Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
It was very hard to sit next to someone who’d had his hand down your pants making you come harder than you had in a long time and just pretend like everything was normal. But thanks to the final Beltane planning meeting, that was exactly what Daisy was being forced to do.
She had been trying to be cool since The Great Orgasm Incident, which was what she was calling it in her head, but for the past forty-eight hours, she hadn’t stopped thinking about it.
About how good it had been.
About how sexy Elliot was, how competent and confident he was.
About whether or not it could happen again. Or if it should happen again.
About Elliot saying he was afraid of falling in love with her.
About how she was becoming more and more afraid of that herself.
The Great Orgasm Incident had unlocked a lot of shit for her, and now she had to sit here at this town meeting and pretend to care about whether the food trucks would set up outside of the town hall or on Main Street.
And she did not care.
‘Well, we care, Daisy,’ Nancy, head of the Beltane committee, said, eyeing her over her meeting notes.
Oops, apparently, she’d said that out loud.
‘Right, sorry.’
‘I think we’re all agreed that the food trucks should line up along Main Street,’ Nancy said, moving on. ‘That clears up space for the stage in front of the town hall.’
‘What’s the stage for?’ Elliot leaned over, whispering in her ear.
Daisy suppressed a full-body shiver at his nearness. ‘The crowning of the May Queen.’
‘What does that entail?’ he asked, but Daisy didn’t have time to explain before Tammy and Marissa, the other members of the Beltane committee were chiming in with tasks left to be completed.
‘As you all know, folks have been casting their ballots all week for this year’s queen, and we are looking for help tallying the votes,’ Tammy started.
Annie nudged Daisy from her other side. ‘I’ve got my money on Andy,’ she whispered. ‘Do you want in on the pool?’
‘We don’t even know who the finalists are yet.’
Annie looked at her like she was being ridiculous. ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Daisy conceded. ‘Andy is a shoo-in. I’ll put my money on him.’
Annie grinned.
Bennett turned around from his seat in front of them. ‘You’re betting on the wrong horse, ladies. This girl right here is going to win.’
Kira rolled her eyes. ‘Please don’t refer to me as a horse.’
‘Sorry, babe. But you are totally going to win.’
Kira just shook her head with a laugh. ‘I never should have let you nominate me.’
‘Did you vote, Elliot?’ Bennett asked.
‘Uh … yeah. Of course.’
‘For Kira, right?’
Elliot’s gaze flicked from Bennett’s to Daisy, but she couldn’t save him from Bennett’s Kira for May Queen campaign. He’d been going on about it all month. He even made posters and buttons. She just shrugged.
‘Well, I voted for Gladys, actually,’ Elliot confessed.
Bennett groaned so loud that Nancy cleared her throat and glared at him.
‘Sorry,’ he mouthed and gave Daisy and Elliot an apologetic smile before turning around.
‘I liked the changes to the pancake house. Seemed like a good reason to vote for the owner. What should I have been looking for in a May Queen?’ he whispered, sounding suddenly concerned, like his vote for May Queen could have actual consequences.
Daisy patted his knee. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. The May Queen doesn’t exactly have a lot of political sway. It’s more of a figurehead position.’
He huffed a laugh.
‘We also need a volunteer to add up the money we took in from the sale of the voting ballots,’ Marissa added.
‘And what exactly does the Beltane committee do?’ Daisy asked, eliciting a laugh from Annie and a glare from Tammy.
‘We’ve been planning the logistics for months,’ Marissa said, not deterred by Daisy’s comment.
Daisy was being unnecessarily rude. She knew that.
She normally saved her town meeting arguments for important things, like the fight to put a cap on town bake sales (an insane idea) or the petition to move the farmer’s market inside of the town hall for the winter (very smart and something she argued in favor of for months).
Hassling the Beltane committee about their work wasn’t exactly a hot button issue for her.
But Elliot’s leg was pressed against hers and his steady presence was making her feel…
Like she may burst.
‘And you’ve done a wonderful job.’ Mayor Kelly stepped back up to the podium. ‘Anything else we haven’t covered?’
Nancy looked back at her notes. ‘Let’s see … the fire department is going to handle the raising of the maypole. Miss Janet’s Little Tots dance class have been rehearsing the maypole dance for months.’
‘Since Christmas!’ Janet called from her seat in the crowd. ‘And they’ve really got it down. They rarely get tangled in each other’s ribbons anymore.’
Nancy looked at her skeptically. ‘Let’s try to make sure they don’t get tangled at all.’
‘Of course.’ But even Janet looked skeptical now. Daisy didn’t envy her the job of getting twenty five-year-olds to weave in and out and back and forth around a giant pole holding a forty-foot-long ribbon and somehow not crash into each other.
‘Cliff’s Midnight Dreamers are set to perform.’
Noah hooted from the back and Daisy caught sight of Cliff shaking his head with a begrudging smile.
‘And Logan and Bennett have offered to keep our bonfire going all night.’
‘Ben sure keeps me going all night,’ Kira said to plenty of whistles and laughs from the crowd.
Nancy just pursed her lips like she was still dealing with kindergarteners and continued down her list. ‘Daisy, how are the flower crowns coming?’
‘Nearly done.’ She and Iris had worked their fingers to the bone to get them finished in time.
Daisy braced herself for someone to argue about her providing the flowers again, but no one did.
Elliot gave her knee a squeeze. Daisy didn’t dare look at him.
If he was smiling at her with that damn blush on his cheeks, she might implode.
‘Great,’ Nancy tucked away her list into her back pocket. ‘Then I think we are all set to welcome summer!’
‘Everyone knows it’s only the first of May, and still far too cold out to be summer, right?’ Kira whispered.
Annie leaned forward. ‘It’s an ancient tradition, babe. Plus, it’s fun. Just go with it.’
‘You can hang out by the fire with me,’ Bennett said, slinging his arm around Kira’s shoulders, and she immediately leaned into him.
Daisy sat up straighter to avoid pressing her arm against Elliot’s even as he leaned to whisper in her ear again.
‘I’m excited to go with you,’ he said, his words tickling her skin. ‘Sounds like a fun night.’
A fun night.
A fun night of simultaneously wanting to let Elliot do magic with his hands again and wanting to run far away from this thing that was definitely going to break her heart.
A fun night for sure.
* * *
Five days later, on the morning of the Beltane festival, Daisy had decided to get back on track with this fake relationship. Fake being the key word.
Yes, The Orgasm Incident had been fun, but Daisy had a heart to protect and business to save. She didn’t have time for fooling around.
With that decided, she was spending the morning loading up Logan’s truck with her table and tent and several hundred flower crowns. She was heading back out to the truck with a cooler filled with crowns, when she nearly ran straight into her grandmother.
‘Hey, Grandma. What are you doing here?’ she asked, handing the cooler off to Logan.
‘I have something for you.’ Her grandmother had a cardboard box in her arms. She walked into the shop with Daisy right behind her. She unceremoniously dropped the box onto the counter, brushing the dust off her hands.
‘What is it?’
‘Some things I thought you might be interested in since you keep asking about dead relatives all the time.’
‘Grandma, it was like twice.’
‘Still, thought you might want them.’
Daisy peered into the box. It was filled with old notebooks and photos and shop ledgers, the pages yellowed and worn.
‘Wow, this is actually amazing.’
Grandma June shrugged like she wasn’t interested in looking at the past and couldn’t quite understand why Daisy wanted to.
‘I hope it’s useful.’
‘Where did you find all of this?’ Daisy asked, riffling through the pictures.
Some were newer, glossy and in color. She found a few of herself as a baby, her parents on their wedding day.
Others were old and brittle and in black and white, with names and dates scrawled on the backs.
Arthur 1943, Emilie 1956, John and Lyddie 1933. Decades passed through her fingertips.
‘Remember when we had the shop renovated a few years back?’
Daisy looked up from her digging. ‘When I was five?’
Grandma chuckled. ‘I guess it was more than a few years! I had to clean out the back apartment, and I found a bunch of my parents’ old things.
Some of it felt worth keeping. Or I just felt guilty throwing it all away.
I’ve added to it over the years. Anyway, I’m sure my father’s sister, Daisy, whom you’re so interested in, makes an appearance in some of those old photos. ’
Daisy gave her grandmother a big hug. ‘Thank you! I’m sure it will be useful.’
Grandma June patted her back. ‘You’re an odd duck, Daisy-girl. But I love you.’
‘Love you, too. Can’t wait until I have time to go through all this.
’ Great-Aunt Daisy was never far from her mind as she worked in the shop, probably standing in the exact spot her aunt had.
Did her aunt like working in the shop, did she take pleasure in arranging flowers into something new and beautiful like Daisy did?
Did she like going home smelling like roses and lavender?
What did that Daisy think about as the sun moved throughout the day, throwing different colors through the stained glass and onto the wood floor? What did she want with her life?