Page 12 of Winter Ends
“I told you that you don’t need to come...” The words died the second Daniel opened the door and saw me. The amusement that I caught in his eyes quickly vanished, and anger replaced it. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You expecting someone?”
Daniel crossed his arms over his chest, but didn’t grace me with an answer. He didn’t owe it to me, anyway.
We stood there for a few moments in awkward silence. The longer he glared, the more I debated if it was possible for him to burn holes in my head.
Daniel’s eyes pinched closed as more footsteps coming up the stairs had me turning in that direction. An older couple was climbing and stopping at the floor. They started down the hall, but paused when they saw me standing next to Daniel outside of his apartment.
“Daniel?” The woman turned toward him in the doorway, and he scowled.
Daniel took a deep breath and opened his eyes, looking even more annoyed than he had when he opened the door to find me standing there. “Mom, what are you doing here? I thought I said you didn’t need to come?”
The woman, who I now knew was his mother, shook her head. She smiled before reaching out and pulling him into a hug. He flailed his arms, looking over her shoulder at me like a deer caught in the headlights. This probably was the worst thing for me to be witnessing.
“Nonsense. It’s two days before Christmas. I’m not letting you spend another holiday by yourself. Why didn’t you tell us moreabout this place? Your father and I could have helped you out some more...” She let go of Daniel and brushed past him into the apartment, still talking. The man, who must have been Daniel’s father, followed close behind.
I stood there for a moment, debating what to do. This wasn’t how I envisioned today going. My goal had been to come here and convince Daniel to come for the trip to Snoqualmie.
“I guess... I should just...”
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
My head snapped up to see Daniel’s mom standing there again, an arm wrapped around his shoulder. He looked so damn tense, trying to convey in the best way possible that I needed to go.
“I think that’s—”
“No, you don’t. Daniel has been in Seattle for six months and he’s not told us about any of his new friends. You have to stay.”
Before I knew what was happening, her manicured fingers wrapped around my wrist and pulled me across the threshold.
Chapter 7
Daniel
Not. Fucking. Happening.
Shawn Stevens was not in my tiny-as-fuck apartment making small talk with my parents. They shouldn’t have been here to begin with. And how the hellhadhe found me? Allowing him into the employee files felt like a huge invasion of privacy.
Mom pushed him back into the couch as she zoomed over to my little kitchenette. She frowned as she opened the two cupboards, looking for…
“Daniel? Where are your cups?”
Mom was about to be so disappointed in me. “Dishwasher.”
“You store your cups in the dishwasher?”
I held my arms out, waving them around to show off my minuscule living space. “Not like I have a ton of storage to begin with.”
Her look of displeasure said enough. She didn’t deserve to be talked to in such a way and I should have done a bit more research before uprooting my life and moving somewhere as expensive as fucking Seattle.
She pulled three coffee mugs from my dishwasher and filled them with water from the tap before bringing them to the living room and setting them on my coffee table. The thing had to-go containers covering it. Another thing she made a disapproving face at, but had I known they were going to show up today, I would have made more of an effort. There was that whole... telling them not to come thing and all.
“So, where are you guys staying?” I wanted to distract them, not have them so focused on Shawn or my disgusting living conditions. At least I had heat again, though it had taken them a week to fix it and a week too long of listening to my best friend and his boyfriend fucking in the other room.
Mom waved it off, ignoring my question. I hated when she did that shit. She knew I was worried about them. Now more than ever, after the disaster that was Art and Tilly disrupted our lives.Please don’t say anything while Shawn is here.
“There are lots of really nice hotels around the area. Hopefully, no one tried to rip you off with holiday rates.”
