31. Harrison
31
HARRISON
T hings turned bad with Audrey a year into our marriage, when her brother died, but even before that they were never especially good. She wasn’t hungry for things the way Daisy is—she wanted jewelry on our anniversary, a photo of us that would make a good Christmas card, the mortgage refinanced when rates dropped—things that would satisfy her for five minutes and then mean nothing again.
And she was bothered by the most trivial shit while pretending the big issues weren’t there. “She’s wearing white a month after Labor Day,” Audrey said of a woman we saw at dinner. We’d had nothing to say to each other through the meal, we hadn’t had sex in a month…but the fact that someone was breaking a stupid fucking fashion rule was an issue worthy of notice. She remained irritated by that for hours.
If she hadn’t cheated, I’d have stayed with her forever because it would have been the right thing to do, and I’d have been miserable, while what’s occurring with Daisy is unequivocally the wrong thing to do and it makes me happier than I’ve ever been before .
We surf most nights. We have sex on every surface of my home. Even the garage floor isn’t left unscathed, which is what happens when Daisy insists on “helping” me out of my wetsuit.
I now arrive at the office each morning exhausted from the lack of sleep and riding a wave of dopamine that leaves me feeling as if I could lift a car over my head.
If her previous relationships were anything like ours, I understand why men put her on a pedestal—it’s almost impossible not to. Being with Daisy is like sinking into a warm bath when you didn’t know you were cold—I’m stunned by how good it is. I’m stunned by how such a simple thing can also be this blissful, this indulgent. I want to stay inside her and never leave.
It has to end—she and I are still in completely different places in life, and we will remain so for the next decade at least—but there’s a part of me that would give up everything to keep her with me forever.
She has to work a double shift on Friday, the only reason I stay at work myself. I tell her I’ll pick her up because I don’t want her biking home in the dark, and I arrive early because I’m too goddamned eager to see her. Inside, the hostess is gone and most of the tables are empty. There’s no sign of Daisy.
The guy behind the bar is drying glasses. “Can I get you something?”
Is this the kid she’d be dating if she wasn’t living with me? He’s got the same early-twenties overconfidence I had at his age, the kind you acquire after realizing almost no girl is out of reach if you play your cards right.
“I’m, uh, picking Daisy up.”
His double take is subtle, over in a flash, but I see him trying to put together who I am. She looks young for her age while I’m clearly in my thirties. The whole thing appears sketchy as hell.
He nods. “She’s with the manager. I’ll call to the back—who should I say is here?”
“Her uncle,” I reply, though I don’t know why the hell I’ve said it.
He picks up the phone while I go to a bench near the hostess stand, one that probably held tired parents and squirming children earlier in the day when the wharf was busy. I thought I’d be one of those parents by now. The fact that I’m waiting on a twenty-one-year-old to get off work makes that dream feel further away than ever.
Daisy walks out of the kitchen, says something to the bartender, and turns toward me…and all those thoughts fade away.
Her smile— fuck . The way she smiles at me, and only me, is something I want to keep forever. And I want to keep it entirely to myself.
She goes behind the bar and leans down for her bag. The bartender continues drying glasses, but his gaze is on her ass the entire time, and it’s still on her ass as she crosses the room to me.
“You told him you were my uncle ?” she asks.
I usher her out the door. “I felt like I needed to explain myself.”
“Well, now we both have some explaining to do because I told him you were the guy who came on my face this morning.”
My head jerks toward her and she laughs.
“Oh my God, you really thought I’d say that to someone?”
“You say shit like that to me all the time.”
She shrugs. “You’re different. At first, because it was fun to mess with you, and now because you really do come on my face fairly often, so it’d be weird if I never addressed it.”
I laugh unwillingly. I’m not sure how she manages to get me hard while making me laugh while annoying the shit out of me all at the same time.
I hold her door. “Does it bother you? That I said I was your uncle?”
She tilts her head, seeming to think about it. “Nah,” she says finally. “It’s for the best that they all think I’m single anyway. I’m a terrible waitress. Being theoretically available means I get forgiven a lot more than I would otherwise.”
I shut the door behind her and go to the other side of the car, my jaw grinding. “Is that why your manager called you to the back?” I ask, my voice calm by force. “Because you’re theoretically single?”
“No,” she says, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and running her fingers through it. “He surfs. He was just showing me pictures of this place in Panama he might buy.”
“You know, I don’t call my employees in at the night’s end to show them pictures of the homes I might buy.”
“Of course you don’t. You didn’t even tell your wife.” When I don’t laugh, she elbows me. “It’s not a big deal. I think he’s got a little crush. I’ll live. It’s an occupational hazard. I’m used to it.”
She’s used to it because she looks…like Daisy. Because she looks like every man’s fantasy, and she’s spent way too many years of her short life fending men off. I don’t want her to have to fucking do that. And I’m hung up on the fact that she’s got to do it even now, when she’s living with—and fucking —me. Her manager is still calling her to his office to look at his photos, and the age-appropriate bartender is staring at her ass every time she bends over.
I possess something that every man wants, and even if Daisy and I were coming clean about what was going on between us, it wouldn’t stop any of them. They’d know she was too young for me. They’d know they just needed to wait for it to run its course. I can’t fault them. Having Daisy for even a brief window of time is like winning the lottery—you know the odds are bad, but you still want to play.
On Saturday, we surf early, and she makes us smoothie bowls afterward. “Don’t tell Oliver I put peanut butter in it again.”
I cross to where she stands and pull her against me. “God, I was in agony that entire weekend.”
“Oh?” Her voice is a soft purr against my skin while her hand slides into my shorts. “I wish I’d known. I’d have taken care of it for you.”
I pull her to the couch, helping her out of the clothes she just put on, going down on her until she’s seconds from coming before I slide inside her.
My eyes fall closed as I bottom out. “I want to stay inside you the whole goddamn day,” I growl.
She arches, her legs wrapping around me. “Then do. I don’t want you anywhere else.”
When we wake hours later, the midday sun is blazing through the windows, dirty dishes are all over the counter, and the couch now possesses a new white stain I doubt is going to come out.
I love the mess, I love the ruined furniture, I love the way her hair has dried in tangles. I wouldn’t change a thing.
“My couch now possesses a mysterious stain.”
“Something to remember me by,” she says. “I have no idea why you bought a velvet couch. At the beach, no less. If it’s not already full of sand, it will be. And, uh, it appears it’s not good for having sex on, either.”
“Audrey chose it.” Audrey, who’d never have had sex on a couch and would have been disgusted at the mere suggestion.
“Now that you’re entering your sex-crazed bachelor days,” she says, walking naked toward the kitchen and grabbing a paper towel, “I’d suggest you consider leather instead.”
I flinch. I want to ask how she knows this. I want to ask how many times she’s been fucked on a couch, and I know I’d be angry at the answer.
This is supposed to be a fling. I don’t know why I’m incapable of treating it like one.