Page 35 of Bad Daddy

But at least she was still doing her job. “Ready, Mr. Edwards?”

Danny nodded, face heated, but he was as ready as he’d ever be. “Yeah.”

“You are aware that I will not tolerate any attempts of cheating of any kind,” Crystal said, voice a little snippy.

“Uh, yeah.” It wasn’t exactly a question, but Danny answered anyway. “Of course.”

“Okay, let’s get started.” Crystal looked at her computer screen. “What are the two most abundant components of the sun?”

“Hydrogen and helium,” Danny said without missing a beat.

She flicked a glance at him. “What are the three main parts of the sun’s interior?”

“The core, the radiative zone, and the convective zone,” Danny said easily. He barely had to think. The answers were right there, in his head.

Crystal gave him a longer look. “How do we measure a galaxy’s distance?”

“Usually by measuring redshift and extrapolating from there,” Danny said, before realizing he was probably supposed to expand on that. “Should I, uh, explain redshift?”

“If you’d like,” Crystal said, watching him.

Wow, okay, that was no help. But it was probably better to over-answer instead of under-answer, right? “Okay, so, uh, redshift is the degree to which the universe’s expansion has stretched its light heading toward Earth. We then use independently measured numbers like the Hubble parameter, to infer how far away the galaxy was when it emitted the light we see now…”

He went on to explain the method in its entirety, and also threw in how some scientists also derived the distance from the galaxy’s luminosity or from its angular size–but how those were different approaches with their own caveats–just to be safe.

When he was finished, Crystal’s expression looked a lot less calculating and a lot more open. Danny wondered if he was imagining the little flicker of a smile.

They moved on to the next question, and nothing had really changed, but the atmosphere in the room felt better, somehow.

***

When Danny stumbled out of his statistics midterm, he felt dazed, not quite sure if he should believe the clock. He’d been giving permission to use his read-aloud and dictation gadgets to take his test—in a private room with supervision, of course—and what had been scheduled for a three-hour time slot had only taken one.

Now it was barely ten and Danny was done with midterms and officially on spring break, and he didn't know what to do with himself.

He walked past the testing room where the regular statistics midterm was still going on and peeked in. He could pick out Manuel’s ever-present green beanie even with the way Manuel was hunched over his test, so it looked like Manuel was still in the thick of things.

Knowing Manuel’s phone was on silent, Danny sent him a message telling him that he hoped Manuel did well, and asking if he wanted to meet up later to talk over how they did. Then he pocketed his phone and leaned against a wall in the hallway, trying to think.

What should he do now? He’d scheduled himself to work at Grand Azteca for all of next week, but when he’d asked for hours for Thursday through the weekend, he’d been told, firmly, that he was supposed to rest after midterms and he could stand to take the weekend off.

Which, fine, but Danny was used to being busy. Sometimes he was so busy and tired he could hardly stand it. Now, all this free time was a commodity he still wasn't sure how to utilize. Some of it had been taken up by work and socializing, the latter of which was wild, having time to have friends, but that still left him several hours a day to just putter around.

He glanced back at the testing room. He’d like to wait for Manuel, but he had no idea how long his friend would take to finish up. Probably best to just go home in the meantime.

Danny started down the hallway, heading out of the building and trying to brainstorm about what to do when he got home. He didn't even have anything in his apartment to clean, because he’d been anxiety-cleaning all week in an attempt to get his mind off his midterms.

He had the sudden urge to send Haru a message and see what the man was up to. Also maybe to let Haru know Danny was thinking of him? It was ten on a Thursday though, which meant preparation for the Friday rush before the weekend. Haru would probably be way too busy to reply to Danny’s silly message.

By the time Danny got home, he had convinced himself to at least wait to contact Haru until it was closer to six, when the workday was over. Not that Haru didn't take his work home with him like most salaried lawyers, but Haru tried pretty hard to maintain a decent work-life balance.

He’d been making time for Danny, after all.

Thinking of Haru gave Danny an idea though. He had all those colored pencils now, as well as a couple sketchbooks with different paper weights—also courtesy of Haru—who had given them to Danny so Danny could “figure out what he liked best.” Another thoughtful, touching gift Haru had given Danny-the-person, someone with personal tastes and interests. Yet another direct contrast to Clint, who gave Danny things that were only expensive, and with them came a series of terms and conditions.

Danny really needed to stop comparing Haru and Clint. If nothing else, it was a huge disservice to Haru.

Instead he grabbed a sketchbook and sat down at his little kitchen table with his tin of colored pencils and, without a real plan in mind, started to doodle, trying for something fun and lighthearted. Something that he hoped would make Haru smile.

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