33. Jordan
JORDAN
Monday morning I’m dragging, but I manage to make it (and stay awake) for my first class. After, I text Liam to see if he wants to meet up at University Hall. We have an hour before our analytical mechanics class, and I need caffeine and something made of sugar.
He shows up a few minutes later with Cole.
“Hey.” I push off the wall outside when I see them.
Cole has become a constant presence. I like him, and I like him for Liam.
I was so worried about how dating Daisy would impact his game, but I guess the joke is on me because ever since Liam and Cole worked things out, he’s on fire.
Relationship Liam is focused and playing the best hockey I’ve ever seen out of him.
“Made it to class this morning, eh?” Liam grins.
“Barely.” I didn’t want to if I’m honest, but a weekend of drinking hard didn’t help me forget about Daisy, so I guess that just means it’s time to get back to normal life.
Whatever that is. Hard to imagine my days without knowing I’m going to see her later to study together and make out until her lips are red and puffy.
But she hasn’t texted, and I respect her too damn much to force my way into her life again. Or maybe I am just too chicken shit to put myself out there a second time. Liam was right about one thing (okay, fine, he was right about everything), losing people sucks.
Cole holds the door open, and Liam steps through.
“Thanks,” I say to Cole as he continues to hold it for me to go before him.
Liam stops abruptly, and I run into the back of him.
“Dude,” I start and step around him. There’s no one in front of him, so I look around to see what his deal is. Then I come up short too.
“Daisy,” I say her name out loud. She hasn’t seen us, and the shock when she looks up mirrors my reaction.
I step out of the doorway, Liam and Cole behind me.
“Hi,” Daisy finally speaks. She briefly glances at Liam and Cole and nods, but her gaze is drawn back to me.
“How’ve you been?” I ask as I catalog everything about her. The pink of her cheeks, the tremble of her bottom lip, the way she clutches her sketchbook to her chest.
The dress she’s wearing is new, or not one I’ve seen before, and for some reason this makes me angry.
I want to be someone that knows everything about her.
Even something as stupid as every item in her closet.
One of my favorite things used to be looking forward to seeing what little dress or shirt she’d picked out for the day.
I bet I know her closet as well as I know my own. Except, maybe not anymore.
She removes one hand from her sketchbook and tucks her blonde hair behind an ear. “Okay. How are you?”
I consider lying, but since that got me into this mess, I just nod and redirect. “It’s good to see you. Can I buy you a coffee or pastry?”
“I have to get to class,” she says.
“Ceramics?”
She inclines her head like she can’t believe I remembered. I remember everything.
University Hall is busy this time of day, and people are funneling around us. Someone bumps her as they cut around her, and she steps closer to me. I place a hand on her elbow. Daisy flushes under my touch, and her chest rises and falls with quick breaths.
“I better go,” she says.
Reluctantly, I drop my hand and step out of the way. She heads out, looking back at me once she’s outside, then turns and power walks away.
Liam cuffs me on the shoulder. “That looked painful.”
I forgot he was standing there. I blink at him.
“Are you okay?” His brows pull together.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure? You look weird.”
“I forgot you were there. She barely looked at you.”
“Yeah.” He gives me a face that says, so?
A small grin pulls at my lips. I backhand him softly in the chest. “She didn’t look at you. She was looking at me.”
“O-kay. She was talking to you, not me.”
“Exactly!”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“Her face was flushed, and her voice was trembling. She was nervous.”
“And you look so excited about that because?” Cole asks.
“That’s how she used to look at him.” I motion with a head to Liam.
They still don’t seem to be following my twisted logic.
“She likes me,” I explain. “She still likes me.”
I take off for the coffee line with a bounce to my step, brain spinning with this new knowledge.
“Of course, she didn’t look at me. I’m in a relationship,” Liam says with a hint of defensiveness as he gets in line behind me.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”
We order and take it to a table in the back of University Hall.
“Now what?” Liam asks.
“I don’t know. I guess I figure out how to get her back.”
“Don’t ask me,” Liam says. “I’m old hat. She barely looked at me.”
Cole bites back a laugh. “It’s okay, babe. I still want to look at you.”
Liam grumbles under his breath, but he smiles ever so slightly as Cole squeezes the back of his neck.
I spend the next hour brainstorming and bouncing ideas off Liam and Cole.
Knowing that she still likes me is awesome, but I don’t know how I’m going to make up for lying and breaking her heart.
Later that afternoon, I’m sitting in front of my laptop with a blank sheet of copy paper in front of me, following some YouTube guy who boasted he could teach anyone to draw. Anyone but me, apparently.
Liam is playing video games on the couch next to me. He glances over and narrows his gaze. “What is that thing sticking out on the side of your leg?”
Yes, I’ve attempted to draw myself.
“It’s a daisy.”
“Why do you have a daisy sticking out of your thigh?”
“I’m holding it in my hand. See?” I put the pencil on the spot. “It’s like I’m offering her the daisy.”
“Yyyyeah. I think real daisies might get that across clearer.”
“I want to give her this with the daisies. Drawing is something that’s important to her.”
“Maybe not when it’s done like that.” He cracks a grin. “It’s sweet.”
I sit back and look at it with fresh eyes. Yeah, it’s terrible. I scribble along the top, I miss you. P.S. Maybe you could tutor me in drawing? x, Jordan
“Are you going to take it by her house?”
“No, I thought I’d have the florist drop it with the flowers. She’ll probably be happier if it comes from someone else.”
“Sounds promising.”
I ignore him. “Besides, this is just the first of many gifts. I need to show her I was paying attention. That it wasn’t all a lie.”
Liam chuckles. “Oh, this is going to be fun. What do you have planned next?”
The next night I recruit Gavin’s help.
“Hey.” He opens the front door and eyes the boxes of lights in my hands. “You were serious? I thought when you asked me to help you with a lighting project, you meant get high and stare up at the stars.”
I breeze past him to the kitchen, where I set the lights down on the island. “They’re for Daisy.”
Gavin pulls two beers from the fridge and offers me one. “I take it she still isn’t talking to you then?”
“I ran into her at University Hall yesterday. She said hello, but no. Nothing after I sent the flowers.”
He scans the boxes of twinkling lights in front of him and picks up one. “Okay then, what are we doing with these?”
Out in the back yard, we stare over the fence to Daisy’s house, looking for movement inside. The lights are on, but we haven’t seen anyone in the five minutes we’ve been watching.
“Give me a boost over,” I say.
He links his hands together and holds them out for me to step on. Then he helps me over. I land on the other side with a thud. I hunch down by the tree house to make sure no one heard me, then Gavin hands over the lights.
“Oh shit. How are you going to get over?” I ask.
He grins. “Stand back.”
He walks backward and then gets a running start before placing his hands on the top of the fence and leaping over it.
“Nice hops.”
We hurry up into the tree house. My heart is racing being back here. Gavin hunches over in the small space. He hands me lights, and I hang them along the ceiling.
“You really like this chick, huh?” Gavin drops to a sitting position as I wrap the lights down the ladder.
“What gave me away?”
He laughs. “This is cool. I’d forgive you.”
I glance up to find him staring at the house. I look over my shoulder and through the kitchen window. The top of Violet’s head is visible in the living room.
“Do you ever think about doing something big to apologize to Violet?”
“I don’t think there are enough lights in the world for that.”
“I’m serious. What the hell really happened with you two?”
“Eh.” He lifts the hat on his head and runs his hand through his black hair. “I fucked up. We had this really amazing night together. Ya know, those nights where you feel like the world has stopped, and it’s just the two of you?”
He’s staring at her and not me, but it doesn’t matter. My thoughts are on Daisy anyway. “Yeah.”
I swallow down a lump in my throat. Every day was like that up here in this tree house with Daisy.
“Anyway.” He drops his gaze to the wood floor. “A few days later I got roped into this date auction thing with her roommate.”
“And Violet assumed you were blowing her off for her roommate?”
He rubs his jaw. “Little worse than that.”
“You slept with her roommate?”
The pained expression on his face tells me more than he does. “I was so drunk. I don’t even remember it, but I woke up naked with her roommate, so yeah, I guess I did.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. There’s no walking back from that. I’ve apologized a million times. She hates me. Almost as much as I hate myself for it.”
I finish hanging the last strand, and Gavin jumps down from the tree house.
“Where are we going to plug in the extension cord?” he asks, holding it up.
I motion toward his house.
“I should have known,” he says dryly. He hops back over the fence, dragging the cord with him.
“Here we go,” he says. “One, two, lights.”