Chapter 12 Daisy - The Laundry List
The Journal of Daisy D. Stiles - Thirteen years ago
August sat next to me at lunch today. He didn’t say a single word, and he only moved over to my table after Sawyer Hale sat at his, trying to get him to engage in a conversation with him. But, we ate food at the same time at the same table.
I’d consider that a real bonding experience, wouldn’t you, Journal?
I have got to stop doing that.
Anyway, my parents are going out of town next weekend for some florist convention. They’re calling it the Babymoon they never had, since Mom won’t be able to travel much longer due to her pregnancy being considered high risk.
If I was a normal girl with normal feelings and the capability of having a normal relationship with people, I could have thrown a party. Maybe I could have invited August over. Or at the very least, Red, for movies and popcorn and face masks, or something.
But instead I have a heaping pile of trauma, a basket of diagnoses, and the blissful silence of an empty house. At least for forty-eight hours.
Beggars can’t be choosers, so I’ll take it.
I’m grappling with the current status of my life.
I just willingly got into August Burton’s truck. And even more bizarre than that one fact, is that I agreed to be driven by August to his house. Alone.
Not alone. The two of us. Together.
For what? I literally haven’t the slightest clue. Well, I needed to get away from my mother. I’m lost as to how Gus requires my aid for anything.
I should ask what’s going on. That would be the reasonable thing to do.
We don’t need to have this uncomfortable silence of build-up.
It takes approximately twelve minutes to get from Main Street to the Rivers River piece of land, and I don’t think I’ll survive sitting with so many unknowns in that amount of time.
Turning my head to rest my cheek on the tops of my knees, I open my mouth to break the dam of quiet. I close it immediately after taking in the sight of August.
Gus has his left hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the empty space of bench between us. His palm lays flat on the leather so I have full view of the thick veins that rope up his arm, the dark hair scattered over them. When he flexes, the rippling of those veins does something to me.
Suddenly I’m being transported back to a day however many weeks ago when those arms and hands were holding me in place while he fucked me from behind, making me forget every worry I’ve probably ever had. And it was effortless for him. I try not to squirm in my seat.
I’m confused and horny, not a good combination.
His facial hair has started to grow in, covering his jawline.
Knowing Gus all these years has taught me that he shaves once a week, but when the weather starts to cool down, he leaves the beard.
He keeps it trimmed and neat, sure. But it really adds to that mountain man thing the obsessive fangirls online keep yapping about in the comments on every post that shows even a glance of Gus.
Personally, I used to be a fan of his pornstar mustache. His words, not mine. It made him look rugged and sexy like Tom Selleck. And if you don’t think Tom Selleck is sex on a fucking stick, I don’t know what to tell you.
Rather than dive further into a spiral about the social media stardom I accidentally created regarding Rivers River and Gus, I attempt to start the conversation I intended on having just a second ago. You know, before I let Gus take over my brain. Again.
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.
Gus bristles. “Just stuff. It’s best we do this at my place.”
“You say that like you didn’t journey into town to find me,” I argue.
He looks like he wants to hang his head, maybe regretting his earlier kindness.
Because, yes. Even I can admit that August getting me out of my mother’s way was a very kind thing to do.
But he swallows and the look is gone. We take a right, and the tires start rolling over dirt, rather than smooth concrete, signaling our imminent arrival to the Rivers’ compound.
“Just let me get us to my house. I don’t want to do this while I’m driving.”
With a harumph, I decide to leave things be. Fine. Be weird, August. See if I care.
I do. I care far too much.
We pass the Rivers River sign and hang a left to travel up Gus’s driveway.
His two-story house sits up on a little hill.
A dark green roof covers the dark stained wooden walls of the exterior.
And if the grumpy man on my left wasn’t its sole occupant, the open front porch—perfected with two adorable handmade rocking chairs—would be the most beautiful, welcoming hello to everyone who visits.
I’ve never been inside, and my body catches up on that fun fact by the time Gus slows to a stop. The back of my neck gets hot and my insides twist with nerves.
When Gus switches the gear into park, he finally faces me. Confusion and worry find their way onto his face. “Daze? What’s wrong?”
“This is my first time at your house,” I admit in between chewing on my bottom lip. My hands tremble together.
Those dark brows of his furrow. “What? Really? I mean—” He stops.
It’s like I have a front row seat to watch the last ten years catch up to him.
“Yeah.” Gus blows out a breath. “I guess you’re right.
Well, Beth handed me the deed a year after we graduated.
She told me I proved myself independent and capable.
You see the front door there?” He points up ahead, and I nod.
“That’s the door I use ninety-nine percent of the time.
The back door is a slider to a small deck.
That’s where my grill is. There’s a small staircase that leads down to the backyard, but honestly?
I haven’t had time to really reinforce the wood there, so it’s kind of rickety, and I don’t recommend using it.
There’s a basement with a bulkhead door. No garage.”
Gus continues to list off fact after fact of his unfamiliar house with ease. My anxiety dissipates a little more with every token of information he bestows on me. He never once pushes me to leave the truck, or asks why all of this knowledge might mean something to me.
Because he already knows it means more than I’ll ever be able to admit. He knows still—after years of therapy—that I struggle to handle new places without extensive research into exits and safe spaces.
Even after all this time and the hell I’ve willingly put him through, August still prioritizes finding light in my dark past. For me.
He wraps up his verbal tour. “And I’ll walk you through everything again once we get inside if need be.”
For as mean and giant and dirty and brutal August can be, he’s also gentle. When he wants to be. I’ve just let myself forget that over time, but that’s hard to do now, when he’s sitting next to me, coaxing me down from an impending anxiety attack without even trying.
“Gus,” I start. I pull my bottom lip in with my teeth, and I watch his eyes follow. “Are we—Do you think we could be friends again?”
His cheeks go pink, and Gus doesn’t even pretend to hide the shock on his face.
I don’t know if it was the sex or the camping or how quick he was to pull me away from my mother.
Maybe it was how as soon as I said I needed him to help with riverside stuff, he didn’t object or make it a thing like I would’ve assumed he would have.
It could’ve been witnessing every interaction between him and Penelope, watching the sweetest of little friendships form over the past couple years.
I replay the moment right before this. Gus’s immediate response to my anxiety wasn’t to freeze or scoff. It was to help. In every single way.
It’s quite possibly a compilation of all of those moments, a collection of the last two or so years where I found myself questioning the solidness of our disdain, choosing to wave off such a ridiculous feeling.
But maybe it wasn’t so ridiculous. Maybe we’ve both just been too stubborn, stuck in our ways. Hellbent on each of us winning or being right or what-the-fuck-ever we were trying to convince ourselves of.
When Gus doesn’t respond, I feel the panic rise in me again. What a stupid thing to say—to suggest. Friends? We…Was the term friends ever an acceptable description of our relationship? Or was it always some grey area that only existed for us?
I try to backtrack as fast as humanly possible, my old insecurities creeping out in the worst kind of form.
“Kidding!” I laugh, fake in every way. “Obviously just joking. We weren’t, or rather, we can’t be friends. Right?”
I don’t count the seconds of silence that stretch, longer and longer, to the point where I think walking back home in the pitch black dead of night would be a more pleasant alternative than dying in the quietude of this godforsaken truck.
Gus chuckles, humorless. “Yeah, you assuming we were never anything to each other tracks, Daisy.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I practically shout.
In the small space of the truck’s cab, Gus turns his whole body to face me. “Forget it. We don’t need to rehash the past. We both have proven we can’t handle it. I’ll just lay it all out here. I want to fuck you.”
I try to stifle my gasp to no avail.
Gus reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “That was aggressive, sorry. We don’t have to be friends, you can continue to hate me—”
“I told you I don’t hate you,” I slip in.
“Whatever. We both know where we stand. This can be just sex.”
Do we know where we stand? He seems confident in that whereas I…I’m lost.
“Just sex,” I confirm. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”
He nods in answer.
“I feel like you could find this arrangement with just about anyone else,” I say.
“I don’t want to.” It sounds like an admission.
“Is that why you brought me here? To fuck me? You were so sure I’d be desperate enough to say yes and jump in your pants whenever you commanded it?”