7. Daisy
DAISY
Violet comes into my room Friday afternoon as I’m sketching. “We’re going out in thirty minutes.”
“Where?” I drop my pencil and smooth my hair back out of my face. I blink several times to focus my eyes after staring at the paper for so long.
Instead of answering, she comes around to look at my drawing. “What are you working on?”
I flip the paper. “You can’t see yet. Not until it’s done.”
“You always say that.” She rolls her eyes playfully.
“Then you should know better than to ask.”
Smiling, she motions toward my left cheek. “You have black all over your face.” Her gaze drops to the side of my right hand, and the black smudges. “Shower and meet us downstairs for a drink before the Uber gets here.”
“You didn’t say where we were going?” I call after her.
I see Dahlia as I’m heading to the bathroom. She yawns and stretches like she just woke up from a nap.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
“No idea,” she says. “How much are Violet and Jane going to yell at me if I just wear this?”
She’s in a baggy white T-shirt and jeans. She looks great, but maybe a little wrinkled. Our friends treat nights out like a runway show. I guess it’s because we don’t do it that often that it always feels like a lot of pressure to look and dress a certain way.
“I could do your hair if you want,” I offer.
“Distract them with killer hair and makeup.” Dahlia grins. “I love it.”
The four of us meet in the kitchen downstairs five minutes before the Uber is supposed to arrive.
Jane gives me an appreciative once over when I walk into the room. “Wow. Daisy. You look great.”
She circles around me, taking in every detail. I feel so short next to her.
Jane is five foot eight without heels, but she’s almost always wearing heels, so she looks even taller. She’s technically a freshman, but she’s the same age as the rest of us. She took a year off before starting school.
She’s a music major and filthy rich. Not just rich like she had nice things growing up.
Jane has the kind of money that makes her a little out of touch with reality.
Her parents are… well, actually I don’t know what they do, but something that makes them very wealthy.
She once tried to offer me a thousand dollars to help her study for a calculus test.
She isn’t snooty, and she doesn’t really care about labels, though I think her shoe collection is mostly Louis Vuitton—even her sneakers.
Dahlia met her when she came to tour Valley U last spring. They kept in touch over the summer, and we jumped at the chance for all four of us to move in together off-campus this year.
“Will you please tell me where we’re going now?” I ask Violet.
She grins. “The Hideout.”
My stomach drops. “We can’t drink at The Hideout. They’ve been cracking down hard on underage drinking, and I’m shit at lying.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got us covered.” She pours us each a shot of tequila. “And, despite all my strongly worded emails to the owner, I can almost guarantee that the TVs will be tuned in to watch your guy play Utah.”
All three look at me.
“He isn’t my guy.” My face suddenly feels hot. “We’re just lab partners.”
I hold out my shot glass, and we clink them together, then toss them back. A shiver rolls through me at the awful liquor.
“For now,” Jane says, her face still twisted up from the tequila. “But who knows, by the end of the night anything could happen.”
“Exactly!” Vi exclaims. “Although he is a jock. Maybe we can find you someone else tonight.”
“And you’re both already drunk,” I say as I take the shot glasses and put them in the sink.
The Hideout is a classic restaurant and sports bar. On the bar side, Valley students are jammed into tables and booths and every space in between, making it hard to walk through, let alone find a spot to sit down.
Jane stands taller than the rest of us and scans the bar area for somewhere to sit.
“There’s a table in the back right,” she says and makes a beeline for it.
A frazzled server approaches us as soon as we sit down, then gets shoved into the end of the table by a group passing by. It’s vicious in here tonight.
“Can I get you something to drink?” She blows her hair out of her eyes.
“A bottle of your most expensive wine,” Jane says with a dispassionate glance in the direction of our server.
“I need to see your IDs.”
Jane sighs, and her posture loosens. “Just a glass of tonic for me. Lime on the side.”
“Sprite,” Violet says.
Dahlia orders the same, and then our server looks at me.
“Diet—”
Someone kicks me under the table.
“Ouch,” I yelp.
“Sorry. My foot slipped,” Violet’s voice is sugary-sweet, but her eyes are wide like she’s trying to communicate something.
“Diet Coke,” I repeat. “Thanks.”
“Got it.” The server disappears, and I lean forward to rub my shin.
“Ow, Vi. That really hurt. I think I already have a bruise.”
“I’m sorry, but I was trying to get you to order something that would mix a little better.”
Jane lifts a bottle of alcohol from her purse on the seat between her and Violet and then hides it again.
“So the wine was just to throw her off?”
“No,” Jane says, leaning forward on an elbow, so her diamond bracelet catches the light. “I really was hoping for wine, but I brought back up.” Her words get quieter as the server reappears.
“Wow, that was fast,” Violet says.
“You’re my last table, and I am eager to get out of here,” she says and sets our drinks on the table in the same order. “I’m closing out. Jordan will help you if you need anything else.”
My head snaps up, and I instinctively look for him, only realizing she doesn’t mean Jordan Thatcher but an entirely different Jordan that works here. He’s been on my mind, though. The other Jordan. He and Liam, of course.
The game is on, but the angle to the TV is weird, and the players look like blurry dots on the small screen.
“Drink up, ladies,” Jane says.
We make room in our glasses, and then she adds alcohol to each of our drinks.
I take a long sip and cough. “What is that?”
“Vodka.”
“I tried to get you to pick something other than Diet Coke,” Violet says. She takes a small sip from my glass and grimaces. “We need to order you something else after you drink that.”
But by the time I get to the end of the glass, I’ve almost gotten used to the taste. And I’m definitely tipsy. It’s been a while since the four of us have gone out together. Even living together, I don’t see them as much as I thought I would when we moved in at the start of the year.
Dahlia is busy with golf, Violet is busting her butt this semester to put together a portfolio for an internship next summer, Jane volunteers with a local youth music program, and I’m just me.
Dahlia is the most like me, but without Violet and Jane, we’d be two sad friends staring at one another every weekend, wishing the other would force us out of our shells.
I think that’s the thing people don’t realize about being shy. Most shy people desperately want to be included, but to do something as simple as plan a night out makes us anxious. We tell ourselves a thousand stories of how awful it could go and decide the payoff isn’t worth it.
It’s different when Violet is with me. She understands me. She protects me. Which gives me the confidence to say and do things I might not otherwise. Being the shy girl doesn’t mean I’m always quiet. Just when I feel out of my element or like I have a lot on the line. Like talking to Liam.
When it’s time for new drinks, Dahlia and I weave through people to get to the bar. Jordan, not Thatcher, hasn’t stopped by our table once. I can’t really blame him since we’re not ordering food or alcohol.
Two bartenders are working. It’s busy, but even the people coming up after us get waited on before us. Frustration builds. I stand a little taller and plead (mentally, of course) for one of them to notice us. Dahlia and I share a sympathetic smile.
“We might be here a while,” she says.
Nodding, I glance up at the TV hanging behind the bar.
It’s the third period, and Valley is up by one.
The camera zeros in on Jordan, coming off the ice and tapping his glove with a teammate.
Sweat makes his dark hair curl around his helmet.
His cheeks are red, and there’s an intensity in his eyes that’s so different than the easy, playful one I’ve seen so often.
I think I spot Liam’s blond head, but the camera moves on before I can get a good look.
“What is taking so long?” Violet asks, coming up behind me. She lifts an arm to get the bartender’s attention, which she succeeds in almost immediately.
We leave a minute later with fresh drinks.
Valley wins the game, but I only know because the bar is loud with cheers and applause at the final buzzer.
“I bet your boyfriend is happy,” Violet says. Her teasing gets infinitely worse when she’s drunk.
“He is not my boyfriend.”
“Not yet,” Dahlia bumps my elbow.
“Tell me again what he said when you went to his dorm?” Jane asks.
“I still can’t believe you just showed up there,” Dahlia says.
“I probably would have chickened out, but I ran into Jordan on his way up.”
“Oh, right,” Jane says. “I forgot they were roommates. They’re so different.”
They fire questions at me after I retell the story.
“What was their dorm like?”
“When are you going to see him again?”
“Are you like friends with him now?”
“Does this mean we’ll be invited to the hockey parties?”
“We’re not friends,” I say. “Aside from the favor, I’ve only talked to them during class. And Jordan and I exchanged a few emails.”
Their eyes pique with interest, and I wave them off. “It was silly.”
When it’s clear they aren’t going to stop staring at me until I tell them about the emails, I do. And then they spend the next thirty minutes talking about Jordan and the many rumors they’ve heard about girls he’s hooked up with. The list is long, but I already knew that.
“You didn’t tell me about Jordan,” Violet says later when the two of us make a trip to the ladies’ room.
“It was nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing.” Her gaze narrows. “Do you have a thing for him now?”
“Jordan?” My screech gets the attention of two girls entering the restroom. I lower my voice as butterflies swarm in my stomach. “No, of course not. He’s… no.”
But he is intriguing and not exactly who I pegged him to be.
He’s playful and witty and even polite. He could have sent me away or made me feel like a real idiot for sitting around waiting for Liam, and instead, he sat there and talked with me until Liam got back.
I always imagined him as Liam’s opposite, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true.
After another drink, the four of us head back to our house to watch movies and play dress up. It’s Violet and Jane’s favorite thing to do after a night out. Vi brings out her latest creations, and she and Dahlia play designer, dressing Jane and me from head to toe. It’s kind of awesome.
“Wine or stick with vodka?” Violet asks, pulling both from the fridge.
“Wine,” Jane says at the same time Dahlia says, “Vodka.”
With a laugh, Violet puts them on the counter. “Help yourself.”
Jane and Dahlia fawn over Violet’s newest designs, and I take my vodka and Sprite to the living room and scroll through my phone. I pull up the email exchange from Jordan and re-read it.
I hit reply and then tap my thumb on the edge of my phone, unsure what to say. I lock my phone and set it on the couch beside me. Liam gave me his number to contact him about the flowers, but I can’t make myself text him randomly even to say congrats.
My pulse thrums dangerously. I take a large gulp of my drink and grab my phone.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Congrats!
I heard Valley won tonight. Congratulations.