2. Daisy
2
DAISY
O ne day, you’re simply lusting after a guy. Six days later, you’re breaking into his home.
To be fair, though, I’ve been lusting after Harrison for most of my life and waiting decades to break into your crush’s house is slightly more reasonable. Also, I’m not actually breaking in. I’m just sleeping on his deck while he’s out of town, and though this is probably still against the law, I don’t think Harrison would mind.
Okay, he might mind, because he’d be horrified by the idea of having such limited resources, horrified by the idea of little Lazy Daisy going through life without a trust fund to cushion her through life’s semi-homeless moments. I guarantee that his ex has never once been forced to sleep outdoors because she had nowhere else to go, but then again, Audrey does not have a mother like mine, one who claims she’s going through a divorce and begs you to return for the summer only to announce five days after you’ve arrived that the divorce isn’t happening and your odious stepfather is on his way home.
What she really said was “ Scott’s coming over to talk, and we’ll see what happens” but I know exactly what we’ll see means, because we’ve done this dance before. She might as well have put that wedding ring back on her finger. We’ll see means Scott’s moving in, and if my mother’s managed to save a penny over the past month, he’ll have convinced her to blow it on some stupid shit only he benefits from—a golf membership somewhere, a bacon-of-the-month club, an investment opportunity he claims will “pay off big.”
We’ll see means I gave up everything in DC for nothing and have nowhere to stay until August—a thought that makes my breath come fast and my eyes sting.
A thought that also led to the current break-in plan. It takes about thirty minutes to reach Santa Cruz from Elliott Springs, and another ten minutes to find the eye-popping vacation home Harrison and Audrey bought, which sits high atop a cliff, only separated from the ocean by a quiet two-lane road.
I still don’t get why they bought it—Audrey was the sort who’d only enjoy a beach if it came with a butler and cocktails—but I guarantee there’s a nice chaise on their deck just made for sleeping, probably with some artfully arranged Hermès blanket that’s never been used. And in the morning, when I’m not exhausted and distressed and my world isn’t caving in, the day will begin anew. I’ll do my morning exercises, borrow his outdoor shower, and go see if Liam’s “colleague”-who’s-clearly-his-girlfriend is gone so I can crash there. No, that won’t fix the utter trainwreck that is my life, but at least it’ll occur without me breaking into…er… borrowing someone’s home.
It’s late and silent. This makes me feel more criminal than I already did as I climb up the cement steps with one of my two suitcases, sagging with exhaustion, ready to sink into a soft chair.
Except there is no soft chair.
The only seating is modern and uncomfortable, without a single pillow or blanket. And it’s ice cold. Sure, there’s glass surrounding the deck, but the ocean breeze is still nippy tonight. I’ll freeze to death before anyone even gets the chance to arrest me.
“Fuck, Daisy,” I say with a sigh as I drop into a chair and press my head into my hands. “What now?” I’m too damn tired to drive back to Liam’s even if I was willing to ruin his fun, which means I’m sleeping in my car. I hate how much that sounds like something my father would do, but there’s no choice unless—
Unless…
I turn to the sliding glass door. I’m certain Harrison would have locked it. He’s not the type to make a careless mistake of any kind. But maybe, just maybe—made reckless by lust for the LA girlfriend—he didn’t.
I’d prefer he not have a girlfriend who makes him reckless with lust, but an unlocked door would be a decent consolation prize.
I rise and place my palm around the handle.
When it slides, I stare in shock, wanting to weep at my good fortune, but I was already about to weep at my bad fortune, so the desire is both happy and sad at once.
I grab my bag and hit a light switch as I step inside. The house has an open floor plan—a large living area with a kitchen/dining area at its far end. The décor, however, is as spare and cold as Audrey: hard, uncomfortable furniture that only looks good to people who don’t have to use it. Cement floors.
If this room was a person, it would say things like “ I can’t imagine flying in coach ” or “ I don’t understand people who eat bread .” I’ve heard Audrey say both.
Before I can think of more ways I hate this room, and also hate Harrison’s ex-wife, there’s a clink somewhere ahead of me—a noise that is distinctly, unnervingly human, and probably attached to the shadow now moving my way with heavy steps.
In true Daisy fashion, I remain frozen solid .
I’m not a dumb girl. Yes, I guess I’m dumb enough to enter a house that’s unlocked without questioning why it’s unlocked, but not so dumb that I don’t know I should run for my life.
I just can’t . My limbs are impossibly heavy. I’m not even sure I can breathe.
“Don’t know who the fuck you are,” the monster’s voice slurs, “but you’d better get the fuck out of my home cuz I’m not in the mood.”
Oh, God. It would be just like me to have broken into the wrong house. I manage to take a step toward the door just as the monster emerges into the light.
“Harrison?” I whisper.
I’m not sure why I ask. Obviously it’s Harrison. No one else is this tall, this broad-shouldered. No one else has that angelic bone structure and the most bitable lips God ever created. Except the square-jawed, endlessly responsible Harrison I remember would never sway drunkenly, clad only in boxer shorts, while gripping a fifth of bourbon.
And this one is doing all of the above.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, grabbing the back of a chair to stay upright.
My jaw falls. Because no matter how drunk he is and no matter how long it’s been since I saw him last, Harrison should still know who I am. “Jesus, Harrison, you’ve known me since I was a newborn. How much have you had to drink?”
His eyes narrow. “Daisy? Little Lazy Daisy?”
God, I hate that nickname, though I guess it’s better than Goth Wedding Barbie or the other variants he came up with. “Took you long enough,” I sigh, setting my bag down.
His gaze roams from my face down to my T-shirt and shorts before it jerks away. “You grew up.”
He says it the way someone else might say you’ve got a gun —as if this fact makes me a danger. He apparently thought I’d be stuck as a pouting teenager forever. “Right. It’s a thing that happens to humans over time, Harrison.”
Normally this would make him laugh, or smile, or say something funny in response. But I don’t even know this version of him, the one acting as if my presence is the worst thing that could possibly happen to him.
“Why are you here?” he demands.
I release the death grip I had on my keys and perch on the edge of the sofa. “Why are you here?” I counter. When Liam spoke to him this afternoon, Harrison claimed he was already in LA. He was “ clearly preoccupied, ” according to Liam, which forced me to envision Harrison having sex with someone who wasn’t me. “You’re supposed to be out of town.”
Harrison’s eyes darken. His scowl grows. “Something came up.” He collapses into the leather chair to his left. “I’m not sure why I’m explaining while you’re the one here committing a felony.”
I set my keys on the coffee table. “I got in a fight with my mom, and Liam’s got his new girlfriend over. I thought I could crash on your deck, but the door was open.”
“You thought wrong,” he says. “You’re lucky I wasn’t armed.”
I laugh quietly. “You’re too drunk right now to aim successfully. I think I’d have been okay.”
Which is weird. Since when does Harrison get drunk? He’s the guy who stays sober just in case the designated driver fails to. He’s the guy telling Liam to take it down a notch , the guy who says everyone needs to settle the fuck down when a fight’s about to start.
He remains endlessly in control when no one else is. For him to be drunk at all, much less so drunk he can barely stay upright, means something must have gone dramatically wrong.
I kick off my shoes and sink back into the uncomfortable couch, curling my legs beneath me. “What happened with the girl in LA? ”
He’s a lawyer and being quick on his feet is one of his greatest skills, yet he freezes at this very simple question. And why did he tell Liam he was already there ?
“There is no girl in LA,” I blurt loudly, my surprise echoing against the cement floors.
“What?” he asks. He looks around him, as if he’s seeking a way to distract me, which is exactly how a liar would respond. If someone suggests that you’ve fabricated your real girlfriend, you don’t look around for help.
It was mostly a guess on my end, but this pretty much confirms it. Honest, ever-responsible Harrison has told everyone that he doesn’t care about the end of his marriage and that he’s so busy with work and his new girlfriend that he can’t make time for them, and some of that is a lie. Maybe even all of it.
“I’m not sure why you’re lying, but either there was never a girl in LA or there’s no longer a girl in LA and—I’m spit-balling here, but I assume it’s because you were trying to get the guys off your back or didn’t want to admit to two failed relationships.”
He looks so crushed that I wish I’d kept the theory to myself. I wish I’d pretended it makes perfect sense that he’s sitting here drinking in his boxers when he’s supposed to be six hours south.
“Congratulations,” he says quietly, raising the bottle to his lips. “Now leave.”
I ignore him, and it’s really not out of self-interest. Yeah, I’m not eager to sleep in my car, but what really worries me is that he is the most wonderful of Liam’s friends, and I have no idea who he’s become.
He clearly hasn’t been eating. He looks like he could use a year of sleep and possibly a stomach pump if I knew how to operate one. It hasn’t diminished his loveliness one bit—he remains a 1950s Cary Grant/Gregory Peck lookalike come to life—but this just isn’t him .
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but…” In an unusual show of self-restraint, I manage to rein in my summation of how he’s fallen apart. “You seem exhausted. Maybe you should go to bed.”
His eyes narrow. “I was on my way to bed when you broke into my goddamned house.”
My gaze veers to the bottle in his hand. If Harrison’s now a guy who’d go to bed with a fifth of bourbon, the situation is even more dire than I thought.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” I say, rising.
He pushes to his feet, scowling as he lumbers toward the tall cement staircase, swaying as he climbs. I follow, calculating the odds of us both dying if he falls backward. At least I’d go out with him on top of me. The second silver lining of the evening .
He turns toward me when we reach the second floor. I expect him to reluctantly offer me a room, but instead, his brow furrows, and there’s something in his gaze. A spark of interest—a passing thought.
Men don’t see an aimless twenty-one-year-old when they look at me. They see curves and an overly wide mouth—features they associate with blow jobs and porn and whatever their most graphic fantasies entail—but until this moment, Harrison did not. He saw me as Lazy Daisy or Bridget’s bratty kid or Liam’s rebellious niece, eleven years younger than he is.
But he’s not looking at me as if I’m any of those things right now, and I can taste the impulse in the air. I can already feel the soft press of that first kiss, the way his weight would settle atop mine.
He’s drunk. It’s something he’d never consider sober, and I know that even if he propositions me, I can’t agree. But I’ve spent most of my life waiting for Harrison to give me that look, and he finally is, and I wish I could frame this memory and hang it over my bed forever.
I bet, even drunk, Harrison would obliterate every prior experience. He lurches into his room and slams the door behind him before I can consider all the ways he’d go about obliterating them, however.
I stumble into the nearest room and proceed to fall into a surprisingly comfortable bed, still fully dressed. Sure, Harrison made it pretty clear he wanted me to leave, but Sober Harrison would never allow me to sleep in my car. Sober Harrison would, in fact, give me a stern lecture about the dangers of sleeping in a car and make me swear I’d never do it again.
But…what the hell happened here? How is it possible that Harrison—suave, confident, accomplished Harrison—is now a guy who wanders through an empty house in his boxers, drinking straight off a fifth of bourbon? And how is it possible that I still find him so attractive anyway?
When I close my eyes, I’m no longer seeing Hot Married Lawyer Harrison. I’m seeing Half-Naked, Unrestrained Harrison in Need of a Shave.
I want the new version just as badly as I want the old one.
That vow of celibacy I just took already feels optimistic.