CHAPTER TWELVE
TRISTAN
I couldn’t possibly tell her that I had no intention of being alone again.
That if I could choose, I’d have her by my side, and I wouldn’t care in what capacity.
She could call herself a passenger if that made her feel safer. She could tell herself this was temporary. A strange detour she’d taken because she had nowhere else to go.
I didn’t care what she called it.
I just wanted her there.
I’d spent years making sure nothing could keep me anywhere.
Then Daisy climbed into my van, and the thought of her getting out felt fucking unbearable.
How do you expose yourself that soon to someone you’ve only recently met? Someone who looks emotionally fragile, like life has stolen a piece of their light?
Daisy had gone quiet after I mentioned the perk of being alone. She’d turned toward the window, pretending to be interested in the road while something troubled moved across her face.
I knew my words had hurt her.
I just didn’t know how to take them back without revealing too much.
I’d seen her watching that woman at the gas station. Daisy didn’t hide her feelings half as well as she thought. Her shoulders had tightened. Her eyes had dropped to her coffee. Then she’d eaten that cinnamon bun in a way that nearly made me forget we were sitting in public.
The thought that she might have been jealous sent something dark and warm through my chest. I didn’t get a kick out of wanting her to feel uncertain—I wanted her to know she didn’t need to be.
That woman could have stripped naked beside the fuel pump, and I still would have watched Daisy’s mouth.
Then she’d asked about marriage.
Like the question had come from nowhere.
Like she wasn’t really asking whether there would ever be room for someone beside me.
There was already room.
She was sitting in it.
She’s so fucking sad.
She kept her face turned toward the window. In the glass, I watched her mouth flatten every time she thought I wasn’t looking.
I couldn’t get enough of her.
Couldn’t get enough of her voice and her timid smiles. The way those smiles changed when she became bold and remembered what her mouth had done to me. She worried about her age, but she looked like she hadn’t lived life at all.
I wanted to bring that life to her.
Wanted her to experience this with me.
The road. The music. The mornings without clocks. Every pointless stop and beautiful place I found along the way. I wanted to watch her stop apologizing whenever she needed something. Stop looking guilty when I gave it to her anyway.
At the center of me, I wanted things I’d never thought of before. Wants that only hit me when I first laid eyes on her and grew stronger with every hour she remained beside me.
I wanted to bring her light. Watch her glow in the dark, if only to show her that life was still there, waiting for her to live it.
If I brought her into that light, if she glowed in the darkness and looked back at me with the same ache I carried for her, then I could admit that I wanted her in every possible way.
Not just for the road.
Not just until she decided where she was going.
I would follow her into the dark, not to find the light, but because she was mine.