Beau
thirty-nine
I lug another box of old Legos into Ollie’s new bedroom, drop it on the floor, and stop to admire my nephew’s design choices.
A deep green rug underneath a timber-framed bed matches the new drapes over the windows.
There’s a matching dresser and a desk, a coat rack for Ollie’s hat, and a shelf that’s quickly filling up with books and toys.
But what really tugs at my heartstrings are the walls.
They’re covered in pictures Ollie chose himself.
A striking oversized black-and-white photograph of Pony Noir in a thick black frame.
Arranged around it in a way that somehow works are Ollie’s horse sketches, likewise framed and safe behind clean plate glass.
On the opposite wall hangs a San Francisco Fury hockey jersey signed by the entire team, and next to that, half a dozen framed photographs from Chord’s retirement party.
The one with Ollie and Izzy dancing together is the largest. The shot of us all laughing around the table has a place on my nephew’s nightstand.
It’s only been ten days since we moved into Daisy’s place, but it looks like the kid’s lived here half his life. I smile to myself. Daisy’s been single-minded about decorating this room, and I have no doubt this lived-in feel is exactly the point.
I’m about to return to the kitchen when she walks in, arms loaded with a cloud of fresh, sweet-smelling sheets. She drops them on the bare mattress and plants her hands on her hips before scanning the room.
“It still needs something,” she says distractedly. “Are the walls too white? We could paint them.”
“The walls are fine.” I hook a finger into her belt loop and tug her against me. “The walls are perfect. You’re perfect.”
She smiles as I lean in to kiss her. Slowly at first, then deeper, pressing her body against mine, exchanging heat until she moans deep in her throat.
“I can’t believe this is real,” she murmurs, lifting onto her toes to circle her arms around my neck. She nuzzles in close, inhaling my skin, and I turn my head to breathe in the scent of her shampoo.
“Me neither,” I mumble.
“And no second thoughts about staying here at Silver Leaf?”
“Only about a thousand.”
“What?” She steps back as she asks, “Why didn’t you say something?”
I chuckle and yank her back into my arms. “I’m sorry, Darlin’, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I worry about screwing this up. Your family has put a lot of faith in me, and I want to make sure it’s not misplaced.”
“It’s not,” she says firmly. “It’s exactly where it’s supposed to be, and so are you.”
An unfamiliar warmth coils inside my chest, pulsing in gentle waves of ease and belonging. “Say it enough times and I might start believing it,” I warn her.
Her smile is smug, and her hazel eyes are shrewd. “You already believe it, don’t you? Just a little.”
“The way you love me makes it pretty hard not to.”
She offers me her mouth, and I accept it with a rush of gratitude. I’m so lucky to have her. And Ollie. And this.
“Something feels different for me too,” she says, her hands stroking my back as she talks.
“I spent the last year trying to figure out how I fit in, and nothing felt right. I’m not the girl who was raised here by two parents who loved her so hard.
I’m not the woman who traveled the world all those years.
I wasn’t your girl anymore, and I wasn’t the person I used to be when you were by my side.
Silver Leaf was home, and it’ll always be home, but being back here felt like I was living fragments of past lives instead of moving forward into something new.
I didn’t know it at the time, but something was missing.
I thought it was my parents, but that’s the kind of loss you learn to live with.
There’s never any hope they’ll walk through the door again.
But you… You were always out there, and as much as I tried to pretend otherwise, I couldn’t forget you. ”
“I never forgot you either,” I tell her, reaching for the bracelet on her wrist, which makes her brush my shirt exactly where the daisy tattoo is hidden underneath. “It’s always been you.”
“That’s what I’m trying to say. You belong here more than you realize.
For the first time since I was a kid, Silver Leaf feels expansive and exciting and full of possibilities again.
The adventure I went out to chase all those years ago is right here where I want it to be.
You’re here, and we’re together, and everything feels right. ”
“Huh. Is that what this feeling is?” I ask.
Her brow quirks. “What feeling?”
“The openness in my chest and the lightness in my middle. The way breathing is easy.” I kiss her again.
“The way you’ve never looked more beautiful than you do right now, and the thrill of knowing I’m going to think the exact same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next, for the rest of my life. ”
“That’s the feeling of having a family at your back,” she tells me.
“Maybe. Or perhaps it’s just an effect of loving you.”
I kiss her again and let it grow deeper. She moans again and drags her lips away. “Maybe we should take this to—”
“Hello!” Ollie shouts as the doors to the back porch slide open. “Hello! I’m home!”
Daisy bites her lip, then starts to giggle. I reach around to pinch her ass as I kiss her again. “Don’t think I won’t collect later.”
“I’m counting on it.”
We leave the room hand in hand and enter the kitchen just as Ollie’s barreling inside with Izzy at his hip and Poppy and Dylan right behind. They’re in swimsuits with towels slung over their shoulders.
“Sorry to barge in on you,” Poppy says, peeking out from underneath a wide-brimmed straw hat. “The kids were bored up at the house, so we called Uncle Chord and Aunt Violet to organize a swim in the pool. We dropped in to pick up a bathing suit for Ollie, if he’s got one.”
“I think so,” I say, then shout down the hall as the kids zip past us. “Second drawer on the right, buddy! And don’t forget sunblock!”
“Do you want to join us?” Dylan asks.
Daisy gives me a questioning look, one that says we could spend the afternoon in the water hanging out with her brothers and sisters, or we could stay here and finish what we started.
Never in a million years could I have predicted this would be a choice I had to think about.
“Come on, Uncle Beau!” Ollie shouts as he races back out the door, Izzy hot on his heels. “I’ve never gone swimming in a pool this big before!”
Poppy laughs, then gives us a sympathetic look. “Guess that settles it.”
“I guess so,” Daisy agrees with a chuckle. “You guys driving around?”
“Yep.”
“All right. We’ll change and meet you there. Give us fifteen minutes?”
Our bedroom in the barn house feels almost as lived-in as Ollie’s down the hall, with linen that Daisy insisted I choose before she ordered it online and a world map hung on the wall with colored pins dotting all the places she’s been, all the cities I’ve been, and all the stops we’ve made together.
There are three small powder-blue pins to represent Ollie and the towns he’s lived in so far.
As much as I’m looking forward to seeing more of them dotted about the globe, the idea of his pin staying here in Sonoma Valley for the foreseeable future feels more rewarding than the possibility of showing him the world.
I groan as Daisy strips down to nothing, my dick thickening in a pained rush of arousal, and she grins devilishly as she walks across the room to fetch her bikini from the dresser.
She pulls it out and lets the fabric swing from her finger, her smooth skin bare, her peach nipples pebbled in the air-conditioning, the apex of her thighs drawing my eyes again and again, no matter how hard I try to be a gentleman.
She lifts her brows in a way that says, well, what are you going to do about it?
I growl as I tear at the waist of my jeans, shove them off my legs, and cross the room to get my hands on her.
“Be quick,” she says as I hoist her up and she wraps her legs around my hips.
I reposition her ass to line myself up with her entrance, then pin her against the nearest wall as I sink inside her, and we moan together as her wet heat envelops me.
“Fuck. I don’t want to be quick, but damn it, you’re not making it easy for me, Darlin’.”
Her laugh is cut off with a gasp, then a whimper as I thrust up inside her.
Her breasts are softly crushed against me, and the angle of her hips is just right, with my pubic bone pressing against her clit.
Daisy grinds down on me as my thighs burn, my stomach hardens, and my dick grows slick with her wetness.
She comes quickly, fluttering around me, her core clamping down as heat coils behind my navel and sweat coats my skin. With a final brutal thrust, I come deep inside her, spilling and pulsing and dying and coming to life in an explosion of pleasure.
Her head drops onto my shoulder. “Oh, my God, that was good,” she pants.
I kiss the slope of her neck, then lick her salt from my lips. “Hell yeah, it was.”
Pushing us away from the wall, I carry her to the bathroom before carefully pulling out and setting her down.
“You know, I could get used to this,” she says as she cleans herself up.
I splash water on my face and watch her in the mirror. “What’s that?”
“Quickies at midday. Unplanned swims in the afternoon. Dinner with you and Ollie every evening.” She sneaks up behind me and wraps her arms around my waist, then drops kisses along the dip of my spine.
“Falling asleep next to you every night. Waking up beside you every morning. Working and living and loving each other side by side every day.”
I turn to face her. “You don’t think it’ll get old? You won’t want to run off and see the world again?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Daisy gazes up at me, her kaleidoscopic eyes glassy. “You are my world.”
“And you’re mine,” I reply, and I’ve never meant anything more in my life.
We’re half an hour behind schedule by the time we arrive at Chord’s, and when we get there, we follow the squeals and shouts around back to Chord’s ridiculously overstated wet-edge pool.
Everyone’s here—Chord and Violet, Finn and Rosie, and Dylan in the water with the kids, plus Poppy and Charlie lounging in the sun on the side.
The pool itself is filled with novelty floats, including a unicorn and a peacock, a donut and a strawberry.
Ollie’s astride a jumbo pineapple, using a bright pink pool noodle to joust with Finn on an enormous seahorse.
We approach the pool edge as Finn takes a hit to the head and tumbles over into the water.
“I win!” Ollie shouts before diving in himself.
Chord sees us and pushes himself out of the pool, then offers his hand to me.
“Hey, bro,” he says as I shake it. “You want a beer?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Chord retrieves an icy bottle from a cooler, cracks the cap, and hands it over. Then he dives back into the pool, water erupting on contact.
“Uncle Beau!” Ollie calls. “Get in! I saved the unicorn for you!”
I glance at Daisy. “You want to join us?”
“I’m going to get a little sun with the girls first,” she says, and as I peel off my shirt, she adds, “Plus, the view is better from this perspective.”
I wiggle my eyebrows and flex my pecs before setting down my beer and diving smoothly into the water, only to pop my head up and be slammed with a pool noodle. Wading over to my trusty unicorn steed, I collect a green foam weapon along the way and join the fray, which is now an all-out war.
I only discover Chord’s so far undefeated when I unseat him from his dolphin and everybody cheers.
And that’s how it starts. An ordinary summer afternoon in the Sonoma sun. Daisy laughing. Ollie laughing. Me laughing too.
Somewhere between the pool noodles and the cheers, I stop wondering whether I belong here. That’s the afternoon I realize I’m finally home.