Chapter 42
42
brYCE
Abbie’s sitting at the kitchen table devouring a bowl of Lucky Charms when I pull myself out of the spare room. My stomach growls at the sight of that sugary cereal, so I take the seat beside her and grab the box before dumping some into my hand.
I tip my head back and shovel it all into my mouth, then notice Abbie’s set her spoon in her milk-drenched cereal and is staring at me like I’ve just committed a crime.
“What?” I ask, cereal dust falling from my mouth.
“Why are you here, Auntie Bryce?”
“I had a sleepover. It’s something adults do.”
She cocks her head, sending one of her pigtails flopping into her face. “You had a sleepover with my dad?”
I accidentally swallow some of the unchewed cereal pieces and cough, my eyes bulging. Shaking my head, I press a hand to my sternum.
“What Auntie Bryce means to say, Abbie, is that no, she didn’t have a sleepover with me. She just needed somewhere to stay last night and couldn’t go home,” Darren says, interrupting from where he’s just joined us.
He leans against the side of the fridge with a mug of coffee in his hand that I contemplate stealing and a CPFD shirt on with matching black sweats. His hair has gotten too long, but if I tell him to cut it, he’ll grow it even longer just to spite me. I’ll have to get Abbie to bring it up to him sometime.
The little girl beside me stares up at him with such blunt adoration. She’s always thought he was a superhero, and fuck, he sure acts like it with her. Abbie is his entire life. Oftentimes, I’ve wondered how he even has any room left for anyone else.
Swallowing the broken bits of cereal down my now scraped throat, I nod at Abbie.
“I slept in the spare room.”
“Oh. Why?”
“I forgot my house key,” I lie.
Darren coughs to cover a laugh. “You finish up your cereal, bug. I’m going to talk to Auntie Bryce in the living room for a couple of minutes.”
“Can I come to the living room too?” she asks, already starting to lift her bowl from the table.
Darren leaves his spot and goes over to her. She focuses her doe eyes on him, but he only tightens her curly pigtail, not giving in. “Not this time. I’m going to tell her about all the new additions to your Christmas list, and we can’t risk you hearing, or we won’t be able to get you the things you want.”
She gapes, nodding enthusiastically. “Okay, Dad.”
I head to the couch and flop down on the thick cushions, shutting my eyes. It’s an expensive couch, but it fits the space, considering his fancy tastes. The entire house was designed by him and then constructed by one of the top companies in the province.
He originally bought the lot with the original house five years ago for a few pennies and then tore it down and built this place from the ground up. Sasha, his ex-wife, hated what he decided to do with the new house, but then again, I don’t remember her liking anything about Darren besides the things he did to try and make her happy .
“You know I don’t have a problem with you coming here whenever you need to, Rye. But if you’re going to use my house as a hiding spot, you can at least tell me what’s going on,” he says.
I open my eyes when he lifts my feet from the last cushion and sits in their place. He drapes them over his thighs and pats my ankle.
“Don’t pretend like you have no idea why I’m here. You called and texted a million times yesterday.”
“And you didn’t respond once before I found you hiding out on my porch.”
“I’m not a raccoon.”
His deep laugh fills the room. “You’re not. But you are upset, so talk to me.”
I rub my temples, my shitty sleep last night catching up to me. “I’m sorry for lying to you about Daisy. It was never supposed to come out like that. Fu—Frick, it wasn’t supposed to come out at all.”
With a glance at the little girl humming under her breath at the table, I rule out her hearing my slip-up.
“You don’t have to apologize to me. I was more worried about you,” Darren says.
“I’m fine, D. You know that I don’t care what’s being said about me. My concern is Daisy.”
He nods. “And that’s why you’re here. Let me guess, you told her that you felt too guilty to go home last night, even though this isn’t your fault.”
“It is my fault. That’s the problem.”
“Alright, let’s say it is your fault, then. What are you going to do about it?”
“I gave her the chance to walk away.”
Darren blows out a long breath, pushing further into the couch. “Of course you did.”
“What does that mean? ”
“When you said that to her, what did she say?” he asks, ignoring my question.
“She said she didn’t want to. But how can she make a decision that important so quickly? It’s not just that people are talking but that from now on, we’ll always be second-guessed. Are they really together? Is this another joke? ”
“So what? You know the truth, and so will those closest to you. Bryce, I’m going to hold your hand when I tell you this.” He does exactly that, humour glinting in his eyes. “You’re far more obvious than you think you are when it comes to Daisy. I’ve known for a long time that there was something there for you. Even if it was only from afar, you were interested. The only reason I kept it to myself was because I knew you weren’t ready to talk about it. Every time I tried, you were quick to clam up.
“I’m sure I can speak for all of us when I say that even if you had told us from the beginning that the relationship was a show for your mother, we wouldn’t have believed you. Johnny’s the only one who didn’t see it, but Daisy’s his twin. He’ll always see things differently.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or both. It could go any way at this point.
“Screw you, Darren,” I mutter.
He squeezes my hand and chuckles. “Screw me? Screw you, Bryce.”
“I still left the decision up to her, even if you do have a point. It felt right to give her control, considering I did get her into this mess, even if it wasn’t intentional.”
“You need to give your girl more credit.”
“I know.”
“Does she know about that?” he asks.
I follow his stare to where it’s been glued to my forearm. The clear wrap over my most elaborate piece feels suffocating, but this is one time I’m not going to risk fucking up the healing process.
“I only did it last night” is my answer .
“Is there a love language that specifies getting tattoos for your significant other? If there isn’t, there should be.”
“Isn’t that just acts of service?”
He gives his head a shake and releases my hand to scratch his jaw. “No. Too broad. You’re not going out and buying her a puppy. You’re altering your body.”
“Okay then. Let’s hear an idea.”
“What about love codes?”
My jaw goes slack. “Did you actually just come up with that on the spot?”
“I did,” he says through a smug smirk.
“Love codes,” I repeat, testing the feeling of it on my tongue. “I think Daisy would love that.”
“What about you?”
“I’d say yes, but you’re already a cocky ass without getting any extra praise from me.”
I might as well have just told him he was an artistic genius. The proud expression on his face is nice to see, though. He’s got light back in his eyes.
I’m beginning to think it’s back in mine too. While I might have dimmed it with my own actions, even just talking about Daisy is enough to fill me up with warmth. I don’t regret forcing her to take the time to think things through.
I’m not interested in her for only a few more weeks or months. I want her for the rest of them. And I need to know that she’s sure about taking that step with me sooner rather than later.
“You say the nicest things . . .” He cuts himself off and shoves off the couch, staring past me at the front window. An incredulous grin flips his entire expression into one that immediately has me on alert. “There’s no way.”
“There’s no way what?” I ask, shooting to my feet.
Darren sets his hands on my shoulders and brings me to the centre of the living room, directly in front of the window.
The laugh that comes out of me is so rare that it makes Darren’s hands tense on my shoulders. I feel the vibrations of the laugh all the way down to my toes and deep into my very bones.
My stomach cramps as it continues, but I don’t want it to end. Not when I shake out of Darren’s hold and whip open the front door, and not when I stand on the front porch and stare at where Daisy’s standing on the sidewalk.
I’m in rumpled, borrowed pajamas with my hair a greasy mess, but Daisy looks at me now the same way she always does. Like she couldn’t care less what I wear or how much makeup I’ve put on as long as I’m here, close to her.
“What are you doing?” I ask, gripping the porch railing.
The thin costume-store angel wings on her back ruffle in the wind, and the feathers around the hem of her short white skirt and sleeves of the matching long-sleeve look just as fluffy as they did the first time I saw them on her birthday last year.
“I haven’t really gotten started yet. You weren’t supposed to see me until after you heard me,” she replies, tugging at the ends of her wavy hair.
I curl my lips into a cheesy grin. “Would you like me to go back inside, then?”
“No, but maybe cover your ears?”
“What?”
She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she picks up the megaphone I hadn’t noticed at her feet and brings it to her mouth.
“Good morning, Cherry Peak! This is Daisy Mitchell speaking, and I wanted to make a special announcement.”
I stare at her, dumbstruck, my fingers growing weak around the metal railing. A second later, they slip from it entirely.
One of Darren’s neighbours watches us from his porch across the street with a newspaper in his hand, his rocking chair remaining completely still. The front curtains of the house two doors down from him part as a woman gawks at us and waves to someone behind her. A second person joins her, and I look away, uninterested in anyone but Daisy.
“I love Bryce Lemieux! I love her so much, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about that because I’m going to love her forever!”
Her eyes don’t waver as they remain fixed on mine, gleaming with more affection than I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how I manage to walk down the steps and through the grass to meet her, but somehow, I get close enough to take the megaphone for myself.
Bringing it up to my mouth, I palm her bare waist and say, “I love Daisy Mitchell, and I will for a long, long fucking time.”
Her smile destroys me just to build me back up again, this time with all of my crooked, mismatched pieces in their proper slots.
“Do you mean that?” she asks softly.
I drop the megaphone and reach for her face instead. The weight of her cheeks in my palms is just right. Fucking perfect. She holds my wrists, locking them in place.
I tap our noses together. “Love codes, Daisy.”
“Love codes?”
Her hold on my left wrist tightens when I try to pull my hand back, but once she looks just a bit higher, she gasps and releases me.
“What—when? Oh, Bryce,” she rambles, tugging my arm closer while leaning in to look. “Is that for me?”
“Love codes was Darren’s idea, but it’s . . . it’s us. I’ve always been able to express myself with art better than I ever could with words. And these tattoos, Sunshine, the one on your thigh and my ankle and now my arm, they’re my love language. I could ink your name into every inch of my skin and still try to make room to keep going,” I confess, staring down at the new addition to my sleeve.
The cherry tree isn’t the focal part anymore. Both the snake and panther aren’t watching over it so much as they are the field of daisies now surrounding the trunk. The only colour amidst the grey and black is yellow.
“I found myself in the basement last night with my tattoo gun in my hand. It’s not the first time I let my feelings for you control me while in that type of headspace. But this time was different. The piece I altered is complete now. It’s whole.”
Her eyes glitter with tears as she guides my arm to her mouth and kisses the raised skin. My nerves sizzle beneath her lips.
“Close your eyes,” she whispers, hot breath fanning over the field of daisies.
I shut them instantly and keep them that way while she shifts in front of me.
“Okay, open them.”
The moment I do, my heart rips through its restraints and tries to soar through my chest.
I’ve never had someone give themselves a tattoo for me. Daisy allowed me to give her one, but—but this is something completely different.
“Shade told me about the party last year. I meant to throw this costume into a donation bin a few days after, but for some reason, I couldn’t. I kept it at the back of my closet on the off chance I ever decided to wear it again. So, I know you’re not in tight red leather, but I think this counts as a redo,” she says.
Her nail traces the outline of the tattoo on the inside of her wrist that I can’t seem to look away from.
“I wanted to commemorate that night because even if nothing came of our matching costumes, I think I felt something when our eyes met. A spark, there then gone. And while I wish we could go back and have that proper moment, I think what we got instead was more than worth the wait.”
“Baby,” I croak.
The ice cube is small but detailed in the same way all of Shade’s designs are. Every crack and frozen detail is well placed, but it could be a fucking blank square for all I care. It’s the water dripping off the edges and the letters they’ve been designed to spell that has me lost for words.
Bryce .
The end of the e has been curled into a devil’s tail, and above the left corner of the B , two angel wings are spread wide.
“It’s small, but?—”
My mouth smashes against hers in a hard, rushed kiss, but there’s plenty of time for slow and gentle later. Right now, I’ve really just fucking missed my girl and could very well die without tasting her.
Daisy responds to my desperation with one of equal force. She’s the one to slip her tongue past my lips and moan low and long at the overwhelming sensations that follow. I swallow each one of those sounds.
“I love you. I love you,” I repeat against her warm lips.
She smiles and strokes my jaw. “I love you, Frosty.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
Daisy Mitchell loves me, and I think that might be my greatest accomplishment to date.