Chapter 19
The kitchen looked like a storm had come through and changed its mind halfway.
Cabinets lay splintered on the floor. Tile shards glittered across every surface. A fine haze of dust hung in the air, softening the edges of the destruction. And right in the middle of it sat Daisy, cross-legged on the floor, a letter trembling in her hands.
I’d let her wreck the place.
Every instinct I had screamed to step in, to fix it—but she didn’t need fixing.
She needed the chaos. The swing. The noise.
The motion. She’d needed something she could hit that wouldn’t hit back.
After the hand she’d been dealt—losing her sister, losing her job, losing the life she thought she’d built—it was a miracle she was still upright at all.
Now, watching her read the letter, I could see the anger draining out of her one word at a time.
By the time she reached the end, her shoulders shook with tears she’d been holding back since the moment she arrived. She folded the paper, pressed it to her chest, and closed her eyes like she could keep the world from falling apart if she held tight enough.
Something in me split open.
The radio changed songs, rock music faded into something slower, steadier—piano first, then a familiar ache that settled deep in my ribs. I nudged the volume up on Love Will Keep Us Alive, letting the song fill the wrecked kitchen, the dust, the quiet grief sitting on the floor.
When I stepped closer, Daisy blinked up at me through tears and drywall dust. “What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory,” I said, holding out my hand.
Her voice was rough as she wiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie, smearing dust instead of clearing it away. “And what’s that?”
I wiggled my fingers. “We dance.”
A breathy huff escaped her—half laugh, half disbelief—as she slid her hand into mine. “Ty, I can’t dance right now.”
“That’s fine.” I gave a gentle tug. “Just stand.”
I pulled her close until her chest brushed mine. With our hands clasped, we weren’t quite hugging, but her presence anchored me and I hoped mine did too.
“This is dumb,” she whispered, voice fraying as her free hand settled against my chest.
“Maybe.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and tugged her nearer. “But maybe dumb is what we need.”
I felt her laugh more than I heard it, a soft tremor against my ribs. Little by little, she began to move with me. The stiffness eased from her shoulders as I guided us in a slow two-step, broken tile crunching under our shoes like a metronome.
Her fingers brushed my neck. “You’re covered in dust,” she murmured.
“Then we’re a matched pair.”
With a long exhale, she deflated, her forehead falling against my chest.
Holding her felt natural. Like I’d been built for it. Like if she leaned hard enough, I’d find a way to hold it all.
“You asked me last week why I didn’t ask for your number that night.”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t lift her head.
“I wanted to.” My throat tightened around the truth. “Fuck, I wanted to. But I didn’t have anything to give you.”
Her fingers curled in my shirt.
“My life was empty back then,” I went on. “I’d just retired. I didn’t know who the hell I was without hockey. No plan. No home that felt like mine. And you were this bright, impossible thing. All light and laughter. Like a dream I didn’t deserve to touch twice.”
She squeezed my hand, still silent.
“I told myself it was better that way,” I admitted. “That you’d go live your big, messy, beautiful life, and I’d get my shit together. But I never stopped wondering where you ended up. Or if you found someone who made you laugh like I did.”
Without thinking, I brushed stray hair from her face and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Barely there. Pure instinct. But the second I did it, my pulse kicked hard.
What the hell was I doing?
I wasn’t supposed to cross that line. I wasn’t supposed to want to.
But her weight against me felt too easy. Too good.
She didn’t move. Neither did I. I rested my chin on her head, breathing her in like oxygen.
“I thought you couldn’t dance,” she said, sidestepping everything I’d just laid at her feet.
“Didn’t, not couldn’t.” I tightened my arm around her. “But someone once told me almost anything can be solved with a dance party.”
She tipped her head back, and the sight of her smile—small, exhausted, and real—nearly took my knees out.
“Is it working?” I asked, thumb brushing her cheek.
Her gaze flicked over my face like she couldn’t find a safe place to land. Then she nodded once and folded back into me.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I think so.”
The music wrapped around us. For a long moment, nothing existed beyond the quiet rasp of our breathing and the slow sway of her body softening against mine.
Then her voice came, barely there. “You keep thinking you have to earn it somehow—love, worth, a place to belong. But you don’t, Ty,” she whispered. “You’re enough. You always were.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut.
“Daisy,” I warned, but there was no warning left in it. Only surrender. My hand slid up her back to the base of her neck, turning her face toward me. She came easily, eyes wrecked and open.
“Tell me not to kiss you,” I said, voice gone to gravel. “Tell me this is too complicated.”
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the inches between us. My thumb traced her jaw. Her eyes dropped to my mouth, then lifted again.
“I’ve waited for three years, Ty.”
My name in her voice undid me completely.
Fuck it.
The space between us vanished.
In an instant, I caught her mouth with mine.
The moment our mouths met, the noise in my head went quiet. Like some restless part of me had finally found where it was supposed to land. And the rest of me followed without hesitation.
The kiss started soft, almost careful. But the restraint didn’t last.
Three years of wanting broke loose all at once, rushing through me like a storm surge. My hands slid to her waist, pulling her closer, deeper into it.
Her fingers dug into the back of my neck, dragging me in as if she couldn’t bear even an inch between us. I groaned against her mouth, and she answered by arching into my touch.
I lifted her without thinking. She wrapped her legs around my waist and I backed us to the kitchen table and set her down, my body pressing between her knees.
Everything was heat and breath and disbelief that this was happening.
When her tongue brushed my lips, I opened for her. When her hands tugged at my shirt, I peeled it off and tossed it somewhere into the wreckage. When she shifted against me, desperate and searching, I felt it everywhere.
Anything she wanted from me, it was hers.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” I muttered against her mouth, the words spilling out like a confession. “You have no idea how bad.”
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes blown wide. “Then show me.”
I didn’t hesitate. My hands slipped beneath her hoodie, lifting it over her head.
Underneath, she was barely dressed—sports bra, tiny shorts, all warm skin and vulnerability that I’d gotten peaks of in her adrenaline-fueled rage. But seeing her like this, spread out before me?
My breath punched out of me.
“Daisy…” My voice went rough. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
“Off,” she whispered, lifting her hips. “Take them off.”
I flattened my palm over her instead, feeling the heat of her through the fabric, the way she moved against me.
It damn near tore me apart.
But something in me held. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I wanted it all.
“Not today,” I murmured, kissing her again, slower this time. “Not like this.”
Her breath shuddered. “Then when?”
She trembled when I pulled her closer, when my forehead pressed to hers.
“Haven’t I waited long enough?”
“Daisy,” I groaned, kissing her like I could pour everything into it—every missed chance, every night I’d wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t walked away.
Her fingers slid into my hair. “What are you waiting for?”
The words lit something fierce inside me.
“I want you so fucking bad,” I rasped. “But I want to take my time. I want to do this when it isn’t grief and adrenaline holding the wheel.”
Her eyes flickered, softening even through the want. I kissed down her throat, then over the thin fabric of her bralette, testing every inch of my restraint with each little moan she let go.
“Please, Ty. Make me forget,” she begged, her core grinding down on me in search of friction. “Get me out of my head.”
The tremble in her voice almost did me in, confused by what the right thing to do here was.
She dragged my face back up to hers, pupils blown out and full of need.
She was fucking stunning, so beautiful I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t remember why this was—
A car horn blared outside the window, echoing off the kitchen walls.
We both jolted.
Daisy blinked, dazed, like she’d been dropped back into her body too fast. Her hand slid from my chest, leaving heat in its wake. “What was that?”
I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice. “Delivery truck, maybe.”
Another honk, followed by the sound of car doors.
Her cheeks flushed pink, her gaze darting to the window before landing on the disaster around us—the splintered cabinets, the shards of tile, our clothes scattered on the floor.
And just like that, the spell broke.
“I, uh…” She cleared her throat, looking at anything but me. “I should go see if that’s Junie.”
“Yeah.” My voice came out low as I rested my forehead on her shoulder. “Okay.”
She slid out from under me, then bent to grab her clothes. Through the open window, the breeze carried the sound of the car door slamming and voices outside—Stevie’s laugh, Junie’s chatter.
I turned toward the wrecked kitchen, dragging a hand over my face. My pulse still thundered, my body aching with everything that had almost happened.
“Hell of a time to be early for once, Stevie,” I muttered.
With a sigh, I forced myself to pick up the mess.