Page 53 of Love Redesigned
“That’s just it. There probably isn’t anyone who would understand quite as well as you, which is frustrating. Because you’re you,, and I really didn’t want you to be right. But you were. Sasha is a lying, cheating, conniving woman and I’m so angry that I fell for her lies. That I believed her for so long. She cost me everything. My career. My life in New York.Everything.”
I tightened my hands into fists, wishing I could punch out the anger surging in my chest. I wasn’t surprised, but I’d always hoped Dani would manage to escape LeFranc relatively unscathed. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. For a while, I’d hoped she’d go down in flames with the rest of them. Time, at least, had dulled the sting of her choosing LeFranc over me, enough that I felt bad for her present circumstances. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a tiny part of me that still wanted to say I told you so.
“I’m really sorry, Dani.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you are. It’s fine if you want to say I told you so.”
I winced, not happy that she’d hit so close to the mark. “I don’t want to say I told you so,” I said, happy I sounded like I meant it. “For your sake, I would have much preferred to be wrong about Sasha.”
She shook her head and breathed out a tiny laugh. “I don’t believe that’s true, Alex.”
I didn’t say anything. What was there to even say?
She reached over and patted my knee. “Listen. We have to get along for the next couple of months.” She motioned to the room around her. “Obviously this isn’t a permanent solution for me. Let’s just agree not to talk about how everything went down between us. I’ll cook for the seven dwarves and then as soon as I can afford it, I’ll be out of everyone’s way.”
Her words were dismissive, condescending, but laced with a measure of hurt that made her seem vulnerable, even in her anger. It was as if she longed to be comforted but would prickle at the first touch if anyone actually offered that comfort. Maybe she would just prickle ifIoffered her comfort.
Also, dwarves?
It wasn’t how I wanted to leave things. But if I pushed the conversation, I might end up saying something I would regret. I didn’t want to leave things likethat,either. I clapped my hands against my knees. “Fine.”
“Fine,” she said back.
“Fine,” I repeated again. Not surprisingly, as I stood to leave Dani in the pathetic, empty room, nothing actuallyfeltfine.
Three weeks in, I didn’t want to admit to myself how much I wastryingto be wherever Dani was. Particularly when considering how gutted being around her actually made me feel. It hadn’t been easy to get over her. She wouldn’t believe me saying so; I’m sure she thought since I was the one who had walked away, I’d felt little and had recovered quickly. But leaving had killed me. Even knowing that I’d had to do it. At least at Isaac’s, there had been plenty to distract me, to keep my mind off how miserable I felt. Then time had done its work and dulled the constant ache.
But now I couldn’t escape her. I saw her every day.
Worse, I wanted to see her.
I stopped working at the desk in my bedroom and instead opted for the kitchen table where I might run into her. I ate three meals a day out of Isaac’s kitchen, cutting back on the lunches out that had become part of my regular routine. If Isaac or any of the other guys noticed my sudden eagerness to always be around, they kept their mouths shut. Fortunately, Dani had no baseline for my previous behavior so she couldn’t know I’d never spent quite so much time at home.
Admittedly,homehad an entirely different meaning now that Dani was around. The house was actually beginning to feel like one. There were new throw pillows in the living room and a rug in the entryway. She’d hung a seasonal wreath on the front door and had a row of hooks installed in the hall where everyone put their coats. New dinnerware showed up in the kitchen. She was even planning a Thanksgiving dinner for us.
I wasn’t the only one appreciating her presence. The rest of the guys, except Isaac of course, were clearly mesmerized by her. Running her errands, completing odd jobs at her request—it was Mushroom who had installed the hooks in the hall—and just generally behaving with a little more decorum. They were all showering more frequently and wearing clothes that actually looked clean.
Observing the shift in behavior would probably qualify as a fascinating study for any anthropologist. I was just grateful everyone smelled better.
As for Dani and Isaac, they danced around each other in a careful choreography; they were kind and courteous, but their interactions were safely surface level. It couldn’t last, I was sure, but I did hope that when one of them finally cracked, it would be a positive change and not one that brought the whole, fragile set-up crashing down around all of us.
I leaned back onto my bed and scrolled through old photos on my phone—old photos that had become newly familiar since running into Dani at Java Jean’s two months before.
Every time I looked at the images, I was struck again by how different and far away my New York life felt. I stopped on a shot of Dani and me, arms around each other. I wore a designer suit, Dani a dress I remembered she’d made herself. She looked killer in it; she always did when she wore her own stuff. We held glasses of champagne in our hands and had huge smiles on our faces. I couldn’t remember anything else about that particular night. There were so many nights just like it, they had all blended together. Nameless clubs, private parties, fashion events we’d only ever had tickets to because of who my stepfather was.
It had always thrilled Dani to go. Even after she got the job at LeFranc, her role as an administrative assistant hadn’t warranted exclusive invitations. Only I could provide those. It had been a heady feeling, in the early months, to realize I could give her access to the world she found so captivating. I had been her golden ticket. And I’d relished making her happy.
In my weakest moments, I wondered if that’s all our relationship had ever been. But it made Dani too shallow for me to think so. Regardless of the choices she’d made, and the way things had ended, I couldn’t ignore the parts of our relationship that had been really good. Even since she’d moved to Charleston, though she’d mostly avoided me at first, I’d occasionally catch her in the kitchen, and we’d fall into talking about one thing or another in the same easy way we always had before. Finishing each other’s sentences, laughing together. Even now, there was still a compatibility to the way we interacted that went far beyond just going places together. It had only been stronger before we’d broken up.
Still, there was something different about Charleston Dani. She was more laid back, less intense. Less ambitious. Not that ambition was a bad thing, but Dani had been so focused on her career, it had colored everything. I’d spent enough time competing with the LeFrancs for my mother’s attention. It had killed me to fight the same battle with Dani. But it felt like Charleston Dani had finally ripped off the rose-colored glasses she’d worn when looking at anything fashion—anything LeFranc—and was seeing life in a different, more natural light. Whenever I felt the pull—because Ididfeel it—I had to wonder if this version of her would last. If given the chance, would she jump back into the world she’d left behind? The answer to that question mattered because it was a world I didn’t want to be a part of.
I scrolled to another photo, this one of Dani in her Chelsea apartment, leaning back against the headboard of her bed. Her blonde hair was loose and wavy, and the neck of her oversized sweatshirt had slipped down onto her arm, revealing a smooth stretch of neck and shoulder that made heat rise in my body. I remembered that morning, the time we’d spent lounging, talking. We’d stayed in all day, ordered take-out, watched ridiculous television for hours. The next photo was the same day, same setting. Only in this photo, Dani was sitting up, a playful smile on her face. She held up a small whiteboard, a marker tossed to the side. The words on the whiteboard read:Just for the record, I said “I love you” first,followed by the date.
“I’m just saying,” she’d said, “one day we’ll be happy we preserved this moment. Our grandchildren will look back through our photos and feel inspired that their grandmother had been bold enough to say it first.”
“I think they’ll be too shocked by how sexy their grandmother once was to even care who said I love you first,” I had countered.
“Are you saying I won’t still be sexy when I’m a grandma?” Dani had asked.
