Chapter 23 Dane

Chapter 23

Dane

It’s a bad sign when I’m contemplating all the ways that we could go through with the wedding tomorrow so that this doesn’t have to end.

But that’s exactly what I’m doing as I lounge in bed with Amanda early Sunday morning.

I’m stretched out on my stomach while she sits beside me, trading stories about city life while she draws random designs on my back with light fingertips.

It’s chilly this morning, so she’s wearing one of my T-shirts. Her curly hair is wild around her head, and her face is fresh and clear.

No makeup.

We took care of that in the shower together after we banged against the wall.

I’m still completely bare assed. Ready for whatever she might want.

Wishing this was real.

It feels real. I believe her when she says she likes me. Lorelei’s told me a few times this past week that dating isn’t Amanda’s priority. Amanda herself has told me the same.

But are we dating because we had sex all night?

Or is this the two of us blowing off steam after the stress of dealing with our families’ reactions to us pretending we’re together?

“ No ,” she says as I finish telling her a story about accidentally crashing a black-tie formal in a seven-foot-tall bacon costume. “How did you not get the memo?”

“Just got back from a work trip to Hong Kong and I was looking at the wrong week on my calendar. Told Vanessa I’d meet her at the party, but when I got there, a week early for the venue, everyone else was in formal wear and I couldn’t find my girlfriend.”

Amanda cracks up. “What did you do?”

“Pretended I was a server, made a round with a tray of mini quiches, then ducked into the coat closet and called her.”

“Where were you supposed to be?”

“A black-tie formal for her boss’s wedding.”

“Did you go in your bacon costume?”

“Yep.”

“Were you mortified?”

“A bit.”

“Aww. How long after that did you break up?”

“Well over a year. That was before we moved in together.”

She dances her fingers over my shoulder blade, and I sigh and sink deeper into the mattress.

There are a few things in life better than getting a light back rub from a nearly naked woman who smells like sex, but only a few.

“It’s not exactly the same, but that reminds me of the time Yazmin and I spent a day trying on clothes that we picked out for each other to see who could create the most epically wrong looks for our personalities,” she says. “I walked out of a Bloomingdale’s dressing room in pastel polyester pants pulled up to my boobs and a sweater that had World’s Best Grandma knitted into it, and Yazmin laughed so hard we were asked to leave.”

“You probably still looked perfect.”

“I was ready to head to the accessories aisle and get some fake bifocals and a granny wig.”

I smile as my eyes drift closed.

That’s so easy to picture.

“When are tryouts for your show?” I ask her.

I don’t tell her I know it’s her show.

She doesn’t volunteer it.

“Next week.” She sighs. “Assuming I go back to New York.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because we still don’t have someone else to help my mom at the bakery.”

“Ever consider that that’s a problem for your mom and grandma to solve?”

“Not without a lot of guilt.”

I kiss her knee. “You should go home to New York and see what they come up with. Do your play. Have fun. Let them sweat for a while.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I miss being onstage, but it would kill part of my soul to do it as my job. That’s why I love the community theater so much. It’s bonus goodness in my life.”

I slide a look at her.

Her cheeks are going pink. “And I wrote the play,” she whispers.

“Send me dates. I’ll come see it.”

“It’s probably—”

“Fucking amazing,” I interrupt. “Something you should celebrate. Be proud of.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Would you believe me if I said I was going to say that it’s probably when you’re on vacation?”

“Were you?”

The guilty look answers for her.

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“It’s just—I wasn’t in New York more than six months before I figured out that acting as a career wasn’t going to do it for me. But every time I leave my apartment, I see something new and fascinating and inspiring, so I wrote the play as an ode to my neighborhood. To celebrate what they’d done for me. And then I showed it to Yazmin, and she was like, get out of my head , and I realized we all love our community, we all love the city, and we all love different things about it, but it unites us. So it’s ... in a lot of ways, it’s bigger than me. It’s my thank-you to everyone who’s become my family away from Tinsel.”

“Think you’ll write more plays?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“Good.”

Her fingers drift up my neck. “You ever want to be on a stage?”

“I’d rather run naked through a town hall meeting with both of our families sitting together.”

She laughs a little, then sighs.

She’s about to say the thing I don’t want her to say. We need to talk about how we’re breaking up tomorrow.

Nope.

Don’t want to.

I shift so I can kiss her knee again.

She runs her fingers through my hair.

I loop my hand around her calf and kiss her knee once more. Her breath hitches, and her fingers tighten in my hair.

And someone knocks on the door.

The sun’s up. Clear blue skies are showing off outside the bedroom window, and before I shut it to keep more cold air from sneaking in, we could hear the birds chirping.

But it’s still not even seven in the morning.

They knock again.

Both of us sigh in unison.

“Probably my grandmother.” Amanda shifts like she’s getting out of bed, but I move faster.

“Let me.”

If her family heard that I dragged Amanda out of my grandparents’ anniversary party last night and have come to gloat, they’re going to have to gloat to me.

That’ll be awkward for them.

If they’re here to offer support, great.

They can do that for me, too, if they mean it.

Amanda lunges for her suitcase. I dash to the door.

My bag is still in the living room, and it takes me about three seconds to grab shorts and pull them on before I open the door after a second knock.

I take one look at who’s standing there, though, and I shut it before he can say a word.

“Honey, it’s for you,” I call.

Front windows are still open. We forgot to close those.

He can hear me.

Amanda dashes into the living room, still in my T-shirt, but with pajama pants added beneath it. Her cheeks are stained pink and her eyes hold that half-wary, half-excited look of someone who’s not sure they want the surprise on the other side of the door.

“It’s my uncle,” I say quietly as she joins me at the door.

“He wants to talk to me?” she whispers.

“I have no idea what he wants, but if he wants to talk to me, he’ll have to apologize to you first.”

She squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to—”

“This one’s for me.”

I haven’t checked my phone yet today. No idea how many members of my family have tried to get in touch. No idea if I’m facing screen after screen full of insults and yelling, or if there are excuses and apologies in the mix.

I just know that if my family insists on continuing to take joy in fighting with the Andersons, I’m done.

My dad’s coming around. Lorelei’s good. Esme’s good.

If my grandparents and my uncle want to pick a feud over family, when they can’t even tell me what the fucking feud is about, then I’m just done.

I would date Amanda.

I’d pick her over family.

She doesn’t make me feel like a pawn in a game.

She makes me feel like her partner in doing something that no one else in our families ever had the courage or dignity to do.

“You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to,” I tell her.

That earns me a devious smile. “You think I don’t want to talk to someone who insulted my fiancé so thoroughly and publicly last night that he made you leave your grandparents’ anniversary party?”

Oh, shit.

I might not have thought this all the way through.

But it’s too late. She’s flinging the door open and stepping out onto the porch. “Good morning, Uncle Rob. What can I do for you today?”

She pulls the door shut behind her before I can join her.

Fuck.

My stuff is still all over the living room.

Including my dog, who went out two hours ago, had breakfast, and is now giving me a one-eyed squint.

You sure that was a good idea, bud?

“Not at all,” I tell him.

He snorts in amusement and goes back to snoozing.

I strip the quilt off the couch while I listen in on the conversation outside.

“I’d like to talk to Dane, please,” Uncle Rob says stiffly.

“Why should I let you have access to him after the scene you made about us last night?”

Uncle Rob huffs. “I want to apologize to him.”

“How well do you know your nephew?”

“I’ve known him his entire life.”

“That doesn’t mean you know him. What’s important to him? Where does he see himself in ten years? Who are his friends? If he had to choose between peer pressure from dead people to keep up a family feud or leaving all of you behind to love who he wants to love and live how he wants to live, what would he pick?”

I peek out the window.

Amanda’s on the front porch, looking down on Uncle Rob, who’s retreated to the edge of the bottom step.

I spot Esme leaning against her car, parked next to my and Amanda’s rentals.

So Uncle Rob isn’t here completely willingly.

Good to know.

“You two don’t belong together—” Uncle Rob starts, but he stops when Amanda snorts.

“Unless you’re about to tell us that we’re siblings or first cousins, I’m pretty sure neither one of us will care. We didn’t do this. We didn’t start this fight, none of you will tell us why it matters so much, and we have no interest in continuing to be the next generation of people who enjoy making conflict for no good reason. If you want to see Dane again, you’ll let it go too. He deserves family who are happy for him and who honestly want the best for him. We all do.”

Uncle Rob eyes her.

I can’t see her face, but I can read her body language. Arms at her sides. Shoulders relaxed. Swaying left and right, just the slightest bit. Head up, but not so much that it’s haughty.

Just enough to say I’m not the enemy, but don’t mistake me for a pushover either .

I shouldn’t have sent her out there alone.

I should be right next to her.

But she has this.

She’s strong. She’s capable. She believes in what we’re doing.

And she believes in me.

My throat is thick. My heart pounding in a painful beat.

She’s everything.

And she’s not mine.

“Your family isn’t innocent,” Uncle Rob mutters.

“But Dane is,” Amanda replies softly. “And so am I.”

I sink to the couch as she lets herself back into the house, overwhelmed with gratitude, appreciation, lo—appreciation.

We’re stopping at appreciation.

“Dammit,” Uncle Rob says outside.

Amanda looks at me. I’m sorry, she mouths.

Her eyes get shiny.

Her chin wobbles.

Hell if that’ll stand.

I’m on my feet pulling her into a hug in an instant. “You’re fucking amazing,” I murmur into her hair. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t—” she starts, but I shush her.

My heart is overflowing with more affection for this woman than I should let myself feel, but this pain?

The pain coming when it’s over?

She’ll have been worth it.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have sent you out there alone.”

“Oh my god, please . I can handle this for me. I don’t want to make things worse for you .”

“This is on the way to better.”

“Are you sure?”

Esme’s voice drifts in through the window. “That didn’t look like an apology.”

Uncle Rob grunts something back.

“Amanda’s right,” Esme says. “She didn’t do anything wrong. And neither has Dane. You’re being a dick for the sake of being a dick, and I’m over it too. Good news for me, though, is that your dumb feud will die off with your generation. You can chew on that while you’re rolling over in your grave.”

Amanda stifles a noise that has my heart freezing in my chest.

I pull back and look down at her, prepared to wipe tears and reassure her that she’s not the problem, when I realize she’s holding back a snort of laughter.

“I should use that line on my grandma,” she whispers.

And now I’m the one trying not to laugh as I pull her back in for another tight hug. “You’re braver than I am.”

“Eh. Not like I won’t be breaking her heart anyway when I tell her I don’t want to move home to take over the Gingerbread House.”

If I squeeze her any tighter, she won’t be able to breathe.

But there’s a gravity in her voice that makes me want to carry this load for her.

“You need to tell her,” I murmur into her hair. “You deserve to live a life that makes you happy. You glow when you talk about New York. It’s good for you. And I think you’re good for it too.”

She squeezes me hard, then lets her arms relax as she changes the subject. “I should get ready and head into town. Grandma wants to talk to me before her anniversary party tonight.”

“What can I do to help?”

“You’re already doing it.”

I might be.

But it’s still not enough.