Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Beckett
“It’s giving me Burning Man vibes,” Daisy says, barely able to contain her excitement. “This is why I love being a photographer. I get to capture all the weird and wonderful.”
Weird and wonderful are one and the same to Daisy.
If I had to describe my own personal hell, it would look a lot like this festival. But as she was so quick to remind me, I volunteered for this, so I can’t even complain.
When I saw how disappointed she was, the words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
So here I am at a riverfront festival surrounded by all the “weird and wonderful” while Daisy snaps photos of everything that captures her interest.
Women in corsets and fishnets carrying parasols. Men in goggles and pith helmets. Kids running around with their faces painted like lions, zebras, and tigers. An entire marching band dressed in pinstripes and sailor caps. Goths and burlesque dancers and aging hippies. Twenty-somethings who look as if they just came back from Coachella.
This is Daisy’s world, and I’m just along for the ride. Her personal bodyguard. Chauffeur. Photography assistant. Bag carrier.
Her backpack feels like it’s filled with bricks, but a quick glance inside reveals cameras, lenses, and a retractable tripod—all the tools of her trade.
We wander past tents with vendors selling food, art, jewelry, and costumes, and Daisy is completely entranced by all of it.
She climbs onto hay bales and platforms, and scales a precarious-looking scaffolding tower to capture the “perfect shot” while I stand below waiting to catch her if she falls.
If she comes out of this unscathed, it will be a fucking miracle.
“Stop worrying,” she says with a laugh when I help her down from the scaffolding tower before she falls and breaks an arm or a leg. “I do this stuff all the time.”
It doesn’t surprise me. She has no concern for her own safety.
I can’t erase the vision of seventeen-year-old Daisy squatting in a cockroach-infested apartment building with only a mattress on the floor.
In New York Fucking City.
Young and vulnerable with no one to rely on but herself.
Anything could have happened to her, and I shudder to think what her life must have been like at that time.
When I see Astrid again, I will fucking destroy her. It will take everything in me not to wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her.
Not only did she ruin my mother’s life, she abandoned her own daughter.
My hands flex at my sides.
“You’re the one who taught me how to climb a tree,” Daisy says with a smile, completely oblivious to my homicidal thoughts as we walk along the river.
It’s weird now to think of her as a little kid when the way I want her is not the least bit innocent. But I’ve been reining it in. Trying my damnedest to keep our relationship platonic and not cross any lines.
Some days are easier than others. Nearly losing her towel this afternoon sure as hell didn’t help matters.
I wish I could go back to hating Daisy, but she’s made that virtually impossible.
I’m not sure when that changed.
The day she stood up for me and said that if I walked away, she would follow me out the door.
That night at the bar when I “rescued” her despite her protest that she didn’t need my help.
The kiss.
The sprained wrist that I still maintain is my fault.
The story she told me in the car.
Or maybe it was just an amalgamation of all the minutes and hours and days we’ve spent together. When Daisy showed me who she really is. Strong. Resilient. Too quick to forgive. A rebel. A fighter. A free spirit. An artist.
Now, here at this festival, she hands me her camera, and I move into the spot where she was standing and raise it.
“Can you find the subject?” she asks, standing right next to me, her arm brushing against mine, her scent invading my senses.
It feels like a test, and I’m competitive enough that I want to get it right, so I don’t respond immediately, even though it should be obvious. “The woman sitting on the striped chair holding a tuba.”
“Yes!” She sounds happy and proud, like a teacher awarding her pupil a gold star. “Take the photo before we lose it.”
I press the button, and as soon as the shutter clicks, I turn the camera on her. She’s gazing into the distance so at first, she doesn’t notice
I snap three photos in quick succession before she turns to look at me.
“Stop!” She laughs and covers her face. I snap two more photos before she snatches the camera out of my hand and turns it on me.
I hate having my photo taken, but she’s been sneaking candid shots of me throughout the day. “Enough photos,” I say gruffly.
“I’m going to enlarge them and plaster them all over my walls in Brooklyn to use as a dart board. You’ll be back in San Francisco going, ‘Fuck, why do I have this piercing pain in my eyeball?’” She slaps her hand over her eye and staggers back in a dramatic display.
Daisy would have made a great actor. She’s prone to theatrics.
I snort. “I’ve seen your aim. I doubt you’ll even hit the target.”
“You underestimate my tenacity. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she says cheerfully.
Then she’s off. Weaving through the crowd. Mingling with artists. Within ten minutes, she’s made two new friends and knows their life stories.
Then she’s jogging across a field to the “wedding chapel,” where a woman in yards of tulle is marrying a man in a pinstripe suit and a top hat for five bucks.
A whole line of expectant brides and grooms are waiting for their turn to exchange vows under the wire mesh arbor of vines and leaves. Why? What’s the appeal? None that I can see.
“Should I offer my condolences?”
“Stop.” Daisy laughs and smacks my arm. “It’s romantic. Look how excited they are. They look happy.”
“They’re probably drunk,” I retort.
She laughs again. “You are the absolute worst.” She links her arm through mine and waggles her brows. “We should make it official. You could be my fake husband. We should send out save-the-date cards. It would be rude not to.”
Hilarious. “How big is this fake wedding?”
“Small. Tasteful,” Daisy says, completely serious as we stroll across the field. “Two hundred of our closest friends. I’m just waiting for Elvis to get back to me.”
“Young Elvis or Vegas Elvis?” I ask, playing along for reasons that are not entirely clear.
“Elvis in the iconic white jumpsuit with rhinestones. Obviously . And it has to be the real Elvis,” Daisy says. “I refuse to settle for anything less.”
“Sounds like you’ll be waiting for a while. How about you tuck that little fantasy away and I buy you some real barbecue instead?”
“My kind of man.” She saunters ahead, leading the charge. “You know the way to my heart.”
After moaning her way through pulled pork sandwiches followed by tamales from a food truck, she moves on to dessert—a bag of donuts dusted in sugar and cinnamon and freshly squeezed lemonade to fill her bottomless pit.
“Let’s have donuts, but make them bite-sized,” she jokes, popping a mini donut into her mouth and licking the sugar off her fingers.
Daisy is laughing, happy, and carefree, completely in her element.
Blonde hair flowing down her back. Hair woven into braids around the crown of her head. Sun-kissed skin dipped in gold. Bright eyes fringed by thick, sooty lashes.
I meant what I said in the car. She is beautiful. Stunning, even. But it goes beyond the superficial.
Daisy is one of those rare creatures who seems to glow from the inside.
She’s not bitter or jaded, and despite everything she’s gone through, she can still see the magic and wonder in the world.
What a fucking gift that is.
Which is why I don’t hate this festival as much as I normally would.
Because of her.