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Chapter Two: Complicated

The next day I woke up at seven o'clock on the dot for my morning run. I wasn't always an early riser. It was a habit I had acquired from my time in the police academy when we had to wake up at the crack of dawn for our morning workout regimen. It was torture at first, but I eventually came to appreciate the perks of waking up early. I used to tease Rico all the time about the amount of things I always managed to get done in the two hours it took him to wake up.

After a brisk thirty-minute run around the block, I came back to find Danny still sound asleep on the couch; so I quietly made my way to the bathroom for a refreshing shower. When I finally came out, I was hit with the mouthwatering aroma of bacon and pancakes fresh off the stove. I headed towards the kitchen only to encounter a sight that stopped me dead in my tracks.

Sure enough there stood Danny by the sink washing dishes shirtless. His dark brown hair was tousled to one side falling against his smooth olive skin as my eyes ran down the length of his lean muscular chest. The sight of him nearly made me drool more than the smell of the freshly cooked bacon.

"How do you like your eggs?" I heard him say, snapping me out of my trance.

"Scrambled. No wait," I stammered, feeling the blood rush to my face. "I mean sunny side up."

In that instant, Danny flashed me a particular smile that suggested he had caught me checking him out. Both to my relief and disappointment, he walked over to his duffel bag and put on a shirt before making his way to the stove to get started on the eggs.

For a moment, I felt like I was made to be the butt of a cruel joke. I mean let's face it, Danny was an attractive guy. And those looks coupled with his seductively mysterious charm made for a killer combo that very few women could resist. But unfortunately where we stood in our friendship and any kind of potential relationship had been made painfully clear to me way back in high school when he chose to be in a relationship with Lacey. I was crushed the day I found out, especially since I had somehow fallen in love with Danny by then. It wasn't until our freshman year in college, when Danny and Lacey were hitting a rough patch, that I finally confessed my true feelings for him. He didn't return them of course, saying that our friendship was the most important thing to him and that he was still very much in love with Lacey. From that day on, I buried away whatever feelings I had for Danny, deciding that the best way for me to love him was to ensure that he was happy, even if it wasn't with me.

Over the years, it got easier to cope with all of the hurt and jealousy and anger. And when Rico and I became more serious, the feelings I had for Danny seemed to just disappear. But sitting across from him now, enjoying his company and savoring the delicious breakfast he had cooked for me, I had to wonder if my feelings for him ever went away at all.

Just then, the sharp sound of my ringtone filled the space around us. I pulled out my phone and saw that it was my mom calling. The realization immediately hit me with the force of a train.

"Oh shit," I muttered as I pressed the "accept call" button.

"What's wrong?" Danny asked, leaning over to see who was calling.

"Hey Mom," I greeted as I put my finger to my lips to tell Danny to be quiet. "I almost forgot that you and Dad were visiting me today."

Danny and I exchanged knowing looks as I listened to my mom greet me a happy birthday. After a brief discussion about which hotel they were staying in and where she wanted us to meet, I hung up the phone with a slightly deflated sigh.

"Well this should be an interesting lunch," I said.

Danny remained silent while he picked at the eggs on his plate with a fork.

"You don't have to come, you know," I suggested, knowing that having my dad and Danny in the same room often led to some kind of trouble.

Danny shook his head in protest. "I came here for you to celebrate your birthday."

I bit my bottom lip and thought. Sometimes it was hard to believe that Danny still wanted to be friends with me considering that my dad was responsible for blowing the lid off the whole Desai case and sending his mom to jail. It turned out that Karen Desai was the one who had really killed Danny's aunt as well as Regina Crane as part of this whole scheme to protect her family from some big scandal. Danny took the blame in order to protect his mother, but my dad managed to uncover the truth. Ever since then, things became sour between Danny and my dad. Don't get me wrong; for my sake, they tried to be as civil as possible with each other. But every now and then, some heated confrontation managed to creep up between them and I was always in charge of damage control.

At length, Danny said, "Don't worry about it. I'll be on my best behavior. I promise."

My shoulders slumped in defeat, knowing I wouldn't be able to talk Danny out of it.

"Alright," I conceded. "Let's just hope my dad will be on his best behavior too."

Later that afternoon, we met my parents at a quaint Italian restaurant downtown and since it was a beautiful spring day, we requested for a table under the awning outside. An hour into lunch and we had yet to see a war of words blow up between Danny and my dad. At first, my parents were a little shocked to see Danny with me, but I think they chose to let the issue go considering that it was my birthday (thankfully). But just when I let my guard down, thinking we were in the clear, my dad decided to ask the one question I was hoping he would avoid.

"So Danny, how's your mom?"

Silence hit the table like a bomb. Everyone stopped what they were doing, including my mom who stopped mid-chew to send my dad a pointed glare. What the hell was he thinking? Danny narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at my dad before answering.

"This is probably not the best time or place to bring that up, don't you think sir?"

Under the table, I reached over and gently grasped Danny's arm in hopes of placating him. My dad's gaze moved from Danny to me, and I gave him a look that pleaded him to drop the conversation.

"You're right," my dad said at last as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

Much to my relief, Danny's phone rang and he promptly excused himself from the table to take the call.

As soon as he was out of earshot, I leaned across the table and hissed, "Dad, really?!"

"Jo, I'm sorry," my dad said, raising his hands in defense. "It just slipped."

"Just be a little more careful next time, Kyle," my mom said, trying to mitigate the tension. "You know it's a sensitive subject."

"Seriously, Dad," I said angrily. "You don't need to constantly remind him of the fact that you won and he lost. Just drop it already."

The end of that lunch couldn't come any sooner. Luckily Danny decided to head back to the apartment to get some work done while I spent the rest of the afternoon showing my parents around town. I came home later that evening with a few shopping bags in hand, courtesy of my mother. In the dimly lit apartment, I found Danny typing away on his laptop and a slew of books and papers spread all across the small dining table.

"You look like you've had a productive day," I said, setting my things down on a chair by the table.

"Rage is a pretty good motivator," he replied, pausing from his typing to look up at me.

I gave him a sympathetic smile. "Just ignore my dad, Danny. You know how it is. It's always ready, fire, aim with him."

"Don't worry, I'm over it," Danny said, closing his laptop to join me on the couch. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you something."

"What's up?" I said as I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

"One of the girls at my firm is getting married in three weeks. It's kind of a shotgun wedding. Do you think you'd wanna be my plus one?"

"A wedding?" I said doubtfully. The expression on my face must have contorted into one of slight disgust.

"I know, I know," Danny cut in before I could argue. "But I really think you'll have fun. It's not really a 'wedding' in the traditional sense."

"I don't know, Danny," I said quietly. "I don't think I'm ready to be in that kind of situation. Can't you ask Lacey to go with you?"

Then as if on cue, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket to check who was calling and saw Lacey's name on the illuminated screen. With my finger hovering over the "accept call" button, I looked over at Danny for a moment before answering the call.

"Hey Lace," I said in a casually cheerful voice. "It's been a while."

"Hey Jo. I just wanted to call and greet you happy birthday," said the voice on the other line. "Did you get yourself anything nice?"

I chuckled at the thought of the blouses my mom talked me into buying today.

"Yeah, my mom pretty much took care of that."

"Oh, your parents are in town?"

"Yeah, they drove down last night and I just pretty much spent the day with them."

"Oh, that was nice of them." There was a slight pause before Lacey continued. "Is Danny over there too?"

Unsure of how to answer her question, my eyes darted over to Danny. He simply gazed back at me, as equally stumped as I was. We knew Lacey had a tendency to get a little jealous whenever we hung out, even after being broken up for the last two years. Because of that, we always found ourselves stretching or bending out some version of the truth. But this time was going to be different. This time I decided the truth was the better, less complicated choice.

"Uh yeah," I said, running my hand through my hair. "He's here. He didn't wanna leave me alone on my first birthday without Rico."

"Right…well that was really nice of him to do that," Lacey replied, a little too hastily. "Listen, I gotta go. I just wanted to check in and say happy birthday."

"Thanks, Lace. I'll talk to you later," I said before ending the call.

"Bold move, telling her the truth like that," Danny joked as he leaned back and spread his arms out along the back of the couch.

"Lying never led to good things for us in the past, Danny," I said with some annoyance. I was decisively quiet for a moment before adding, "I don't understand why it upsets her so much that we hang out. It's what normal friends do, right?"

Danny just shrugged, though I could tell by the look on his face that there was something he wasn't telling me. Typical. It felt like high school all over again. There was something they knew that I didn't, and I hated that feeling. If Danny wasn't going to tell me what he knew, then I wasn't going to give him the pleasure of caring. And if Lacey was going to act immature about Danny and I hanging out, then so be it. I was tired of tiptoeing around her feelings. I was tired of being stepped on like a welcome mat. Danny was my friend too, and as far as I was concerned, I didn't need Lacey's permission to spend time with him.

"Alright Desai, I'll go with you to the wedding."

"Really?" Danny asked, catching him off guard.

"Yeah," I said, trying to shut out any doubts or anxieties from my mind. "How bad could it be?"

In that brief moment, Danny flashed me a smile that could melt the polar ice caps.

"Jo, you won't regret it."

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