“So, you’d forgive her?”
He didn’t even want to consider it. Thankfully, something else caught his attention.
“Wait. You talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“And what’d she say?” he asked, his voice too breathless to be anything less than eager.
“It’s not for me to tell. That’s her burden. But you’d have to listen to her.”
“I don’t ever want to see her again.”
Liar. Nan seemed to know it, too.
“Then you are a wasteful fool. And you’re going to go through the rest of your life regretting it.”
“I don’t understand… Youhateher.”
“I don’t hate her. I didn’t understand her. But now… I see who she used to be written in you. Hurt. Bitter. Trying to protect yourself. And I know she’s changed. You changed her.”
That was the last thing Daniel wanted to hear. The pain she’d dealt him was a boulder he’d been forced to carry around since That Night, but now, he didn’t want to give it up. Because giving up the pain meant forgiving her. It meant accepting he was still in love with her.
“I thought you were on my side,” he spat, staring down at the still lake of his teacup.
“I am on your side, Danny Boy. It just baffles me.” Nan let out a long, low whistle, leaning back in her chair to marvel at him. “You’ve spent your entire life writing love songs and dreaming about love stories and you can’t see when you’re living in one.”
“I’m not.”
“Well. If you say so. But she did ask me to give you this.”
Nan extended a business card, stamped in gold, reflective letters to him. He took it, drinking in the words.
“She says Alanis is interested in giving you another shot. All you have to do is call that number.”
“Why didn’t Sam give it to me herself?”
“Because she knows you don’t want to see her. But she still wanted you to have this chance. And Danny Boy. Youshouldtake it.”
The business card reflected in the fluorescent lights. He gripped it so tight the edges started to crumple.
“I don’t have any songs. I got rid of them all after that night. They were all her songs.”
“Sure, you don’t have any songs now, but you do have a lot of life experience. And now, you can use that to writeyoursong.”
…
When Angie told Sam she’d have to make her peace with Nan before anything else could be done, she’d assumed that would be the hardest item on her to-do list. Nan was as imposing a figure as the Queen, and she held twice as much power since it seemed that Daniel listened to Nan much more readily than he ever listened to his monarch. But she was wrong. Nan wasn’t the scariest apology on her list. Her brother was.
“Thomas?”
At the doorway to his bedroom, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, nervous energies twitching her muscles and pushing her back and forth. A sea-storm swirled in her stomach. He’d been right abouteverythingand she’d ignored him, even hated him for it. Would he forgive her? Did she even deserve it?
“Thomas, I know you’re in there.” Her voice dropped and quivered. “Please talk to me.”
She thought about lifting her hand and pounding on the door until he was forced to face her, but she held back, instead slumping down to the floor beside it.
“No, it’s okay,” she muttered, twisting her hands. Maybe it was better to be a heartless automaton. At least you didn’t have to apologize to anyone. But one flashing thought of Captain and the Animos Society cured her of such temptations. She never wanted to be like them, men of power who used it to trample over everyone without remorse. Never again. “You don’t have to come out. Just listen, please. You were right. I’m in love with him. I’m so in love with him; I was cruel and horrible, and I need him to know I’m sorry. I needyouto know I’m sorry.”
