Does Tessa have feelings for Daniel on The Young and the Restless?

Over the past few months on The Young and the Restless, we've watched the growing friendship between Daniel (Michael Graziadei) and Tessa (Cait Fairbanks). We know Daniel is starting to develop feelings for her, since he has talked about it with his father Danny (Michael Damian). But does Tessa feel the same way about Daniel?

What happened this week on The Young and the Restless

This week on The Young and the Restless, Mariah asked Daniel to meet with her so she could tell him that she is going away for a while to heal from whatever it is she's struggling with. All we know so far is that she tried to kill a man, which she confessed to Tessa a week or so ago. And we saw some flashbacks here and there of a drunken Mariah getting acquainted with a man whose name we have yet to learn. But it's odd that we never saw the continuation of the conversation where she gave Tessa that shocking news.

Mariah didn't tell Daniel how long she would be gone, but she told him she was aware of his and Tessa's close friendship, so she asked him to be there for Tessa while she was away. She knows Tessa will need someone to lean on. But little does Mariah know that Daniel is harboring feelings for Tessa. How will Mariah react when she eventually finds out?

Daniel told Danny how difficult Mariah's request is going to be for him to carry out

On Friday's episode of The Young and the Restless, Daniel told Danny how overwhelmed he felt about carrying out the favor Mariah asked of him. He doesn't know how to be supportive of Tessa through her marital problems, partly because he doesn't know how long Mariah will be gone. Will she really come back fully healed from her personal issues? Part of him doesn't care what those issues are. All he knows is that Mariah and Tessa love each other, so he says his growing romantic feelings for Tessa don't matter.

Danny disagreed, pointing out that Mariah and Tessa may not stay together. He used his own personal experience as an example, saying he never imagined Christine (Lauralee Bell) and Paul (Doug Davidson) would divorce, and he would have a second chance with her. But it happened, and now he and Christine are engaged and can't wait to be married again. Daniel doesn't want to look at it from that perspective. He said he would never do anything to interfere with Mariah and Tessa's relationship.

Does Tessa share Daniel's feelings, or are they unrequited?

Daniel and Tessa's friendship began when she offered to give him guitar lessons. Those lessons became therapeutic for him, as he was coping with the death of his girlfriend Heather (Vail Bloom). They were therapeutic for Tessa, too, since they distracted her from her relationship problems with Mariah. Over time, Tessa and Daniel's teacher/student bond blossomed into an unexpected friendship.

Recently, they wrote a song together and performed it in the park when they were alone, to get a feeling for the melody and harmony. Tessa sang while Daniel played guitar, and that songwriting experience bonded them even more deeply.

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But is she starting to develop feelings for him, too? The writers have done a good job keeping it a secret, since we haven't seen her confide in anyone about her true feelings for him. All we've seen are a few scenes where she told Claire (Hayley Erin) and Daniel himself that she was grateful for her friendship with him. But is it possible that Tessa feels conflicted? That she loves Mariah but is trying not to acknowledge her new, unexplored feelings for Daniel, also? We suspect she's probably interested in him as more than a friend, but hopefully, we will know for sure very soon in the upcoming weeks of The Young and the Restless.

Catch all-new episodes of The Young and the Restless weekdays on CBS and Paramount Plus.

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