Neil was like a Russian nesting doll whose good qualities got smaller the more you uncovered him. But Daniel was the opposite. The more I knew, the better he became.
I liked that he took care of Popeye. And I understood why the town had declared him their mayor—not because he was a Grant, but because I had a feeling the Grants were a certain type of people. Diplomatic and well liked. And I knew this not because he told me, but because of the way other people treated him.
Liz spoke highly of him the day I met him. Brian spent two hours of his night sitting in a projection room at a closed drive-in just so Daniel could take me to a movie. Doreen called him because she knew he would go check on Pops. Then he drove Pops to the doctor all the way in Rochester after his fall, and installed that bar in his shower.
If you looked at the way the people around Neil treated him, you might come to the same conclusions, that he was well liked. Neil had a prominent seat at everyone’s table. But the difference was, nobody relied on Neil like they did with Daniel. Any relationship that Neil had was based on a shallow connection of status signaling. Nobody ever needed anything from him other than the grace of his presence and his fake bravado.
If Neil was at your party, it meant you were important. You were someone he wanted to be seen rubbing shoulders with. But if you ever had to rely on him, he’d let you down.
If Daniel was at your party, it meant you were a good person. It meant you were someone who had earned his affection. And I was starting to realize that his affection equaled a level of devotion that I don’t think I’d ever known outside of maybe Bri and Derek. And it seemed to encompass a whole town. Like this cloak of loyalty was big enough for everyone.
And then I realized, almost with awe, that I must have somehow earned his affection too. He must like me, and not just in a sex way, or why else would he spend so much time on the phone talking to me and want me to be his girlfriend?
Huh.
I started chewing on the side of my lip as I peeled my potatoes.
I remember feeling so important when the chief of surgery took a liking to me. I think I was so dazzled by that and Neil’s false charm that I didn’t see the red flags waving in my face. I brushed it off when he was rude to our servers or his nurses didn’t like him.
With Daniel it was the opposite. I was so dead set on being certain I couldn’t be impressed with him, that it was almost startling to discover that I was.
His phone rang in his pocket, and he set his knife down to answer it.
“Seriously?” I gave him an arched eyebrow. “Your ringer is on? You call people and your ringer is up?” I teased.
He laughed. “How else will I know if someone’s calling me? Isn’t that what a ringer’s for?”
He pulled his phone out. “It’s Liz.” He answered. “Hey, what’s—” He stood there listening. His brows drew down. “She’s here. Okay. Okay, hold on.” He put the call on speaker.
“Alexis?” Liz said.
I looked at Daniel, confused. “Hi, Liz—”
“Okay, so Hannah’s having her baby and they wanted to take her to the Mayo Clinic, but it started to go really fast and they couldn’t get her in the car and—”
Screaming and then shattering glass.
“Can you guys come?” she asked, sounding panicked.
I nodded at Daniel, and we started running for the door.
Liz was panting. “We’re on a video call with a labor nurse from the hospital. Doug’s here trying to help, but Hannah won’t let him touch her and the ambulance won’t be here for forty more minutes and I don’t think she’s got forty minutes.”
“Is she crowning?” I asked. “Can you see the head?” We were already jumping into Daniel’s truck.
“I…I don’t know. There’s a lot of fluid. Blood and stuff. I think her water broke.”
“Okay, we’re on our way. Listen, I need you to boil some water and get me all the clean towels you can find. I need disposable gloves, scissors, and snack bag clamps. The ones that close your chip bag? Get a cup and fill it with rubbing alcohol and drop the clamps in there and have it waiting for me.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah.”
“I’m going to stay on the phone with you until we get there,” I said calmly. “Don’t panic.”
Daniel was already on the street headed north. “Three minutes,” he said.
When we pulled up in front of the house, it looked like half the town was there on the lawn. I could hear screaming and shouting from inside.