of feels like a sign, her not being here.”
I decided that there was a reason Danika was gone when I came to tell her the truth. Maybe it was divine intervention stopping me from making a mistake. Maybe fate knew something I didn’t. Maybe Mac had been right in all the things he said on the drive over here.
All I knew was that if I was supposed to tell her, she would have been home to hear it. And she wasn’t.
Back in New York
Danika
Sunny called to let me know that Chance had come by the apartment. She practically burst my eardrums with her squealing, and I could barely make out what she was trying to say.
“He said he wanted to talk to you,” she breathed into the phone.
“Anything else?” I asked because my interest was definitely piqued.
Chance and I hadn’t talked since the night Jared showed up and ruined our celebration at The Bar. The most messed up part was that after that all happened, I had wanted Chance to chase me even though I was in no position to be chased. I hated myself for expecting him to do it. And then I hated myself even more for being disappointed when he never did.
Of course, Chance Carter would keep his distance; that was just the kind of guy he was. And I knew that it was on me to reach out to him. But the more days that passed, the harder that seemed to be. I couldn’t figure out what to say or how to apologize without landing us right back to where we had always been—fighting off our mutual attraction with nowhere for it to go. Our relationship had been so complicated from the start as we tried to convince ourselves that we could be just friends when we both wanted more.
When I’d finally broken things off with Jared, I’d figured the smart thing to do would be to take a little time for myself and not jump into another relationship. I had to make sure that my feelings for Chance were real and not some sort of escape because I had been unhappy in my current situation. So, I stayed away from Chance, and in return, he stayed away from me. It was absolute misery.
“No, nothing else, but oh my God, Danika, tell him already. You’re killing me here.”
I sucked in a breath and leaned my head on one of the pillows on my bed. “I don’t want to tell him over the phone.”
“Yeah, well, you should have told him before you left,” she chastised, as if we hadn’t had this conversation ten times already.
“We’ve talked about this,” I reminded her. “The last thing I wanted to do was to tell Chance I was single and ready to date him and then leave the next day for New York.”
There was no point in spilling my guts to him when I was going to be gone for a month. Granted, we could have talked and gotten to know each other better over that time, but it just wasn’t how I wanted things between us to go. I wanted to be with him in person when we started things up, not long distance. Maybe that was selfish of me. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it also gave me a little more time to be alone, to be with my dad, and to deal with whatever hell Jared might try to inflict when he came back to the city over break.
“I know. It’s just that”—she groaned—“do you know how hard it was to see him and not blurt it all out?”
“Tell me you didn’t,” I warned, and she was quiet for too long. “Sunny!”
She laughed. “I didn’t.”
“Thank God. And if you see him again, just stay quiet. I promise I’ll tell him as soon as I get back to campus.”
“Better hope he doesn’t have a girlfriend by then,” she teased, but I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.
Just because Chance hadn’t dated so far in college didn’t mean that it couldn’t happen. Maybe realizing that he had feelings for me opened him up to having feelings for other girls. Anything was possible.
I shook my head to rid it of those thoughts. “I’ll tell him. The second I land.”
“You should tell him now. Or on Christmas! I got you a present …” She paused. “Me!”
She laughed, and I chuckled.
“I’ll think about it,” I promised, and we both hung up.
I thought about telling Chance every single day,