Chapter 19 #2
I never should’ve said any of those things that night.
I knew I was overstepping. I knew I was busting through a barrier I’d obeyed for years.
But she was so damn beautiful out there under the stars, and Todd was too busy drinking himself away and avoiding his parents, hanging with Scott and me, to even notice his girlfriend was upset.
Just like he’d been too distracted to realize that Daisy never liked daisies.
But I noticed.
My hand curled around my napkin. “It was a hypothetical.”
“No.” Her head swayed. “It wasn’t.”
“Daisy—”
“Was last night a hypothetical too?”
My hand released, the crumbled napkin falling like a paper grenade onto the counter.
“Tell me the truth,” she begged.
I gritted my teeth. It was one thing to torture myself all these years, unable to stop myself from wanting her. It was another thing to dig my own goddamn grave and confess what a fool I’d been.
“How long, Max?” I could practically hear the lump in her throat. “How long have you felt this way?”
There was no avoiding this, I reminded myself. She literally caught you with your dick in your hands and her name on your lips.
“Since the beginning.” I felt the force of her exhale from the other side of the counter.
“What?”
“I’ve wanted you since that morning in the coffee shop, Daze,” I forced the words out, freeing them from the prison they’d been locked in for years.
Her head swayed. “But you were meeting—”
“I was meeting Todd there, but I had no idea about you. Todd told me he was seeing someone, but he wouldn’t give me details—didn’t give me details.
Not even when he arranged a surprise meeting for us.
” Pain stabbed my chest like a thorn buried deep between my ribs.
“I thought he was introducing me to a potential investor, the way he was excited. I had no idea he…no idea you…”
No idea I was about to be introduced to the woman of my dreams as my best friend’s girlfriend.
“All this time, Max…” Daisy’s head kept twisting in disbelief, like if she shook it enough, my answer would turn into something different. Would mean something less. “Why did you never say something?”
I couldn’t tell if it was pain or anger that roughened her voice, and the glaze that came over her eyes made them too murky now to read.
“What was I supposed to say?” I bit out, scraping my plate clean and setting it in the sink. “Todd was my best friend. I’d never put that between us—put that between the two of you.”
“And what about me?” Her brow furrowed deeply. “Was I nothing compared to that?”
“Christ.” I drove my hand through my hair, the level of my voice rising.
“You were everything, Daze. Every fucking thing to me. The reason I don’t date.
The reason I don’t have a girlfriend. The reason I bought this house.
” My arms fell to my sides, all the fight going out of me in a single sentence. “And you wanted him.”
Her breath came out of her in a single burst. Like a balloon popping on the point of a needle.
“And every time I thought about ending things with Todd? Every time I came to you about his drinking? About how he never seemed to care? Never seemed to have any dreams or goals except those of his parents?”
My jaw erupted, the muscle firing like grenades had been daisy-chained together.
“You chose him, Daze. You wanted him, and even when you came to me, you came wanting to figure out a way to work through it. The right thing for me to do was to be there for the two of you,” I rasped. “Not exploit a moment of weakness to try to steal you from my best friend.”
“So you’re saying you were too much of a gentleman to tell me the truth? To be brave enough to tell me how you felt?”
“Dammit, Daze.” I swallowed, feeling like acid had been dumped down my throat, hollowing out every idea of honor I’d held onto.
“I won’t apologize for it. I care about him—about you.
I wanted the two of you to be happy if that was what you wanted, and it never seemed like it wasn’t.
So yeah, I did everything I could to make things work for you and Todd, to fix things, to help him, to make everything perfect for you because it was the right thing to do. ”
I’d thought her anger was bad. Her silence was worse.
“What are you talking about?”
I winced. Shit.
No. Fuck.
“Daisy—”
“What did you do, Max?”
“I talked to you. Talked to him.” I reached out and gripped the edge of the counter. “Little things…nothing, really. The peonies. I would send the peonies from him. He would always send daisies no matter how many times I told him they weren’t your favorite.”
The first tear that fell felt like a bullet to my chest.
“What else?” She was resolute, knowing that wasn’t the end of it. “You don’t do little things, Max. Not for me. You moved out of your apartment so I could stay there. You married me so the baby and I could have insurance. Nothing you’ve ever done for me has been little.”
I held my ground like a bull pawing at the ground. What was I trying to preserve? I’d already—thoroughly—wrecked the veneer of a friendship I’d spent years propping up.
“Tell me the truth,” she charged, the red flag waved.
“The notes. I helped him write them. The dates he’d take you on, I’d tell him about the Monet exhibit you wanted to see because you saw the billboard one time while we were out on deliveries and said you’d love to go see it.
The Titanic experience. The Albanian restaurant you kept saying you wanted to try… ”
Her cheeks were soaked now, but she stared at me like she hadn’t even noticed. “What else?”
I ground my teeth together. “The wedding. He was going to agree to do it at the courthouse. I was the one who asked Lou to use the inn. Set everything up. I went to the cake tasting. It wasn’t a big deal—”
“Not a big deal?” She chuffed, her tears burned away by the flames in her cheeks. “Every time I gave Todd another chance, it was because you were turning him into someone he wasn’t. You made me think I was remembering why I fell in love with him, when really I was falling—when really it was you.”
Her fingers chased the tears on her cheeks, and mine dug into the counter, furious to be standing on the sidelines.
“I regret it, Daze,” I said, my voice breaking all over the place.
“I regret being honorable. I regret being considerate. I regret not being a shitty best friend and swooping in on his girlfriend every single chance I got because you deserved so much better, and I wanted to be the man to give it to you.”
“So why are you holding back now?”
“Because I don’t want you to regret being with me.”
“I regret these years of not being with you, Max. Why would I ever think that?”
“You know, for days…weeks, I’ve thought Todd was an asshole. A coward for what he did…how he left me—”
“He is—”
“Well, then, he’s a brave coward.” She pushed back from the counter and stood. “At least when he felt too much, he acted on it. Maybe in the worst, most painful, most horrible timing way, but at least he acted on what he wanted—or didn’t want—instead of continuing down a path that wasn’t right.”
I recoiled like a bomb had just gone off.
Todd…brave for leaving her. I wanted to call her crazy for thinking it, that the man who’d left her pregnant and waiting at the altar was any shade of brave, but I couldn’t get her point out of my mind long enough to protest.
His choice was horrible. The way he went about it, callous and cruel. But with all of that stripped away, was Todd brave for walking away from something he knew wasn’t right?
Was he brave for acting on what he felt?
Had I been a coward for not?
“Daisy…” I was in front of her in two steps flat.
“No.” Her head shook, and she stepped back like a caged animal, angry and afraid.
“Please.”
A knock sounded loudly on the door a second before Harper’s voice yelled, “Hello? Anybody home?”
Shit. Perfect fucking timing…
“Yeah,” I clipped and moved away from Daisy, hearing my sister approach.
“Is everyone clothed?”
“Harp—”
“Kidding,” she gushed as she strode into the kitchen, stopping when she saw Daisy and me. Her gaze swung between us.
“Do you need something?”
“Yeah,” she returned, staunchly folding her arms. “Daisy.”
My head cocked.
“I went to the shop to pick her up this morning because I told her I would give her a tour of my apiary, and imagine my surprise when she wasn’t there.”
Daisy let out a whimper. “I’m so sorry, Harper.”
“I called both of you,” she continued, at which point both Daisy and I looked around sheepishly for cell phones that weren’t in sight.
“And then finally got a hold of Dad, who told me you were here…and why.” She went to Daisy and pulled her in for a hug.
“I’m sorry.” My sister squeezed her tight, and I watched as Daisy relaxed into the embrace, hating myself even more.
I should’ve never let her stay in the bathroom last night, no matter what she said she wanted.
“I just wanted to come check on you and see if there was anything I could do,” Harp said and released her. “We can go to the hives another day—”
“No,” Daisy interrupted firmly. “I want to go this morning. Please. I could use the drive”—her eyes flicked to me—“and a distraction.”
“If you’re sure…”
“Just let me grab my sneakers. I’ll be right back,” came Daisy’s answer as she went upstairs. I made a note to bring all her shoes back to the main floor.
“What did you do?”
I turned to find my sister’s scowl. “What are you talking about?”
Harper stared at me, and I felt her gaze penetrating right through all the holes Daisy had left in my chest.
“You told her, didn’t you?”
“Harper—”
“You told her you’ve been in love with her all these years?”
Love. I tensed.
“I warned you. You were being too much of a gentleman.”
“You don’t understand,” I groaned and shook my head, not in the least bit of a mood to explain it to her.
“No, I think I understand perfectly,” Harper stepped closer to me and hissed, Daisy’s footsteps getting louder toward the stairs again. “Learning that Prince Charming was too chivalrous to step in when she was falling for the villain is a hard pill to swallow.”