Chapter 13
Daisy
Daisy tried to escape every time a song ended, but kept getting intercepted by another person offering a dance.
She traded dances for phone numbers, telling each person about her bet.
They were happy to help. Who would’ve thought her teenage swing dance obsession would come in handy over a decade later?
The moves were easier to pull off than she remembered, and dancing was about to win her two bets.
She couldn’t help but peek at Connor when she was lucky enough to face his direction. He stared daggers her way each time she caught a glimpse. The hot and cold drove her crazy. Daisy wished he would march over and ask her for a dance himself, but he never did.
By the time her fifth dance ended, Daisy was short of breath, sweating, and far too sober. She abandoned the dance floor, claiming she needed a breather.
Connor sat alone in the booth. She smiled and lifted her sweaty hair off her neck as she sat across from him. He passed her drink to her.
“Having fun?” Connor asked.
“Yes, but I needed a break. You don’t look like you’re having fun, though.”
He must have switched to beer since he focused on picking the sticker off a bottle. “This isn’t really my scene.”
She studied him, taking in the glassiness of his eyes. The flush on his cheeks. “Oh? What is your scene?”
“Somewhere quieter. I’ve never been a party person.”
“I have a quieter evening planned for tomorrow, if that helps. Just the four of us at the cabin.”
His expression softened. “That does help. I liked the video game.”
“Your nephew told me.”
“Yeah? Why were you at practice the other day?”
If he had given her the opportunity to drink a little more before he asked, she might have answered him.
The podcast was her baby. She trusted the Connors, especially Beanie.
But if she said her dreams out loud to too many people, it would hurt worse if she failed.
Plus, she’d said some mean things about the Connor line in the earliest episodes, and she didn’t want any of them to think she didn’t have their backs.
“Curiosity, I guess,” she answered him. It wasn’t a complete lie. “You guys looked better. You were working as a team.”
“We were. It hasn’t come through in a game yet, though.”
“It will. Give it time. I can see you bonding right before my eyes.”
“Ha. Bonding. Is that what it is when I’m tempted to strangle them for the shit that comes out of their mouths?”
“They are kind of idiots. They’re adults, but twenty-one and twenty-two is barely adulthood.”
They watched the rookies flit from table to table, both boys flirting with anyone who would give them the time of day. Most people did. Their charm was hard to ignore.
Valentine stuck close to Hazy’s side. When a girl would talk to him, he’d sidestep and introduce her to Hazy.
When Hazy struck out, Valentine was right behind him with another person to introduce.
It seemed weird. Valentine could be using this as an opportunity to flirt for himself.
As far as Daisy knew, he didn’t have any romantic attachments.
The next time Hazy and Valentine moved on from a group of people, she grinned at Connor, downed a warm shot, leaned across the table, and shouted, “Do you wanna have some fun?”
“Depends,” he said. “Is the fun karaoke or dancing that could put us in the hospital?”
She shook her head and popped the p when she said, “Nope. Watch this.”
She sifted through her clutch, reapplied her lipstick, and fluffed her hair. Then she exited the booth and strutted her way over to where Hazy talked with a woman at the bar.
He stood close enough to kiss the woman. Daisy barged right in. She slid her hand around Hazy’s shoulder, forcing him to step back and acknowledge her.
“Hi, Honey,” she said. “Are you about done here?”
He glared at her. She looped her arm around his waist and pulled him into her, gazing at him with the most adoring smile she could muster. Then she stuck out her hand to the woman, who seemed beyond confused.
“I’m Daisy.”
The woman shook her hand and said, “I’m Amber.” It was more of a question than a statement.
Daisy squeezed between Hazy and Amber, forcing Hazy away from the woman. “Do you live around here?”
“Yeah,” Amber said. “I live in town. You don’t?”
Daisy shook her head. “We live in the city. I come for work sometimes, though. This bar reminds me of my hometown.”
The woman warmed to Daisy, and Hazy threw his arms in the air in frustration. He stalked back to the booth. When he was out of earshot, she told Amber, “Him and I aren’t together, but we have a bet going. Want to give them a show?”
Amber grinned. “I did kind of like him. He’s fucking hot. But messing with him is fun too.”
Amber reached out and stroked Daisy’s arm, and Daisy stepped closer. “It’s the standard phone number bet. If I win, he has to sing a karaoke song. I’m ninety percent sure I can get the three guys I came with to sing an NSYNC song by the end of the night.”
Amber threw her head back and laughed. “I can’t wait to see that.” She stepped closer to Daisy, their bodies almost flush together and, leaning forward, whispered in her ear, “Brush my hair out of my face.”
Daisy giggled and followed the order, her fingertips lingering on Amber’s face. “Are they watching?”
“Yeah. Hazy looks annoyed, but the other guy looks like he wants to throw me in a dumpster. And the real young one just seems happy to be here.”
Rolling her eyes, Daisy stepped away from Amber and handed her a napkin. “Can I get your number? You can give a fake one.”
Amber wrote her name and number across the top of it before folding it and handing it to Daisy.
“It’s the real one. You should keep it. Maybe we can hang out when you’re around for work.
Not a lot of people our age out here.” Her smile turned sly.
“Or you can give it to him. He seems like he might be fun for a night or two.”
Daisy was pretty sure every single person of age within a thirty-mile radius was in this bar, but in the grand scheme of things, pickings were pretty slim. She gave Amber a parting smile and returned to the booth to confront a seething Hazy.
“That’s not fair,” he bitched when Daisy could hear. “You cheated.”
Daisy rearranged her face into a mocking pout. Connor made space for her at the table.
“Not true,” she replied. “We never said no interfering.”
“It was implied. Beanie, tell her it was implied.”
Daisy raised her eyebrow at a scowling Connor. He sided with her. “I don’t think it was.”
Hazy shot Valentine a pleading look, but his was no match for Daisy’s puppy dog eyes. With one look at her, his shoulders drooped. “I have to side with Daisy on this one. It was a smart play.”
Hazy huffed out a sigh. “Fine. I’ll interfere too.”
Daisy grinned at him. “Oh, I don’t need to leave the table again tonight. I already have you beat, and I didn’t need a partner.” She stared at Valentine, who grinned shamelessly back.
Hazy’s jaw dropped. “How? You spent the whole time dancing! How many numbers do you have?”
Daisy laid out her six napkins. Five from the dances she traded, and one from Amber.
Hazy, clearly pissed, pulled five napkins from his pockets.
Daisy studied them. “Huh, you did better than I thought.”
“Yeah, I would have you beat if you didn’t cheat.”
“We already established it wasn’t cheating. How about instead of being a sore loser you use the,” Daisy twisted her wrist to check her watch, “twenty-seven minutes you have left before karaoke to go get more numbers? I’ll do you a solid and keep my ass planted right here in this booth.”
Hazy chugged half his drink and stood. Valentine tried to follow him, but Daisy stopped his movement. “Uh-uh. No wingman. He has to do it on his own merit.”
Valentine scooted his butt into the booth. Daisy rose from her seat, and Hazy threw a fit. “You said you wouldn’t leave the table!”
“Relax!” She waved a hand, signaling for Connor to get up so she could scootch in first. “I’m switching seats.”
Hazy gave her a suspicious once-over. “Why?”
“Because I want to! You’re wasting time.”
She was scheming, but she had a point about the time. Hazy scoped out the room and approached a table of young women.
She slid into the booth, and Connor followed, trapping her once again. Daisy handed Valentine and Connor each a napkin. “Numbers, please.”
Connor started writing his number without further questions. Valentine looked at her, incredulous. “That’s cheating.”
“How? I’m at a bar. Asking single men whose phone numbers I don’t already have for their numbers. It seems fair to me.”
Valentine squinted at her, trying to find a hole in the logic. Eventually, he wrote his phone number on the napkin and passed it to her with a sigh. “He’s going to be so mad.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The bartender brought more drinks, and Daisy claimed a shot, working to maintain her exact level of buzzed.
Connor still seemed cranky. Tipsy enough to brave touching him, she rested her hand on his shoulder.
He relaxed the tiniest amount into her touch.
“Are you okay?” She sat right next to him, but this close to the speaker she still had to raise her voice to be heard.
“Better now that you’re back. You said this would be fun.”
“What? Watching me steamroll Hazy wasn’t fun?” She was petting his arm now, unwilling to stop. He didn’t seem to mind.
His lips twitched, and he took a drink. “Okay, that was a little fun. It was the flirting afterward I didn’t like.”
Daisy’s breath caught, and her fingers dug a little too hard into Connor’s arm. “I think Amber is straight. She was just on board to mess with Hazy.”
“Funny, I was hoping you would tell me you’re straight.”
She forced herself to breathe, even though the man she’d wanted for a decade expressed interest in her love life. She had to continue functioning. “Does it matter?”
“You were pretty convincing over there.”
Valentine’s eyes volleyed between them, tracking their conversation but never butting in.