Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Daisy
By the first Monday in November, I have learned that fake dating a grump is much easier when the relationship is still fake.
Fake has rules.
Fake has exit ramps.
Fake has clear terms, limited scope, and the comforting possibility of dissolving the entire arrangement with a carefully worded text and maybe a muffin basket.
Real, unfortunately, has habits.
Real is Forrest showing up at The Turning Page at six-fifteen with Puck, coffee on his mind, a new novel under one arm, and a look on his face that says he has absolutely not missed me since the last time he saw me twenty-three hours earlier, he definitely, truly hasn’t.
Real is my phone lighting up at eleven at night when I’m alone, at home. Which I must confess it’s not that often with some complaint about Puck. Like last night’s:
Forrest: Puck ate a receipt.
Daisy: What kind of receipt?
Forrest: Deli.
Daisy: He’s diversifying.
Forrest: He owes me $14.83.
Daisy: Add it to his tab.
Forrest: He says you’re his lawyer.
Daisy: As his legal counsel, I advise him to plead adorable.
Forrest: He’s already trying that.
Daisy: Smart client. Terrible financial planning.
Real is me building a business plan for a nonprofit with several tier structures in a document named Definitely Not A Life Choice, and Forrest adding comments at midnight like, Former players will donate if the ask is specific, and kids should never have to stand onstage while adults clap for helping them.
Real is his mouth against my shoulder in his apartment, my fingers tangled in his hair, Puck sighing dramatically outside the bedroom door because apparently every relationship needs one judgmental Victorian chaperone with paws.
Real is me telling myself, every morning, that we are still fake in public.
Which is technically true.
“Technically” has been doing brave work lately.
The drive into Winterberry Cove does not help.
Winterberry in November looks like fall got dressed for its final performance and intends to make everyone feel something about it. The trees are mostly gold now, with red clinging stubbornly at the edges.
The road into town curves past stone walls, white fences, pumpkin stands, and hand-painted signs advertising cider tastings, holiday wreath preorders, and one church bazaar that appears to have weaponized homemade jam.
The air through the cracked truck window smells like wet leaves, woodsmoke, cold earth, and the specific kind of apple cider that makes people think they can forgive their relatives.
They cannot.
That is a beverage, not therapy.
Forrest drives with one hand on the wheel and one holding mine.
Because three weeks of practicing fake dating, or pretending this is fake dating, or whatever cowardly little tax shelter we’ve built for feelings, has turned touching into something dangerous.
We could even call it normal.
His thumb moves once over my knuckles, like he isn’t thinking about it.
Like his body has started making decisions without filing the proper paperwork.
Mine, obviously, has responded with embarrassing enthusiasm because I am a woman of poor boundaries, seasonal anxiety, and excellent taste in men who grunt at muffins.
Missing him hurts now.
In the reaching-for-my-phone-before-I-remember-he-hasn’t-texted-yet missing way. The saving-him-the-last-bite-of-dessert way. The hearing-a-grumpy-man-in-a-book-and-thinking, Forrest would object to that adjective, way.
This is how disasters become habits—with hand-holding and a dog blanket.
Puck is in the back seat, snoring across a blanket I bought him after he stared at me in the pet store like a neglected prince.
“For the record,” I say, staring out the window as we pass the Winterberry Cove welcome sign, “it is deeply rude that the town looks this pretty while actively plotting my emotional decline.”
Forrest glances over. “The town isn’t plotting.”
“You say that because you didn’t grow up here.”
“I’ve been here enough.”
“Visiting cousins and surviving holidays does not count. Winterberry is different when it knows your middle name, and the year you got bangs.”
“What year?”
“Classified.”
“Bad?”
“Historic.”
His mouth does the almost-smile thing.
I point at him. “Do not enjoy my hair trauma.”
“I’m not.”
The corner of his mouth moves again.
I hate how much I love catching that tiny almost. It is not even a smile.
It is smile-adjacent. Smile-curious. A smile standing on the porch, considering whether it wants to come inside.
I am apparently a woman who has developed a craving for emotional crumbs from a former hockey player with an attitude problem and an excellent dog.
Growth is weird.
Forrest turns onto the road leading toward the Thorn vineyard, and my stomach performs a small, unpaid circus act.
He notices.
Of course he does.
“You’re doing the breathing thing,” he says.
“I breathe every day. It’s one of my more consistent habits.”
“Day?”
“I’m fine.”
He gives me a glance.
“Fine-adjacent,” I amend.
Another look.
“Fine with litigation pending.”
He faces the road again. “We can turn around.”
I laugh because the alternative is crying or kissing him, and both seem poorly timed.
“We can’t turn around. My mother has sixteen vendor check-ins, a seating chart with three emotional fault lines, a bride who thinks vow placement requires a committee, and a community dinner that has somehow become a donor event, a coaching interview, and a small-town referendum on whether you are scary. ”
“I’m scary.”
“You’re grumpy.”
“I’ve been scary.”
I look at him.
His profile is set, jaw firm, eyes on the road, the town reflected in the windshield. He looks the way he always does when he says something true and expects it to cost him.
“You’ve also been careful,” I say.
His hand shifts on the wheel.
“Careful doesn’t erase anything.”
“No,” I say. “But it tells me who you are now.”
He doesn’t answer.
That’s fine.
Forrest sometimes takes truth like a hit. Absorbs it first. Reacts later.
The vineyard appears over the rise, and my chest does that annoying thing again.
The Thorn vineyard is in late-fall mode now. The rows look stripped down, the vines mostly bare, the lake beyond them beneath a sky threatening rain. The tasting room porch is covered in pumpkins, lanterns, folded blankets, and barrels of mums still hanging on through sheer seasonal stubbornness.
It is beautiful.
Of course it is.
My family specializes in making the complicated look elegant.
Near the barn, a delivery truck backs up with the grace of a drunk moose.
Two staff members carry folded chairs toward the terrace.
A woman in a wool coat argues with Marlene near the barrel room doors.
Helena’s van sits by the side entrance, the Snowberry Meadows logo painted on the side panel, buckets of mums and late dahlias packed in the back.
Forrest parks near the side of the house.
Neither of us moves.
This is becoming a theme.
“You okay?” he asks.
“That question has become your emotional support animal.”
“Answer.”
I look at the house.
At the porch where Mom will appear any second because she has a sixth sense for arrivals, disasters, and daughters who have not slept enough.
“I don’t know yet,” I admit.
Forrest nods once, as if that is a good enough answer.
His fingers close around mine.
Not for the town.
Not for the lie.
For me.
That is the problem with Forrest Wolfcraft. He makes the fake things feel safer than the real things used to.
“Ready?” he asks.
“No.”
He opens his door.
“Terrible boyfriend,” I mutter.
Puck launches himself from the back seat, nearly taking Forrest’s arm with him, and charges toward my mother like a furry ambassador with separation issues.
I climb out and immediately regret choosing boots with emotional ambition. The air is cold enough to sneak under my sweater and remind me that November is not here to be gentle.
Mom is already crouched to greet Puck.
Traitor that he is, he leans into her hands and closes his eyes.
“Oh, Puck,” she says. “At least one of you is happy to be here.”
“Mom.”
“What? I’m being welcoming.”
“You’re being observational with garnish.”
“Forrest,” she says warmly, rising. “Thank you for coming.”
“Mrs. Thorn.”
I turn to him. “Again with Mrs. Thorn? We discussed this. You sound like you’re about to ask permission to court me near a butter churn.”
Forrest looks at me. “You want me to call your mother Eleanor?”
“I want you to not sound like a tax auditor at a hayride.”
“Daisy,” Mom says, trying and failing not to smile.
“What? I am helping.”
“You’re undermining.”
“That’s a family language.”
Mom’s smile softens too much when she looks at me.
That is worse.
I am prepared for efficiency. I am prepared for vendor lists, flower emergencies, Carla’s mother having opinions about aisle timing, Liam’s mother pretending she invented taste, and my mother using the phrase “just one more thing” until I lose consciousness behind a barrel.
I am not prepared for softness.
Softness is how she gets past me.
“Well,” Mom says, clasping her hands together. “Let’s get ready for the wedding.”
The words hit harder than they should.
Not because I forgot.
I didn’t.
Hearing my mother say those words, as if that is all this is.
A wedding.
A problem Daisy can fix because Daisy always fixes problems. Daisy smiles.
Daisy handles. Daisy converts heartbreak into bullet points and calls it maturity.
Daisy returns to the vineyard, helps the woman who slept with her fiancé walk down the aisle, and somehow everyone gets to feel proud of how well she managed.
I look at my mother and want to say, I’m not ready.
Not for the wedding.
For the version of myself I become here.
I want to say that in the past three weeks, I have learned I can have a life that does not orbit this place.
I can work at a bookstore café and be tired but mine.
I can sit across from a grumpy man and talk about donor infrastructure and books and dogs with terrible judgment.
I can be wanted without being polished first.
I can be hurt without making it convenient.
Mom reaches for my arm. “Darling, I know this is a lot, but if we can just get through the next few days—”
I have been getting through for so long I forgot it is not the same as living.
Forrest’s hand brushes mine.
I don’t take his hand.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because this one has to be mine.
“Mom,” I say.
She pauses.
“I need a second.”
Mom’s expression tightens with concern. “Daisy—”
“No.” My voice stays calm, which surprises both of us. “I need a second before I walk into another room and act like this is only a wedding.”
Forrest goes still beside me.
Mom blinks. “I know it’s difficult.”
“Do you?”
The question is quiet.
It does not sound like me.
Or maybe it sounds more like me than anything I have said since I came back.
Mom’s face changes.
I almost apologize.
Almost.
But the words keep coming, not loud, not cruel, just too tired to keep dressing themselves up.
“Because everyone keeps saying ‘difficult’ like that covers it. Like difficult is a polite little tablecloth we can throw over what happened so no one has to look directly at it. Liam cheated. Carla knew. I left because staying meant everyone staring at me like I was the problem no one wanted near the good china. And now I’m back to make their wedding beautiful. ”
“Daisy,” Mom whispers.
“I know the vineyard needs the money.” I nod, because that part is true and I am done pretending truth only gets one side. “I know you were trying to protect the business. I know life doesn’t stop because my heart got humiliated in public. I know all of that.”
My throat burns.
I swallow it down.
“But I needed you to care that it happened to me. I needed you to be angry for me before you asked me to be useful.”
Silence.
The air goes cold against my cheeks.
No one moves.
Mom’s eyes shine, and that almost undoes me.
I have spent my entire life making sure my mother never had to feel too much on my behalf. I am very good at it. Award-winning, probably. There should be a sash. Maybe a small crown made of unpaid emotional labor.
But I am tired.
So fucking tired.
And today, tired feels less like failure and more like evidence.
Mom presses a hand to her mouth.
I shake my head, softer now. “I’m not saying I won’t help. I’m here. I’ll do the work. I’ll make sure the chairs don’t collapse and the bride doesn’t sue over napkin texture. I’ll be professional because I’m good at that.”
My voice wavers.
I let it.
“But I’m done pretending I’m fine, so everyone else can enjoy the party.”
Forrest’s hand finds mine then.
This time, I take it.
Mom looks at our joined hands.
Then at me.
For once, she does not correct my tone, or smooth the moment, or turn pain into a task.
She only nods once.
“You’re right,” she says, and her voice breaks on the last word.
My whole body goes still.
I did not know I needed to hear it until it is there.
Forrest’s thumb moves once over my knuckles.
Mom exhales. “You’re right, Daisy. I should have been angry for you.”
Puck presses his head into my leg like he has appointed himself emotional security.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
Two words.
Simple.
Not enough to repair everything.
Enough to change the next breath.
I nod because if I say more, I might cry in front of pumpkins, and I am trying to maintain a shred of brand integrity.
Forrest leans down, voice for me only. “You okay?”
“No.”
His mouth almost moves.
“But I can be productive anyway,” I add.
“Good.”
I look toward the tasting room, where the day is already waiting with its lists, its problems, its bride, its ghosts.
For the first time since we turned down the vineyard road, I do not feel like I am walking in as the woman Liam left.
I don’t feel fixed.
I don’t feel brave.
I feel like myself.
Which is inconvenient, overdue, and probably going to ruin someone’s seating chart.
I squeeze Forrest’s hand once.
Then I let go and pick up my notebook.
“Okay,” I say, looking at my mother. “Now we can get ready for the wedding.”
This time, I mean it differently.