21. Daphne
21
DAPHNE
“Make it stop.” I groan at the morning sunlight stabbing its beams into my brain. Why did I drink so much last night? Why did I drink those candy corn cocktails? They were cuter than they were tasty. My mouth feels so gross. Astroturf covers my tongue. Logan must have heard me stirring because he appears in the doorway with aspirin and water.
“Morning, sunshine. Feeling rough?”
He’s lucky I know sunshine is a term of endearment and not mockery, because sunshine is my mortal enemy at the moment.
I sit up, amazed the room isn’t spinning, and take the aspirin from him. I reach for the glass of water and wash down the pills, praying they take effect quickly to ease the pain in my head. Turning the covers aside, I swing my legs out of the bed and sit there, inhaling deep breaths for a few moments before rising. Logan rubs my shoulder gently in a show of comfort.
“I appreciate you want to take care of me, but I feel cruddy, and your touch is annoying the crap out of me,” I grouse when I stand up to stumble to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. The Daphne staring back at me from the mirror appears like she’s recently crawled out of the swamp. I take care of my morning business and brush my teeth vigorously, swishing an extra helping of mouthwash to eradicate any lingering traces of last night.
“Good plan trying to drink away the pain, Daphne. How did that work for you?” My reflection doesn’t answer, so that must mean I’m sobering up. I pray Kendall feels as bad as I do, but I’m betting she doesn’t. Lucky duck…um…cougar. I whimper slightly when I run a brush through my hair to tame the oh-so-attractive bedhead I’m sporting. I resemble an electrocuted Muppet, and that’s not a good look for me.
I leave the bathroom, and seeing the bedroom is empty, I wander along the hall toward the kitchen. My tea is waiting for me on the counter, and Logan places a plate of toast next to it. The man is a mind reader. I’m not sure my stomach is ready for anything more than tea and toast this morning.
“Thank you. You are the best boyfriend ever. I’m keeping you.” I say it in a light tone, but I mean every single word of it.
He sits next to me at the counter with his coffee and bagel with cream cheese and presses a kiss to my temple.
“Try to get rid of me. You’re stuck with me. I enjoy taking care of you.”
My bite of toast suddenly tastes like sawdust when I think about being alone again after this weekend. I have two more mornings with Logan before he leaves for Spain. I don’t know how I’ll stand coming home to a quiet house and sleeping alone again. Wow! It’s not even been a full week that he’s been home, but it feels so…right, like this is how it should always be. I probably shouldn’t have drunk so much last night that a hangover ruined the morning. Oh, well. That ship has sailed, so there’s nothing to do but make the best of it.
I sip my tea to wash down the toast and look at Logan. He’s so handsome in the morning with his hair tousled and stubble dusting his jaw.
“I can’t believe you’re mine,” I say. “I’m so lucky.” I lean in to kiss his cheek. His whiskers tickle my lips.
“Was there anything special you wanted to do this weekend? Anything you need to get?” I take another bite of my buttered toast. It’s tasting more like bread and less like sawdust, so that’s good.
I caught Logan right after he took a bite of his bagel, and he chews and holds up a finger in a wait a minute gesture.
Swallowing his bite and then taking a sip of his coffee, he says, “Other than a couple of loads of laundry and repacking my bags, I’m set. We can go out and do whatever you want, or we can hang out here. It’s your weekend. I want to do whatever makes you happy.” Logan’s smile is loving.
My heart hiccups. “I’d love to lock ourselves in this house and spend all of our time cuddling and canoodling until we have to go to the airport.”
Logan chortles. “Canoodling?”
I’ve read the word chortle, but I’ve never seen it in action before. Until now. He has tears from laughing so hard.
“You seriously called what we do together canoodling? Daphne, I’ve always been very tolerant of your fondness for Matlock and Murder, She Wrote , but I draw the line at you channeling Jessica Fletcher when you describe our physical relationship.”
I’m sure I must be blushing, so I do what any mature woman would do and give him a hard shove in the shoulder to knock him off balance on his stool.
“Canoodling is an awesome word. You’re jealous you didn’t think to use it first.”
His heavy-lidded expression makes my insides quiver. “Sunshine, when I remember the things we’ve done, canoodling is not the word that comes to mind. When I consider all the things I plan on doing with you, and to you, in the future, it is most definitely nothing that anyone sane and under eighty years old would categorize as canoodling .”
Oh my. I’m pretty sure if we were a sitcom, my character would have a thought bubble containing the gif of a cartoon character swooning with hearts in her eyes. But we aren’t a sitcom. We’re a new couple, having breakfast together, laughing, and trying to ignore the countdown clock until we must part.
Okay, Daphne Marie Foster, stop this train of thought. You’re going to ruin the time you have still being together because you’re focusing on the time you’ll be apart. I know I’m serious because I used my middle name. We have two and a half days together, and I refuse to allow us to waste another moment of that time moping. I’ll have weeks to be sad and mopey when he’s gone. Why would I waste time that we can spend being together, happy, and creating fun memories being miserable? Of course, it’s difficult for Logan to leave, but I don’t need to make it even harder by showing him how much I’m dreading it.
I take a sip of my cooling tea. I’m spending too much time thinking and talking and not enough time eating my breakfast. “Have you ever done a corn maze? There are a couple of farms that have them, so we could do one. The Physick Estate in Cape May has a scarecrow walk. Ooh, we could do a ghost tour! I’ve always wanted to do one of those.” I get my laptop so I can start searching for events in Cape May.
Logan grabs his phone. “So…I planned a surprise. If you don’t want to do it, it’s okay. But what would you say about a weekend in Cape May? I rented a room for tonight. We could sit out on the Adirondack chairs they have set up on the lawn of the hotel. I booked us tickets for a ghost tour, and the hotel is supposed to be haunted. Perfect for this time of year.”
I know exactly which hotel he means. It’s a grand beachfront hotel. I’ve always wanted to stay there. “I’d love that! Let me pack a bag.”
Logan gasps dramatically.
I jump slightly. “What?”
“You’re being spontaneous! I’m so proud of you!” He wipes an imaginary tear from his face.
I huff out a sigh. “I can be spontaneous with little things. Just because I’m not ready to uproot my life on a week’s notice doesn’t mean I’m not capable of spontaneity.” Logan is obviously teasing me, but it hurts a little. “I’m trying, you know.”
“Aw…sunshine, I know. I’m teasing. You’re wonderful and perfect just the way you are.” He leans forward and gives me a sweet kiss, his hand resting on my cheek. His gaze holds so much emotion. Maybe it’s love? I hope he sees my love for him as well. Just because I won’t allow myself to say it doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.
* * *
“I can’t wait to see the pictures you took,” I say as we leave the Cape May Zoo. My heartbeat speeds up. “Can I ask a personal question?” It’s silly to be so nervous about asking this, and I’m afraid of offending him, but these are things we need to discuss.
Logan glances at me while we wait at the light to get back on the Parkway. “Sure. Twelve inches.”
I gape at him and then crack up. “ Not what I was asking, dude! It’s a serious question.” He was joking, right? I’ve felt him, and yeah, he’s big, but it didn’t seem ginormous. Not that I’m personally familiar with a variety of penises.
“Daph, you can ask me anything. You know that.”
The light changes, and I wait for us to make the turn before asking, “Does it bother you, seeing the animals in the cages at the zoos? Especially the eagles?”
We spent a couple of hours walking around, checking out all the animals. My favorites were the giraffes and zebras in the savanna area along the elevated boardwalk. Logan liked the big cats, in particular the snow leopards. There was an enclosure with a bald eagle in it, and it made me sad. I’m aware Logan is a golden eagle shifter, so he’s technically different, but the thought of him cooped up upsets me.
“No, why?”
“Well, you’re an eagle too. Did you feel a kinship with the bald eagle?”
Logan shoots me a quick glance with a furrowed brow. “Daphne, I’m a man. I shift into an eagle, but I’m human. Those animals there were never human. They’ve always been animals. For some of them, the sole reason they’re alive is because they’re in the zoo.” He takes my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “That zoo isn’t an animal jail. They aren’t prisoners. They’re more like guests. Yeah, there are places where they don’t take care of the animals properly or they’re made to perform…I hate those things. But I can look at a cougar in a zoo enclosure and separate that from my mom in her shifter form.” He checks his mirror and signals to change lanes. “Does it bother you that I’m a shifter?”
I’m shocked he asked me that. “No! There’s so much I don’t know, so I have questions. I’ve googled things, but we know that isn’t always accurate.”
“Okay.” He nods. “Of course you’d have questions.” We’re at the end of the Garden State Parkway, so Logan reduces his speed as we enter Cape May. “You can ask me anything you want. I’ll answer you the best I can. Nothing is off limits.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
Okay, here goes. “When you said twelve inches, were you serious? I know shifters are more muscular and stronger, but is that true…everywhere?” I’m not sure it’s going to work if that’s the case. “It’s just a normal penis, right? Nothing weird?”
The car swerves slightly. I don’t think he meant I could ask anything -anything. He pulls into the parking lot of an elementary school and rests his forehead on the steering wheel, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
He wipes tears from his eyes. If it wasn’t about forty miles to walk home, I swear I’d get out of this Jeep and start hoofing it.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just…that wasn’t a question I expected.” He takes a deep breath, turns in his seat, and takes my hand. “Daphne, it’s a normal penis. It’s not magically going to turn into something crazy like a duck’s corkscrew dick or an echidna’s four-headed cock when we make love.”
I reach for my phone.
“Oh, no! Don’t google either of those!” Logan covers my screen with his hand before I can call up Google. “Are you seriously worried about this?”
We’ve made out and felt each other up, but not a lot below the belt. I wasn’t about to have sex for the first time just to be abandoned a week later. Mother Nature helped me out for once by having my period start Tuesday morning, so my resolve didn’t get tested.
“Um…you face the possibility of having a twelve-inch thing shoved in you sometime and see how mellow you are about it.” I’m trying not to be some kind of cliché virgin scared of a penis, but come on…twelve inches?
“I was joking! No man wants to admit this, but I’m normal-sized.” He chuckles. “When the time comes, it will work. Trust me.”
Trust him. Because he has experience in this area while I don’t. I didn’t need that reminder right now.
“Daph…”
Now I have tears. I wipe them away and offer him a smile. We have this weekend together, and I’m not wasting it crying.
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “Want to try that hot dog place?”
“Sure,” he answers. I can tell he wants to press me on this and discuss it further, but one good thing about being best friends for so long is that he knows when not to push. I’m grateful for that because I want to enjoy the remaining time we have together, not waste it talking about stuff that doesn’t matter right now. He’s leaving Monday. When he comes home in December, if we’re together then, we can talk about it.
I end up with a basic cheese dog, but Logan got creative ordering the Buffalo dog with spicy-hot Buffalo sauce, onions, and bleu cheese.
We sit on a bench on the Promenade, Cape May’s concrete version of a boardwalk, and enjoy the view of the ocean. It’s cool with the breeze coming off the Atlantic, but the sun is nice, and it’s a good excuse to snuggle up against my gorgeous boyfriend. No matter what, he’s always warm and toasty. I don’t know if it’s him naturally, or if it’s because he’s a shifter, but there are nights in bed it’s too much, and I need to shove him away when he wants to snuggle and I don’t want to roast.
But at times like this, it’s quite handy. Since he finished his hot dog first, he puts his arm around my shoulder while I take the last couple of bites of my dog. He idly toys with the end of my ponytail, wrapping it around his finger and then releasing it. I feel his sigh…and then I smell it.
“Dude! If you’re going to be breathing on me after that hot dog, you need to chew gum or pop a breath mint.” I crumple up the wrapper from my hot dog and take a sip of my soda before rooting in my bag for the roll of Mentos I keep in there for situations like this.
“Here, take two. You need them.” I thumb two out of the roll directly into his mouth. I can feel him laughing as I pop one into my mouth too. My lunch choice was nowhere near as egregious as his, but fresh breath is always pleasant.
Logan glances at his phone to check the time. “We have a couple of hours before our room is ready. How do you want to spend them? We can walk around the shops. Take a trolley tour. Oh, see if they still set the Adirondack chairs up on the lawn, snag a few, and people-watch while enjoying the fresh air.” Logan checks to see if any of his ideas spark interest.
They’re all appealing, but I’m suddenly struck by something I want to do.
“How about we go play mini golf at Sunset Beach and walk the beach to see if we can find any Cape May diamonds?” I ask. “They have a gift shop too. I have fun poking around in there.”
He smirks, and my choice of phrase echoes back to me in a new light.
I groan. “That’s the only poking around happening today, buddy. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
He laughs as he stands from the bench and holds out his hand to accept the trash from our lunch. “My mind may be in the gutter, but you knew exactly where to find it, sunshine.”
I laugh because he’s not wrong.
“Mini golf. That sounds fun. I haven’t beaten you in mini golf in years.”
Scoffing, I rise from the bench. “Dream on, Morris. You have never beaten me at mini golf, and that is not changing today.”
It feels like everything else is changing—our relationship, my feelings for Logan, what I want for my life, how I see my life. It’s nice to have something remain the same, even if it’s something small, like kicking Logan’s butt at mini golf.