Chapter 6
The moment Miles’s lips touch mine, my knees go weak, fisting my hand into his T-shirt to hold myself up. I moan into his mouth in a desperate plea for this to never end, but this won’t fix anything, and as much as I’ve dreamed about kissing Miles again, all the bullshit is still there.
But I can’t stop myself.
My lips move against his, deepening the kiss with every pass of our tongues, and the seconds tick by, feeling like minutes, hours, days, and I never want it to end.
Kissing Miles feels like home, like every single kiss we’ve ever had is wrapped up in this one, this one that has been waiting to happen since he came back.
He pulls back, our breathing labored, our chests heaving in time together, and he rests his forehead against mine. With closed eyes, we linger like this, trapped in a bubble of time that remains only for us, and reality doesn’t exist.
His question comes out on a ragged breath, tortured and desperate. “Did you fuck him bare?” It’s pained, and his brow furrows with the ache of my impending answer.
“Never,” I say. I’ve broken his heart enough as it is, and what I gave him when I let him come inside me was only for him.
A deep, possessive growl rumbles in his chest when the word finally registers in his ears, and I wish he didn’t have to ask it. That he just knew that was only for him, but we’ve fallen apart so badly that any trust that ever was there is long gone.
And not just from me, but from him too.
“This doesn’t fix anything, Miles,” I murmur, the threat of tears prick my eyes, something that seems to happen whenever he’s around. “We can’t keep asking each other these questions, torturing ourselves with the answers.”
He holds onto me with a grip so tight, the worry it’s all a dream passing between us, and I don’t want to let go either. Every second that goes by, every heartbeat, every ragged breath feels like it could be the last.
Nothing has changed with this kiss. The old baggage still remains, tucked away until it’s pulled out again and used as a weapon. We burn too hot, too intense, too much, but it’s what makes us who we are, all-consuming and desperately needy for each other.
“We need to talk,” I whisper against his lips, the softness of my breath peppering his warm skin, and he shudders. My fingers trace up his arms, goosebumps springing up in their path, resting on the lean muscles of his biceps.
“What time do you get off work?”
“Late. Not till after midnight,” I respond, and working for Lisa at this local bar was never in the plans for me. I wanted more, but a broken heart ruins everything in its path, and with it, it took my dream of the future.
“Meet me at our place,” he says, and he doesn’t need to elaborate. I know what he means, and my chest constricts at just the idea of being there. A swell of emotion rises up inside me, a wave of sadness that nearly knocks me over.
I nod in response, unable to get the words out, trepidation lingering on my tongue, and I want to tell him that I haven’t been there since he left. That I’ve avoided it at all costs, driving the long way to places just so I don’t have to pass it.
Miles was the first person I told my deepest secret to, never wanting it to get out because it felt so out of reach. And it wasn’t just about my wish for the future I shared with him. He knew all my secrets, and he held them close, protecting them like they were his own.
But we don’t separate, our bodies still flush against each other, the patter of our hearts beating in time.
I don’t want to leave him. My body swirling with an energy that I only get from being this close to him, growing lightheaded as his fingers slip under my tank, grazing my skin and setting me on fire.
As much as I want this, this isn’t the time or the place. The fucking stockroom at the dive bar isn’t exactly the place for reconciliation.
“I have to go,” I whisper weakly.
“Meet me, Daisy,” he rasps roughly, desperation present, and again I nod. “I need you to say it. I need to hear you say it.”
“I’ll meet you there, Miles.”
The darkness has taken over, and all that fills the space is the sound of the ocean, the waves lapping at the shore.
I love the island at this time of day, a quiet stillness where there isn’t the crowd of tourists milling about or the din of people.
Crickets chirp in the night, and the smell of the short evening rain still lingers.
I texted Miles, letting him know I’m on my way, and when I pull up out front, he’s waiting for me. He’s sitting on a bench that has been there forever, and we’ve sat on it together a million times. It brings back so many memories seeing him there, remembering everything we’ve shared.
I love the little red free-standing building with its worn-out shaker siding and rusty nails from the salt in the air. It looks the same as it did the day I found it. Not far from The Pipe Dream, a location that couldn’t be more perfect, and it’s sat empty for years.
“Hey,” I call as I climb out of the car, and under the beam of the streetlight, Miles gives a wave. Seeing him outside this building brings back a flood of memories that I’m not sure I’m ready for, but I don’t really have much of a choice but to confront them.
“Where do we even start, Daze?” Miles says the second I walk up, and shit, he’s diving right in.
Not sure how to respond, I sit down next to him, my thigh brushing his as I shift closer to him, and despite the animosity and confusion that exists between us, he’s still a huge source of comfort.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” I mutter, but it’s no excuse for what has happened.
“I told you I was coming back,” Miles counters, a bit of contention to his words.
“Yeah, and so did my dad,” I shoot back. That pain will always be fresh even if it’s been years. “And you know how that went.”
“Daisy,” Miles croons with sympathy. His arm effortlessly slips around my shoulders, pulling me to him, and I let my head fall in the crook of his neck.
My dad left for the mainland when I was twelve, leaving my mom, my sister and me to take a job that was supposed to last a year. Six months in, the phone calls stopped, and that’s when the divorce papers showed up.
He’d found someone new, leaving his current family behind as if we never existed. I haven’t seen him since the day he left, and I struggled for years to get over it. When Miles left, it brought back all those abandonment feelings, and I sought comfort anywhere I could find it.
Isaac.
I didn’t think he would come back. How could he when all that was left on Maui was me, his girlfriend from high school, and he had the taste of fame on his tongue? He could have been huge, his band taking off, and sometimes I worry it failed because of me.
“Why Isaac?” he now asks me, the question posed without that tinge of anger that laced his questions before. There’s a vulnerability, a damaged heart asking it, and I owe him an answer.
“There’s no answer I can give you that will make what I did right, Miles,” I tell him, taking his hand in mine.
I lay it in my lap, my eyes focusing on it, the calloused fingertips from his guitar, each mark marring his skin as a reminder of all those hours he spent playing. I loved to listen to him play, to hear the deep, hypnotic tone of his voice, the words he sang only for me.
But then the world got to hear them, taking something that felt special—something that felt like it was just for my ears—and turning it public. I hated it, but only because I was bitter and broken by then.
“Any answer you give will help ease this shit,” he grumbles, waving a hand in front of his chest, and I choke back the sob that forms.
“I can’t talk about it,” I manage to get out, the tears beginning to spill down my cheeks in long, winding rivers.
I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. That’s not why I’m crying. This isn’t about sympathy or the need for him to ignore everything that’s happened. It’s part of healing, and the tears need to come.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for the way everything played out.” Every word is a plea for mercy and forgiveness, to move on from something that has broken both of us.
I am sorry, but it’s just not that easy.
He takes my hand in his now, holding it to his chest, letting me feel the soft beat, and it reminds me of our life together. He used to do this and tell me that his heart beat for me, that I was the reason he wrote music, why he played guitar, and why his lyrics were so real.
I was his muse, his inspiration, and his passion.
And as my thoughts wander to those days, it feels like I am the reason the band fell apart. Without his reason, he lost his desire to continue.
“My heart was so broken without you,” I murmur, closing my eyes, my palms growing sweaty with my admission.
“I saw pictures of you from your shows, other women, and all those feelings of my dad leaving came rushing back. I thought you would find someone new, that what we had wasn’t…
” I trail off, not knowing how to continue.
“And how do you think I felt when I heard about you and Isaac? Owen called me. I had to hear it from Owen, not you,” Miles states, his words void of any emotion, and that hurts more than his anger.
“Hurt,” I simply say.
“Did you want to hurt me?”
I shake my head, the tears pooling in my eyes once again.
But my answer is a lie. I did want to hurt him.
I wanted him to see that he was replaceable, just as quickly as he replaced me.
I wanted him to feel the dull ache that never left my body and the way it felt to cry myself to sleep every night.
“I did,” I admit, sobbing now. My tears run down my face, drenching Miles’s T-shirt. “I hate that I did.”
“I wanted to hurt you too,” he admits, and nausea churns in my stomach.
How did we end up here? This isn’t us. There was so much love here once, so much hope for the future, and now, we’re just a fucking mess.
“I couldn’t fuck you out of my system no matter how hard I tried,” he says, and I hate it. The thought of him with someone else makes me sick. But what about the thought of me with his friend? I did the worst possible thing I could do, and I have no idea how to make it right.
“It’s over with him,” I say through a ragged breath.
“Is that because I’m back?” Miles asks, and it’s a valid question.
“It was never going to last. I didn’t love him. It was trauma, and not that it makes any of it right, but that’s what it was. I took the abuse from him because I thought I deserved it.”
Isaac saw my bleeding heart, the gaping hole that Miles left, and he filled it.
He made me think I was worthy of love, that he’d never leave, but he also saw my vulnerability, and anyone who can move in on his friend’s girlfriend, especially when he knew she was broken, did it with malice in their heart.
I was always a pawn in the game, but I never wanted to admit that to myself.
I feel Miles tighten beside me, his hand clenching mine in a hard grip. Every word feels like I’m slicing through his skin, wounding him with a past that won’t die.
“I wish I could take it all back, but it was like a snowball rolling down a hill. Things just kept getting worse and worse, and I didn’t know a way out. I broke up with him a million times, but I kept taking him back, thinking there was nothing else for me.”
The more I talk, the more I dig myself into a hole, and like I said before, there’s nothing I can say that will make any of this right.
“How do we move on?” I ask, begging for an answer that’s laced with simplicity and ease, but it won’t happen. “Can you ever forgive me?”
How can he when I can’t even forgive myself?
“Can you forgive me?” Miles now asks, and I look up at him, his face a blur with tears, my lashes wet, my lids heavy. Confusion washes over me with his question. There’s nothing to forgive. He did what he did because of what I did.
An eye for an eye.
Revenge is like a bucket with a hole; it promises nothing but emptiness, and that’s all both of us feel.
“For what?” I question softly.
“Leaving you. For making you think I didn’t love you. For driving you into his arms. For, fuck, I don’t even know anymore, Daze,” Miles growls.
Another ragged sob leaves my lips, and Miles holds me closer, a soft drop of his lips on the top of my head feels so intimate.
“I forgave you a long time ago,” he now admits, and I gasp out a hard sob, my chest heaving with each labored breath I take. “We were young and stupid. Mistakes were made on both our parts, but I want you back, Daisy. Not just for now, but forever.”
I don’t know how to respond, aching with everything he’s just said and letting the vulnerability of his words wash over me. Taking his face in my hands, my thumbs brushing over his cheeks, a few drops of wetness coat my fingers.
Tears.
He’s crying, and that’s all it takes for me to fall apart. Nose to nose now, our breathing matched until every breath that we inhale and exhale is shared.
“I thought I lost you forever, and I was willing to live with that because I thought I deserved it after what I did.” My words fall from my lips in a dizzying, oxygen-deprived haze, my body overcome with rough, complicated love.
“I’m so sorry,” I utter, and I’ll say it a million times, for the rest of our lives, for eternity, because he needs to hear it.
I will spend the rest of our days making it up to him.
“No more,” he whispers, the words dancing along my lips, the air hitting my cheeks, soothing the tears that sting my skin. “I want this.”
“I want this too.”