Page 82 of Daydream

“Halle Jacobs: Actual author. Excellent baker. Calm like a well-fed panda. Best ass in LA.”

I hate that he’s making me laugh when I really,reallyjust want to have a totally overdramatic and chaotic meltdown. “Okay, now I know you’re making fun of me.”

“I’ve seen a lot of asses. I can confirm yours is my favorite.” I scowl at him while he lifts himself to stand. Henry is clearly a man with a plan and I watch his every move as he takes my laptop from my stomach and puts it on the couch. My phone goes next, then my e-reader, and when the nest I’d built around myself is clear, he picks me up from the floor and drops me onto the couch. Sitting beside me, he drags me toward him with ease, and pulls my leg across his hips to maneuver me on top of him. It takes a little effort, since I’m being uncooperative, but he manages it, and I have no choice but to rest my chin against his chest as I straddle his lap.

He tucks my hair behind my ears and sighs. “Why are you so unhappy?”

“Because you haven’t given me enough bamboo, clearly,” I mumble, refusing to look up.

He tucks his finger under my chin, tilting my head back so he can look at my face. “What’s wrong, Cap?”

Out of all the things I could possibly start with, I start in the most unreasonable place first. “Do you call me Captain because I’m in charge? Because I don’t want to be in charge of everything. I’m tired of being in charge of everything, and everyone, and having to be the leader. I don’t want to be the captain or the family manager. I’m so tired and it’s all falling apart.”

“So when I don’t want to be captain everyone has a problem, but when you don’t it’s fine?” I think he’s using humor to lighten thesituation, but I’m too miserable to laugh. Henry lowers his finger from my face and wraps his arms around me to pull me tight to his chest. He strokes my hair, and after having Joy prance through it, it feels nice. “Maybe at first, but now it’s because we’re our own team and we’re equals. Being captain feels better if I think I’m doing it with you. I’m sorry that you’ve been doing the bulk of the leading; I’ll try harder for you.”

I feel like my insides crack. “That’s actually really sweet.”

“If you don’t want me to call you Cap anymore, I’ll stop. There’s no shortage of nicknames I could give you. Panda rolls right off the tongue.”

“I don’t want you to stop,” I admit. “I want to be in a team with you.”

“Now that you’ve hit me with your mostpressingissue, what else made you cry on the floor?”

I, in the calmest and most well-structured-and-not-at-all-tearful way, explain that everything has snuck up on me and collapsed, and now I feel like I’m buried beneath the weight of everything and everyone.

All the plates I keep spinning all year to make sure everyone else is okay are starting to drop to the ground and smash. And it’s when I realize how much of other people’s lives I take on that it suddenly makes sense why I miss Nana, the one person who never made me feel burdened. I leave out the part about my book, or lack of book more appropriately, because I know that he’ll put it down to experiences, which isn’t the problem.

I’m the problem. My lack of commitment to something very important to me is the problem. Henry not taking me on dates because we spend our time doing other stuff isn’t the reason I’m in this mess. Him asking me how it’s going and me saying great when things aren’t great is a problem I’ve created for myself.

If I tell him the truth, he will think he’s letting me down, somethinghe already battles with because of hockey pressure, and I can’t face seeing him beat himself up over another thing that isn’t his responsibility.

“Okay. To start, I think you should stop listening to that song about the grandmother,” Henry says firmly. “And you need to start saying no to people. Me included.”

“You make it sound easy. It isn’t easy, Henry,” I mumble, head still firmly buried in the warmth of his chest.

“It is. I say no all the time. Ask me to leave.”

“No, I don’t want you to leave,” I say, sitting back to look at him in what feels a lot like terror.

“See? Look how easy saying no is. You just did it. You’re so smart.” He uses both of his thumbs to wipe under my eyes and cups my face. “Crying people make me feel stressed, so you have two more minutes to get it out of your system and then we’re going to fix everything, okay? You’re allowed to have an off day, Halle. You’re a human being, not a robot.”

I shake my head. “No, I need at least five.”

“See? You said no again. Keep it up, champ.”

Instead of crying, I spend my five minutes clinging to Henry and letting him stroke my hair. His steady heartbeat is soothing, and he’s quick to reach for my phone to skip when the familiar notes of “Marjorie” start to play again. When my five minutes are up, he forces me to stand. I can’t lie; the desire to lie on the floor again is still there.

Henry stands, too, positioning himself in front of me in a way that would realistically stop me from dropping to the floor. “Get changed into something comfortable. Wait, shower first and wash your face, because you have black eyes from your makeup. Then come back down.”

I head toward the hallway to immediately do as I’m told, and jump when he slaps my ass. When I look back at him over my shoulder, he’s smiling. “I told you. Best ass in LA.”

I turn to head toward him, and his hands scoop under the backs of my thighs to lift me as I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips. “I like you.”

He kisses me gently. “I like you, too.”

I unwrap myself and head upstairs, and when I finally come back down looking and feeling significantly better, Henry is on the phone with someone in the kitchen.

“Can you do it or not? Yes, I understand. No, I don’t care. Yes, I’m sure she thinks it’s sexy. Yes, I’m contributing. Just email it to her when you’re done. Do you have her number for the voice note? No, she doesn’t want pictures of you reading it. Okay, thanks. Bye.”

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