Chapter 5 August - But what if it did happen again?
What the hell just happened?
You fucked Daisy Stiles against Red Bozelli’s washing machine, that’s what.
I’m not a religious man by any means, but as I’m throwing cold water on my face in the bathroom before facing everyone outside, I’m starting to understand the appeal of a Catholic confession.
What’s even worse is how sex with Daisy did nothing to shake the insatiable need for more. If anything, it unlocked a dark box I've stowed away for too long. A desire so instinctual that now that it's been fed a kernel of what could be, I’m desperate to make it happen again.
I can’t tell her that, though. I can’t tell anyone that. And I especially can’t act on that kind of wish. I’ve already been stupid enough for a lifetime. I need to wipe the memory from my brain.
She just felt so fucking good.
How do I never go back to that?
I can’t.
But what if…
“Gus?” I hear Miller call from the kitchen. Shit. I was only supposed to be in here for a couple of minutes to grab another beer from the fridge, and now I’m somehow gonna have to explain my disappearance.
I turn the faucet off and quickly dry my hands on the towel before exiting the bathroom. “I’m here. Sorry, uh, bathroom.” I gesture back, and Miller looks at me funny. He knows something’s up.
“I mean, I figured. Since I just watched you leave said bathroom.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, party time?” I move past him, reclaiming my abandoned beer from the kitchen table. I take a sip and try not to gag at the flat, almost room temperature taste.
“Yeah, we’re waiting on you. And have you seen Daisy?” Miller asks.
I whip my head around. “No. Why the fuck would I be looking for her?”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Miller nods his head to the two giant bouquets of flowers taking up the majority of the table.
So many different kinds of pink flowers are jumping out of the vases in a funky kind of way.
If you tried to explain it, it wouldn’t make sense.
But somehow Daisy always knows how to transform petals, leaves, and twigs into the most beautiful displays.
Back when…Before…Anyway, like I said, I don’t really linger on the past. But if I take some time to really think back, there was once a time when Daisy let me in.
At least a little. I’d sit in the work room of her parents’ flower shop when we knew they wouldn’t be around and watch her create these big pieces out of visions she put together herself, just based on a few points customers would make note of when ordering.
It’s a talent that even I can admit few have.
“Hey, actually before we head out there,” Miller snaps me out of my memory fog. “Pink or blue flowers?”
Miller’s colorblind. He just finally told all of us a little while ago, as if it needed to be some secret. Or he thought we’d judge him for something he couldn’t control. Dumb. I clap him on the shoulder. “P’s got two little girlie cousins on the way.”
His face instantly lights up at the news. There’s no one on the planet who was meant to be a girl dad more than Miller Caswell. He gives the rest of us with shitty upbringings that small sliver of hope that things can be turned around.
It’s not for me, but I appreciate it all the same.
Daisy comes around the corner, still fixing that wild head of hair of hers, and stops dead in her tracks like a doe in headlights when she sees Miller. “You’re not supposed to be in here!” she shrieks.
“You’re supposed to be out there! I’m trying to find you!” Miller counters. Good point.
“I just—I needed—” Daisy is so flustered as she flies around the kitchen, fussing with the greenery of the arrangements and avoiding eye contact with both me and Miller. She tries to pick both behemoths of flowers up at the same time, and I watch the one on her right wobble a little too much.
Before I can think better of it, I’m coming up behind her, and grabbing the vase before more than a couple drops of water fall to the floor. I reach my other hand around her left and take the second vase, swooping them both above her head and out of her grasp.
“I had it under control, Gus,” Daisy argues.
“Say thank you and keep it moving,” I grumble.
“Thank you,” she huffs. Not sure when she started listening to directions. But I’ll chalk it up to nerves.
Miller ignores us, silently following behind. He’s probably grateful as hell he didn’t have to wade through a blood bath to get us outside.
Daisy halts me at the door with a palm raised. “Let me make sure Margot and Sawyer are ready. We can’t spoil the surprise at the last second.” She steps onto the back deck, and I wait in her lingering scent. It feels like it’s everywhere now.
Only seconds tick by before she reappears, telling me we’re good to go.
When I grabbed the vases from her, it was a split-second decision.
I didn’t realize I was signing myself up to be a part of the reveal.
But for some reason, the idea of Daisy dropping one of these things makes me twitchy, so I don’t object and simply follow.
I place both arrangements on the folding table set up with cupcakes and gifts.
I look out to the small crowd in the backyard. Margot and Sawyer have their backs turned to us, standing under the string of twinkle lights Red has hung above the backyard. They’re standing in front of a giant vinyl backdrop that reads PINK or BLUE, either will do. All we know is there are two!
I want to laugh. If it wasn’t Sawyer standing there, if it was anyone else on the planet, I would have. But someone like Sawyer deserves every bit of cheesy happiness that comes his way. He’s endured enough.
Everyone else is turned around too. Beth peeks over her shoulder first. We all should’ve known she would never have been able to help herself. She holds back a yelp with her hand slapped over her mouth. She’s shaking with anticipation and nudging Melanie beside her.
Red attempts to hold Penelope, but she can’t stay still to save her life. Miller jogs over to them, wrapping his arm around both Red and lil P. I watch him whisper something in Red’s ear.
I give myself one last chance to peek over at Daisy beside me.
She’s fidgeting with two stems that look perfectly fine where they are.
I don’t think before I place my hand on top of hers to get her to stop.
My hand swallows hers. You can’t even see Daze’s hand under mine, and I’m stuck staring at the scars and scratches that block the perfect, soft skin that is hers.
I hear her suck in a breath, but honestly, I feel it.
It’s that…that weird fucking connection we’ve always seemed to have that goes haywire if we get too close.
Daisy retracts her hand, and I watch her rearrange her face into one of almost cold professionalism. She raises her voice, ignoring me, “Okay, on the count of three. One…two…three…”
Margot turns around first. The build up of it all must be too much. When Sawyer turns, he snatches Margot up in his arms so fast, it’s almost like they blur. They’re screaming, and Margot’s holding onto the sides of Sawyer’s face for dear life, their foreheads pressed together.
It’s hard to make out what they’re saying amidst all of the tears. Everyone celebrates around the happy couple that’s about to become a damn quad, while still giving them that much-needed space to take in the news on their own terms, together.
Everyone swarms around the table, fawning over the flowers Daisy brought to life. I notice Daisy takes several steps back and seems to be having a hard time accepting every deserved compliment coming her way for these arrangements.
She’s still every kind of flustered. My male pride definitely fucking likes the sight of that.
I back up a few paces, removing myself from the scene of bliss and love unfolding. I’m good over…here. Here, slightly away from everyone, comfortably on the outskirts—but not forgotten—is just fine for me.
My solitude doesn’t last long though. “Where were you, my boy?” Beth’s voice comes from my right. I look down to the sixty-something-year-old pseudo-grandmother I’ve been lucky enough to know for the past twelve or so years.
“Bathroom,” I quickly respond before she gets suspicious.
Unlucky for me, it seems like she might already have those nosy fucking gears in her head turning. “Uh-huh. Funny. Daisy said the same thing a second ago.”
“Red and Miller have more than one bathroom, you know.”
“Not a denial. Interesting…” Her voice trails off, and she looks to Sawyer. She holds space to take him in. “He’s happy,” Beth breathes.
Sawyer has his hand on Margot’s belly. She’s a little thing, so those two spawns she’s cooking are already taking up a lot of room, and you can see the smallest bump forming. The parents-to-be are both chatting away with George and John, Merrymount’s favorite pizza shop and locksmith owners.
“He’s happy, Beth.” I loop my arm around her shoulders, pulling her in.
Beth Rivers took on the responsibility of raising a storm cloud of a grandson only a couple years after losing her husband, Dale.
It was the same day she lost her only daughter and son-in-law.
A handful of years after that, she took me in without question.
This isn’t even mentioning everything she’s done for other kids; Red, Daisy, and the town of Merrymount itself.
She’s spent the better part of her older years taking care of everyone around her without asking for anything in return.
Beth has always just wanted one thing for all of us: happiness.
Today, I think she’s watching one of her dreams come true.
“Now, back to what we were talking about,” she starts.
“Hold up, no. We weren’t talking about shit, and you need to take this moment to let it soak in.”
I feel Beth laugh underneath my arm, and she reaches up to pat my chest. “Oh, August, my boy. You can’t hide from me. You should know this by now. But, fine. Fine. Consider the subject dropped. For now.” She shoots me a pointed look before showing me mercy and stepping away back towards the party.
Relief floods through me that I got through that little interaction unscathed. My moment of victory is short lived of course because it seems as though as soon as Melanie is done suffocating Margot and Sawyer with congratulatory hugs and kisses, she decides to set her sights on me.
I don’t move from where I’m standing, accepting defeat in the form of yet another adopted maternal figure in my life.
Like Margot, Melanie’s new to Merrymount.
Actually, she very well might be the newest resident, seeing as how she officially moved into the apartment above Red’s Place yesterday.
But she latched onto all of us so easily, it’s hard to remember what things were like before Margot and her found our little town.
“Hey, Mel,” I greet her. We clink our bottles together.
“Isn’t this such a beautiful day?” she answers. “Two girls! How lucky are we?”
“The luckiest,” I offer. I don’t have an opinion either way. As long as they’re healthy. “So, you come up with a name yet? Granny Mel?”
Melanie scrunches her face the same way Margot does.
They’re funny together, and it’s going to be nice to have them both so close now.
“Granny? No. I’m still hip and cool. I’m with it.
I’m down with the times.” She does this weird wave thing with her hand to, I think, emphasize her… cool and hipness? I’m really not sure.
I laugh on an exhale. “My bad.”
“I was thinking Glamma.”
I almost choke on my beer as I take a sip.
“And we told her absolutely not,” Margot says while approaching us. I lean down to give her a proper hug while still chuckling.
“Congrats, lil mama,” I whisper in her ear.
“Thanks, Uncle Gus. But there’s nothing little about me now,” Margot says, rubbing her hand over the extremely small bump.
“Hate to break it to you, my girl, but you’re about to get a hell of a lot bigger,” Melanie chimes in.
“Who told you that you could talk to a pregnant girl like that? God, Mom, where is your decorum?”
“What she means is, you’re cooking two miracles in there, and you’re perfect no matter what size you are, Pix.” Sawyer comes up from behind Margot and kisses the top of her head. She immediately softens and leans back into him.
“Pfft. Whatever, you have to say shit like that. Anyway, Gus, it was awfully nice of you to help Daisy bring out the flowers. They’re beautiful, and everything has been amazing.”
“Uh, happy to help.” I take another swig of my beer. I need a new crutch because this is fucking nasty. I try not to grimace at the taste and the mention of Daisy.
“I’m glad you two seem to be getting along! We’re like one big, happy family now!” Margot continues.
“Ookay, baby. Let’s go make the rounds.” Sawyer laughs and gives me a knowing look, one that tells me he’s appreciative of my effort.
If only he knew the fucking half of it.