Page 187 of Offside Devil

Must be fucking nice.

“So?” I press. “Are you going to tell me anything or not? Taylor is refusing, but only because she wanted me to get off of her couch. She said you could decide for yourself.”

Instead of answering, Daniel points towards his kitchen. It’s all white quartz and stainless steel appliances. It doesn’t look like anyone has ever cooked in here. But I hop into a bar stool as Daniel slides a plate of clearly homemade cookies across the island towards me.

“Yes, I made these. Yes, I like to bake,” he answers before I can even ask. “No, it isn’t weird.”

I grab a cookie and hold up a hand in surrender. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I can see it in people’s eyes every time it comes up.” He takes a bite of a cookie and then offers himself a chef’s kiss. “What people need to learn is that humans contain multitudes. We aren’t just one thing. There are layers.”

I finish off the last bite of my first cookie and reach for a second. “Well, Shrek, your layers are chocolatey and delicious.”

“We can look like one thing on the exterior,” he continues. “But the deeper you go, the more there is to peel back. Every decision we make has a lifetime of reasonings and justifications behind it. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.”

I narrow my eyes. “I don’t feel like we’re talking about baking anymore.”

“We’re talking about what you came here to talk about.” He fixes me with a knowing look, waiting for me to be brave enough to admit it.

Too bad for him, I really am a scaredy-cat.

“Aiden,” I blurt. “I’ve been trying to find out how he’s doing for days. Is he home? Is he okay?”

I’ve never seen someone look both so annoyed and so disappointed while eating a chocolate chip cookie as Daniel does right now. “This is why the two of you are in such a mess. You won’t talk to each other.”

“There’s nothing to talk about!”

He arches a brow. “What about the fact that Zane just fired Hanna today?”

I blink at him, my brain too stunned to formulate a response.

“He knows she lied to him. You left a message with Hanna and she purposefully didn’t deliver it to Zane because she wanted you to get fired. He fired her as soon as he realized what she’d done.”

A weight drops off of my chest, but I’m struggling under an entire weight rack of burdens here. One tiny dumbbell doesn’t make much difference.

“That wasn’t the only problem,” I mumble.

Daniel pinches his forehead. “Let me guess: Zane said something horrible to you?”

Was fucking you all over the house I let you live in a bonus or did you plan that out, too? Maybe if the pussy was good enough, I’d let you stay.

You’d think a week without seeing Zane would be long enough that the sharp edges of the memory would start to soften. But you’d think wrong. They cut just as deeply as they did the first time.

“That’s kind of his thing,” Daniel sighs. “But you have to know he didn’t mean it. He was stressed about Aiden and thought you were lying to him.”

“I kind of was. Not about Aiden, but about… other stuff.” I shrug. “It’s why he hasn’t called even though he fired Hanna. It was never about her.”

“So you call him. Taylor says your feminist rants are epic. Go pump yourself up with another one and be the one to call him first.”

I give him a sad smile. “That’s a good pep talk, but it isn’t that simple. You and Taylor make a good couple, but maybe… maybe Zane and I don’t. Maybe we shouldn’t have let the fake relationship turn into anything else.”

Daniel stares at me for a second, considering. Then he gives me a thumbs down and blows a very loud, very wet raspberry. “Nope. I’m not buying it.”

I wipe his spit off of my face. “This isn’t your decision.”

“No, but Zane is my best friend and you’re Taylor’s best friend, which means that me and Taylor will be happier if the two of you are happy. Right now, the two of you are a couple of miserable sad sacks.”

I chew on my lower lip. “He’s miserable?”

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