Chapter 26
“God, it’s so fucking early,” Daisy says by way of greeting as she nearly rips open the passenger door, sliding in and slamming it shut without so much of a second thought. I bite back my chuckle and watch her lean back against the headrest, pressing her palms against her eyes as a soft groan escapes her lips. “It’s too fucking early for this shit, Tanner.”
I smirk, a low chuckle rumbling through me as I begin shifting the gear into drive. “Mornin’, Daisy Girl. Drink your coffee.”
At the mention of coffee, she perks up and drops her hands, a dazed look spreading across her face that makes me chuckle again. She reaches for the cup and chugs it, curling back into her seat as a content moan slips from her mouth.
I wonder what other sounds she makes—
“Thank you,” she murmurs against the lid. “I’ve already had two cups of coffee, and it still wasn’t enough.”
My gaze slides to her before focusing back on the road ahead. “Did you not sleep well?”
She shrugs and shifts so her legs tuck under her, taking another sip of coffee before dropping her head and angling it to look over at me. “Somebody was keeping me up past my bedtime,“ she says with amusement. I can’t help my grin as I glance over at her.
“Sorry,” I say, not really sorry at all.
She waves me away as she takes another sip of her coffee, although she smiles against the lid. “No, you aren’t.”
“You’re right,” I smile. “I’m not.”
“That’s what I thought,” she mutters.
“But even if you hadn’t kept me up with your riveting debate over whether aliens live on our planet—“ she smirks, “I would’ve been awake anyway.”
Despite my amusement, I tilt my head. “Why?”
“I have insomnia,” she says causally. “I typically average four to five hours of sleep a night. I’m sure it’s a symptom of my anxiety since I can’t seem to turn my brain off—“ she furrows her brows and frowns, followed by a shrug as if she’s unphased by the lack of sleep. “So usually,” she continues. “I’m awake anyway.”
I nod. “What do you do when you can’t sleep?”
“Depends,” she replies, focusing on the road ahead. “Usually, I draw or paint, and some nights, I deep clean or read. I don’t like lying there with my thoughts most of the time, so I do anything to avoid it.”
Curiosity pricks at me. “What do you think about?”
Her gaze finds mine again, eyes softening for a fraction of a second. Gone in an instant; you’d have to be looking at her to notice the change, but the thing about Daisy is, I’ll always look for her.
“Everything.”
“So, how is everything going to go down today?” Daisy asks halfway through our trip. The conversation was already dying, but not from running out of things to say. In fact, Daisy and I have more in common than we realized—both enjoying late nights despite her insomnia, and early mornings, reading when we have time, being active and even down to some of the same music. We both seem to enjoy being homebodies, except I’m most definitely more social than her.
My gaze flicks to hers, noticing her fumbling with her hands. “What do you mean?” I ask. “With Yasmin?”
Her bottom lip works its way into her mouth nervously, and her leg now bounces up and down. Without thinking much about it, my hand drops from the steering wheel to grip the top of her thigh. It tenses before relaxing under my hand, and the bouncing stops almost immediately.
“Yeah,” she finally breathes, her gaze trained on the road. “Do I need to do anything? Should I expect anything?”
My expression softens, the hand on her thigh squeezing in what I hope feels like reassurance. It surprises me how natural it feels to have my hands on Daisy’s body. And more than that, how much it seems to not bother her. After her initial shock, she seems to relax into my touch, which makes it so much more tempting to continue touching her.
“All I need from you, Daisy Girl,” I murmur. “Is for you to sit your pretty ass in that seat and relax. I don’t expect you to do anything but be here with me, and it means a lot that you are.”
She blinks, a softness washing over her face slowly as she looks at my side profile, almost as if she’s looking at me from a new light.
“Can you do that for me, Daisy Girl?”
She nods once, her dainty fingers running over my hand gripping her leg. “I can do that.”
After another hour of driving, we pull into the driveway of the home that used to be mine, a gray, three-bed, two-and-a-half-bath family home. The lawn is perfectly manicured, and I know Yasmin well enough to know that either she pays somebody to come out and mow the lawn or she’s seeing somebody else, which wouldn’t surprise me. As long as he treats her well, I couldn’t care less what happens to her.
What bothers me is the uncertainty on Daisy’s face as she stares at my old home. One that doesn’t feel like something I’d ever live in to begin with.
“You okay?” I ask, glancing down to look at our hands joined together. Sometime after I placed my hand on her lap, her fingers interlaced with mine, and we haven’t broken apart since.
“I’m okay,” she says softly, sliding her gaze to mine. “Are you?”
My lips roll into my mouth, but I nod regardless. “Yeah, I’m alright. Just weird being back.”
She nods, giving me a small smile I want to tuck away forever. “I know the feeling.”
I squeeze her thigh in reassurance before unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling my hand away. It already twitches to be back on her, but I force myself to get out of the car, dipping my head to look at her. “I’ll be right back.”
I’ve barely had time to close my door and walk up the driveway when the front door opens, and Yasmin steps out. My eyes dart directly towards her round stomach, my chest twinging with an ache I’ve always longed for that she wasn’t willing to give me.
A child.
The thoughts come and go as quickly as the next: all of our fighting regarding her concerns about me wanting to be a dad, her not feeling like I was even ready to be a dad…
“Tanner,” she smiles brightly, brown eyes twinkling as her hand rests against her stomach. She takes a step forward, and her brown skin glistens with the sun against her back. Or maybe that’s the pregnancy glow. I’m not sure. A bitter taste forms in my mouth, almost like she’s trying to subtly brag that she’s pregnant with a child that isn’t mine. “It’s so good to see you.”
The fake pleasantries make me want to roll my eyes, but then I’d be stuck in an argument I have no desire to be in. “Yasmin,” I nod, unsure how to act. She was a big part of my life for so long, and seeing her move on with somebody else is...weird. Not necessarily in a bad way, but seeing her again reminds me that for her, it was so easy to throw away six years of a relationship. It’s aggravating. I want to grab my stuff and go home.
She must sense that because her face softens just a fraction.
“How are you?”
I chuckle dryly, shaking my head, not interested in having a conversation with somebody who nearly ruined my life. “Where’s my stuff?”
She frowns, obviously unhappy I won’t engage in conversation. “Inside.”
A beat. “Can I grab it?”
Her mouth opens, looking behind her shoulder towards the inside of her home. “I thought we could talk first.”
Anger coils loosely through the base of my spine, and I remind myself to take deep breaths. She’s planning on baiting me, that I know confidently. She’s going to try getting into an argument so it keeps me here longer, wondering why I wasn’t good enough to have a kid with, to marry, anything. My eyes dart to her bare fingers, the anger threatening to spill over into an argument I’ve had with her time and time again throughout our engagement. “There isn’t anything to talk about, Yas. We agreed that I could get my stuff and go. If you don’t have it, I’ll be on my way. I have things to do today.”
Her eyes narrow. “Like what?”
“Alright, I’m leaving,” I turn to head back to the car, but her hand reaches out for my elbow, and I yank it away with more force than necessary. “Don’t touch me,” I snap immediately. Her eyes widen in shock, pink lips parting as she takes a step back, her hand immediately reaching for her stomach again.
Guilt works its way into my sternum, but I refuse to apologize. I’m actually annoyed that her instinct was to protect her stomach as if I’d do something to harm her or her unprotected child. That bitter taste forms back in my mouth. “Can I just grab my stuff?”
She watches me for a moment, eyes slowly raking over me in displeasure. “Your anger was always something that made me believe you wouldn’t be a good father.”
The blow I wasn’t expecting nearly makes me drop to my knees. Yasmin knows I’ve always wanted kids and has continued to find ways to use that against me. It hurts as much now as it did back when we were together, and as she sees the pain on my face, a devilish grin spreads across her lips. Not being with her romantically has led me to see things about her I apparently chose to avoid for so long.
“I don’t have any of it,” she smirks. “I threw it away the moment you walked out.”
Dejected and hanging onto my anger, I frown and raise my arms before smacking them against my legs. “So what the fuck was all of this for?”
She shrugs, waving to her stomach before gesturing to the house. “Just wanted to show you what you had and then lost. What you could’ve—“
The sound of a car door opening and closing causes both Yasmin and I to break away from my conversation. I look over my shoulder and find Daisy staring at us with an unamused expression on her face. A flicker of her blind rage defending Sam in my office appears in my mind, and suddenly I’m turning away from Yasmin to fully look at my girl.
Daisy’s nostrils flare in anger as she saunters over to us, eyes roaming my entire body before turning her focus back on my ex wordlessly.
“And who is this?” Yasmin asks, arms folding across her chest in displeasure. Daisy takes a step closer to me, and I instinctively want to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her into my side.
“This is Daisy,” I say as I glance to the girl next to me. Her body is stiff, but I don’t think it’s from our proximity. I turn my attention back on my ex-girlfriend.
“I’m not trying to be here longer than necessary, Yasmin,” I say. “So if you could let us in, I’ll be out of here before you know it.”
Yasmin’s mouth parts but quickly closes, eyeing Daisy up and down as the former does the same. It feels like a standoff between my past and present, and my bets are against the girl who stands too close for friends. Her body is somewhat angled in front of me like she’s protecting me, and I reach for her hip, pressing my palm against it as I pull her back into me. Sparks shoot up my arm at the contact and I want to wrap my arm around her waist entirely, but refrain. The tenseness in her body is still there, but her shoulders relax against my body regardless. Daisy’s arms cross over her chest now, both girls sizing the other up.
“He clearly has a type,” Yasmin says, unimpressed.
Daisy blinks, eyes narrowing. I can tell she’s holding herself back from going off on Yasmin. As much as I’d love to see Yasmin get put in her place, it’s already uncomfortable being here for all of us, clearly. Yasmin’s eyes dart from Daisy’s to mine with her arms now crossed and a hip jutted out. It’s clear now that I’m standing here, that the point of making the drive was for Yasmin to get a final reaction from me. Sucks for her because she won’t get anything else from me. She took that opportunity a year ago.
All I can do is squeeze my girl’s hip in reassurance and gratitude. I owe her my life for being here today, and I’ll never not be grateful for her ability to step in when I didn’t have the balls to speak up.
“Alright Daise,” I say, wrapping my arm around her waist as I spin us around to start walking back to the car. “Let’s go.”
She follows wordlessly, something fills her eyes as they roam over my face. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.
I nod, slowing down to press a kiss to her forehead.“I am now,” I murmur against her.
Yasmin groans from behind us. “Fine, his stuff is inside. Go get it, and don’t touch anything else.”
Daisy smirks up at me before turning around to face Yasmin. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she bites out, reaching for my hand as she drags me past my ex without looking back.