Brennan helped me off the motorcycle and up to the door. “You planning some big confession?” he asked.
“Something like that.” I rang the doorbell, and immediately Ralph’s barking cut through the night.
“Dog’s home,” Brennan said redundantly.
I bit my lip and waited. My ears were like icicles now, and my face felt like it had been slapped repeatedly for five minutes straight. I rang the bell again.
Ralph turned up the volume.
“I don’t think they’re here,” Brennan announced.
Or, more likely, Dani knew it was me at the door, and she wasn’t answering.
“I think you’re probably right,” I conceded.
But then the door opened. I straightened up as much as I could, prepared to deliver my gorgeous confession of love.
“Matt?” Kelsie said, concern all over her face. “Are you okay?” Then she noticed the famous face next to me and staggered backward. “Ohmygodyou.” She said like it was all one word. She fanned her face.
“Your mom?” I choked out. My hope and excitement had worn off, and the effects of my injury finally reached my brain.
“She’s not here. She’s at dinner with the fam. I was just about to meet up with them.”
I winced in agony as the effects of my injury shot through my nervous system.
Kelsie looked to Brennan for the information. Probably smart. “Wh-what happened to him?”
“He fell from half a story up, trying to get to your mum,” Brennan said.
“Let’s get him inside.” Kelsie wrapped my other arm around her shoulder. “Then you go get Jane and we’ll take him to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted to both of them. “I have to get back to the party. I promised.” But when I stubbornly attempted to put weight on my foot, I nearly collapsed to the ground in pain. “Okay,” I said. “Maybe we do need to take care of this.”
Chapter Eighteen
Dani
“I want to meet this guy.” My brother Bobby piled his plate with lemon shrimp. “I love his show, you know.”
Bobby had just arrived in town today and had offered to take the entire family out to dinner at a new Chinese restaurant in Wackernagel. I hadn’t planned on going, but I’d finished all of my work at the premiere party early and decided to join the fam instead of wallowing at home alone.
I glanced at the door, looking for Kelsie, who had been out with some college friends this afternoon and had promised to meet us at the restaurant. I checked my phone. She hadn’t responded to my texts. I hoped she was okay. I hated the feeling of not knowing where my daughter was. While she had been staying with her grandparents and I was back home in Chicago, I could pretend she was fine and safe, but now that we were living in the same place again, I needed to know where she was at all times.
“Since when do you watch The Saga?” Una nibbled on half an eggroll.
“Rafferty and I caught up on it over the summer…” Bobby’s voice trailed off as he noticed his wife’s death stare.
“Excuse me? He said he’d been watching it with one of his friends.”
Rafferty focused harder on his phone.
Bobby gritted his teeth into a nervous smile. He turned to me. “What’s he like?” he asked. “M.C. Bradford?”
“He’s…” How to describe Matt to my brother? He was smart and intense and frustrating and shy and sexy and unavailable in every possible way. I’d only known him for a few weeks, and here I was, having a hard time imagining life without him.
“I like him,” my dad said. “Salt of the earth.”
“You met him once,” I reminded him.
“Yes, and I got a solid read on his character.” Dad dished himself some more rice. “He drinks cream soda.” My dad always judged a person by what they drank.
“He drank a cream soda one time in your presence,” I said. “What could that possibly tell you about him?”
“Well,” my dad chewed thoughtfully. “He doesn’t have to drink alcohol to have a good time.”
“That’s true,” Una said. “All of us adults were drinking that night, which can be tough for some people to handle, but Matt was totally pleasant.”
“And,” my dad said, “in picking cream soda instead of water, he showed he’s not afraid of a few extra calories, which I appreciate.”
I shook my head at this very scientific analysis.
“Ralph likes him,” my mom said.
I checked my phone again. Still no messages from Kelsie. “Ralph likes everyone.”
“Not me,” Rafferty said, glancing up from his screen. “He thinks I’m his chew toy.”
“Me, too.” Raithnait kept her eyes down on her phone.
“Dogs are very perceptive,” my mom said. “They can smell an evil person coming a mile away.”
“Well, their noses are often around assholes,” Bobby joked.
I laughed, grateful for my no-nonsense younger brother’s presence at this table. “Good one, Bob.” I grabbed a Crab Rangoon from the plate in the middle of the table. “I appreciate all of what you’ve said here, but unfortunately I don’t put a lot of stock in drink choice or a dog’s opinion.”
“Again,” Bobby said, “I want to meet the guy. Let me be the judge. I’m at least as good at assessing a person’s character as Ralph is.”
I chewed for a moment, composing myself. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?” My mom looked horrified. “Didn’t he like us?”
“He liked you fine,” I said softly. “He liked you a lot.”
“Then what is it?” Una asked. “Oh my god, was it me asking him to appear on your Instagram? I’m so sorry, Dani. I scared him.”
“You didn’t.” I used my chopsticks to move my food around the plate. Might as well tell them everything. I wouldn’t want them to keep blaming themselves for driving Matt away. “The truth is…Matt and I have kind of been seeing each other this whole time.”
I glanced around the table. My mom and Una shared a knowing look, while my dad just kept chewing his food. Rafferty and Raithnait both stayed conspicuously on their phones. “Wait. You knew?”
Una reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “Of course we knew!” she said. “I could tell something was going on at that couple’s yoga class, and then I saw the two of you together afterward, looking all cute while walking around the Christmas bazaar.”