I can see the hurt pooling behind his eyes. He is still not over this girl. I suck in air. “Sounds like you have real history with her.”

“Not the good kind.”

“I think we established that,” I remind him, and he grins. “Still have feelings for her?”

Daniel cocks his jaw. “I have feelings about her, not for her.”

“Ouch.” I leave it alone.

“You want the long version or the short version?” he asks after a minute.

I check the time on my phone. “Better go with short.”

“I thought she was the one. But she thought Bruno was the one…and Nick, and Tyrell, and some flonkey who goes by Wishbone.”

I take a long, slurpy sip of my drink.

“She wasn’t who I thought she was. It took a long time for me to see it. Mawmaw Barb spotted it right away. I wish I’d listened to her.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask.

He sticks his bottom lip out, sucks it back in. “Didn’t seem possible. She looked so perfect on the surface.”

I think about that. It’s sensitive-guy code for “hot.” I look down at my slashed jeans and chewed nails and split ends. Definitely not hot.

I think of my mother. She wears her mess on the outside. For all her difficulty, I don’t believe she actually wants to hurt me. She just can’t help herself. Her issues get in the way. But people like Daniel’s ex are predators, gravitating to the naturally compassionate to take advantage of them. I feel a little sorry for him. “She sounds like a real piece of work. At least you figured it out.”

He nods.

“Do you regret keying her car?” I ask now.

He waits a moment before he speaks. “Honestly? I don’t.”

I’m intrigued by this deeper, uglier layer to Daniel. On the surface, he looks like he could be featured in a NOLA tourism ad. But there’s something too symmetrical about him. Something too airbrushed.

“Your turn,” he says now.

I want to shrug him off, but he just spilled for me.

“Something no one else knows about you.” He leans over the table on his elbows with a hungry look on his face.

I take a deep breath and try to relax. It’s just a game, I tell myself. But it doesn’t feel that way now that I’m in the hot seat. “I stole my friend’s credit card. Well, her mom’s credit card.”

Daniel’s face breaks out in a wide grin. “Did you ever tell her?”

I shake my head, feeling the shame creep up my neck and over my chin until my cheeks burn.

“That’s cold. What’d you buy?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

He seems disappointed.