Chapter 4
Fuck Kai. He did this on purpose, leaving Miles and me out here alone, alone for the second time in twenty-four hours. Although nothing happened, it’s still dancing too close to where I want to be, especially with Isaac already pissed off at me.
I wish I knew how we even got to this point.
Everything feels like such a mess, but how do I admit that to Miles?
I’m struggling to even admit it to myself: that I need to end things with Isaac, but to me, that feels so disingenuous, like now that Miles is back, I don’t need Isaac anymore. Like he was just a place filler.
Cutting through the awkward silence, the deep timbre of Miles’s voice vibrates through me, and I want to close my eyes and bask in it. I love the sound of his voice, something I couldn’t bring myself to listen to when it would randomly pop up on the radio.
But in the night, when I was lonely or when Isaac was awful to me, I’d listen, the tears spilling from my eyes without warning. Missing him so much it hurt always led me to his Instagram, and then to the band’s, only to find pictures of him with gorgeous women.
I would tell myself it was just an act. He was, after all, on tour with a band, and fans are what keep shit like that going.
But that never helped. If anything, it just drove me closer to Isaac, clinging to the one thing I felt like I had control over.
I never had control over Isaac, and I still don’t. He controls me in a way that makes my stomach churn, something I’d never stand for from someone else.
“So, are you and Isaac back on?” This is the question Miles asks me, my thoughts consumed with what a fucking mess this all is. The sound of his voice echoes in my head, almost like every word is a song.
I turn to look at him, his face a haunting reminder of what we had and how it went sour so quickly. He pulls his teeth over his bottom lip, raking gently as he waits for my answer. And that’s when I notice it, almost imperceptible: the tiny chip on his left front tooth.
I’ve memorized every inch of Miles’s face, his body, the hard lines of his lean muscles, the veins in his arms, and this chip is new.
I stare too long. I always do, something Isaac has noticed and called me out on, making the guilt pull tighter in my stomach.
“The chip,” I say, my hand reaching out of its own accord, but I quickly pull it back. We don’t touch each other. At least, not anymore.
I watch as he runs his tongue over his top teeth, lingering over the spot for a few seconds before wetting his lips.
“Yeah, chipped it on the microphone in Detroit,” he tells me, but there’s an air of uncomfortableness to his words. He doesn’t want to talk about it.
He never wants to talk about the tour, something that our group of friends learned quickly. Hit with a million questions, proud of all he accomplished, but when it comes to it, he behaves as if he would rather talk about anything else in the world than that.
“Daisy,” he now says. The ache in my chest turns to a painful stab at the way he says my name. It falls from his lips like it hurts him to say it, and that breaks my heart. We were once so much. We were everything to each other.
But we were young, too young to know what the world had to offer, the people we would meet, the places we would go.
This was needed.
We needed to end to find ourselves.
“I gotta go,” I respond, clipped and short. “I need to get to work.” It’s an excuse, and a lame one at that.
Heat sears my skin, and when I look down, Miles’s hand is wrapped around my wrist, holding me there. My tongue goes dry at his touch, and I feel the tears pool behind my eyes, willing them not to fall.
His eyes fall to my thighs, searching for the tattoo that bears his name, but he won’t find it today.
It’s hidden beneath the fabric of my boy shorts, the material covering it just enough, and I don’t know if I did it on purpose.
He doesn’t need the reminder of what we once were. Me seeing it daily is enough.
“Do you love him?” His question is said with disgust laced with curiosity.
And I stare at him for a beat too long, like I always do.
I can’t answer, though. He doesn’t want to know, torturing himself with what I might say. But in this moment, out here on the water with Miles, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, we’re alone, and my admission could change everything.
But I can’t do it.
Instead, I pull away from him, paddling toward the shore with my heart slamming in my chest, hard and desperate.
“Daisy!” he calls, but I don’t look back, and when my tongue slips out, tracing along my lips, I taste the salt of the ocean. But I know it’s mixed with my tears.
Tucking my board under my arm, I practically run to the solace of my waiting car parked on the side of the road.
As I’m putting my board on the roof, I feel him. He doesn’t need to say anything. His feet are loud on the gravel of the shoulder, and I whip around to come face to face with him.
Anger rages in me, hating that he chased me, but also wondering if Isaac would do the same thing. He wouldn’t. I’m the one chasing him.
“You don’t get to ask me that question,” I shout, my words loud but still somehow lost in the noise of the ocean mixing with the wind.
“You don’t get to run away from me,” he hits back, anger fused with jealousy spewing from his words. He boxes me in, my back pressed against the metal frame of my old Jeep, and its coolness does nothing to ease the burn.
I scoff, rolling my eyes, which only seems to make him press closer to me, his hand sliding to the back of my neck, gripping tightly.
There’s no room between us, our heartbeats mingling, beating to the same erratic rhythm, and I exhale a ragged breath.
“Tell me you don’t love him,” Miles hisses, his other hand gripping my hip, his fingers cutting into my sensitive flesh. “Tell me you feel me everywhere when he fucks you.”
The gasp that leaves my lips seems to only encourage both of us, and the words I spit back are said with the air of jealousy that pulls at us.
“How do those girls like my name above your dick when they’re going down on you?”
“Daisy.” My name is said with a warning, like I’ve just slapped him across the face.
His hand moves from my hip to the inside of my thigh, pushing up the fabric of my bottoms, his fingers trail over the tattoo of his name.
Dragging a hard nail over the word, a memory of exactly where it’s placed, his breath catches, and I let out a soft moan. The sensation of his hands on my body is almost too much.
He feels like home.
“Every time I think about him fucking you, his mouth on your pussy, he sees my name.” The words are abrasive, his voice hypnotic as I listen, wanting his hand to move farther, to feel how wet he makes me.
“He doesn’t eat me out,” I admit, but there’s a need for aggravation, to push his buttons, to see how far he’ll take this.
“Do you fuck him in the same bed I took your virginity in? Quiet, so your mom won’t hear, moaning into his hand like you did all those years ago with me.” His words are whispered, the hard press of his dick nearly throbbing against me. “I’ll always be your first, and you’ll always be mine.”
We stand suspended in silence for what feels like forever, our bodies flush against each other, the wetness of my bikini bottoms sticking to my skin.
“You never answered my question,” I growl, anger returning at the idea that he thinks he gets a say in who I fuck and where.
He didn’t ask my opinion when he was on the road, fucking a different girl every night. His dick making the most of being single.
“What’s that, Daze?”
“Did they ask who Daisy was when their lips were wrapped around your cock?”
His hands move, tangling in my damp hair, a painful pull when he tugs my head to the side, exposing my neck to him. The hard beat of my pulse slams wildly as his mouth next to my ear whispers, “Every fucking time.”
I let out a hard exhale, a strange sense of relief washing over me at his words, in this sick and twisted way.
“What’s the worst lie you’ve told yourself, and why is it that you love Isaac?” Miles now says, and just when we walk that fine line, we spill right over the edge.
The anger returns full force; the memory of Miles leaving is still fresh in my battered heart. More than that, it’s that we ended with no closure—just this.
A constant battle of us jabbing at each other, reminding the other of all the shit that went wrong, and neither one of us knowing how to fix it.
“Fuck you, Miles,” I retort, shoving him away, my teeth clenched so tightly I fear they’ll crumble under the pressure.
I climb into my car and leave. He’s still standing there, watching me go, and for once, it’s me leaving, not him.
When I pull into the driveway of my mother’s house, Isaac is waiting there, his car parked on the side of the road. He’s obviously waiting for me despite telling me he didn’t have time today.
“Where ya been, Daze?” he asks the second I’m out of my car, and it’s like I’ve been gone for hours. If anything, it was only about an hour, which is nothing in comparison to the hours I’ve spent out there.
“Breakfast and went for a surf,” I say casually, but I feel like he’s about to catch me in a lie. It’s not a lie, though. It’s where I was, and he didn’t ask who I was with, and I’m not going to willingly volunteer that.
“With Miles?” he asks pointedly, and my heart stills as I hold my breath, even though I’ve done nothing wrong. “Dumbass left his location on, on Instagram, and well…” He trails off as he walks closer to me. He knows where I was because I sent it to him and never stopped sharing it.
Fuck.
“And Kai too,” I clarify, knowing he’s never seen Kai as a threat, but I’m sure it won’t do anything to quell this argument I feel brewing between us.
He laughs, but it’s humorless, shaking his head. “Was I always just a band-aid for your broken heart and then you were going to cast me aside the second he came back?”
“Was I just meant to be a pawn in this game you’re playing to get back at Miles?” I counter, not even giving my words a second thought.
I’m tired of being shit on.
Miles wasn’t supposed to come back. We all know that. When people leave the islands for the mainland, they don’t return. Miles wouldn’t have been the first person I lost to the pull of the mainland. There is more there, and the opportunities are endless, unlike the solitude and confinement of Maui.
Or at least that’s what I told myself as my heart ached and the tears fell regularly. Isaac was there, feeling the same way I was. Bonded by the trauma of losing something, we found each other. And for a while, it was good, but then the jealousy and the comparisons and the bitterness crept back in.
And none of it was from me.
If anything, I tried so damn hard to never bring Miles up, to not mention the band—the band that kicked Isaac to the curb when the record label said he was dead weight.
Miles then swooped in, going from lead singer, to lead singer and lead guitar. Taking the spot that Isaac vacated, not by choice. It was the end of it all.
Broken hearts beat the loudest.
When he doesn’t answer me, just toeing some gravel with his shoe, his eyes glaring at me, anger flaring, I say the first thing that comes to my mind. It’s something each of us have said multiple times but never sticking to it. Our trauma bond runs too deep, and it makes me sick.
“I can’t do this.”
“Why?” he asks, and for a split second, I think he feels some small bit of remorse. “Guilt over fucking him while you’re with me?”
“I never fucking cheated on you, Isaac, and I still haven’t,” I spit back, my body tense with rage. This whole fucking day has been a mess, and it started with a hangover I never should have had. I drank way too much at Nate and Sage’s to cope with Miles being there.
“You’ve cheated on me every fucking day we’ve been together.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss, feeling like this is going to be my new catchphrase.
I’ve fucked up so badly, and I don’t even know what to do.