Danny tried. He had really screwed this up and the last thing he wanted was for Lacey to ever feel uncomfortable about anything involving him, especially meeting his parents. He met her at the bottom of the stairs with a drink.
Lacey hesitated, wanting to drown in the cocktail, but also not wanting her boyfriend's parents watch her manage her stress by knocking one back. Danny knew where her mind went and offered it again, giving her a nod to let her know it wasn't a big deal. She trusted him and took the drink, finding a balance between chugging and a few healthy sips.
"Thank you." Lacey smiled at Danny warmly, "Mr. and Mrs. Desai it's so nice to meet you. I apologize, if I knew you would be here I would have worn more clothing." Lacey giggled and stirred her drink like maybe it was a secret drain and she could just slip inside and flush her ass out of here.
The Desai's insisted that Lacey call them by their first names and skirted around the nudity with humor and grace. Danny just stood there and blamed himself, he should have warned her. He tried to keep his mind from wandering to what they might be doing right now if his parents were not here.
They moved on to talk about the typical stuff, their majors, their plans, football, soccer, painting.
"Lacey's a dual major, fine art and business—" Danny added proudly.
"Is that right? Well, sounds like you're a bit of a brain Lacey, that's a nice change—" Vikram chuckled.
"Pop."
Lacey laughed then too, that was so fucking true.
"Karen you are a phenomenal chef." Lacey complemented.
"Oh, well thank you, but how—"
"Danny's cooked for me, I'm giving you all that credit. Absolutely amazing—"
Karen was beaming, thrilled the skills Danny leaned as a child were benefitting him now as an adult.
"Thank you, that's very sweet."
"I own a business." Vikram said awkwardly and out on his island as he looked in on the three of them with a tinge of envy, "Maybe you and I could network whenever you're in town visiting?" He asked Lacey.
"I would appreciate that very much, Vikram, thank you truly. I'll take all of the expert help I can get." Lacey stroked his ego a bit, realizing that he felt left out.
"Good, that's settled then. It'll be nice to be on the same page with one of you—" Vikram grumbled, surprising Lacey. She kept her face neutral but noticed the sudden tension that filled the room.
"I have straight As, Pop." Danny began to object.
"You're only a sophomore, you can still change your major—" Vikram snarled.
"Don't start." Karen took a breath.
"I want to major in Sociology—"
"What job are you going to get?! People watching at the mall?"
"Why do we have to keep having this conversation?!" Danny's voice rose to meet the intensity of Vikram's.
As soon as Danny came back to himself he realized he was shouting. He nodded and took a breath, searching out Lacey's hand before beginning again.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to raise my voice like that—"
Vikram's eyebrows shot up like this was news. Lacey decided that she needed to do something to move this along. Karen apparently had the same thought.
"Lacey, you up for a walk?" Karen asked, hoping they would get a chance to connect in a different way.
"Sure." She said, rather unconvincingly, "Is it okay to leave these two alone?" Lacey giggled, her true reluctance now understood.
Karen pulled Lacey toward the door, "They've been this way for nineteen years, they'll figure it out." She smiled.
Lacey let go of Danny's hand and looked back at him, his face drawn, tight, maybe even a little embarrassed?
"We'll be back!" Karen shouted almost as a warning and ushered Lacey outside.
Lacey and Karen walked for a good stretch around frat row, Lacey commenting on how nice the weather was and how beautiful the fall leaves had been the month before. Karen listened politely until she finally felt compelled to unload her thoughts.
"You're different." Karen acknowledged quietly, keeping her eyes glued to the ground ahead of them as they marched through the crunchy leaves.
"Thanks, every artist wants to hear that I suppose." Lacey treaded lightly, unable to read Karen at all.
"My son loves you. He has never told me that before, not like that, you must be very important to him."
"Danny is amazing. I love him too." Lacey confessed.
Karen smiled, her over-styled hair and make up looking out of place against their natural, outdoor backdrop.
"He hasn't had the easiest life. I don't know how much of his childhood he has talked about, but it wasn't so good."
Lacey's mind raced, he hadn't told her anything about his childhood. She knew he was an only child, played soccer and lived in a town called Green Grove, but they had yet to go any deeper.
"I was so relieved when he finally went off to college. He had this chance to start over, to be the person he wanted to be. Then the second he stepped onto campus, he met Jo. My heart hurt for him as that story unfolded. He refused to transfer. I was terrified he'd be stuck in the middle of this for the rest of school or that he would get hurt or killed."
"I can't imagine."
"Danny told us about you on the first day of this year and just from the sound of his voice, the words he was choosing, I knew there was hope."
"He mentioned me the first day?"
Lacey was taken aback by that, they only had a brief interaction that day, one with her ass landing on the ground after body-checking Danny.
"Despite having to babysit Jo, Danny had been successful in creating himself a life here that he enjoyed. He loves people, people love him, it's as simple as that with Danny."
"That is the perfect way to describe him."
Karen held her hand out and rubbed Lacey's back briefly as they continued on.
"I'm thrilled you have each other. You're bright, motivated, absolutely gorgeous—"
Lacey smirked as she thought back to flashing Karen her entire body, an audition she never wanted to go to.
"And most importantly, you seem to want the best for my son."
This conversation was weirdly heavy for a crisp fall night. Why did it weigh so much, what didn't she know?
"What happened when Danny was a kid?" Lacey's curiosity was raging at this point.
Karen looked up briefly as if searching for strength from above and then back down at the ground.
"Danny wouldn't want me to interfere, not with you."
"Please?"
Karen debated for a while, deciding that Lacey deserved to know regardless of who was telling the story. She hoped it would help to bond them a little more and maybe even push Danny to open up and talk about things that Karen felt he always tried to lock away.
"His Aunt Tara, Vikram's sister, she was murdered when he was eleven."
"Oh damn."
The death of a family member is always tragic, but murdered? Poor Danny, that must have been scary and very hard to deal with.
"Danny was home when it happened. He didn't see any of it, but it was the only murder to happen in Green Grove in the last thirty years, so it got tons of publicity. When the kids at his school found out, Danny became the weird kid. Dangerous somehow. It was middle school, you know? At the peak, the stories evolved into Danny actually being the murderer."
Lacey could not believe this. How had this not come up in any of their conversations? Was this the real reason he never had a serious relationship back home? She wanted to talk to Danny so bad.
"Who murdered her?"
"Tara and Vikram had a business partner, Marilyn, she would travel to our home from Connecticut every few days for meetings. On that day, one of their deals went bad and Marilyn shot Tara and fled."
"Oh my god—"
"Danny had been outside playing soccer at the time. He saw Marilyn leave and tried to say goodbye. She smiled and waved and drove away. Danny had no idea what happened, but for years he felt responsible, like he should have been able to stop it. That's when he decided he wanted to go into sociology. To learn how society worked, to try to understand people, prevent things."
"So then he finally gets away from all of that and finds Jo." Lacey connected the dots and felt the heaviness shift from their conversation to the inside of her chest. Her heart ached for pre-teen Danny.
"He went through years of therapy after Tara's death. When I found out about Jo and Regina and that Danny was this linchpin, my heart sank. He took on the responsibility of protecting Regina and then wasn't there when Jo succeeded in killing her. It was like history repeating itself."
Karen wiped away her tears as they made a circle around the stop sign at the end of fraternity row and headed back toward Danny's condo.
"Part of me was happy it was over, but I was also devastated that this young girl died, devastated for everyone's families, all of it. I'm always worried about Danny, but the one difference between Tara's murder and now, is you."
Lacey wasn't sure what to say. Danny wasted no time sharing how he felt and what he thought was right, what he thought was wrong, his starchy sense of humor. He was a self-admitted blunt guy. She never could have imagined how much he was holding onto in his mind.
Perhaps he felt like it was no one else's burden but his. Maybe he didn't want to keep reliving it. Lacey thought back to the unshakable feeling that Danny was hiding something while she had been in his room that first night. This was it. Something dark, something real, but it was something that only existed within his own mind.
"I know this will change how you might interact with him, the conversations I know you'll want to have, but I'm telling you this because I am worried about him. I want to know that someone else that he loves, someone else that cares about him, will know about what he's going through, especially when I can't be here."
Lacey was uneasy, not about the support she already knew she'd give Danny, but about the fact that they had known each other for three months, they were now dating and had fallen in love. At no point during this time had Danny revealed any of this information to her.
She assumed that it was something that either Danny wasn't ready to share, or something he never wanted her to know about. Either way, there was no turning back. They'd either add it to their lives together now, or Danny would end up pushing her away.
Lacey had the compassion, but she prayed she'd have the time and energy to maintain this constantly changing relationship, one filled with complex emotions and their endlessly busy and conflicting schedules.
"Mrs. D!"
The girls looked up as Archie approached them.
"Aww, Archie, hello!" Karen cooed and happily accepted Archie's hug.
"You look amazing." Archie said as he gave Karen a spin.
"You still taking care of my son?" Karen wagged her finger at him.
Archie's smile shrunk a little and he looked over at Lacey, "Haven't you heard?" He draped an arm around Lacey's shoulders, "Danny has a new flame."
Lacey shrugged him off.
"Well, it's not a competition." Karen threw her arms up, "You better still be there—"
"I'll always be there for Danny, Mrs. D, don't worry so much. I'll see you guys around." Archie waved and jogged off into his frat house.
"Someone's jealous." Karen noted.
"Danny's hard to quit." Lacey admitted, "Does Archie know about all of this?"
"I haven't told him. You get to talk to Archie more than I do I'm sure—"
Lacey was not willing to share that Archie seemed to hate her guts and that he was still desperately in love with her son.
"I know all about Danny's lifestyle, his preferences. I was surprised when he told me he was going to ask you for a commitment and not Archie, but again, I knew that meant you must be someone extra special. After meeting you, I can see that is true." Karen smiled.
They walked up the front path to Danny's condo and Karen tried the door handle, "Well I don't hear yelling—"
They walked in to find Danny and Vikram sitting side by side watching football, both complaining about different things happening in the game. Neither of them had heard Karen and Lacey enter.
"Alright, Vik—" Karen said loudly.
"Jesus!" Vikram jumped at the sound of his wife's voice.
"I think it's time to hit the road." She smiled.
Danny stood and walked up nervously beside Lacey. He knew his mother, he knew there was no way Lacey didn't just learn about his shitty childhood. He also knew he would have a lot more to explain after his parents left. He licked his lips nervously.
"Yeah, okay." Vikram peeled himself off of Danny's couch and gave both Danny and Lacey a hug, "Be good."
"Take care of each other." Karen said, eyes connecting with Lacey's directly.
Danny closed the door behind his parents and stared at the back of it for a couple long seconds before turning around to face Lacey.
"I'm so sorry I didn't text you that they were here—"
"It's okay, that surprise probably wasn't one of my better ideas."
"Oh no, I thought it was a great idea." Danny smiled big.
Lacey wasn't in the mood for jokes. Her face remained reserved. Danny wasn't sure where to start.
"She told you." Danny ran his hands through his hair.
"Why'd I hear it from her?" Lacey asked softly.
Danny exhaled sharply through his mouth, "I just wasn't ready. I mean, I am sure there's plenty I don't know about you—"
"You're right." Lacey agreed, "We don't know each other at all really."
Danny heart sped up, "Are you doubting this. Us?" Danny's voice was tight, emotional, but he kept his shit together for the most part.
"No." Lacey exhaled like he was insane.
Lacey walked up and the two embraced tighter than they ever had before.
"There is so much to say, it's not easy to get into. I don't want to be the one, like the needy one, I don't know—" Danny tried to explain.
"Your childhood, what happened to you, it wasn't your fault. How would it make you needy?"
Danny didn't let go, wedging his head around her neck further so he could rest his chin on her shoulder and melt himself into her. She always seemed to know the right thing to say.
"I don't want to disrupt your life."
"It's a little too late for that—" Lacey smiled and buried her lips into Danny's neck for a sweet kiss, "I'd like to know more. Everything."
Danny pulled back and held her face for a moment before taking a step back. It was now or never.
"My mom, she's sick."
Lacey ticked her head to the side and squinted a bit. She hadn't expected that his story would start like that.
"Sick?"
"She—she had a breakdown after the fallout from my aunt's death."
Lacey could understand that, shit must have been so difficult. She imagined Karen fighting for Danny every day for years, it would take a toll on anyone.
"She seems okay now though, right?"
"No, she's been delusional ever since. It hasn't gotten worse, but she's not okay."
"Delusional?"
"She sort of just comes up with random stuff, I'm not sure of the best way to describe her. I've known her like this for the last eight years. You just get used to it."
"Wow, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary on our walk, other than she loves you more than life and the story about your aunt's murder—"
"She's just really good at hiding it. I am guessing you got the Marilyn version of my aunt's story?"
Lacey looked at Danny, the energy around them shifting to darkness. Danny was nervous to continue.
"There's another version?"
"There's my mom's version, and then there's the truth."
"Okay, so, what's the truth?"
"When I was eleven, I shot and killed my aunt."