33. Harrison
33
HARRISON
T he following weekend, the waves are mush, and Daisy talks me into going for a run instead of surfing.
She gets an ice cream cone once we reach the wharf, and we walk along the beach. It pisses me off, the way men look at her when she walks past. I want to announce to every last one of them that she’s taken, which is a problem because she’s not.
She needs those post-college years to make the same dumb mistakes I did, to figure out what she actually wants from life. The person you are at twenty-one is entirely different from the person you’ll be a decade later. She can’t possibly know what she’ll want by then.
“You know what you need in your dumb mansion?” she asks, licking her ice cream cone.
“The dumb mansion where you live for free?”
She gives me a lopsided grin. “Yes, that’s the dumb mansion I was referring to. A sauna.”
“Why the fuck would I get a sauna?” I ask, my hand linking with hers. “I hate saunas. ”
“They’re good for your quality of sleep, which is highly correlated with longevity.”
“I’m too young to worry about how long I’m going to live,” I reply. “I’d say the last few years felt a little too long.”
She elbows me. “Don’t say that.”
I swoop her up in my arms. “You’re a very violent little thing, did you know that?”
She looks up at me from beneath her lashes and takes another lick. “I’m pretty sure you like it when I’m violent. I’m pretty sure what made you come so hard last night was my nails on your back.”
“I think we should put that to the test,” I begin, but before I can say another word, there are two children running at us, one of them shouting my name.
I set Daisy down so quickly that she stumbles and drops her cone into the sand.
“Shit,” I hiss. “Sorry.”
Caleb’s soon-to-be stepkids, Sophie and Henry, run up to us. And Sophie, who never keeps a thought to herself, is staring at Daisy. Shit .
“Is she your girlfriend?” Sophie demands, pointing at Daisy.
Fuck. I knew it was possible that I would run into an acquaintance down here and have to come clean, but Caleb’s a bad one to come clean with. Especially when I was just carrying Daisy like a bride.
Caleb and Lucie approach with strained smiles—it’s pretty fucking clear they saw everything.
Caleb gives Daisy a hug, introduces her to Lucie…and then he turns to me. “What’s going on, man?” Caleb asks, eyes narrowed. “I thought you were spending every weekend in LA.”
I sigh. “It’s a long story.”
Lucie nudges Caleb. “Did you tell him we’re renting his dad’s old place?”
Caleb swallows, struggling to make small talk. “Yeah, your dad’s beach house is a rental now. We’re having a big office party there in a few weeks.” He looks between me and Daisy. “So…what’s going on?”
The tension in his voice tells me he already knows exactly what’s going on and there’s nothing I can say that will make it okay. He’s looking at Daisy the way I tried to when she first arrived: like the little girl in pigtails we taught to surf. The toddler who couldn’t pronounce the letter “t” and who called her favorite restaurant Kenfucky Fried Chicken.
Lucie’s smile is nervous. Her hands flutter to her sides. “What if you guys chat for a minute? I’m going to take the twins back up to the wharf and get them some water.”
“I’ll come with you,” says Daisy too quickly.
They’re not twenty yards away when Caleb releases a groan. “Dude, tell me this isn’t exactly the way it fucking looks, which is that you’ve been lying to us about some girlfriend in LA while hooking up with Bridget’s kid .”
“It’s not like that,” I reply, because even if it is precisely like that now, I can’t admit to it when it would definitely get back to Liam. It might anyway. The truth about London, however, seems pretty mild compared to the much greater lies I’m telling him now. “Audrey and I didn’t break up the way I implied. I sort of fabricated a girlfriend. I know I should have told you the truth. I just…I needed to lick my wounds for a while.”
His nostrils flare. Caleb’s never hit me before, but I can tell he wants to. “That doesn’t explain why you’re licking them with Daisy .”
“We’re just friends. She got in a fight with Bridget and needed a place to stay.”
“You and I have been friends for twenty-five years, but you’ve never swept me up in your arms while we took a romantic stroll down the beach.”
I tug at my hair. “For fuck’s sake. It wasn’t a romantic stroll. She made me go running, and we were playing around. Can you please just let this go? She’ll be back in DC next month. It’s not a big deal.”
He raises a brow. “Not a big deal for you or for her? Because you’re a decade older than she is, and she’s had a crush on you since she was old enough to walk.”
Did Daisy have a crush on me when she was little? I’m not sure if that would make this better or worse. “That’s not true.”
Caleb shoves his hands in his pockets. “You’re an adult, and she’s sort of an adult. Just be careful. We’ve all had a romantic relationship that has really put us through the wringer at some point. Me with Kate. Beck with Kate. You with Audrey. Don’t be that for Daisy, okay?”
“I wouldn’t. I won’t.”
I’m far less certain about it than I sound, however. How many villains start off by proclaiming that what they’re doing isn’t all that bad?
I’m pretty sure it’s most of them.