Chapter 28 #2
“Only,” I pant on a thrust, “if you stay here with me. No closing your eyes or escaping somewhere else. Look at me while you come.” I rest one hand on her collarbone, creating more pressure as her body envelops me.
“I don’t know…” She pants and presses a gentle kiss to my wrist. “I don’t know if I can control that.”
“Try. Will you try for me?”
I hold her gaze, all heat and thrill. I know Daisy. I’ve looked into her amber eyes since I was a kid. But we have something new between us now.
She nods her head. “For you.”
Daisy wraps her arms around my neck, and we’re studying the minute indications of pleasure in the other person. Her mouth falls open with shallow, quick breaths, and her pupils are wide, endless drops.
“Max.”
“I’m right here. It’s just you and me, Daze.”
She tightens around me, pulsing with pleasure, and that chokehold makes me come undone.
My entire body pulses with the sheer satisfaction of the release, but my eyes remain locked on her.
Daisy lingers in bliss with me, crying out, and she’s more raw and more gorgeous than I’ve ever seen her before.
As we both settle into the aftershocks, she sinks closer to me.
“Coming with you is…” I search for the right description.
“Fucking amazing?”
I laugh. She lifts one strap back onto her shoulder and I manage the other, enjoying how her contented, unhurried movements give me more time to take in her softness.
“Here.” She reaches into the back abyss of the truck, producing a plastic bag for me to drop the condom in. I swear she watches my every move as I tug my pants on.
“We should go.”
I glance around at the sparse number of cars. “When’s the garage close?”
“It’s twenty-four hours. But you mentioned my bed. And kitchen counter. And shower.”
I reel her in for a kiss. Against her lips, I ask, “How quick can you get us there?”
The next few days pass in a haze of sex with Daisy, sleep, waking up beside her, work, and then repeating the cycle. When I go to meet my sister for thrift shopping on the weekend, I’m in a blissfully exhausted state.
“You should call Mom and Dad sometime.” Ava throws on an enormous cowboy hat and examines herself in one of the store’s mirrors. After a beat, she shakes her head and trades it for a beret. “They keep asking about you. It’s annoying.”
“Work’s kept me busy.” So has Daisy, I don’t add. I clear my throat. “They, of all people, should understand.”
“They’re not as bad as they used to be. Like with schedules and stuff.”
I scour the clothing racks of sunglasses and hm in acknowledgement.
My parents never embraced a healthy work-life balance, but once Ava was old enough to make memories, they backed off at the firm.
No use in regaling her about the days the nanny would wake me up for school and end with her tucking me in.
They’re better now because I was never their priority the way Ava is.
I don’t know what switched, but I blame them, not Ava.
“Oooh what about this?” She grabs a floral top off the rack, holding the fabric against her body. “I love this.”
“Them’s ’gainst the rules,” I say with a forced drawl.
“Fine.” She frowns and examines the shirt in her hands. “I still want to buy it, though.”
During high school, I got my first part-time job at this exact shop.
The place sells all kinds of strange finds and has been appropriately designed like an alien spaceship.
My parents appreciated me becoming a responsible and productive member of society—their words, not mine—but they didn’t view a retail job in a saucer-shaped thrift store as respectable.
I loved it, though, because I got to sift through the wacky treasures people tossed, which were art in themselves.
The manager gave me first dibs on donated painting and drawing materials, too.
Combined with the modest income, that meant less grumbling from my parents while checking out at the art supply store.
My discount also let me come up with this silly after-school activity with Ava—blindly choosing ridiculous outfits and then grabbing something to eat at the diner down the block.
A decent portion of my paycheck ended up right back here, but I didn’t mind.
Ava strolls to the end of the pants section and smiles wide, one hand on the hangers and eyes squeezed shut as she walks.
Once she reaches the middle, somewhere around a cluster of especially heinous prints, I tell her to stop.
Her hand lifts the hanger from the rack, and she peers at it, pulling a face.
“This is awful.”
“Neon green and yellow leopard will look great on you.”
“Your turn,” she chirps.
On the opposite side of the aisle, I walk slowly forward while my hand trails along the uneven row of hangers.
“Aaaand stop.”
“Very stylish. I always wanted camo overalls. Water-resistant, too.”
We continue like this throughout the store, grabbing tops, picking up accessories, and cackling. Once we pay and get sufficiently decked out in our new wardrobe, we leave the shop looking like we really are from another planet.
As we walk the block to the diner, I admire how Harlow’s changed. The vibe is funkier than I recall—more lively. As a small desert town, there’s always been a level of quirkiness. Lots of shops have popped up, though, making it a bit more of a destination and less a mere thoroughfare.
Ava bounces down the sidewalk, and it’s one of the best things in the world listening to her talk about her life.
She’s cooler than I was at her age—more mature and self-aware.
She tells me about her favorite classes, her least favorite teachers, the colleges she’s thinking of, her debate team, and all the drama of who’s dating who.
“What about you?” I ask, half joking. “How’s the love life?”
She makes a fart sound with her mouth.
“You’re sixteen. It’ll get better.”
“It didn’t for you.”
“Wow.”
“Kidding. There is a girl at school, but she’s like…” Ava shrugs. “Everyone wants to date her. She broke up with her last girlfriend like a week ago, and people are already asking her out and stuff.”
“And you?”
“Don’t want to pressure her. It’s been one week.”
Ava, my precocious baby sister, is sixteen going on thirty-six. And she’s much more like me than I ever would have guessed.
“What’s this girl’s name?”
“Zinnia,” she says in a hushed tone, scanning the sidewalk like this girl might pop out from behind a bush.
“‘Ava and Zinnia’ has a nice ring to it.”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re embarrassing.”
I follow Ava into the diner—a neighborhood staple that’s stuck in the ’80s. The chairs and countertops have faded to a muted orange, and sepia-toned photographs of people from another era cover the walls. An acne-riddled teenager ushers us to a spacious booth next to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“C’mon,” I say, kicking her foot under the table. “Tell me about this girl.”
“Not much to tell.” Ava scooches onto her seat and grabs a pink packet of fake sugar to fidget with. “She’s pretty, funny, smart, basically everything amazing rolled into one. And she has no idea I exist.”
“You’re pretty, funny, smart, and amazing.”
“You’re obligated to say that.”
“Sure. But I mean it.”
A smile spreads on her face like warm butter on toast. I’ll forever be glad I kept up enough of a relationship with Ava while I was away that she’s comfortable sharing these kinds of things with me.
“Ask her out,” I say.
“She’s barely been single a week.”
“Fine. Wait. Watch her date one person after the other, always passing you up.”
She waggles a finger in my direction. “You’re projecting.”
As I open my mouth to protest, the server comes by to fill our mugs and take our order, calling us “honey” and “sweetie.” Only once do her eyes catch on the absurd clothing we wear. When she shuffles to the kitchen, Ava rests her elbows on the table.
“So when did you and Daisy start sleeping together?”
Mid-sip, I choke on my drink. “Ava.”
“You’re obsessed with her. Always were.”
“I’m…you’re really nosy, you know that?”
“Are you two gonna get married?”
“No, I—we…” I lean back in my seat with an exhale. “Whatever’s going on, marriage is definitely not something we’ve discussed.”
“Ohmygod, wait.” Her eyes sparkle with glee. “I was joking. You have slept together?”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
I don’t want to share these details with my baby sister. She may almost be an adult, but she also has her own relationship with Daisy.
“Tell me everything.” Ava scoots to the edge of her seat, bobbing up and down with excitement. “Are you two dating? Are you sharing a bedroom? Did you propose yet?”
“Ava.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“To which question?”
“All of them.”
She sinks back into the seat with a glower. She adores Daisy, so the prospect of her brother and the most incredible girl in town getting together has her mind moving straight to wedding bells and babies.
“Well, why not?” she asks, that teenager attitude in full force.
“There’s a lot about my relationship with Daisy that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Did you ever tell Daisy how you felt?”
“Things between me and her aren’t so simple.”
“You like her; she likes you.”
Warmth fills my veins at the sound of that.
“If it’s so easy for me to ask you-know-who out,” Ava says, looking around the diner, “then you should take your own advice.”
“That’s not how it works in adult relationships, Ava.”
“Stop it.” She points her fork at me, and the server shows up with our greasy eggs and pancakes. “Don’t talk to me like you’re Mom or Dad.”
“Sorry.” I pick at the yolk, smearing gooey yellow across the plate. There’s something about talking to a teenager with the purest outlook on life that simplifies things. “You’re right. I care about Daisy. A lot.”
“Duh.” Ava stuffs a forkful of hash browns into her mouth. “Daisy deserves so much better than friends with benefits, and you know it.”
“I agree. But Daisy’s capable of making her own decisions.”
“She is way too important to you, and you’re way too important to her.” Ava takes another bite of food. “Daisy’s my friend, too, you know. And she should have someone who is here, one hundred percent.”
I’d love to be that person for Daisy—I would in a heartbeat—but that means a commitment from me to stay and a commitment from her to let me in.
Eleanor hasn’t whispered a word about that job with Tate, if they’re even still planning to hire someone.
I could make a home here, but would that just spook Daisy into establishing more rules for our relationship?
“Why don’t you wanna stick around?” Ava asks, and she looks so small, like the eight-year-old who waved goodbye to me at the airport before I left for college.
“Hey. I’m…I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”
She shrugs. “It’s no biggie.”
“I don’t want you to feel like my leaving is ever, or has ever been, me abandoning you.”
“I know.” Her eyes flash to mine, and she grins. “You can’t get rid of me that easy. But I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business, so figure out what you really want, okay?”
I smile, despite the unease gnawing at my insides. “Noted.”