Chapter Twenty-Two
The moment Eliot said, “you might want to sit down for this,” Danny knew something had gone really, really wrong. He sat heavily on the couch at Eliot's urging, the worried knot in his stomach growing. The look on Eliot's face said everything he needed to know about what was coming next.
“I'm so sorry,” Eliot began. “I was doing some digging into why your team is suddenly broke, and... well, I don't know this for sure, but I think Walter's been stealing money from you and from the team.”
Danny blinked at him. “What? No. Nuh-uh. No way.”
That couldn't be right. Walter had been on Danny's side the entire time. He'd taken care of him when he'd needed it most.
“Well, no one else knew that you and I had an arrangement,” Eliot said. “And that story's just broken with aninside source. There's no way it was anyone but Walter. I'm sorry, Danny. I know you look up to him.”
“I... people know about us?” Danny asked. “Way to bury the goddamn lede,” he snapped.
That wasn't fair. He shouldn't have been snapping at Eliot—this wasn't Eliot's fault, whatever else was going on.
Eliot looked down at his lap. “I was trying to ease you into it. I'm sorry, Danny. This is all my fault.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Danny said softly, reaching out to take Eliot’s hand. “This is okay. We can come clean and say that yeah, I was afraid of a real relationship and I needed someone to come to stuff with me, but then… stuff happened, it’s not fake anymore, it’s actually kind of a beautiful story.”
Eliot shook his head. “There’s more. I skimmed the article after I hung up with Ben… there’s stuff about your injury in there, too. If one thing is true…”
Danny’s heart sank again. If they admitted to one part, they might as well be admitting to the rest.
“Let me read it,” Danny held his hand out for Eliot’s phone, where he assumed Eliot had read it. “Please?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Eliot handed the phone over. “Walter is really the only person who has all the information in this article. I know you’d rather it wasn’t true.”
Danny pursed his lips as he read, a sick feeling building in his stomach with every line. Words likerevelationsandliesstood out as though they were in huge neon letters,injurymight as well have been on a forty-foot billboard right outside his house.
He handed Eliot’s phone back to him without finishing. His head was spinning, but Eliot was right—Walter was the only one who knew.
Danny still couldn’t believe he’d do this. Walter had been good to him.
“I want in,” Danny said. “You’re investigating this, right? I want to help. I need to know.”
Eliot nodded. “Of course. You’d be a huge help, you know what’s right and what’s not better than anyone, and you have access to your own financial records. I wouldlovefor you to help with this.”
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. This was good. This way, he’d find out the truth.
Maybe the truth wouldn’t be as bad as it looked right now. Maybe he wouldn’t want to crawl into a hole and never come back out once he knew what was really going on.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “So, uh, where do we start?”
“I’m actually going to head to the office. Ben said he’d meet me there. I’m sorry to cut our evening short, but if you wanted to come…”
“I’m in,” Danny said, not wanting to be separated from Eliot right now. He sprang up from the couch, eager to get started.
That turned out to be a terrible idea.
Pain shot up his leg, radiating from his knee as he heard a sickening crunch. His head spun with the intensity of the pain, and before he could stop himself, he was falling.
He hit the ground with a thud, his jeans catching against the edge of the coffee table as he fell. Tears stung at his eyes, and he gritted his teeth to stop himself from sobbing.
The shock was the worst thing. He hadn’t expected the pain, and he definitely hadn’t expected the fall. He’d known his knee was getting worse—it was stiffer in the morning, more swollen when he went to bed—but this seemed sudden. It hadn’t given out on him before.
Of course it had only been a matter of time. And since this was the worst possible moment for it to have happened, that was when it had happened.
That was just Danny’s luck.
