5. Harrison
5
HARRISON
I t’s not a great sign that my first thought when I wake is “ I need a drink. ” And today is worse. Now I’ve got Daisy here, a disturbingly adult version of Daisy who is all curves and pouty lips, bending over on my deck just in case I’d missed the fact that she has the most perfect ass God ever created.
I’ve got to get rid of her. The obvious solution, of course, is just to come clean to my friends, but that would mean admitting that I’ve been blatantly lying to them for months, and dealing with their less-than-helpful reactions—pity from Caleb and Beck; Liam pushing me to get back on the horse . All I want in the entire world is to be left alone, and if I came clean, I’d be guaranteeing the opposite for weeks or months to come.
I throw on sweatpants and a T-shirt. I resent that I’m forced to wear clothes in my own goddamned house—the one good thing about my divorce was the solitude, that I could wander around in boxers without an acerbic comment from Audrey—but I don’t need a repeat of yesterday’s erection incident.
To my vast relief, she doesn’t appear to be around when I get downstairs. I make a cup of coffee, add a splash of bourbon to it, and slump into a chair on the deck as I stare blankly at the view.
Across the street, one of those fucking surfers emerges from the staircase with his insanely hot girlfriend behind him—long blonde hair dripping down her back, hourglass figure barely encased by a wetsuit. Not looking at women other than my wife once came easily. After she stopped sleeping with me it got harder, and I guess there’s no reason to feel guilty about it now. I guess it’s perfectly fine that I’m checking out this lucky prick’s girlfriend as if my life depends on it.
He goes to a truck parked twenty yards from the staircase while she leans her board against the railing and unzips her wetsuit, leaving it hanging off her waist. The bikini she’s got on is barely up to the job of covering her lush curves. There’s an awful lot of smooth, tan skin on display.
And nipples. She’s shivering in her bikini, and I can make out those tight nipples from here. I take a swig of my coffee as if it’s bourbon and scald my tongue. Jesus Christ. It’s been a really long time. My envy of this guy has grown exponentially in seconds.
But when she picks up her board, she doesn’t walk to him. Instead, she crosses the street, and something sinks in my stomach. Because she’s in my driveway now and…
Oh, shit. The girl in question is Daisy .
Daisy, the toddler who used to follow us around. The kid in pigtails we taught to surf. The teenage brat doing her best to ruin her mom’s wedding.
She’s been gone for years, but in my head there was always a wall there, a wall that meant no matter how old she gets, you will never look at this kid the way you’d look at grown women .
I’ve now looked at her that way twice . And if she sticks around, it’ll undoubtedly happen again.
She disappears beneath the house, and a few minutes later she comes out to the deck with a towel around her waist and another around her shoulders, radiating the sort of contentment I haven’t felt in ages.
I remember it, though—that ecstatic exhaustion after a few hours of surfing, your skin tight from the saltwater, warming in the sun as you mentally relive your best ride. For a half second, I hunger for it. That feeling. My lost youth. I want it all back.
“You should have been out there,” she says, throwing her wetsuit over the rail.
“You shouldn’t have been out there,” I growl. “Especially not alone.”
She rolls her eyes. “A, I’m twenty-one, not twelve, and”—she gestures to the trucks lining the road—“B, I obviously wasn’t alone. There were a bunch of guys down there.”
I don’t like that either. The Horseshoe is too dangerous for her, and so are the guys who surf it. I’m responsible for Daisy if she’s in my home. I don’t need her taking off with some douchebag whose slight heroin habit she’ll only discover after she’s trapped in his unmarked van.
One more reason to get her out of here as soon as possible, though not the most important one. “So, how long are you planning to stay anyway?” I ask.
She looks over at me. “How long are you planning to put bourbon in your coffee?”
“As long as I please,” I reply, “because I’m thirty-two, this is my fucking house, and I’m off work.”
“Well, that sounds entirely healthy. Clearly, my work here is done.”
This entire situation is rich. I could fill a piece of college-ruled paper listing the various ways Daisy’s not been healthy over the last decade, and I’d only be hitting the high points. “Daisy, you stole a golf cart and crashed it into a ravine because your mom wasn’t paying enough attention to you, and you nearly burned down her house a month later. Do you really think I’d be inclined to take your advice? ”
Her tongue sweeps over her upper lip. “Wow, is that the best you can do? Reproaching me for things that happened when I was fourteen ? Even Mother Teresa was crashing golf carts when she was fourteen.”
If I wasn’t hungover, I’d probably laugh. Instead, the pounding in my head worsens. “Look, you can stay for a few days until this thing with your mom blows over. But I’m going to do exactly what I fucking want to, and you’re going to stay out of the ocean and also out of my hair as much as possible until that happens.”
“You seem to be forgetting something,” she says with a saccharine smile. “I’ve got you by the balls.”
“Excuse me?”
She picks up her phone and pretends to dial a number. “Hey, Liam? Yeah, I’m with Harrison, and I’m super worried. He’s not eating, he’s drunk all the time, and he’s been lying to you guys about this supposed girlfriend in LA. Get everyone down here, and tell Audrey too.”
My eyes narrow. She’s hit upon the ultimate last thing I want: Audrey learning I’m here in a cocoon of self-pity. Audrey feeling vindicated by the way she’s come out on top while I’m barely surviving.
“I already said you could stay,” I bark. “What more do you want?”
Her smile grows delighted, in a deeply evil sort of way. “I’m still figuring that out. All I know is it’s going to be super fun. Get all the drinking out of your system because you’re cut off after today.”
My head jerks toward her. “What?”
“You heard me. Drink all the booze you’ve got. But I want the old, sober Harrison back tomorrow, ready to do my bidding.”
The towel has slipped off her shoulders. I get a flash of ample cleavage just as she says the words ready to do my bidding in that husky voice of hers.
Fuck my life.
“You can never tell Liam you stayed with me,” I say.
Her eyes roll. “Well, I thought that was obvious. I mean, I couldn’t explain how I blackmailed you without ruining everything.”
“Yeah, I just—” I search for a way to say this delicately. “If it came out, it would look really bad.”
Because everyone would think we were sleeping together. And now her gaze is meeting mine, and we’re both thinking about it too, simultaneously. Fuck .
“Everyone would think you were the luckiest man in the world,” she says.
Yeah, probably. I’m not touching that one. “Your uncle wouldn’t. Neither would your mom.”
Her mouth curves into a smile. Maybe she’s noticed that I didn’t actually deny what she said, but how the fuck could I? I mean, look at her—
Stop, Harrison.
For the love of God, stop looking at her and stop thinking about how she’s changed.
I will walk away—as soon as I’m able. And then I’m going to avoid her until I’ve figured out how to get her the fuck out of my home.