Chapter 38 Daisy - What is my life? #2
“Daisy,” Gus effectively cuts off my next words with his own as he grabs hold of my face.
“I loved you then. I loved you when I hated you. And I love you even more now. I was serious yesterday, I’ll do anything to show you that love.
But before you blubber about some knick-knacks, can I show you what I’m proudest of? ”
“I don’t know if I can handle another surprise of this caliber,” I joke.
“Too bad.” Gus releases my face and intertwines his fingers with mine, pulling me towards the staircase.
I haven’t even been back up there yet because Gus insisted on bringing all of my bags up by himself while Hunter and Chase showed me their new mega room in the basement, the room Gus built for them out of sheer determination and unconditional love.
Anticipation fills my belly when we reach the top landing. Gus stops us when we’re standing in front of the closed spare bedroom door.
“Okay, this one comes with some caveats.”
“Ooooh, so serious,” I mock.
“Daze,” Gus groans, and I realize he’s actually nervous.
“Okay! Sorry! I’m ready.” I square my shoulders and puff out a breath.
“Just know we can change anything you don’t like.”
It turns out I, in fact, am not ready for what lay beyond the door. When Gus turns the knob and the door swings open, I lose just about all ability to function.
The spare room with a bare bones bed and bureau I occupied the first night I stayed at August’s ceased to exist.
A big rug in the shape of a rainbow lays over the hardwood floors in front of me.
There’s a white crib and a matching rocking chair with a blanket strewn across the back, crocheted with pastel pinks, blues, greens, and yellows.
It’s clearly handmade and all of the furniture looks perfectly second-hand.
Speaking of yellow, the wall is freshly painted the lightest shade of buttercup.
A dresser matching the chair is pushed against the wall opposite the crib.
There’s a single gold eight-by-ten frame hung on the wall above the crib. I take a few tentative steps inside the room to get a closer look and confirm what I’m pretty positive is indeed what I’m actually seeing.
“Is that…” Tears blur my vision of an already low quality picture. One that I haven’t seen in years, but there was never a need. It’s been seared into my brain for over a decade now.
A young Daisy Stiles and August Burton, sitting side by side—a position you’d be hard-pressed to not find them in on most days of the week—against the wall of their high school on the day before their graduation.
The happiness is practically radiating off them.
His eyes are twinkling with hope of a bright future filled with fresh starts, and that girl is looking at him like he hung the goddamn moon and stars.
Gus’s hands land on my hips, and he urges me forward.
“It’s us, Daze. A version of us, at least. And I don’t think a single one of our versions isn’t important.
” He removes his hands, but before I can mourn the loss, wraps his arms around me until my back is flush with his front.
“I want our kid to know it all. I want them to know we found each other in the middle of a mess, made a mess of our own, and then worked to clean it all up. Together.”
“We’re gonna tell our kid we were mortal enemies due to some serious miscommunication?” I jokingly offer while willing the tears to stay in my head. They don’t listen, of course.
“No.” Gus’s laughter vibrates through his chest. “We’re gonna show ‘em.” He releases me to walk over to the dresser. He opens the top drawer to pull out another frame. He holds it up, turning to me with a dangerous smile on his face.
I wordlessly accept the frame to inspect it.
“No fucking way,” I whisper, pressing my fingertips to the glass.
I bite my lip to keep myself from barking out a snort.
It’s a candid, surely taken by Margot last Thanksgiving.
August and I aren’t the focal point of the picture, but it’s been zoomed in to showcase the fact that we’re absolutely death glaring at each other with our arms crossed over our chests, seats turned in the opposite directions of one another. It’s fucking ridiculous.
“August!” I practically cry. “We hate each other in this!” I toss the frame on top of the dresser.
“They say there’s a fine line between love and hate…” August spins me around and securely lifts me up by my ass. I wrap my legs around his middle and angle my face, searching for a kiss.
“That sounds like something Beth would say.” I giggle into him.
August walks out of the nursery and right into his—well, I guess now our—bedroom. He gently tosses me onto the bed, and I feel all of me bounce. August’s body hovers over my own.
“There are things I want to do to you right now, Daisy darling. And those things require you to not utter Beth’s, or anyone else’s name, except mine.”
“Oh.”
“Just oh?” Gus plays with the hem of my hoodie. Technically it’s his hoodie.
“I meant…” I drag out the word to stall. I don’t even know why I’m stalling. Maybe the last twenty-four hours are catching up to me.
Gus’s eyes soften and he caresses my cheek.
“Or we strip out of these clothes, because they reek of smoke, and we change into pajamas to go to bed. We can rain-check everything else.”
“Wait, no! No.” I snake my hands underneath his shirt, letting them roam across his skin, pulling him closer to me, scrambling to sway the direction Gus is trying to take this night in because he’s reading me wrong.
“I’m tired, but I’m also beyond fucking horny and seeing you go dad mode on a nursery I didn’t think we’d get started on until well into this pregnancy has made me borderline feral.
Please,” I plead. “Please fuck me, August.”
“Oh.” His body goes stiff.
“‘Just oh?’” I repeat his taunting words back to him.
Gus tumbles our bodies and flips us until I’m straddling him.
“The rest of our lives are gonna be fun, aren’t they?”