Chapter 8
Word is about to get out and get out quick with Kai and his big mouth, but I don’t even care. I’ve wished for this, dreamed about it, begged for it, and it’s better than I could have even imagined. I’ve been numb for so long, and it feels like my life is beginning again.
My memories of us have nothing on this reconciliation, far more intense and desperate. We were young back then, unsure of what our feelings meant, but knowing they were real. Now, it’s obsessive and all-consuming, making up for lost time, apologies and forgiveness.
“Just so you know,” Kai starts, and I feel my cheeks begin to grow hot, never knowing what is going to come out of his mouth. Zero filter is the best way to describe him. “I totally approve of this.”
“Not that we asked,” Miles quips back, rolling his eyes. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? At the shop? Picking up chicks?”
Kai lets out a hearty laugh. “Leaving now. House is yours…to do whatever or whoever you like.”
“Oh my god, Kai,” I mutter, giggling a little. He’s so ridiculous and so different from Miles. It’s hard to believe they’re brothers.
“I think you mean, oh my god, Miles. Heard that one a lot last night.” He winks at me, walking over to drop a kiss on my head. “Good to have you back, Daze.”
Not that I went anywhere, but I know what he means.
Things feel back to normal, no longer that unspoken tension that blanketed the group.
It was such a struggle for Miles and me to be in the same room together for so long, and that affected our group of friends.
No one chose sides per se, but there were things that couldn’t be said or done.
It was awkward as fuck, and I’m still surprised we all made it through.
Maybe they all had the same hopes that Miles and I did—that we would get back together.
But that doesn’t mean everything that happened is gone. We’re slowly putting those broken pieces together, and I’m sure there will be days when it rears its ugly head, reminding us of all the bullshit that has happened.
“What’s on the agenda today?” Miles asks, acting like his brother didn’t just ask the million-dollar question. The one that neither of us answered, almost ignoring it.
Are we back together?
Fuck, how shitty is it that less than twenty-four hours ago I broke up with Isaac, and now I’m in Miles’s bed? I can’t even imagine how this looks and what people think of me. The gossip was already rampant when I hooked up with Isaac, and now it looks like I’m back with Miles.
I’m not normally one to worry about this kind of shit, but this one is hitting me a little too hard. The guilt pools heavy in my stomach, and my coffee tastes bitter and thick as I try to swallow it down.
My feelings ebb and flow like the ocean. One minute I’m consumed with happiness, ignoring that my problems still exist, and the next I’m scared for the future, scared for what all this means.
“I have to work the lunch rush at the bar,” I tell him, but Kai’s question still lingers in my mind. “You?”
“Boards with my dad,” he responds. “And I told Nate I’d fill in for a couple of lessons today too.”
“What are we doing here, Miles?” I blurt out, shocking myself with the question. It’s going to be asked of us by everyone we see. As much as they need an answer, so do I.
“What do you want it to be, Daisy?” he asks me in a reverent tone. “I know what I want it to be, but I’m not the one who just left a…” He doesn’t say it because I’m not even sure it could be classified as a relationship.
“Trauma bond” is a better way to describe it. Those bonds don’t break as easily as people think. I want it to end. I want to act like it never happened, but there’s no way Isaac feels that way too.
“It doesn’t have to have a title,” Miles now says, a sweetness that laces each word. “There’s a lot here to unpack, and that’s for us and only us to deal with. People don’t need an explanation even if they want it. This is our life, our choices.”
“Shit, when did you get so wise?” I joke, pushing away the feelings, masking them with humor.
“When I lost the only thing that was important to me,” he responds without a second of hesitation.
His words are like a knife straight to my shattered heart. Just when I think the pieces are healing, they break again.
The tears spill without trying, and maybe I’m tired of trying to control them, tired of being strong when all I really want to do is fall apart.
“You split me in two, Daisy. Broke me the fuck up,” he says, lowering his head until our foreheads touch. With his rough, calloused fingers, he pushes away the tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, reaching to set my coffee mug on the counter, my arms wrapping around him. I pull him to me, my hands holding his face to mine.
“And I’m sorry I ever left you. It was the worst decision of my life,” he admits, and I shake my head. He can’t think that. It would have always been regret that lingered in his mind, wondering if he would have made it.
It could have been what ended us if he had stayed too.
His arms lower to my ass, picking me up, he sets me on the counter, his mouth on mine in a kiss that feels like desperation.
“I told you yesterday that we’re done with apologies,” he rasps painfully. “No more. Not a word from either of us.”
I nod as his hands snake up my thighs, pulling me to the edge of the counter. He moans as his fingers dance along the edge of my panties, sliding them to the side. He tests my entrance with a hesitant finger. Circling softly, he finds me growing wet with his touch.
My eyes fall closed, and without warning, he’s slamming into me. His dick hard, and my pussy clenches around him. Pleasure floods my bloodstream at the invasion. Pushing to the hilt, I wrap my legs around him.
My heels dig into his ass, urging him closer and deeper, needing the release that comes on so suddenly. His thumb finds my clit, circling it with languid ease, bringing me to the edge with the combination of his thumb and his dick.
I mumble pleas of desperation and need, almost incoherent, lost in the feeling of having him filling me.
“I’m going to come,” I call out, my words lost in the sounds of our breathing, in the raggedness of his grunts.
Miles’s hips jerk erratically, the rhythm lost as he pounds into me without regard, and I beg for more.
“Fuck, Daisy,” he growls. “You’re so fucking beautiful and you’re mine.
” Every word is said with conviction, a reminder of what we once were, of what we can still be.
“Say it. Say you’re mine,” he commands now, his gaze locking with mine, his fingers gripping the back of my neck.
“Say it while I come inside you bare. While I fill you with my cum. Fucking claim you.”
“I’m yours!” I scream as my body falls apart, clenching around him, my legs shaking of their own accord.
And with that one last jerky thrust, I feel him unload inside me, warm and wet, and I love it.
My head falls to his shoulder, his dick still buried inside me as our choppy, labored breathing slows. I feel him grow soft, and he whispers, “You fucking wreck me, Daze.”
I know how he feels, but every time we do this, every time he comes inside me, I feel my heart heal. The pieces inch slowly back together, reminding me of what our life could be like if we can just move on.
He pulls out of me gently, and I feel his cum seep from my pussy, as an inexplicable urge to keep it inside swirls through me.
“Off,” he demands, hooking a finger at me. “Turn around and show me. Spread your legs for me.” His command is dirty and erotic, making my thighs clench in response, my stomach tightening at what he wants to see.
I do what he asks, loving the groan of appreciation he lets out when he sees what he’s looking for.
Hooking my thumbs in my panties, I slide them down my legs, giving him a better view.
“Good?” I ask, looking over my shoulder. I smile wryly, loving the satisfied and sated look on his face.
“What a fucking sight,” Miles murmurs, his hand gripping my ass now. Leaning down, he presses a kiss between my shoulder blades as his fingers slide through our combined wetness.
Letting it coat his fingers, he takes them into his mouth, sucking it away, his eyes falling closed, a moan leaving his lips on a hard exhale.
“We fucking taste like forever,” he tells me, turning me so I’m facing him. His swollen lips are parted, soft pants of air peppering my skin.
His thumb drags through me a second time, gathering up what’s left, he traces my lip with our release. “Taste,” he says, and my breath catches in my throat, my tongue trailing along where he just touched.
“We taste like love.”
I’m standing behind the bar, the lunch crowd just now beginning to file in, and my thoughts have been lost in Miles since the moment I left his house.
“Daisy, Earth to Daisy?” Lisa calls out, waving her hands at me. “Something tells me this has to do with Miles.”
“I’m good,” I say, not sure how to respond. Again, we aren’t necessarily back together, but it’s moving in that direction.
“How about Miles? Is he good?” she teases, laughing as she pulls the tap, filling a glass with beer. Winking at me, she shakes her head. “You don’t have to answer, but if it’s worth anything, I approve.”
“Thanks, Lisa, noted.”
I begin taking orders from the regulars who come in, knowing most of their orders by heart. Most of them work on the farms nearby and come in on their lunch to enjoy the air conditioning and whatever game Lisa has up on the TVs.
Today it’s a repeat of an old Lakers versus Golden State game, possibly a final of some kind. I find it hilarious that they can watch it despite knowing what happens, and they still argue about calls and players and shit.
As I’m setting down a few orders, the door opens again, walking in a group of people, and trailing behind is Isaac.
I knew his silence was too good to be true.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Lisa looking at me, and she shakes her head, her lips pursed in annoyance.
She’s the kind of boss who would tell him to leave if I asked her to, but this is a public place, and he isn’t going to go away as easily as I would like.
“I’ve got it,” I mouth to her as I walk to the end of the bar where he’s sitting.
Stopping in front of him, he smiles, smarmy and pissed off, and it’s clear he’s looking for a fight.
“What can I get you?” I ask, remaining as professional as I can. “We have the barbecue chicken flatbread on special, and the soup of the day is ginger vegetable.”
I wait, knowing he isn’t going to say anything about the food. He’s here to fuck up the calm I have, the one I always have when I break up with him.
He loves to watch me falter, to be the one to ruin things for me. It’s his way of controlling my life, but it’s over.
And not just because Miles is back.
It needed to end.
It never should have started.
“Don’t see your pussy on the menu, but I’m guessing Miles—” I cut him off, seething immediately at his words.
“No. You don’t get to come in here and do this. I’m at work. You can order or you can leave,” I hiss, far too loudly, and I feel almost every pair of eyes on me.
They missed what was said to me, only catching my reaction, and I look like the crazy one.
Isaac laughs at my response, deep and mocking. “So, this is how it’s going to be now, huh? How quickly you forget who was there for you when he left you broken and crying.”
A humorless laugh falls from my lips now, thinking about all the damage he did in the wake of Miles leaving. It was worse than anything Miles ever did.
“You need to leave,” I demand, but it does nothing but encourage him.
“Aww, am I making you uncomfortable being here? Just came in to order some food, have some lunch,” he mocks, and I swear if I wasn’t at work, I’d punch him in the throat.
“Then order.”