Page 49 of Please Don’t Go (The Midnight Strike #1)

JOSEFINE

My fingers hover over the keyboard before I pull them back for the twentieth time, curl them into my palms, and extend them over the keyboard again.

“Hey,” Vienna greets, sliding into the booth across from me. She slips her bookbag off her shoulders and settles it next to her.

“Hi,” Pen chimes, slipping in the booth next to her.

She asked Vi and me to meet in the Student Union because we haven’t seen her much. Not that I’ve seen Vienna much either. Pen is busy with cheer, Vi with swimming, so it’s hard to get our schedules to align. Life of an athlete.

“Hey.” I shut my laptop with more force than I intended to.

Pen’s brows furrow, eyes darting to it. “Everything okay?”

I stagger, uncertainty gnawing at me.

I’ve been staring at the email Monica sent me since January; it’s already the beginning of March and I still can’t bring myself to reply. The only good thing I was able to do was open it and read what it says, but that’s as far as I got. Since then, all I’ve been able to do is stare at it.

Part of me wants to delete it and tell Monica to leave me alone. But the other, very small part of me wants to do it. It’s not because I miss swimming competitively, but everything else about it.

I’ve already shared about Daniel to Vi, and feel like I’ve opened myself up enough. But this is different and weighing down on me.

“Monica wants me to take the student assistant coach position.”

“Monica?” Pen tilts her head to the side.

“My coach, Director of Women’s Swimming,” Vi answers, a gleam shining in her eyes. “You should do it. That position is so hard to get. If Monica is personally reaching out to you, that means she wants you and only you. Holy shit, that’s awesome. Do it.”

I know it’s a big deal, but anxiety is a bitch, holding a gun to my head. The thought of being back there, a place Mom and I shared, the only thing that kept whatever relationship we had alive, messes with my head.

Shrugging, I brush it off. “I’m thinking about it. What’s been up with you guys?”

Maybe they can sense my apprehension, maybe not, but they thankfully change the subject.

Pen talks about the basketball team and how it’s uncertain if they’ll make it to the NCAA tournament coming up in two weeks.

She said they’ve done decent this season but have lost their recent games, the worst one when they played North Carolina University two weeks ago.

She said the only positive to watching that game was watching the NCU players.

Apparently, they’re hot and she’s about to show us their Instagram, until she gets a message and begins acting weird.

“I’ll be back.” Her lips jerk like she’s trying to stop herself from smiling.

We watch as she scurries out of the Student Union, her lips blooming into a grin, until she disappears.

“Did you see her face?” Vi asks, still staring at the part she disappeared from. “It has to be a guy, and I hope to God it is. She needs to move on from her dick ex-boyfriend. I feel rage every time I see him.”

I feel the same way, but as much as we want to say something, we don’t. Pen doesn’t want us to and she’s too sweet; she just wants to keep the peace.

An idea comes to mind.

“You know…I have experience slashing tires.”

Just as I open my bedroom door, so does Daniel.

He’s handsome as ever in a white T-shirt with the school’s logo, a siren sitting on a baseball and the word BASEBALL underneath it.

He’s also wearing those dark short blue swim shorts that expose his muscular thighs, and his gold chain that he never takes off.

He hangs his towel around his neck and smiles at me. “I have something for you. I meant to give it to you a while ago, but with the moving and the season starting, I forgot.”

“For me?” I take the white, square envelope and when I flip it around, I realize it’s a CD sleeve and there’s one in it. Danny’s Holy Grail of Happiness , is scribbled on with a green marker, I can only assume is Sharpie. “You burned me a disc?”

He grabs both ends of the towel, nodding. “Something told me you’ve never had the privilege of downloading music illegally. I figured I’d bless you with a CD. And if you don’t like any of those songs, I don’t want to hear it. Matter of fact, you can’t dislike them.”

“I’m not sure I have anything to put this in.” I look at the writing again, my lips only stretching wider.

“I do have a stereo or a portable CD player, but you can also listen to it in your car.”

“Those things still exist?” I tease.

“I’m not sure.” His smile is tender and his eyes soften. “They’re both birthday gifts from years ago. Adrian and I both love music, so our parents gifted them to us. We had to share them of course. I’ve never been able to part with them.”

The pain in his voice strikes my chest, but it’s his entire demeanor that has my heart crumbling. The once-vibrant gleam on his face is now dim, almost ashen. He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes, nor do his words that feel so heavy yet empty.

Grief is funny, he once said.

It is because one moment he’s smiling like he’s on top of the world and the next, he’s remembering a past memory and sheer sadness washes over him.

I step into him, wrapping my arms around his torso. He tenses, no doubt not expecting me to do this. “If you ever want to talk about Adrian, I’m here.”

He wraps his arms around my shoulder, his body sagging against mine. He doesn’t feel heavy but weightless.

“Besides baseball…” His voice is thick and gruff like he struggled to expel those words. “Music was our thing. We listened to almost everything.”

I hold him tighter. “Oh yeah? Is that why you have all those cassettes, vinyls, and CDs in your room?”

“You went into my room?” Daniel chuckles. His question isn’t accusatory but elated.

That was three weeks ago, on Valentine’s Day. “It’s not what you think. I was looking for you because of the flowers and you weren’t answering me.”

He hums. “Yeah, that’s why I have all of them. Some of them were Dad’s and others were the ones we bought at pawn shops. We thought they were cool, so we started collecting. I have many more, but the others are back home. I would’ve brought them, but there’s not enough space.”

“You can put them in the living room.”

“I don’t want to?—”

“You live here, and I know I’m weird about how things are placed, but I don’t mind. I should’ve told you before. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. This is your house.”

“And now it’s yours.”

I feel his heart race against my chest as he holds me. “You’re not weird for liking your space clean.”

A rock lodges in the middle of my throat. I don’t like talking about this, but at this moment, in his embrace, my tongue goes lax.

“Mom hated clutter. She liked to keep things bare and simple; she’d spiral if they weren’t.

She said in Mexico, in the house that she lived in, things weren’t great.

She never really went into details, but she also never failed to remind me how good I had it.

How she sacrificed herself to have what I have now.

And as a reminder, she had me clean. Made sure I’d do it well too.

” I brittlely chuckle. “No toys, no colors, no nothing. It became a norm I never deviated from.” I release a shaky breath.

“But now that you live here, you can put things up and have things in the kitchen and living room. I promise I won’t stop you. ”

“I will on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You let me help you clean.”

“No, I don’t want you to.” My brows furrow, feeling irked. I push away, but he still holds me. “I didn’t tell you so you’d feel bad for me. I’m telling you because?—”

He stares down at me patiently, gently. “I don’t feel bad for you. You shared, I listened, and now I want to do something about it. I want to compromise. Don’t push me away, Josefine. Please, let me help.”

I falter, my lips parting before closing again. “I always clean alone. I like it done a certain way, and if it’s not done how I like, it makes me feel…overwhelmed.”

“Show me how you like it and I’ll do it that way too. Okay?” He tucks my hair behind my ear, then drags his knuckles along my cheek.

“I might get mad.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too.”

“I tend to be a control freak. I’m not kidding.”

“I like when you tell me what to do.” He smiles.

I bite the inside of my cheek, contemplating what I want to do. “I’m—okay, but just know you’ve been warned. Don’t get mad at me when I get mad at you.”

He chuckles again. “I could never get mad at you.”

When his knuckles descend to the curve of my neck, my body shudders and my eyes flutter. I’m almost tempted to pull him into my room, but it’s Thursday, and he has his lesson today, and he needs to rest because he has a game tomorrow.

“I hope you’re not trying to distract me because we’re still having your lesson.” I pull away. Grabbing his wrist, I tug him along with me.

We haven’t done anything since we kissed on the couch. He hasn’t made a move, so I wasn’t going to either.

“Darn, that didn’t work?” he sighs disappointedly.

“No, you’d have to do more than just touch my cheek.”

“Oh?” he hums but I hear the challenge in his tone.

I ignore it but the rest of my body doesn’t. “Thanks for this. If you let me borrow the stereo or CD player, I’ll listen to it tonight.”

“You can use them anytime you want.” He hooks his arm around my shoulder. With anyone else, walking side by side would’ve been awkward, but it feels nice being tucked under his arm.

The sun is setting just behind the horizon when we finish, painting the sky in pretty hues of pink, purple, and orange.

Daniel sets the foam board and goggles outside the pool, dragging his fingers like a comb through his wet locks. His hair remains slicked back, but droplets drip from the ends, skidding down his tanned skin in rivulets.

I grab my wet ponytail and wring the water from it. “You know, if you believed in yourself as much as you believe in that quirky stance of yours, you’d already know how to swim.”