Dani seemed to have such a good relationship with her family, something I hadn’t experienced since I was a kid. For a moment, I imagined what it would be like for me, a veritable stranger, to march up to their front door and knock. According to Dani, her mom would probably welcome me with open arms, and her dad would hand me a shot of moonshine.
But then what? I’d be the oddity, Mr. Author Man. They’d want to know more about me, and I’d be the cagey, unfriendly asshole who couldn’t talk about himself in any real way.
A few houses down, I caught the sound of jingling in the distance. A dog. My heart skipped a beat and my feet moved faster. Maybe it was Dani’s dog, that black and white beast who tackled me the first time I saw him. Maybe she decided to stay home tonight.
My teeth hurt as the wind whipped into my mouth, and I realized I was smiling. My brain conjured up an idea of the conversation Dani and I would have as we encountered each other on the road. “Fancy meeting you here.” Cliché, sure, but it’d get the job done. We’d skip hand-in-hand back to my place, where we’d cuddle on the couch watching The Simpsons and eating popcorn before heading up to bed together.
Yes, my fantasy started with cuddling and eating on a couch. That was how hard-up I was for human interaction, I supposed. Or maybe it was just Dani.
The dog reached me first. “Hi, Ralph,” I said, scratching his head as his body pressed against my legs.
I glanced up, waiting for the inevitable breathless woman to come jogging around the curve. I kept waiting. And waiting. At last I saw her, strolling along without a care in the world or any concern for the whereabouts of her dog, texting away on her phone.
Not Dani. A much younger woman. A girl. She had long hair like Dani’s, but blond, and her body was shorter, stockier, more muscular.
Finally, she glanced up. “Oh my god, Ralph, you jackass.” She shoved the phone into her jacket pocket and jogged over to her dog and me. “Sorry about that, M.C. Bradford.” She giggled, and her eyes crinkled like Dani’s.
“You must be Dani’s daughter,” I said as she snapped the dog’s leash back on. “Kelsie?”
“The very one.” She straightened up, holding Ralph tight as he attempted to pull her off into the forest to go after a squirrel.
“It’s nice to finally meet you,” I said. “Your mom’s told me a lot about you. You’re the Simpsons fan.”
“Guilty,” she said, wrapping the leash around her hand. “You’re out for a run?”
Pretty sure that was obvious. “It’s a nice night.” I chanted to myself: Do not ask about her mom. Do not ask about her mom. I swallowed. “Looks like there’s a party happening at your house.”
Kelsie grinned. “Just game night, but then it’s always game night. You should come. My mom’s not there, so I need a partner—”
“Oh.” I glanced back at the house. “I don’t know.”
“Nobody’s going to bug you,” Kelsie said, as if reading my mind, and I wondered how much her mom had said about me to her family. “I’m not sure anyone in that house knows who you are, but even if they do, they’re cool.” She clutched the leash tighter now, with both hands. “We’re playing Trivial Pursuit.”
I loved Trivial Pursuit. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.” Which was a total lie, and Kelsie could sense it, too, based on the knowing grin she just shot me.
“You wouldn’t be intruding,” she said. “Seriously. I need a partner.” She paused. “But only if you promise to be better at the game than my mom.”
I laughed. “Well, I know a little bit more about pop culture, anyway.”
“You’d have to.” She laughed. “Danielle is hopeless when it comes to TV and movies.”
“I’m trying to teach her,” I said.
Kelsie looked at me questioningly.
“I mean…” I tried to cover. “I make suggestions for her when I see her at my house cooking…for her job.”
“Whatever you say,” she said. “Anyway, she’s so clueless, she had no idea you were famous-famous until I showed her your video.”
“You showed her the video?” No wonder Dani had opted to go out with a “friend” tonight instead of staying in with me. “That…oh God.” She probably saw me as the biggest asshole prima donna on the planet. I’d been running from that video for months, and it had followed me all the way to Wackernagel.
“She stuck up for you.” Kelsie gave a yank on Ralph’s chain, and he sat right down. “She cares about you, Matt.”
I felt my face heat up. Thank goodness for dark country roads. “I care about her, too.”
She smacked me playfully on the arm. “So, why’d you let her go out with that Fred guy tonight?”
“Fred?” Pants McGee? I frowned. “That’s who she’s out with?”
“If it helps,” she said, “I think she was pretty miserable about it. I kept joking with her that Fred was going to be my new dad, and she kept threatening to ground me and take my phone away.”
“You don’t think it’s anything?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
“I wouldn’t have thought so, but, I mean, she’s out with him right now. She’s obviously not opposed to the idea of dating Fred.” She shrugged. “Maybe it was just the prospect of a nice meal out.”
There it was. The thing Fred could give her that I couldn’t: a normal courtship.
“I mean,” Kelsie said, “you’re leaving soon anyway, right?”
“Yeah,” I said sadly. This place was a vacation, a fantasy. My real life, my home, was in Indianapolis. Jane’s, too.
“Too bad, though. I’ve never seen my mom as happy as she’s been since she started working for you.” Kelsie turned to walk toward the house. “We’d better get back before they stick us with the orange pie.”
I didn’t follow her. What was I doing even considering going to Dani’s parents’ house for game night? She was out on the town with someone else. I was just the guy she was sleeping with who’d be gone in a matter of weeks. How odd would that look if she came home, and her daughter and I were paired up for Trivial Pursuit?
“Thanks, Kelsie,” I said. “But I’m going to head home.” I played my old broken record. “I have writing to do.” Which was true. I had to turn the manuscript in the day after tomorrow, and I needed to put the finishing touches on it. I didn’t have time for fun.
“Maybe another time.”