Coming Home(34)

She opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off. “And what happens when it doesn’t go my way, Gram? What happens then?”

She stared up at him, her hand still pressed to his cheek as her eyes filled with tears. “My boy,” she said softly. “You can’t stop living. You’re the one who taught me that, remember?”

He looked down, swallowing hard. “You deserve to be happy,” she said, using her hand on his face to lift his gaze back to hers. “You deserve to be happy,” she repeated, looking him in the eyes. He stared at her as she gave him a watery smile before patting his cheek.

And then she walked past him and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

“Fuck,” Danny mumbled, rubbing his hands roughly over his face before he walked over to her chair and dropped into it.

The absolute last thing he needed was Gram urging him to call her—because the truth was, he’d been fighting his desire to do just that every day since that goddamn lunch date, and he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to resist that impulse with Gram’s prodding battling his common sense.

He couldn’t do it. It would be wrong on so many levels to pursue her. Even Gram must have known that. But her hopeless optimism was getting in the way of her judgment; she was still clinging to the idea that everything might work out. Danny understood why; it was the only thing that kept her from falling to pieces. She needed that fantasy in order to get out of bed every morning, and the last thing he’d ever want to do was deprive her of that.

But just because he was allowing her to exist in a fantasy world didn’t mean he wasn’t strongly rooted in reality.

Gram had said that he still had a future.

But he knew what that future was going to look like, and dragging someone else into it would be repulsively self-serving.

Danny laughed humorlessly, running his hand through his hair.

Maybe he’d gotten caught up in Gram’s fantasy world more than he’d realized, because it was ridiculous for him to even be thinking about what the fallout would be for Leah if they got involved. Once she learned the truth about him, she’d go running for the hills anyway. So none of it mattered.

Case closed. End of story.

At least, that should have been the end of the story.

But her number was in his phone, taunting him every goddamn day. He knew he should just delete it, but some twisted, masochistic part of him wouldn’t allow it.

He had promised himself he wouldn’t contact her again after that call about the flowers, but then he’d gone ahead and called her again on New Year’s Day, justifying it because she had contacted him first; she had texted him, and he was simply responding. After all, just because he wasn’t going to pursue her didn’t mean he had to be rude.

Maybe that was it.

Maybe that was how he needed to handle her. If she reached out to him, he would respond—he just wouldn’t initiate anything himself.

Danny exhaled heavily, running both hands up through his hair as he stood and made his way through the house and out to his car.

He was just going to leave it up to fate.

Danny smirked sardonically at that as he opened the trunk and sifted through his toolbox. Because if there was one thing he could count on, it would be that fate would f*ck him over.

Again.





“Ugh, what a creeper!” Leah’s sister said as she shook her shoulders in an exaggerated shiver. “So he like lurks around your apartment?”

Leah sat on the counter in Sarah’s kitchen, running her finger around the rim of her wine glass as her sister opened the oven door to check the lasagna. When they first began their Monday night dinner dates almost two years ago, Leah had declared any and all conversations pertaining to Scott off-limits. Sarah was nothing if not rabidly protective, and in the weeks following their breakup, it was just a little too much for her to handle. Instead, they would spend the evening watching How I Met Your Mother and gorging on dessert while vowing to hit the gym the following day as penance.