counter. “I’m sick of always doing the right thing. It doesn’t pay off anyway.”
He slams the gin, then turns, crossing to where I sit and pulling me to my feet, kissing me so hard it hurts. His mouth opens and his tongue seeks. It feels foreign and awkward and forced. Something I don’t want and even something he doesn’t actually want. His grip is too tight, his teeth clank against mine.
I push away from him. “Danny, that hurts.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, pulling me back to him.
He kisses me again, more softly this time. It’s still not what I want but I can’t exactly complain about it.
His hand reaches up to grasp one breast, then slides to the button of my jeans.
I grab his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“I want this,” he says as the button pops open. He pulls down the zipper. “I’m sick of always doing the right thing.”
“I—” I stumble over my words as panic wells inside me. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.
You’re mad right now, but when you stop being mad you might wish you hadn’t done this.”
“It didn’t just occur to me.” He pushes my jeans down to mid-thigh. “I’ve been thinking about it for months. When my parents said they weren’t coming, I knew it was a sign.”
He seems to be choosing his signs rather conveniently.
His fingers move against the seam of my cotton panties. “I promise,” he says. “This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
I still think it is and I…don’t want to. With every bone in my body, I don’t want to, but what am I supposed to say? We’ve been together for three years. I’m the one who said I wanted this, and I’m not a virgin, so it’s not like there’s anything to safeguard.
So, when he pulls me to the bed, I go. When he takes his jeans off, after a moment of hesitation, I step out of mine. I always imagined when I finally undressed in front of Danny, it would be sensual.