Chapter 15

“S ophie…”

I looked over at my dad. His eyes weren’t on the scene on the dance floor, but on me. “Yes?” I asked, in a voice that was extremely composed and didn’t expose any of my inner turmoil.

“You resemble a bird of prey right now,” he said, and I reminded him not to make any remarks about birds around my sister Addie. Her former boyfriend…anyway, that was a story for another time, and today was her wedding. It was definitely not an occasion to relive old relationships.

My mom was, though. “Patrick’s wedding with Liv could have been like this,” she sighed, looking around the room and zeroing in on my brother’s former fiancée. But Liv was dancing with her newish husband and anyway, that ship had sailed a long time ago.

I focused on the décor rather than getting involved in rehashing the familiar topic of how Liv and Patrick were a star-crossed couple. Addie and Granger must have purchased every flower in the Midwest to fill this hall and it was absolutely gorgeous. Extremely expensive, but gorgeous—but I doubted that they really noticed anything but each other. Addie had been floating around on a cloud of happiness all day, beaming as we touched up her hair before we walked down the aisle and crying tears of joy at the altar. Now she wore a satisfied, dreamy smile as she snuggled in her new husband’s arms on the parquet floor in front of the band.

That was where I was looking now, too, but my gaze wasn’t directed at Liv or at the happy couple. No, I was staring at my brother Patrick, who was dancing with Juliet. They had Esme in between them and both of my siblings were laughing and talking excitedly with her. She was angelic in the dress that Brenna had picked out (Brenna had been in charge of the fashion, which explained why we all looked great).

“She’s fine,” Daniel told me. He handed me a glass of champagne, which was flowing freely. I put it to my lips and drank it down, and his eyebrows went up. “Well, we’re here to celebrate,” he remarked.

“It’s a great day for Addie.” I had taken my eyes temporarily from the dance floor, and when I looked back, I couldn’t see the baby. “Where is she? Where’s Esme?”

He pointed. “See the bride? She has the package.”

I did look and saw that now Addie and Granger were playing with her. “My sister will probably get pregnant tonight,” I remarked. “She wants a family that badly.”

“So maybe Esme won’t have siblings, but she could have a lot of cousins,” he remarked, and my focus shifted to him again.

“I don’t know about that,” I answered. “She might have siblings.”

“Sure, Patrick could have more children.”

“Or anyone. Anyone could,” I said vaguely.

He looked at me and then guzzled his own glass of champagne. “Want to dance?”

The first part of the evening had been fun and touching with the speeches from Juliet, the maid of honor, and from the best man, Gabriel Hunt. We’d eaten a delicious meal and had successfully prevented my mother from standing up and clinking her glass for attention, and we’d forced Patrick to stop gazing wistfully at his former fiancée, Liv. It wasn’t going to work for him, not since she’d married that same best man, but it would never have worked, anyway.

My mom still didn’t believe that and she was currently (again) lamenting the loss of Liv to our family. “I’d love to dance,” I told Daniel, and he took my hand. Since the night that he’d slept over at my house, the night that I’d cried all over his shirt, things seemed to be easing between us. At least, now I felt less like I was going to lose him and drive him away forever. We were still seeing each other all the time, and that had also helped me a lot with Patrick.

Because I was seeing him all the time, too. He had made a point to come over almost every day, except when his shifts at work directly coincided with Esme’s naps. He was at my house taking care of her a lot of the time while I worked, and my mom was, too. They had been buying groceries for me and cooking together in my kitchen, and Patrick had even taken up yoga (and it was very unfair, but he could already do a full wheel while others had not quite made it). Daniel’s presence when they were around made the situation a lot more palatable. He seemed to know what to say—he knew what to say to me, for sure, to calm me down and make me a lot less likely to start an argument. He made me feel relaxed, happy, and…wonderful.

Being held by him during this dance was also wonderful. I put my cheek against his suit coat, not a rental like he’d worn in high school but chosen by Brenna, so it looked awesome. Every once in a while, my eyes popped open and I jerked up my head to check on Esme, but mostly I stayed very close to him.

“When did you learn to dance?” I asked after a few moments.

“I was in a few weddings for some of my Army buddies. I had to make appearances on the dance floor and I didn’t want to look like an asshole, so I watched videos. I practiced with a broom.” His right arm adjusted me closer. “You’re better than a broom.”

“That’s high praise.”

He laughed. “Much better than a broom. How’s that?”

“I’m flattered,” I assured him. I checked again, and I got a glimpse of the baby with my dad’s sister, my aunt. Was Esme looking upset?

“Is she sleeping over at your mom’s house tonight?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, they still want to…is she crying? I can’t see over all these people anymore.” Even with my heels (chosen by Brenna), I wasn’t tall enough.

“No, she’s fine. She’ll be fine tonight, too. It’s probably good for everyone to get a vacation.”

Maybe. I thought I might be glued to my phone, though, texting and waiting for messages about problems. It wouldn’t be a vacation like one to the Caribbean, and I certainly wouldn’t be walking on a beautiful beach, beneath swaying palm trees…

“Why did you just look at me like that?” Daniel asked.

“Like what? Did I?” I asked confusedly, and then put my cheek against his jacket again.

“I thought you might want to spend the night out,” he mentioned.

“Like, at a bar?”

“Or, like, at my house,” he said, and I tripped over the high heels. “Whoops! I have you.” We danced for a few more steps. “What do you think, Sophie?”

“I think…well, if you’re suggesting that we go to your house to have sex, I’ll definitely come over. Or, if you were just saying that we’d hang out and watch a movie, I would also do that. I’ll come, whatever the activity.”

“I meant sex, not a movie. We could do both,” he suggested, and I felt him shake with more of his quiet laughter. “I used to think about sleeping with you all the time, starting in…probably in eighth grade. Since I didn’t have any personal experience with sex, my ideas were based on internet searches, the kind that were blocked in the school library.”

“You thought about sleeping with me for all those years?”

“Sure,” he answered. The song was coming to an end, and he slowed our movement. “I know that you weren’t thinking of me like that, but it was definitely on my mind. When I saw you naked for the first time, I thought I’d gone to heaven.”

“Heaven?” I snorted. “Back then, I was kind of—”

“You were beautiful, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

“Really?”

“Really. You still are.” He eyes moved past me and before I could answer, he announced, “Your dad is bringing Esme over here.”

The topic of sex with Daniel was on my mind for the remainder of the reception. I watched him and I thought about it, until Nicola asked me (in a very irritated tone) if I was suffering from hyperthermia, because I was bright red in the face. Her own poor mood was due to her dress. Brenna had insisted that our older sister would be back to her former size by now, so she had ordered the bridesmaid outfit accordingly. Nic had worn at least three pieces of compression garments underneath it so the zipper would rise, and all that had started to fray her nerves.

That meant I wasn’t able to talk to her about the sex thing, and since it was Addie’s wedding, I also didn’t feel like I could pull her aside and get any tips. My other sisters were just…no. There was no way that I would turn to them for help with this. I watched Daniel and thought about it, and tried not to look like I was having heat stroke.

By the end of the reception, I was fully a mess, because my night was going in a very different direction from what I was used to. “This is her favorite animal,” I said again to Patrick, my hand under Esme’s back. I tucked the stuffie under her chin. “You can’t lose this dragon.”

“I know, Soph,” he told me.

“Ok.” Esme was sleeping peacefully in my brother’s arms and I didn’t want to wake her, but also, I did. I wanted to hold her myself and kiss her, and then run away. “I have the volume all the way up on my phone,” I continued. “If anything goes wrong, even if you don’t think it’s very wrong—or if you have any questions—or if she needs me, because she might need me since we haven’t been apart since you came back to Michigan—for any reason or no reason, just call me. Do you understand, Patrick?” I stared at him, meeting his eyes and looking for the slightest hint that he would bolt tonight, like he’d done to his daughter before. “You have to take care of her. She depends on you.”

“I love her, too, Sophie,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Well, he already had. He had already deserted her and allowed her to be raised by people who had no experience with children: me and my mom. But he seemed sincere now in his desire to be a good father. I let them go, after only kissing her hands and feet a few more times.

“Are you ok?” Daniel asked a few minutes later. We were still in the parking lot, where we’d been watching my dad’s SUV drive away, taking Esme with it. It was out of sight but I hadn’t yet moved.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m fine.” I checked my phone in case I hadn’t heard it, but there was nothing yet.

“Should we go?” he asked next. I looked over at him and swallowed, because he was the other reason that my stomach was in knots.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I repeated, and he said that was good. It was cold, though, and I was happy to have his arm around me as we went to his truck. I hoped that he couldn’t feel me shaking. It took a while to drive to his house, but the time didn’t ease my nerves.

“Do you want anything?” Daniel asked when we walked into his kitchen. “Sophie. Hello?”

I took my eyes off my phone. “Yes?”

“Maybe this isn’t the best night—”

“No, it is.” Quickly, I removed my coat, kicked off the high heels, and unzipped my bridesmaid dress. Brenna had insisted on nice underwear beneath it, so I was all set. “It’s a great night.”

He blinked at my sudden nudity. “Fuck. Uh, ok. Do you want to go upstairs?”

“I’ll follow you.”

I walked behind him into his dark room and put my phone on the nightstand, and then I got into the bed, Daniel’s bed. I watched as his shadowy figure undressed a lot more slowly. In fairness, he had more layers to remove: the suit coat, the tie he’d already loosened, the belt, the pants. The socks, because that looked strange. Finally, he was also down to his underwear, and I considered that he was wearing a nice pair, too. He looked very good, with his strong arms and the flashes of his abs that I spotted through the darkness. That was all new, but his sweet face hadn’t changed as much as the rest of him. This was Danny, underneath it all.

He lay down next to me. “I’m really nervous,” he admitted. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

“You said that you thought about it in high school,” I agreed, but he shook his head.

“And since then, too. You’ve been on my mind in general, Sophie, ever since that night when we were eighteen. We did it, and I told you that I—”

I leaned forward and kissed him; it was our second kiss, and it went about as well as the first one had. Our teeth hit together and I jerked my head away. “No, it’s ok,” he said. He cupped my head and laced his fingers in my hair, and he brought our lips together much more slowly. This time, it worked. His tongue stroked against mine and I felt my heart kick up faster, and I pulled myself snugly against him.

His lips slid around my neck and his teeth gently bit there. “Can I take off your bra?” he asked softly. “I got better at it.”

He really had improved from the last time he’d removed my underwear; back then, he’d almost had to get out of the car to hunt for pliers. When I nodded now, he reached behind me and deftly unclasped it with one hand, and then he urged me onto my back so that he could pull down the straps. “This is very nice,” he said, but his eyes weren’t on the little scraps of lace and silk. Even in the soft darkness of his bedroom, I could see that his gaze was on my breasts. He kissed one of my nipples, gently and carefully, but then he started to flick his tongue against it. He suckled and massaged with his fingers.

“I’ve learned about more than bra removal,” he remarked.

“Have you?” I gasped. His hands were still on my breasts and he was now doing something with his tongue against my neck—now my ear. Oh, sugar. But I needed to act, too, so I slid my palms down his body, feeling every swell of muscle and sinew. “Do you like this?” I asked him.

I had reached to touch his erection, and I had not been a stellar student during our years apart, but he moaned and told me yes. He put his thigh up over my hip and I turned onto my side to massage him as well, carefully feeling my way around his testicles (which had always interested me but was an area I little understood). I squeezed and rubbed and he panted, and then his hips jerked toward me and he moaned very loudly.

“Sophie, wait, hold on,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Are you about to ejaculate?”

“Yeah, I am,” he let me know. “Let’s get you close, too.”

I lay on my back again and we pulled off our underwear. He held himself just over me, still touching and near enough that I could feel his heart pound. We kissed more and I wrapped my leg around him, and he put his knee between mine so that the hard muscle of his quadriceps pressed against me, against my clit if I moved my hips. I did that and sighed.

Daniel smiled down at me. “I’m glad we’re trying this again,” he murmured.

So was I. Not only did everything feel amazing, but you were more attached to people after sex, right? It must have created some kind of chemical bond, even a brief one. Before, it had led him to say all kinds of things…but Daniel moved his knee to separate mine, and he held them apart as he kissed his way down my body, until his mouth was between my legs. This was the most intimate thing I’d ever done—or had done to me—and with anyone else it might have felt very, very weird. But with him, it felt very, very good. Very good. Very…oh, holy…oh, I…

“Danny!” I yelled, and he started scrambling for something, which turned out to be a condom, and the next part was nothing like I remembered. The first time had been so awkward and it had hurt more than I’d expected, and then it had been over so quickly that I wasn’t even sure what had happened. But as he entered me now, it felt wonderful, and he kept moving and touching me. His body seemed to stroke against mine in a way that made me shake and feel totally out of control. I came again, and then I was almost crying, totally overwhelmed by the sensations and by him. I held him tightly, my legs locked over his hips and he moaned my name as his body shuddered. I felt him kiss my hair and I felt his heart still pounding.

“I have to move,” he told me after a while, and very reluctantly, I released my death grip. He shifted only enough to shuck off the condom, and then he came back to hold me again. “I didn’t last very long,” he commented. “But I hope it was better than the first time we did it.”

“It was perfect.”

“It seemed like you enjoyed it. You bit me,” he said, and laughed softly.

“I did? Where?” Then I had to say that I was sorry, and I had to kiss that spot a lot of times. And we were laughing and kind of wrestling, and naked wrestling can lead to a lot more. It led to round two, in fact, which led to me testing my own oral skills and having another orgasm when Daniel did something with his hips, over and over until I just melted into pleasure. The night stretched out and we kept going until at one point, just as the sky lightened in the east, I fell asleep.

“Sophie.” Lips roamed over the back of my neck and over my shoulder blades, and a hand massaged my butt.

“Hm,” I murmured. “Hi.”

“Sophie, it’s almost eight. When are they coming?”

“Eight,” I muttered back, and then the realization of responsibilities struck me and I sat up. “Patrick and my mom will bring Esme home at eight. It’s eight? Right now?”

“It’s ok. You have a few minutes,” he said. His eyes went to my breasts and he skimmed over my nipple with his knuckles. “Not quite long enough, though.”

With the sunshine coming through his bedroom windows, there was now plenty of light to see me clearly. I saw him, too, shirtless and so attractive that I couldn’t help but touch his chest, too. “Later, we could…” I stopped. “Are these walls pink? Do you have a pink bedroom?”

“It’s called ‘Hint of Sunrise,’ not pink. It’s supposed to be subtle,” he explained. “Yeah, I did some painting up here.”

“You painted it pink?”

“It’s ‘Hint of Sunrise,’” he reminded me. “Some people like pink, and I wanted those people to like my bedroom. I’ve been waiting for this to happen between us. I’ve been hoping.”

“Daniel…”

“Danny,” he corrected. “You called me that last night, and I realized that I miss hearing you say it.” He put his palm against my cheek. “I’ve changed a lot but I’m still the same in some ways. Some important things about me haven’t changed at all. My feelings about you are the same.”

“Mine haven’t changed, either,” I told him, and his eyes widened. “For the past decade I’ve…that’s my phone.” I grabbed it and saw that it was my mom calling. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“We’re at your door. Where are you?” she asked. I ran to the window and saw that she, my brother, and Esme were standing outside in the morning cold.

“I’m coming right now. I’m on my way,” I told her.

“On your way? Where are you?” she repeated, but I hung up.

“I have to get over there,” I said, and Daniel—Danny recommended that I put something on.

“You’re naked,” he reminded me, and handed over the pretty bra and one of his shirts.

His pants, however, were not going to work. I had to clothe myself in my former underwear and the bridesmaid dress, with the shirt over the top of it. “Will you come?” I asked him.

“Uh, yeah. You want me to?”

I stared. “Yes, of course. Come soon,” I said, and because he wasn’t moving to do it, I put my arms around him and kissed his neck. I needed a toothbrush before I went any closer to his face.

My brother broke into a big grin when he saw me charging across the street and my mom’s jaw dropped. “Sophie!” she accused, and Esme perked right up and started yelling for me. She knew my name, because I’d practiced it a lot with her. I was Sophie, not mama, but she loved me and she kicked wildly and reached for me.

“Hi, honey,” I told her, and took her into my arms. “Did you have fun last night?”

“She was an angel,” my mom answered. “We had a wonderful time.”

“She was up twice,” Patrick corrected. He took the baby back while I unlocked the door. “I think her tummy was bothering her.”

My head snapped to look at him and I dropped my keys. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called the help line at the pediatrician. They told me what to do.”

Oh. We trooped inside and I did check her over, but she really was fine and I really needed to bathe. Before I was even out of the shower, I heard Danny arrive. I was sure that my mother was questioning him fiercely (she really was a master at it), but when I came out, the two of them were sitting calmly on the couch, drinking the coffee that someone had made, and my brother was playing with Esme.

But, oh boy, there were questions ready for me. “Sophie, I’m so glad that you got back into the game of love,” Mom announced. “What changed your mind?”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘the game of love,’” I countered. I wouldn’t, because that phrase turned my stomach like Esme’s had been. “Don’t you guys have to go?” I suggested. “Patrick, shouldn’t you get to work?”

“No, it’s Sunday. The restaurant is closed,” he reminded me.

“How long have you and Daniel been together?” Mom continued. “Sophie? How long have you been seeing each other?”

“It’s recent,” I said, and then Danny spoke up, too.

“I don’t know if we’re actually seeing each other.”

“Yes, we are,” I stated. “We totally are. Absolutely.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked me. “You just told me that your feelings haven’t changed since high school.”

“That’s true,” I started to explain, and he shook his head.

“What I remember from high school is that you said you didn’t love me.”

There was absolute silence in the room. My mom and Patrick were both staring and even Esme was quiet.

“Mom, Sophie’s right. We should go,” my brother announced, and she answered that there was no way she was leaving now.

For once, I agreed. “Stay here,” I told them both. “I need to talk to everyone.” I turned to Danny. “You’re first,” I said. “Let’s go back to your house for privacy.”

Patrick and Mom watched from the window and we walked across the street for the second time that morning, as a cold wind whipped the last of the leaves from the trees. I watched them and thought of coconut-laden palms swaying on a tropical beach, as the moon shone silver overhead, and I walked along with a beautiful man. The man of my dreams, I’d told my sisters, and they’d relayed the story to the rest of the family and to any friends who might have wondered why I didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t dating or interested in being set-up. I had lost that guy, they thought, so I’d quit.

“It’s not true.”

Danny closed the front door and I walked to him and put my arms around his waist. “What are you saying?” he asked. Slowly, he hugged me back.

“What I told you before, back in high school? When I told you that I didn’t love you? That wasn’t true. I was lying to you but I was mostly lying to myself.” We’d slept together—we’d lost our virginities to each other, and then he’d told me how he’d felt. “You said that you’d always loved me,” I remembered. “You told me that you were so glad that we were together, a couple. You wanted us to get married.”

“And you told me that you didn’t feel the same way in return. You said that you never wanted that kind of life, tied down, that you were going to be a reporter and go all around the world and that we could only be friends.” I felt his body stiffen. “I enlisted the next day.”

“We were too young. I was really dumb, but even I knew that was true. I knew you had to leave Michigan and get out from under your dad’s control. If you had stayed here—”

“What are you saying?” He took my shoulders and moved me back, and he bent down so that our faces were close. I was so glad that I’d taken the time to thoroughly brush my teeth, but morning breath was just an afterthought now. I hadn’t ever believed that I would tell him this, but it was the time for honesty.

“I don’t know when I actually fell for you,” I said.

“You fell for me?”

“I did, but I was so self-absorbed that I didn’t understand what was happening until I was head over heels. Then I didn’t know how to deal with it except to keep ploughing ahead just like I had been.”

“It worked,” he commented, “because I liked you how you were. I thought we were a perfect pair.”

“But it wouldn’t have worked if we had tried to be together right after high school. I knew that, and I convinced myself that I would be fine without you. It was a big lie,” I told him. “I was an idiot, full of myself and too much. Too much personality, too much lip, too much Sophie. I needed a lot of time to grow up but I also spent a lot of those years regretting that I’d driven you away. I missed you so much that I couldn’t even look up your name, even though my actual job was to track people.”

He held my jaw and kissed me. “I needed that. Keep going.”

“I bought a house on the street that you’d loved, I hunkered down inside it, and I didn’t care about too much. I mean, I wasn’t crying all the time. Not every day, anyway. I was existing but it all kind of sucked. I didn’t make an effort with anything but I pretended to myself that it was ok, and I didn’t expect to have anything different. Then you came back, and Esme came into my life, and it all changed.”

“You’re right,” Danny said. “If we had tried to make it as a couple back then, it wouldn’t have worked. But I spent the past decade comparing every woman to you. No one was Sophia Genevieve Curran, and you’re not too much, not for me. I’ve loved you for…I think it’s my whole life.”

“I love you, too. I really love you. We needed the time apart but I missed you.” We kissed again and then just hugged for a long, long time.

“We both had some growing up to do,” he told me. “We have a lot of years to keep doing that, but now we’ll grow together. We’ll make sure that we’re not just existing. We’ll live our lives.”

“Good.” I settled against him and sighed. “I think I’m going to need you a lot, Danny. I think I’m going to be falling to pieces pretty soon.”

“Esme?”

I nodded. There was more I had to do, and this next part was going to suck.

“Is everything ok?” my brother asked when we came back in.

“Wait for me! Don’t talk yet,” my mother called from the kitchen, where she was making something that smelled delicious. “I just have to put this in the oven, and I think that was broken until recently. Your house is looking so much better, Sophie. What did you do to it?” She ran in and put herself on the couch, ready for the show.

“What didn’t she do?” Danny asked. He sat down on the floor next to where Esme was banging some blocks together and he started to make a pile for her to try to knock over. “She cleaned it from top to bottom. She got rid of all the junk. New furniture, new appliances, a new roof. This place used to remind me of my dad’s house. Just a little,” he told me.

I had known that. I had wanted a home where he could feel comfortable, and now it was necessary for the baby, too.

“Do you like it, Patrick?” I asked my brother.

“I’m not a huge fan of pink, but it’s a great house besides the color. Good location. Nicola’s always talking about the nice architecture on this street.”

“It’s a great place,” I agreed. “If you lived here, then I would be close by, too.”

“What? Me? Where are you going?” he asked.

“I’m moving in with Danny,” I said.

“We’re getting married,” he told them, and I looked over at him and laughed. Now that he’d made that statement in front of my mom, it was going to be impossible to ever get out of it.

Not that I wanted to.

“Oh, Sophie!” my mom gasped, and jumped up from the couch to hug me. “Isn’t this better?” she whispered. “Isn’t this better than some made-up story?”

“Mom, what?”

But she was already talking to Danny about her own wedding day, when there had been a tornado but she’d managed to fight through the storm and make it to the church on time, despite her broken ribs.

“Congratulations,” my brother said to me. His eyes moved to his daughter, the beautiful little girl who was happily chewing on a block. I could read his thoughts: a married couple, stable and with their own home, would be much more likely to win custody.

But it wasn’t a fight that I wanted. “You could rent this house from me,” I said. “You and Esme could live here, and I’d be close enough that I could still be in her life. Because I need her in mine, too.”

“I don’t want to take her away from you,” Patrick said. “I couldn’t do that to either of you.”

I couldn’t live without her, either, and the thought of it was making me cry again. I picked her up and hugged her.

“I’m sorry I did this,” my brother told me. “Sorry, Sophie.”

“I’m not sorry about any of it. This has been the best year of my life,” I told him. One of the hardest, but one of the best. I was still crying but I was happy, too—it was a confusing bunch of emotions.

“Is this one of those times that you need me?” Danny asked, and I nodded. “I’m glad,” he said as he held me and Esme both. “I like that you need me, Sophie, because I need you.”

“Holy Mary, you do love her,” Patrick said.

“Yeah, since I was about eleven,” Danny answered, and laughed. “How could you not? She’s so much Sophie.”

Maybe I was just the right amount. Anyway, we were just right together. Who needed a tropical beach when you could live in Detroit in a pink bedroom? I would be with the man I loved, the real man.

And there was no danger of coconuts.