Page 13 of Second Chance

“Fuck.” Daniel sinks even lower.

“Are they okay?” Blake asks.

“Huh?”

“Are they…nice?”

Daniel blinks. He straightens a little. “Oh, yeah. I mean, Lily’s great. She’s had a rough time of it. I saw her this morning actually, and she’s turned a corner. Sounds like she’s finally got a decent support network at school with her friends and her boyfriend. And I mean, academically, she’s…good. Really good. This year is her second chance at junior year, and I’m sure she’ll be brilliant. Frank, in the jean jacket, is all right too. He’s a lit major. Struggled with his math requirement and wound up taking a summer class, but a lot of kids in the humanities have trouble with math. I don’t know the third one.”

“Sean,” Tony says.

“Oh, did Gianna introduce you?”

“No,” he grates out. “Sean was in an accident today, and his car got towed to the shop.”

“Was it his fault?”

“Unclear.”

The deer wasn’t anyone’s fault, but Tony still doesn’t get how the flat tire happened. Watching Sean grandstand now, wide smile on his face and his arms flailing about in all directions after being a chickenshit about calling his mom earlier, Tony wonders if the deer was even real. Judging by how anxiously Lily’s eyeing Sean, he’s not the only one.

“Oh.” Blake gives him a knowing look. “And now you’re concerned he’ll be a bad influence on her.”

“That’s not…” Tony starts. “I mean, she’s… I’m not…”

“If it helps, I think he’s with Lily.” Daniel squints through the window to where Sean has now slipped an arm onto the back of Lily’s chair. “Must be the boyfriend she told me about.”

It does help, which Tony hates himself for. Gianna’s a grown-up, and she can make her own choices. “So, Lily’s doing better?”

Daniel nods. “A little case of start-of-term jitters, but otherwise, I haven’t seen her so even-keeled all summer. She seems ready for a new start.”

Tony looks outside. Gianna’s laughing again. She didn’t do much of that for a while there last year. He should be glad to see it. He is when he’s not being an idiot. “Yeah, I’m glad for Gigi too. Still a weird support group, but…”

Daniel nods.

“How’s Gianna dealing with it all, anyway?” Blake asks. “I mean…”

Tony shrugs and then sighs. “About as well as she could be. She doesn’t complain about anything but the lack of sleep, andshe’s great with Lia. She loves that kid so much. I think…I think she misses him.”

Daniel looks away.

Tony’s certain he misses Mario as well. Daniel doesn’t talk about it much, not with Tony, but Mario was his friend before he was Gianna’s…not-boyfriend. And Mario’s dead now, murdered by Stacy, who Daniel was also friends with. It can’t be easy. Tony’s selfishly glad Daniel doesn’t seem to need or want sympathy about it. What would he say? “Sorry for your loss; wish he had lived for me to throttle him personally”?

They sit in awkward silence as everyone debates what to say.

Tony wishes it were the first time in the last eight months that there was awkward silence surrounding this topic and not the billionth. Outside, Lily shifts in her seat, slightly out of range of Sean’s hand, which was resting on her shoulder. For a moment, she looks over toward the waterfront, and her expression goes dark and clouded. Her hands clench to fists.

Then, Gianna says something, and Lily looks back to her group with a smile.

Tony forces himself to stop watching them.

One fry remains in the communal basket, the fry of decency no one wants to be greedy enough to eat. Tony takes it.

Outside, Gianna gets up. She shrugs on her jacket. It’s too warm for a jacket, but she runs cold, and it drives Tony nuts because she always nudges the thermostat up a degree or two too warm. He checks his watch. It’s almost eight. Way past Lia’s bedtime. She’ll be fussy as all hell.

The other college students drain their drinks as she gets up to go. They leave an assortment of loose change and dollar bills on the table to cover it. Students.

As they leave, Tony spots Sean handing his car keys to Lily. They did only have one beer, but a drink after an accident does not a safe driver make, and it looks like Lily was drinking a diet soda. The sight makes Tony feel a little better. Maybe Sean isn’t so bad, especially if, as Daniel says, he’s had such a good influence on Lily. Tony was overreacting before. There probably was a deer, and maybe there was some glass or rough gravel on the shoulder when Sean hit the guardrail.

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