stopped loving Dani. Did you remember to get some heavy cream?”
“Isaac, please,” I said, shooting a glance over my shoulder at the back door.
“She’s still in the garden with Chase,” Darius said. “You’re cool.” He sat beside me on a neighboring stool. “Is it true?”
“I don’t know. And that’s all I said earlier. I don’t know how I feel. Or how she feels.”
Darius nodded his head. “You know, you’re different now. So is Dani. You never know. Maybe different is what you both need.”
“You’re talking as if I didn’t make a monumental mistake. There are no guarantees here. Even if I did, hypothetically, want us to get back together, she likely won’t forgive me. I’m not sure I would if she’d done the same thing to me.”
Isaac leaned on the counter across from where Darius and I sat. “There are two sides to every coin, man. I was here those first few months after you left. You can’t tell me she didn’t do any damage to you. Any other employer would have fired you for all the moping around you did.”
I shook my head. “I was a coward.”
“And she had tunnel vision,” Darius said. “We all saw it.”
Isaac scoffed. “What? Dani focused? Driven to the point of madness? Narrow-minded and determined to reach her goal? Never.”
“Like I said,” Darius said, reaching out and placing his arm across my back. “You’ve both changed in the past year. Never say never, you know?”
After dinner, I stood in the kitchen alone doing dishes, happy to have something to focus on outside of my earlier conversation with Isaac and Darius. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t considered the possibility of Dani and me getting back together before. But I’d worked really hard not to let myself dwell on the possibility. Not when she was still committed to her LeFranc dream job. And not when I was positive that even if that one obstacle were out of the way, she likely still wouldn’t forgive me.
I wanted to believe I had changed, that we both had. But I wasn’t sure it was enough.
“Hey Alex, you got a minute?”
Dani appeared beside me, her eyes wide with excitement. She slipped a hand over my forearm. “Come here. I need to show you something.”
I turned off the water and dried my hands, tossing a dish towel over my shoulder as I followed her into Isaac’s music room. She pulled out her cell phone and tapped on the screen a few times before handing it over. I stared at the screen, noting a New York number at the top, no contact name attached.
Band said yes, the text read. But jackets needed for each of us, not just me.
I looked up at Dani. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s a text from Reggie Fletcher. Red Renegade will play at the Compassion Experiment.”
“You’re serious? I thought Darius said he wouldn’t do it.”
“He did, but I had to try. And I mean, it did take a little convincing, but he agreed. He’s going to do it.”
“What’s this part about needing jackets?” I asked.
“That was part of the convincing I had to do. You remember that time we were over at Reggie’s with Darius, when he and Chase were pet sitting?”
“Right. The weird miniature poodle dogs, right?”
“Right. And then Reggie came home early and we were all sort of lounging around in his living room like we lived there?”
“He loved your jacket,” I said, picking up the story. “The leather one. With the red stripe down the sleeve.”
She nodded. “He wants one. And I guess now he wants them all to have one.”
“Matching jackets? That feels a little more nineties boy band than it does Red Renegade.”
“Who cares? If they’re willing to appear, I’ll make them matching tutus if they want them.”
“It’s amazing that they’re willing, but that jacket took you a long time. You handstitched most of it, didn’t you? Also, don’t celebrities have access to designers? Surely someone would want to put their name on a band like Red Renegade, even if just for one YouTube performance.”
A flit of something passed over Dani’s face. Was it disappointment? “Maybe I’m the designer who wants to put her name on a band like Red Renegade.”
“Oh. Of course. Dani, that isn’t, I didn’t mean—”
“I know you didn’t. I know what you meant. But Red Renegade hasn’t had a hit in twenty-five years. They aren’t really on the map for anyone else, at least not any other designers looking for publicity. I’m probably the best they can do. Aside