46. Harrison
46
HARRISON
I ’ve spent my entire life smugly proud of how responsible and ethical I was. That I stayed at one job. That I didn’t bounce from one woman to the next the way Liam and Beck did. That I didn’t start one fight after another like Luke. I thought being responsible would keep me from becoming my parents, from getting left behind…which is what made the end with Audrey such a shock. I don’t think I missed her when it ended. I just didn’t know what direction to turn after discovering the entire philosophy I’d based my life upon was a lie.
And now I’ve done something so irresponsible, so much worse than anything my friends have done, and I want to do it all over again.
I want to call her. I want to hear her husky voice, her quiet laughter. I stare at her surfboard and mine every night when I pull into the garage and am sick with the desire for it.
I walk through The Hillside Market and stare for a long moment at the display of expensive honey. And then I buy one, like the sap I am, and I want to tell her this too, but I can’t.
Your twenties are the years when you learn who you are, when you leave the safety of home and school and friends and really decide who you’ll be in the world. You do a lot of fucking around, but there’s value in that too. It’s how you choose which parts are worth embracing and which parts can be written off.
Daisy needs to go through all that on her own. I’ve taken enough from her. And I shouldn’t have taken any of it.
I have to leave work early to meet the guys delivering the new couch. How fucking long will it be before I see that couch without thinking only of her?
Audrey calls again just as they’re leaving. She’s the last person I want to speak to right now, and I’d give anything to end the conversation before she’s even said a word. Does she want the beach house? Fine, it’s hers. Does she want our marriage annulled? Does she want me to put our wedding album in the shredder? As long as it means she’ll leave me the fuck alone afterward, I’m willing to concede.
“What do you need?” I bark.
“That’s an uncharacteristically rude way to say hello ,” she replies.
“You chose an uncharacteristically rude way to end our marriage,” I counter. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I just wanted to discuss some things, but if this is a bad time—”
My eyes fall shut. Fuck. I don’t want to schedule a call for later. I don’t want to talk. I just want her to go away. “Can’t you just email me?”
“I take it things fell apart with the girlfriend.”
Christ. It never occurred to me that she might still be in contact with my mother or my brothers, but anything’s possible. I could see Oliver alluding to it just to needle her a little. “What are you talking about?”
She clicks her tongue. “Lucie implied you were seeing someone, and I could tell by how preoccupied you were the last time we spoke. And I get it. I’m sure it seemed amazing and all-consuming until the infatuation wore off and you realized you were stuck with a real person, one who wasn’t going to be the living embodiment of every dream and is as flawed as anyone else.”
No, the infatuation hadn’t worn off. And with Daisy, I saw the flaws first. I sought them out eagerly, because I was doing my level best not to acknowledge what I actually wanted from my friend’s kid—or give in to it.
But this is nothing I care to discuss with Audrey.
“Like I said,” I reply, “I’ve got a lot going on right now. I assume you had a reason for calling aside from discussing my romantic life?”
“I’m coming to California,” she says. “I was hoping we could get dinner.”
The old, responsible version of me would probably agree. It would be the polite thing to do. I don’t hate Audrey and I could even see myself being friendly with her one day in the distant way I’m friendly with former employees or classmates. But I’m not in the mood to be polite.
“I bear you no ill will, Audrey, but I don’t see any reason for us to get dinner together. Take whatever you want from the storage unit. I’ll text you the—”
“Harrison, it’s not working out here with Michael,” she says abruptly. “I’m thinking about coming back.”
I’m not sure what the hell is going on right now, but I’d prefer she stay in London. I don’t want to make strained small talk with her every time we’re both in the courthouse. I don’t need years of her ingratiating herself with my friends or texting to ask about the whereabouts of some missing household item.
“Why? You hated California—at least this part of it. You hate the weather. You don’t like the beach. You hate the attitude. You spent five years bitching about this state. ”
“I’d be willing to come back for you,” she says. “You wanted kids and I wasn’t ready, but I am now. I think maybe we just needed some time apart to see what we had.”
I’m silent. Shocked. Time away from her didn’t make me see anything but how much we lacked, but maybe that’s because I had Daisy here. Every morning I woke with Daisy in my home, I was a little more alive, a little happier. I’d never been more at peace than I was when she’d fall asleep in my arms. It’s something I never had with my wife. Not once. But I didn’t know I was missing it.
“Audrey, we were never right for each other,” I finally reply. “That hasn’t changed.”
“Harrison, you’re thirty-two. You wanted to be a young dad. Sometimes you need to settle a little in one area to get the things you want in another.”
Six months ago, I’d have agreed with her. Now I know there’s not a fucking thing in the world I wouldn’t give up for the right woman—one who turns everything into innuendo, who opens the doors wide and sings at the top of her lungs as she makes lunch, who surfs, who smiles with her heart in her eyes every time I walk in the door.
That person is Daisy. It will never be anyone else.
I end the call with Audrey and sit on my deck, staring blankly at the view while I think.
After I found out about Christian, I was so busy being consumed by the parallels that I didn’t—or wouldn’t allow myself—to consider the differences. But I want her for exactly who she is, while Christian wanted her to be someone else. And Christian was cheating on her the entire time and giving her nothing, while I’d give her my entire fucking world if she asked for it.
And doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t it make me different from him and every other guy who tried to possess her ?
Maybe I’m reconsidering it all now because I’m so fucking desperate to have her back, but I return, again and again, to a thought I wouldn’t even allow myself last week: What if I waited?
What if I give her all the time she needs to finish college and live out her wild youth, and I just wait, hoping I’m still what she wants when it’s through?
On Saturday, I drive to Ocean Hills Country Club for Caleb and Lucie’s wedding. I walk toward the venue, looking only for one face. It’s the last time I’ll see her for months, if not longer…a thought that makes me sick to my stomach, so I try not to think it.
I’ve got no idea what I’ll say to her. It will probably be the wrong thing. I just need to hold it together. I need to get through the day without letting her know how fucked up I am over her, without letting her know I’m going to spend the next couple of years pining for her and praying she doesn’t wind up with another guy.
I wave to Caleb, who’s being photographed with Lucie’s twins. I spy Liam, Beck, Emmy, and Bridget sitting at a table inside the tent, sipping champagne while a wedding coordinator fusses with the flowers at the altar and the string quartet begins tuning their instruments.
And then…Daisy, standing at the edge of the lawn in a strapless, pale yellow dress, so lovely she takes my breath away.
Her gaze, when it locks with mine, is a punch to the gut. I hate the despair in her eyes. I did that to her. I’d give up everything I have to explain it, except I’d just end up telling her things I can’t say—that I am so in love with her that I’m sick with it. And that I’ll be waiting. I’ll wait for the rest of my fucking life if necessary .
I walk to the bar for a drink, trying to get a hold of myself. Fuck. If it was anyone else’s wedding, I’d feign an emergency and walk out. Instead, I’ll get through the ceremony and leave the reception as soon as possible. It’s the only way I’m going to survive these hours watching Daisy, looking as destroyed as I feel.
I turn from the bar with a scotch in hand and seek her out again, though I just swore to myself I wouldn’t.
Look at me, Daisy. Look at me and be okay this time. Smile and let me know you’re not quite as broken as I am.
As if she’s heard me, her head rises…just as a hand wraps around my arm. I turn to find Audrey beside me, looking just as she always did—not a hair out of place, wearing diamonds in her ears that could probably pay Daisy’s tuition.
She couldn’t possibly realize how bad her timing is, but there’s a satisfied gleam in her eyes as if she does. “Hi. I was hoping I’d see you before the ceremony. Can we talk?”
My gaze jerks back to Daisy, who is staring at us in horror, the color draining from her face. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Christian ended things with her, and she saw him with his fiancée weeks later. I ended things with her and here I am with my ex-wife, who has her hand on my arm as if I belong to her.
“Talk?” I ask. “I don’t see that we have anything left to discuss. I don’t even know why you’re here.”
“Lucie and I are friends, obviously,” Audrey says. “Look, you’re mad, and you have every right to be. I’d be furious in your position. But we were together a long time, and I think we should consider—”
I can’t hear a word she’s saying, because Daisy is walking off…and there were tears in her eyes before she turned away. I set my drink on a table. “You and I are done. Excuse me.” I don’t even glance Audrey’s way as I break into a jog to catch Daisy, pa ssing Liam and Bridget and knowing I’m grabbing everyone’s attention but too worried to care.
Daisy’s standing at the top of the hill, overlooking the ocean, with her arms wrapped around her.
She turns as I approach, her eyes wide and full of tears and it finally hits me in full, how badly I’ve fucked up. Even if seeing me with Audrey wasn’t my fault, everything that led to it was.
She needs to know. She needs to know how I feel. She needs to know she’s every fucking thing to me in the entire world.
This is the worst possible way to do this, but I don’t care as long as Daisy leaves here with the truth. I don’t think I could stay away for another minute anyhow. So I storm toward her and I don’t stop until she’s pressed against me, until I’m cradling her jaw in my hands, and my mouth is on hers in the same way she once showed me in a movie—with the sort of kiss that could get me brought up on assault charges, the kind that says I want you, I want this, more than I want everything else I have, no matter the consequences .
“I love you,” I say against her mouth. “I love you so fucking much.”
She steps back, blinking away tears. “I don’t understand.”
“I was wrong last week. Or maybe I was right, but I’m too goddamn selfish to give you up. I was so stupid to let you leave like that on Friday without telling you that I adore you, and that every single thing I did was because I love you so much.”
A bit of the tension leaves her shoulders, but her eyes remain wary. “So…you’re not back together with her?”
I was trying so hard not to make her feel tied down before she left for school, but I hate that she ever could have believed I’d get back with Audrey. My hand rests on her hip. “God, of course I’m not with her. I know you’re leaving, and I want you to take all the time you need, but if you still want this after you’ve graduated or however long it takes, I’m—”
“Shit,” she gasps, clutching my sleeve. “Harrison…”
I turn to find Liam charging up the hill, his eyes narrowed.
“What in the actual fuck was that?” he snarls, throwing his jacket in the grass. Bridget and Emerson are running up the hill behind him, both of them hampered by their dresses and heels. Emerson kicks hers off in the grass and hitches her dress when Liam starts rolling up his sleeves for a fight.
My jaw locks. He’s got a right to be angry, but I’m not going to take it back, and I’m not going to apologize. “I’m in love with her. I didn’t intend for it to—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Liam demands. “No. No . This isn’t fucking happening. You barely know her.”
“Liam,” Daisy says, stepping alongside me, “we’ve been together all summer.”
He stares at her, his jaw open wide. “Together? You mean hanging out?”
“We were living together,” I reply. God, it sounds bad. I fucking deserve whatever is coming. Daisy tries to step in front of me, and I pull her behind my back. “She needed a place to stay, and that’s all it was at first.”
Bridget rushes to one side of Liam, tugging at his arm, and Emmy’s at the other.
“Liam, just calm down,” Emmy says. “The wedding’s about to begin.”
“ At first ,” Liam repeats, as if she hasn’t spoken. “What the hell does that mean? Because it had better fucking have been platonic the whole goddamn time .”
“I tried to stay away,” I tell him. “I just couldn’t do it.”
Liam’s spine goes ramrod straight. “You tried to stay away? You son of a bitch.”
I brace myself as his fist flies out, landing square on my jaw. It’s been a while since I’ve been hit in the face. I’d forgotten how much it fucking hurts.
“Liam, stop!” Daisy screams, jumping in front of me while Caleb and Beck, who apparently sprinted up here, grab Liam from behind.
I rub my jaw. “It’s okay. I deserved that. But in the interest of not fucking up Caleb’s wedding any more than we already have, save the rest of the punches for later?”
Liam’s nostrils flare. “This is insane. You know that, right?” He turns to Daisy. “And you. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Bro,” says Beck, as he and Caleb slowly release him, “the fact that Daisy wants him is hardly news.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, though it’s mostly to Bridget. “I know this is a shock, and it’s not what you’d ever want for Daisy. It’s not what I’d want for her either, but I love her, and even if she’s in DC for the next year and I’m here, that’s not going to end things the way I’m sure you’re hoping it will.”
“Okay,” says Bridget. “Everyone just needs to calm down. It’s going to be okay.”
Daisy and I exchange a look. While neither of us would have expected Bridget to be as violent as her brother, we sure weren’t expecting this level of rationality from a woman who still reminds Daisy to brush her teeth.
Liam appears just as stunned as he rounds on his sister. “It’s not going to be okay. He’s eleven years older than she is. She’s only been old enough to fucking drink for three months.”
Bridget reaches into her purse and hands Daisy a tissue with a nod toward me. Daisy presses it to the lip I didn’t even realize was bleeding.
“Daisy’s not a kid, Liam,” Bridget says with a sigh. “And yes, I’d have preferred that she date people her own age for a while, but she isn’t seventeen and pregnant. She isn’t dating a really reckless guy with a bunch of mental health issues. She chose the opposite for herself, and she’s been in love with him her entire life. Can you honestly say there’s anyone you’d rather see her with?”
I blink in surprise, quietly touched. Her vote of confidence was the last thing I’d have expected. Maybe, possibly, this won’t turn out to be the disaster I assumed it would be.
Liam’s arms fly out wildly in exasperation. “I’d rather see her with fucking anyone! I could go to the local middle school and find guys closer to her age. Fucking hell. Lucie’s son is probably closer in age.”
Lucie’s son is seven. But when I do the math, a fourteen-year age difference doesn’t sound a lot worse than an eleven-year one.
“Do you want to ruin Caleb and Lucie’s wedding?” Emmy demands of him. “This is not the time or the place and you need to pull it together.”
Liam scowls, but his shoulders drop as if he’s a scolded child. If the situation wasn’t so serious, I’d probably laugh at how thoroughly she’s got him under her thumb when no woman had ever controlled Liam for a moment before her.
“Come on,” she continues, tugging his arm to pull him back down the hill. “Anything you still have to say can wait until after.”
“I might forgive Daisy,” Liam says, as he shoots one more look at me, “but I’m never going to forgive you.”
We’ve been friends since the first day of kindergarten. I hate that it might have ended here, yet I still wouldn’t change what’s happened.
Bridget rolls her eyes as he walks off with Emmy, Caleb and Beck. “He’ll forgive you. But Daisy…God. You could have told me. You should have told me.”
“You’d have just tried to change my mind, Mom,” Daisy argues, “and you’d have told Liam. At some point, you need to trust that I know what makes me happy. And I promise you, it’s this. ”
I wrap my arm around her and she leans against me. It feels so incredibly right that I can’t imagine how anyone could see it differently. I can’t imagine how I ever questioned it myself.
Bridget’s shoulders sag as her gaze flickers between us. “Well, we can discuss it later. But good lord. You could have picked a better way to tell us.”
She follows Liam down the hill, leaving Daisy and I alone again—or as alone as we can be with a hundred wedding guests still staring up at us as if we’re the pregame show.
She wipes at her eyes. “I’d tell you I love you too, but several people just announced it on my behalf, so it seems redundant at this point.”
I laugh as I cradle her face in my palms. “Say it anyway.”
She goes onto her toes and kisses me. “I love you,” she says. “I have always loved you, for as far back as I can remember and before then too.”
I press my lips to her forehead and hold them there for one long, grateful moment before I nod at the crowd. “They’re still staring. You’d think they’d have gotten tired of the show by now.”
She laughs. “I hope you were ready to debut me as your girlfriend because it’s gonna be an awkward reception otherwise.”
I squeeze her hand tight. I’ve been ready for longer than even I realized.
I’m ready for her to be more than that, too.
One day, when the time is right, I’m going to give Daisy Doherty the entire world.