"You know I didn't mean it, right?"

Danny looked up from the ground to meet Lacey's eye. To try to meet her eye since Lacey wasn't looking right at him. He understood that. He did, but he didn't want yet another problem for the two of them to fight over. When did life get so complicated? Why couldn't everyone keep things simple? He was back, he wanted Lacey, and he didn't poison anyone. Simple. Except it wasn't because Lacey wouldn't look at him, and Jo wouldn't talk to him, and he was expelled for something he didn't even do.

He stepped forward, toeing the invisible line they put between them, and Lacey wrapped her arms around herself in response. He stopped, allowing his fingers up to scratch at his chin. Fine. She wanted physical space. He could do that. He counted a whole two sidewalk squares and thick branch of room between them. Danny kept his feet squared up with the stop sign on the other side of the street. Maybe she'd notice the effort he put in to not getting any closer. Maybe she'd hear him out.

Danny explained, "You told me we were over. Then you stopped talking to me, Lacey. I thought that you wanted there to be nothing between us, but I didn't mean that I wanted there to be."

Lacey's arms tightened further. She glanced up, met his eye for a second before looking behind his head. She had a habit of doing that when she wanted him focused on her without her focusing on him. "What do you want, Danny? I keep trying to figure it out, but I don't get it. You chase after me, you get me, you lie to me, and then everything's about Jo."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what? I get talking about her so that we don't have to talk about what's going on with us, but how do you think it sounds when you're asking if I want Jo to forgive me? How do you think I feel when we got so..." close, so in tune that it felt like this was how life was supposed to be, "and then you act like you don't care?"

"I'm trying to be respectful. I'm giving you space."

She practically screamed, "I don't want space."

He screamed back, hands lifting from his sides, "How am I supposed to know that? I can't read your mind. You have to tell me what you want."

Lacey opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her eyes widened, and her bottom lip shook around whatever it was that she wanted to say. Still nothing was said. Danny took a deep breath and stepped in closer. Then again. He asked her the same question he'd been wondering since he got back. "What do you want, Lacey?"

It happened the way it always did - eyes to lips and up again, her own lips pulling in, the hitch in the breath, the start of a step, and then - HONK!

She jumped hard enough where her elbows knocked against her sides. Her hair whipped around when she turned to face the approaching car. The windows rolled down as the guys inside started hollering out of it from three houses down.

The driver of the car yelled out, "How much for an hour?" All of the other guys cheered. Lacey froze, her jaw tightening, fists clenching before forcefully flattening back out again. Danny knew that tactic - don't look suspicious, don't look angry, it only makes others more angry with you - so he did what she couldn't do.

Danny moved in towards the street. The driver nudged his passenger and had the nerve to slow down so he could be right at Danny's level when he said, "Don't worry, Socio. We'll make sure not to wear her out before you get another turn."

Danny didn't really think beyond grabbing that branch on the ground and swinging it at the car. The guys all freaked out, and the driver slammed on the gas to barrel through the stop sign and get away from that "fucking Socio, man!" Danny fought the urge to throw branch after them. Instead, he shook it until his hands stopped vibrating and his heart slowed down a bit.

He waited until he couldn't see them anymore to turn back towards Lacey. Only Lacey wasn't where he left her. Lacey was fifteen blocks of sidewalk away and counting, sprinting as far away from him and the trouble he'd brought into her life as she could get. So much for not wanting space.

Danny dropped the stick and headed home. He had nowhere else to go anyway.