I stared for several seconds, not sure I remembered how to form words with my mouth.
“I wrote you an email,” I finally blurted out.Real smooth, Samaya.
My heart was racing. I squeezed my fists.
Daniel seemed to find communication challenging right now, too. He looked down nervously, then back at me. “I know. I read it. You look ... amazing. I made you a pie. This pie.”
I peeked into the little plastic window on the pie box, but all I could see was that it was a double-crust pie. “What kind is it?”
“It’s pie.”
“I can see that. What kind of pie?”
He tilted his head, and I could see the slight beginning of a Daniel smile there. “Can I show you?”
I nodded and motioned him into the house. I didn’t know why he was here. But if he wanted to come in wearing a suit and give me a pie, I wasn’t about to stop him. In fact, I’d find a way to keep him here as long as I could.
After taking off his shoes, he followed me into the kitchen. He’d never been to my house before, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. It wasn’t really anywhere near as impressive as Hana’s or Jayden’s houses, but the kitchen was pretty nice. The gleaming quartz countertops and stainless appliances clearly weren’t cheap.
Was he resenting all this? Did seeing it make him think we were further apart?
He placed the box on the kitchen island and opened it. I watched his hands carefully. Daniel, of course, wasn’t small. He was a hockey forward and built like one. But his fingers were long and narrow. Almost delicate. Hands made for making pastry and piping buttercream roses for little kids’ birthdays.
After sliding the pie out of the box, he placed it on the counter. I looked at it carefully ... then burst out laughing.
“I asked you what kind of pie it was, and I thought you saidpie—notpi!”
Around the perimeter of the pie were little numbers cut out of pastry. The numbers 3.14159265359, to be specific.
“It’s a pi pie,” Daniel said.
“You made it for me?”
He nodded, looking a little shy. It was adorable. “You said things were intense and stressful. And you told me once you recite pi when you get stressed. I make pie to deal with stress. I thought this might be a way we could ... meet in the middle?”
I shook my head, still chuckling. I loved this. “What kind is it?”
“Cranberry apple.”
I grinned and looked up at his face. He was grinning, too, and it was so much better than that unsure look he had earlier.
“Should I cut us some?” I asked, opening the kitchen drawer to get the pie lifter and knife.
He took the utensils from my hand. “I’ll cut it. I don’t want you to make a mess on that dress. You look gorgeous. When do you need to leave for the dance?”
I checked the time on the stove. We needed to leave now. “I can eat pie first. You look nice, too. Are you dressed like that because ...”
“Because I wanted to ask you if you still needed a date.”
I smiled. “Really?”
He nodded. “I borrowed this suit from a guy on my team. I got your email, and I didn’t know how to say this in a message, so I came to see you in person.” He put the knife down. “This week, even before I got that email from you, I decided I wasn’t willing to give you up as a friend. Every time something happened to me, I hated that I couldn’t text you about it. When I saw Krebs get this total once-in-a-lifetime goal in the game Tuesday, when I got a B+ on my calculus quiz, when I found out I didn’t have to move no matter what I studied in school—”
My face erupted with a wide smile. “What did you say?”
His face flashed a luminous smile as he finished cutting the pie. “Krebs got this amazing goal at our last game! It waswicked. I hope I’llbe cleared to play again really soon. This thing is annoying.” He pointed to the bandage on his wrist.
“No, not that part. The other part.”
