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sound upset, but Dani knew she wasn’t happy about it when she stated that the neighbor had just arrived to watch the kids until she could get there.
    The rest of the day seemed to go by slow ly . Dani’s niece and nephew were pretty easy to watch, but sometimes she felt like there were a million other things she could be doing instead. She loved spending time with Jacob and Naomi, but they had unusual interests for kids that were ten and eight , and today all she could think about was Van .
    “And this goes through that,” Naomi was telling her.
    “ Where ? ” Dani asked her.
    Naomi took the yarn from Dani and just did it for her.
    Yes, they were crocheting . And if Naomi didn ’t have the body and voice of an eight -year-old, Dani w ould have sworn she was a sixty -year-old woman. The kid also loved to bake. She certainly didn’t get those skills from her mom—b ecause Jaime was hardly domesticated—but from grandma, Steve’s mom.
    “Grammy says you just have to do it a lot and then you’ll get better,” Naomi was saying, but at the same time, Dani’s phone was ringing.
    Again.
    She didn’t even have to glance at it to know it was Brian. She declined the call for the eighth time that week and then sat there, anticipating that another message was going to be left. Sure enough there was, and while Naomi was busy crocheting Dani’s scarf for her, she listened to the message just to torture herself.
    “Dani… You can’t avoid me forever. I just want to talk to you, okay? Just meet me somewhere. Anywhere. Let’s talk about when you’re coming back, okay? I love you. You know I do. And I don’t want you to be struggling just to make a point. I get it, all right? You’re mad. You have every right to be. I’ve been stressed at work but I promise things w ill be better… ”
    His words at face value were just fine, but Dani knew all too well that Brian was full of lip service. Yeah, for a while things were great between them. He was there for her when she lost her job, and when she couldn’t pay the rent on her apartment anymore, Brian was more than willing to let her move in with him—even though they’d barely been dating but a few weeks. She didn’t feel like she had a choice. Jaime and Steve were going through a rough patch and she didn’t want to add any more stress to their marriage. Her friends all offered a couch f or a short-term stay, but she didn’t really expect anyone to go out of their way. She was in between jobs, and she decided that Brian’s offer was the best one at the time.
    For a few weeks it was great. Brian was a really sweet guy and he always treated her like a princess. B ut then Dani began seeing a side to him that she really didn’t like. He started to get a little controlling, and he started making her feel guilty about going out with her other friends. He even got into a little tiff with Casey, her guy fri end that she’d known for years. Casey hadn’t spoken to her since , but all of his suspicions about Brian were finally getting through to her .
    And then that night at the club… He accused her of smiling at some guy. She might have—she wasn’t even sure—but Brian took it way too far and made a big scene over it. That was the last straw for her and she ended it entirely .
    Now she had Van. Or did she? She couldn’t read him very well but her instincts told her he was a good guy. It seemed like they were now in a relationship, even though neither of them really chose to label it . But they’d only known each other for a week and Dani was trying to pace her feelings for him. She wasn’t about to throw herself into another relationship so fully like she’d done with Brian. There were aspects of that experience that she was sti ll trying to sort out. S he felt she was too needy with Brian. She was too dependent on him too soon because she was struggling at the time . Her circumstances made her make choices that she otherwise wouldn’t have made .
    And then