‘Thank you.’ She paused. ‘I thought you didn’t like me. Because of the way you are at work.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not that. I didn’t want to make friends with anyone.’
‘Don’t punish yourself,’ she said gently. ‘None of this Huntington’s thing is your fault. And it doesn’t mean you can’t have friends.’
‘I don’t want to end up being a burden to anyone.’
‘Firstly,’ she said, ‘you don’t know for sure that you have it. Secondly, if you do have it, medicine might have advanced enough for there to be some sort of treatment by the time you start getting symptoms. Thirdly, Huntington’s is really rare, but there are a lot of other medical conditions where people need a lot of support in the end stages. It’s miserable enough suffering from a difficult medical condition, without cutting yourself off from people and making yourself lonely as well.’ She paused.
‘My grandfather had dementia. He didn’t want to be a burden, so while he was still in the early stages he made my mum promise to put him in residential care rather than run herself ragged trying to care for him and look after me and do her job. She felt horribly guilty about it, but finding him a care home meant she could spend time with him as his daughter rather than his carer and that made things a lot easier for both of them. Yes, it was still hard for her, losing a little bit more of him every time she saw him, but he didn’t feel he was a burden. And she’s made me promise that if she gets dementia I’ll do the same for her. There are ways round things.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard to see them.’
‘Sometimes you’re too close to things and it takes someone else to see it for you,’ she pointed out.
‘True.’ He paused. ‘I’d better let you get on. Thank you for the pizza and the pep talk.’
‘Any time.’ She stood up. ‘Hey. Before you go.’
He turned to her, expecting her to say something; instead, to his shock, she put her arms round him, holding him close for a few moments.
When was the last time anyone had hugged him? The last time he’d actually let anyone hug him?
Months ago. What felt like a lifetime ago.
‘What was that for?’ he asked.
‘Because,’ she said softly, ‘it seems to me you’ve had a rough few months, you’ve been a little bit too noble and self-sacrificing, and in the circumstances I think you’ve been needing someone to hold you for way too long.’
She was right. Except now it made him feel like a man who’d trudged through the desert for days and had finally found an oasis. Unable to stop himself, he put his arms round her and held her close, breathing in the soft vanilla scent of her shampoo.
And from holding her it was only one step to sliding his cheek against hers. Turning towards her. Letting his lips touch the corner of her mouth. And then finally kissing her properly, losing himself in the sweetness of her mouth.
It suddenly slammed into him what he was doing.
Kissing Danielle Owens.
He had no right to do this.
He pulled back and looked at her in anguish. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No?’ She traced his lower lip with her fingertip, and it made him ache.
‘This is a bad idea,’ he said. ‘I’m not in a place where I could even consider asking you out, and offering you a fling would be—well, not very honourable.’
‘When my divorce came through,’ she said, ‘I made a pact with Hayley, my best friend. We agreed that this is the Year of Saying Yes.’
‘The Year of Saying Yes?’ He didn’t quite understand.
‘It means you say yes to every opportunity that makes your life happier, even if it’s only for a little while. I was supposed to be going to Iceland with Hayley—but I broke my foot so I couldn’t go. Though I made her agree to go on her own, so she got to see all the things on her bucket list: the midnight sun, watching whales in the sea, walking on a glacier. I’m hideously jealous, because a lot of them were on my list, too—but no way was I going to hold her back. And she admitted I was right to make her go because she had a wonderful time.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying,’ she said, ‘that maybe you could do the same. It doesn’t have to be a year of saying yes. Six months, maybe, or even a week.’ She paused. ‘Or just tonight.’
His breath caught. ‘Are you suggesting...?’
‘I’m saying that you need to stop thinking and start doing. Live in the moment. No strings.’
Make love with Dani. Right at that moment, he wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting anything. But he had to be sensible and hold himself back. ‘There’s just one tiny, tiny thing. Given that I might be carrying a faulty chromosome,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to take any risks of passing it on. And I don’t have a condom.’
‘Whereas I do,’ she said. ‘Which isn’t to say that the Year of Saying Yes means I sleep with every man I meet.’
He didn’t think that Dani was the type to sleep around. Far from it. ‘Have you actually slept with anyone since Christmas Eve?’ he asked.
‘No, and if I’m honest I didn’t sleep with Leo very much in the last six months of our marriage,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m prepared now, in case I do meet someone.’
Someone.
Him.
The possibilities made every nerve-ending tingle.
‘So have you slept with anyone since you ended your engagement?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Which means this is going to be faintly awkward and embarrassing, and there’s no guarantee that either of us will remember what we’re supposed to do.’
He couldn’t help smiling. Which meant he’d smiled twice in one evening. Twice in eight months. And it was all thanks to Dani. ‘That’s really terrible, considering what we both do for a living.’
‘Maybe we should just stop overthinking it,’ she said.
‘The Year of Saying Yes?’
‘Or six months. Or a week. Or just tonight,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should just consider this a rebound thing. No consequences, no worries, just a moment out of time for both of us.’
She was right. They were both overthinking it. And it sounded as if her world had been shattered, too, by her ex. Maybe tonight they could salvage something for both of them.
He kissed her. ‘Yes.’
