Chapter Twenty One

...

Sam wanted some space to clear her head, so that's why she started up her car as soon as she got in it and drove away from her house. She didn't know where she was going at first, but then she decided to go to the same landscaped park that Danny introduced to her.

Once she arrived there, she marched straight towards the tranquil waterway and searched around for the very same rocks that they both sat on when they first went there together. She spotted them in four seconds flat, and thankfully, they weren't occupied by anyone. Just like before, the area didn't have too much people around.

After about twenty minutes of sitting there and reflecting on what just happened, she heard Danny's voice. "Sam?" She lifted her head, which had been buried in her arms, and looked over at him. "You know we're going to have to talk about that, right?"

"Yeah. I feel like an idiot," she replied. "How'd you know I was here?" He sat down beside her and pressed his back against the big rock, staring out at the water. He was in his human form, which left her guessing that he flew there and switched sometime before coming to find her.

"Let's just say I had a hunch." When he turned his eyes onto her, she looked away, staring at the ground. "Why did you run off like that?"

She didn't have an immediate response to that because it was a difficult feeling for her to explain. She remained silent, trying to come up with a decent way to word what she truly wanted to say. "I guess I was embarrassed. I was angry. I did not want that to happen, but it did, and it completely threw me off-guard."

Danny didn't say anything to her for several minutes. He only nodded and closed his hands together, dragging his eyes downward. Then, he spoke again. "I saw the hurt in your eyes back there, Sam, and I still do." She inhaled deeply as he said that and moved her eyes right onto his. "I'm just confused as to why it's there."

"The pain from my awful experience with David is still there, but as time goes on, it'll dull away into nothing." She closed her eyes and lowered her head a bit, her eyebrows curling together. "Just like your experience with Brianna is still with you. It'll always exist as a lesson."

"I understand that," he told her. She opened her eyes and her eyebrows dipped. "Trust me, I get you." He smiled weakly at her, but it was gone as quickly as it formed. "Are you... are you sure you still want to be with me if you feel that way?"

"I'm sure. I've never been more sure about anything in my life." She moved her hand over his and smiled warmly at him. "I just had a moment of weakness back there. Like I said, I was caught off guard." Her smile disappeared and she exhaled deeply, her shoulders wilting. "How come you didn't break up the proposal?"

"Because it wasn't my place to do so. It was yours." He slid his hand from underneath hers and slung his arm around her shoulders. She shifted closer to him and lolled her head onto his shoulder. "It wasn't my proposal to reject. That, and I knew you were perfectly capable of handling your own in that situation."

She smiled happily as he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she replied. "Still, thanks for always being there for me, especially throughout this whole wild situation."

"No need to thank me. You know I'll always be there for you." He kissed the top of her head and held onto her closely. "The emotional and mental effects from your relationship with David are going to be there for awhile, and even though I can't just take the pain away, I'm more than willing to help you get rid of it."

"I know, and I appreciate that." She raised her head from his shoulder and leaned over to peck him sweetly on the cheek. "By the way, where's Tucker?"

He let his arm collapse behind her. "I dropped him off at the entrance of the park and walked over here. He didn't want you feeling too crowded." Once she began to stand up, he joined her. "Do you want to go back to your place another day?"

"No, today's okay. I'm fine. I can handle it." She brushed off her clothes with a tiny sigh. "David gave me back his house key, so there's no way for him to get in. Well, besides breaking in, but I highly doubt he'd do that."

"Then let's go." Danny quickly checked the time on his watch and smiled. "I have less than two hours before I have to go to work."

"All right, come on."

"Looks like David finally took down whatever he had covering the windows," Tucker remarked as he heaved one of Danny's boxes into the house. Sam was already in the living room, unpacking a box of his DVDs and sorting them into her movie cabinet.

"He cleaned up pretty nicely, I'll give him that," she responded. The house had not one single trace of him living there anymore. All of his belongings were gone, even the rug he bought her one day while he was out shopping. "I'm guessing Danny scared him straight."

Said boy entered the room, carrying the last box of the day and crouching as he set it on the floor near the couch. "I'm not sure why I have all of these books, but I feel like I should give them to Jazz." Sam scoffed and wrapped her arms around the box, protectively dragging it towards her.

"Or you could just give them to your lovely girlfriend," she suggested, batting her eyelashes persuasively. She still loved reading books, so of course she wanted dibs on his collection, especially before Jazz. He closed his eyes and raised his hands, chuckling softly at her.

"They're all yours." She flashed him an appreciative smile and grabbed the box cutter from beside her, using it to carefully slice open the box. He had it taped pretty well, so she couldn't just pick and tear at the tape to remove it.

"Creep Walkers? Shadows in my bedroom?" She grimaced as she selected those books and read the summaries on the back of them. "These are all horror books. Don't you have anything less gory?" She rummaged through the box again, eyeing three other books. "Window of Tears, Anna's Secret, and Absence? Bingo."

Danny and Tucker exchanged a puzzled look before looking back over at her. Danny reached over and closed the box before pulling it towards him, ignoring her protests. "You can start a book club later, Sam. Let's get all of this stuff unpacked first."

She frowned. "Okay, okay." She continued going through his box of movies, silently judging each one before sticking it onto the shelf. There were a lot of horror movies and a few romance movies, and since Danny wasn't much of a romance movie person, she figured those movies belonged to Brianna.

She almost recoiled in pure hatred and disgust as she touched them, but she remained nonchalant, at least on the outside, and positioned them on the shelf without looking at the front covers. Once she got through the box, she pushed it in Tucker's direction.

He grabbed the empty box and slid it towards the front door so that he could put it back into the car later. He then continued searching through a box, but a few seconds later, his eyes lit up and he brandished a magazine. "Hey, Danny, whose Playboy magazine is this, huh?"

Sam's head immediately snapped towards Danny. A crimson color rushed to his face and he held up his hands defensively. "Don't look at me! It's not mine."

Tucker lowered the magazine, eyeing it and flipping through it for a minute. "Wait." He turned it upside down and stared at it from different angles before smiling sheepishly. "It's mine. Sorry, false alarm."

While Danny rolled his eyes, Sam got up and marched over to Tucker, snatching the magazine away from him. "Instead of peeking through a magazine that does nothing but glorify the objectification of women, why don't you—"

"It's not like that, Sam." Tucker yanked it from her and clutched it to his chest. She moved her hands to her hips and narrowed her eyes at him, and for a moment, they glared at each other. "I'm literally only holding this for a friend of mine. I don't personally own anything affiliated with Playboy."

Danny, not wanting to see her strangle the poor guy, swiftly interceded. "Just put that thing in your bag and forget about it, Tuck." His best friend obeyed, sticking the magazine into his bag without putting up a fight about it. "Thanks."

"No problem, dude." Tucker scratched his head and watched as Sam crossed the room back over towards Danny. "Jeez, Sam, who lit the fuse on your tampon today?" Her brows wrinkled and she frowned at him before sighing softly.

"Sorry, Tuck. I guess I'm still a little cranky from waking up so early. Most people can function on a few hours of sleep, but I'm not one of those people."

"No worries. You were never a morning person. I used to be like that. Try being more productive in the mornings."

"I'd rather take a scooter to the ankle."

Danny's phone started to buzz from its place on the table. He scooped it up and answered it with a polite, "Hello?" He listened closely for half a minute before frowning and glancing down at his watch. "Uh, yeah. I can be there in fifteen minutes." There was a pause. "Okay, bye."

After he hung up the phone with an irritation expression, Sam guessed, "Work?" He nodded, rolling his eyes a bit. He started to stand up, but instead of joining him, she merely looked up at him. "You want me and Tucker to leave?"

"No. You guys can keep unpacking and whatnot. I'll swing by after work and we can all go out for dinner." He shifted towards Tucker and waggled his cell phone. "Call me if you guys need anything, okay?"

"Okay," they both chorused. He smiled and spun on his heels, briskly walking over to the front door. Neither of them heard him open it, so they just assumed he phased through it so that they didn't have to get up and lock it.

"Come on, Sam." Tucker stood up and dusted off his pants. Sam looked to him questionably, but rose to her feet regardless. "Let's get some music playing while we rearrange this place. Maybe that'll help change the dark mood in here. That, and it'll give us something to do while we wait for Danny to get back."

Meanwhile, Brianna and David were both sitting on Doug's living room couch. Doug was David's best friend, but she didn't care about that. She wasn't interested in a friendship with him; she only saw him as a partner.

A business partner.

Her eyes were trained on him as he drew his fourth bottle of beer to his lips and drank from it. All he seemed to do was drink, and while she tolerated it, she couldn't help but be somewhat disgusted by him.

"So, you proposed to her and got rejected?" she asked. He closed his eyes and nodded. "Why are you surprised she said no? She's just pretending to be loyal. It's all an act so that she can look innocent in front of Danny."

"Whatever." With a dejected sigh, he stared down at his beer bottle and tightened his fingers around it. "They won. She chose him and he chose her. It's over. We can't be bitter anymore."

"Like hell they won." Hearing him say that made her blood boil. She shot up from the couch and stood in front of him, her expression growing dark. "I, Brianna Ramirez, am not a quitter. I refuse to just stand by and let that little skank come into my home and ruin my relationship without any consequences."

"Look, you're pretty much preaching to the choir at this point." David's eyes drifted towards the door and shook his head. "If you're going to do something, do it already. Otherwise, you're just all talk, and quite frankly, I don't need my time being wasted again."

"What am I supposed to do, show up at Danny's apartment and start some shit? He changed the locks. I can't get inside anymore. Trust me, I've tried."

"Well, I believe he and Sam are still together at her place right now if you want to catch them. I already gave her back my house key, but I forgot to lock the upstairs bathroom if you need a way inside."

Brianna's lips tugged upward into a sinister grin.