Her hands fell to her sides as if they weighed a ton. “I’ve got no idea. When she’s close, I just can’t speak.”

“How did you manage to ask her out, then?”

Danielle inspected her fidgeting hands. “Well, she kind of asked.”

“Kind of?”

“I was too much of a chickenshit to ask her. So I told everybody at the garage I had a gift card and asked if anyone wanted to join me for a movie.”

“But how could you—?”

“I chose a day when I knew the guys were planning to watch football.”

“I still don’t get it. How could you know that Ruth wouldn’t want to join them?”

“I heard her once say that she doesn’t care much about football.”

“Ah, so when the others declined she came up to you and asked if you would take her.”

Danielle nodded and stumbled to one of the sinks to wash first her hands and then her face. She peered at her reflection. “I need another drink.”

“Bad idea. She’ll think you need beer goggles to find her attractive.”

Danielle groaned into the paper towel she’d used to dry her face.

Never would Madison have thought Danielle to be shy. It was a completely new side of her. “Why don’t you just go back outside and make her yours?”

Through the mirror she gazed at Madison. “But how?”

“First of all, start using answers that contain more than one word.”

Danielle spread her arms in a helpless gesture. “I really have no idea what’s up with me.”

“But I do. You have the hots for her. Stevie Wonder could see that from a mile away.”

“Why can’t it be as easy as with you and Sherry?”

Madison needed all her self-control to suppress a snort.

“It’s obvious how crazy in love you two are. You look at each other, and it seems as if your eyes do all the talking. I…I didn’t see it at first, but now I don’t know how I ever missed it.”

Madison’s eyebrows seemed to have a life of their own when they hiked up. Were she and Sherry really such good actresses?

“I mean” —Danielle blew an unruly strand of hair out of her face—“how you look at Sherry sometimes when you think nobody else is watching you and—”

“Nonsense!” Madison could have slapped herself. Why was she denying it? If Danielle thought her to be totally in love with Sherry, great.

Danielle touched her on the arm. “Even when you thought you were in love with me, you never looked at me like that. And I can’t blame you. Sherry is gorgeous. And it’s obvious that she feels just as much for you as you for her.”

Danielle’s words should have made her happy, but instead they left her with an unsettling feeling she couldn’t name.