He was my boyfriend.
We were in love.
And it didn’t change a thing. Not really.
I still couldn’t introduce him to my parents or my friends. The job was still going to take me away from him. He still had to live in Wakan, and I had to live in Minneapolis. I absolutely refused to let him move. We went around about it for hours last night until he finally gave up.
I wouldn’t let him sacrifice his life to try to salvage something that wouldn’t work out anyway. What did it matter if he lived in Minneapolis if I wasn’t going to be home six days a week?
He had to stay in Wakan. Daniel’s legacy was just as important as mine.
Maybe more.
It felt like Wakan would cease to exist if it didn’t have a Grant in it. Like it would be instantly diluted and thin, like Daniel held it together somehow, just by being there.
I couldn’t even express how much it meant that he was willing to leave that all behind for me. But I also couldn’t let him do it. Not for something as doomed as us.
So all we’d done was opt for the life-support version of the end instead of the clean break.
But he wanted to see if he could save our relationship, and I loved him too much to do the right thing and say no to it entirely. So I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
Daniel woke up early and moved the branch so I could leave for work. I drove back to the Twin Cities in time for my shift, feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted.
The vote was today. They’d announce the results at six o’clock.
I worked the morning, then headed upstairs to cast my ballot and went straight to the ER to the nurses’ station to wait. Bri was there, charting her patients. She was off at six o’clock like me, but she’d stuck around for the announcement. It was 6:05 when Mom and Dad showed up with Neil, Gabby, and Jessica. They came in through the automatic doors and were still half a hallway away, but the results were on Dad’s face.
I got it.
“Congratulations,” Bri said, leaning in to hug me. “I voted for you twice.”
I laughed, and she let me go. “Call me when you’re ready to go celebrate. I’ll leave you to the brute squad,” she said, nodding at my family. Then she got up and left.
Dad approached the nurses’ station. “You did it! We have another chief in the family. Well done.”
I was oddly unexcited for some reason. Like it was happening to someone else.
I forced a smile and came around the nurses’ station so Gabby, Jessica, and Mom could give me hugs. Neil gave me a head nod of approval. “Congratulations.”
“What time are you off, princess?” Dad asked. “We can go catch dinner.” “I’m off now actu—”
Gabby gasped next to me. “Oh. My. God…”
I wrinkled my forehead and turned around to see what she was gaping at, and my heart sank.
Daniel was walking toward me with flowers.
I was rendered completely mute. My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
“Isn’t that the squirrel guy?” Gabby asked from behind me. Jessica didn’t take as long to catch on. “Oh, Ali…”
My ears started to ring. No. No no no no no no no, this wasn’t happening.
Daniel closed the gap between us, beaming. “Hey.”
I processed him in split-second clips of horror. He’d trimmed his beard down, and it somehow managed to make him look even younger than he was. He was in a faded T-shirt, and his tattoos were showing. All of them. He had on jeans and his leather bracelet, and his boots were muddy. Normally none of this even remotely bothered me. In fact, I liked how he looked. That was one of my favorite shirts, probably why he wore it. But I did not like this in the context of this situation. In the context of this situation, this was my worst nightmare.
He glanced at my parents, Neil. Then he nodded at Gabby and Jessica. “Hi. Nice to see you again.” He looked a little surprised to see them here, which made sense, since I’d never mentioned they worked with me.
“What are you doing here?” I breathed.
He smiled. “I thought I’d surprise you. Take you to dinner.” My dad looked him up and down. “Alexis, who is this?”
I swallowed. “I…”
Daniel put a hand out. “Daniel Grant.”
Dad didn’t shake his hand. He looked at it like it was dirty.
And then, in some weird alternate universe move, Neil stepped in. “Neil.
Nice to meet you.”
He shook Daniel’s hand, and pure panic ripped through me. “I’m sorry, who are you to her?” Mom asked, looking confused. “Um,” I licked my lips. “He’s my—”
Daniel looked at me, his eyes telling me he was starting to read the room, and for a split second I seriously considered lying. Saying anything other than the truth. My trainer. My friend. An old acquaintance who just happened to show up with flowers to take me to dinner. And then I grasped for what answer would give him the most protection from this situation. I knew it wasn’t boyfriend, but his eyes had begun to search mine, and I realized that he wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t forgive me for this again, like he had when I did it with Jessica and Gabby. So I said it. I had to.
“He’s my boyfriend.”
Nobody said a word. Then Dad began to laugh. It was the maniacal laugh of a Disney villain, and I felt the whole room closing in around me.
“Your boyfriend?” Dad said, looking back and forth between us, amused.
He nodded at my ex. “Did she tell you she’s living with Neil?” I watched Daniel blink in shock.
“Cecil, it’s really not like that—” Neil said in a tone that was surprisingly stoic.
Dad laughed. “You’ve been in couple’s counseling for the last three months, so I’d say it’s like that, wouldn’t you?”
Neil pressed his lips into a line, but to his credit he didn’t say anything else.
Dad shook his head, looking positively titillated. “First your brother marries Lola Simone, and now this?” He practically howled.
Daniel looked at me and gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Call me when you get off.” He handed me the flowers, kissed me on the cheek, and left.
I was going to have a panic attack. I could feel my breathing becoming labored.
Everyone’s eyes were on me.
“Ali, you can’t be serious…” Jessica said.
Gabby was practically gyrating, smiling like she couldn’t wait to tell Philip. Mom had a hand over her mouth, probably realizing how bad the fallout would be for both of us once Dad let this sink in. But for the moment? Dad didn’t even look mad. He looked entertained.
It occurred to me that the idea of Daniel was so ridiculous to Dad, he wasn’t even a threat. This was a joke to him, like the whole thing was too absurd to even take it seriously.
“So has he asked you for money yet?” Dad asked, still chuckling. “What?” I breathed.
“Money,” Dad said. “Has he asked for it?” “No!”
“But let me guess. You’ve offered it, right? It felt like your idea?” Dad looked amused.
I was too out of breath to answer him. He took my silence for a yes. And it was a yes, but it wasn’t like that.
Mom looked whiplashed. “Alexis…”
Jessica was shaking her head. Gabby was texting into her phone a million words a minute, and Neil looked almost sorry for me for some reason. I couldn’t take it.
I dropped the flowers on the nurses’ station and ran after Daniel.
By the time I caught up with him, he was halfway into the parking lot. “Daniel!”
He kept walking.
I sprinted the last few feet and grabbed his arm. “Daniel, please!”
He turned to me, his eyes red. “You live with him? You’re in couple’s counseling? This whole fucking time?”
“It’s not like that,” I gasped. “He refuses to leave. He sleeps in the basement. We’re not in counseling, we lied about it—”
He shook his head. “You never told me. You let me get blindsided—”
I was riding the edge of hysteria. “I didn’t ask you to come! Why didn’t you call?”
“You had that vote today. I wanted to support you, to be there for you, like your boyfriend should. What did you think I meant when I said I wanted to try? This is me trying, you agreed to this—”
“You shouldn’t have shown up like that—”
“Why?” He threw his hands up. “You show up like that all the time. Everyone knows I’m with you, all my friends, all my family. You say you love me, but those people in there didn’t even know I exist.”
“Daniel—”
“Gabby and Jessica still don’t know about us? After four months?” “I told you, they know I’m seeing someone—”
“But just not me.”
He shook his head at me, and the look on his face made my heart break. “Am I really that fucking embarrassing for you?”
When I didn’t answer, he turned and started for his truck. I didn’t chase him. I couldn’t.
I was drowning and I couldn’t breathe.
