she could possibly want to say to him in private, it was a struggle not to get too distracted by the swell of that fine ass as he walked up behind her. They walked into the small front room of the apartment upstairs as a myriad of things raced in his head, wondering what this could possibly be about. “Have a seat.” He motioned to the sofa in the front room as he was hit with a maddening thought. “Is this about Byron?”
“No.” She shook her head then seemed to catch herself. “Well, yeah.”
God no. Could she possibly be crushing on the kid? He was several years younger than her, but then Orlando was a perfect example of how little age could deter you from being attracted to someone. So was her fucking boyfriend. “Sort of.” She looked so incredibly uncomfortable Orlando was sure of it now, and he was almost tempted to tell her he’d rather not hear it. “You know the day Nine asked about my criminal record? When he asked if I was a felon?”
Nodding, Orlando peered at her, lost now. “Yeah?”
“I am,” she said as her lower lip began to quiver and those beautiful eyes welled up. Struck with the instant panic just as he had the first day he’d seen her tears, he sat down next to her, placing his hand on her knee. “It’s okay, Dani.”
“I was gonna tell you,” she squeaked as Orlando stood up to get her tissue. “But I was afraid you wouldn’t hire me. It’s the real reason why I’m not a licensed therapist yet. I’m actually done with all the classes to get licensed. I was even in the honorary society, but the felony disqualifies me from being able to test.”
Her tears from before and what she’d been dealing with made sense now. Orlando had been working up the nerve to ask her about it, but it’d felt too personal. Handing her the box of tissue, he sat back down next to her. “What did you get it for?”
“DUI.” She wiped her nose with the tissue. “I hadn’t even had that much to drink. I felt fine. Even passed the field sobriety test with flying colors, but they found other drugs in the car.” She paused when she saw Orlando’s raised brow reaction to that, and he could kick himself now. Last thing he wanted was for her to think he was judging her. He sat there trying to look as unphased by this as possible.
“They were my friend’s drugs not mine.” She shook her head adamantly. “I’ve never done drugs, and I would never dream of even drinking around the baby.”
“I believe you,” he assured her.
“Because of the drugs, they still administered a breathalyzer test. I was just over the legal limit, so they arrested me.” Her brows pinched tightly. “Please don’t fire me.”
“No one’s getting fired,” Orlando said, tempted to squeeze her knee again but had since decided putting his hand on it to begin with wasn’t the most appropriate thing for a boss to be doing to his young employee. So, he’d held back. “Hell, I’m not even gonna tell Nine or Beast about this. They don’t need to know.” He smiled, glad she wasn’t sniffling anymore. “You’re our receptionist. What do they care that you have a DUI? Maybe if you’d been pinched for embezzlement or something violent, I’d have a moral obligation to tell them, but not about this. And you don’t have to convince me that you’d never put the baby in any danger. I know you wouldn’t.”
She exhaled loudly, making Orlando smile even bigger. “You have no idea how relieved I was the day you said you wouldn’t be running a background check on me.” As usual, Orlando felt struck by those beautiful eyes as he got caught in them again for a few moments. “Because there’s more.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Dani groaned before standing up. Confused by the groan, Orlando took her in from top to bottom as she began to pace. “Byron was right. It is me he remembers from Echo Park. That friend Juanita and the rough crowd he talked about, that was me.”
Orlando’s eyes widened and he almost smiled. “You were part of a rough crowd?”
“I wouldn’t mind hanging out with Byron one day, you know.” This came out of left field, making Orlando sit up straight, and it wiped any trace of humor he’d begun to feel about sweet Dani running with a rough crowd. “He and