Chapter 15 Miles
“So, did you know this place was a shithole when you bought it?”
Chuckling, I shift the tile into place before turning to Nate. “It’s not a total shithole.”
“Yeah, but it kinda is,” he counters with a grin.
“Okay, maybe it is,” I agree. “But it was basically a freebie with the shop, so figured, why not?”
Nate glances over at the shop that has sat empty for ages. Daisy opening her bakery here won’t just be good for her. It’ll be good for Nate and Sage too, bringing more business to this strip of shops and improving the look of it all.
“It’s gonna be good having this place open,” he says, clearly thinking the same thing as me.
“Yeah, I know.”
Nate turns back to me, his brow narrowed as he now says, “What are you gonna do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You going to keep working with your dad? You going back to the band? You gonna work the shop with Daze?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “The band is dead, so...”
“You could resurrect it?” Nate suggests with a shrug.
Nate didn’t go to the same school as Daisy, Owen and me and wasn’t really around when we first got the band together. He knows Isaac, but not well, although he did witness the shitfight that happened when the band went to shit and I lost Daze and then came back to Maui.
“Nah, I don’t think that’ll—” The rest of my words are cut off when an all-too-familiar car rolls down the street, coming to stop in front of the shop. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say, standing and making my way toward the ladder.
“Miles?” Nate asks, but I don’t bother answering as I climb down the ladder before stalking across the road.
Isaac has a smug grin on his face as he gets out of the car, leaning against it with his arms crossed over his chest. Behind me, I can hear Nate climbing down off the roof after me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, practically spitting the words at him.
He shrugs. “It’s a free country.”
“Fuck off, you don’t need to be here,” I say, my words hard. “Get out of here, Isaac,” I add, just as Nate comes up beside me.
Isaac glances at him before turning back to me. “First you get your brother to do your dirty work, and now you’ve got your mate here? Daze know you can’t handle your own—”
He doesn’t get to finish. His words are cut off when my fist connects with his face. I don’t even think about it, just swing and swing hard. Fuck him. He was already sporting two black eyes, and now he’s going to have an even bigger shiner on the left.
“What the fuck?” he shouts, staggering back off the car, his hand cupping his jaw.
I step closer, getting right up in his face, knowing I’m taller and bigger than he is. “I said, get the fuck out of here.”
Isaac shoves me back, and I laugh, shaking my head at him as he spits out, “You’re a dick, Olsen.”
“You would know, asshole,” I reply.
He sneers now, straightening even as he rubs at his jaw. “Fucking got your seconds, didn’t I?” he says, and I swear, he’s going to get another fucking punch if he continues. “Fucked your girl good and—”
Again, his words are cut off by my fist connecting with his jaw, hitting him in the same spot as before, as the skin on my knuckles splits a little, blood trailing down my finger. “Don’t ever fucking mention Daisy again. Ever,” I snap, yanking his car door open. “Now fuck off.”
Isaac flips me off as he gets into his car, revving the engine. With one last look at us, he spits a mouthful of blood onto the side of the road before saying, “Every time you fuck her, remember that was me once.” Then he speeds off, not giving me a chance to respond.
“Fucking hell,” I groan, shaking my hand before flexing it.
Behind me, Nate chuckles. “How much does that hurt?” he asks, tipping his head toward my hand.
I huff out a laugh. “A lot,” I admit.
“Come on, Rocky,” he says, hooking an arm around my shoulders, something he never would have done in the past. “Let’s go put some ice on it.”
We walk back to The Pipe Dream, heading around the back and up the stairs to the apartment he shares with Sage. When we walk inside, we see Sage and Daisy sitting outside on the balcony, laughing as Daisy writes something down.
Nate throws up a hand in a wave to Sage but steers me toward the kitchen. Opening the freezer section, he pulls out a bag of peas and throws it to me.
“Here, put this on it. You want some drugs?”
“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” I say, holding the bag against my knuckles. “Could do with a beer though.”
Nate laughs. “Course,” he replies as he pulls out one for each of us.
I take a long gulp just as Daisy walks into the kitchen, her eyes widening when she sees the bag of frozen peas on my hand. “What happened?” she asks, her gaze lifting to mine.
I shrug. “Something that should’ve happened a long time ago.”
Daisy turns to Nate, who grins and says, “Nailed Isaac. Twice.”
Her jaw drops as she turns back to me and asks, “You punched him?”
“Yep,” I reply with a nod.
“I... I mean...” She stops, reaching for the bag of peas. She lifts it to inspect my hand.
It’s not actually that bad this time. Certainly not as bad as it was when I first heard about her and Isaac a year ago.
That time, I didn’t punch someone’s jaw.
I punched the wall, breaking a bone in my hand in the process.
Kind of fucked me playing guitar with the band for a while, but I just played through the pain, using increasing amounts of alcohol to cope with it.
“It’s all good, babe,” I say, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “It was just something we needed to do.”
She looks up at me, her eyes wet with tears. “Did he hit you?”
I scoff out a laugh. “Nah, course not,” I tell her, and beside me, Nate laughs.
“Dude didn’t even see it coming when Miles hit him,” he says. “Both times.”
Daisy lets out a sigh as she wraps her arms around my waist, her head resting on my chest. “This is all my fault,” she groans.
I wrap my arms around her, pulling her close.
“Babe, it’s not,” I say, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Isaac and I have a lot of bad shit between us. Long before...you know,” I add, knowing that Isaac effectively blamed me for him getting kicked out of the band, especially when he found out I was both lead guitar and lead singer.
It’s why I know him going after Daze was an intentional fuck you to me. He was livid when we told him he was out, and going after my girl when I left was his revenge. It had never crossed my mind at the time because I thought Daisy and I were solid.
But when she mentioned the other night that whole thing with her dad leaving when she was younger, everything finally clicked into place.
And it made my leaving that much worse. I should’ve thought about what me going to the mainland was going to do to her.
Should’ve realized what a fucking trigger it was going to be.
“It’s okay, Daze,” I say, squeezing my arms around her. “Come on, let’s go home.”
After we say goodbye to Nate and Sage, we head back to my place, stopping to get some takeout on the way.
Inside, I grab us a couple of beers before we head out to the deck to eat.
“How’s your hand?” Daisy asks, her gaze dropping to my bruised knuckles.
I lift it to her face, brushing my thumb across her cheek as I say, “It’s all good, babe, I promise.” She exhales a hard sigh, and I can tell she’s still blaming herself for all of this. “Daisy,” I say, waiting until she looks at me. “This isn’t on you.”
“You sure about that?” she asks, a sad expression on her face.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Isaac had issues with me even when he was back in the band, and that was only made worse when we kicked him out. It’s not on you, Daze. If anything, it’s on me.”
She swallows a mouthful of beer. “I think he probably used me,” she says, her words quiet. “As a way to get back at you.”
Exhaling, I sink back in my chair, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Yeah, I think that was a part of it,” I admit.
“I think it was all of it,” Daisy says. “I’m not sure he ever actually, you know, liked me or whatever.”
“That’s not true,” I say.
She shrugs as she takes a sip of her beer. “Maybe, but I think once you guys had left, he saw me as his opportunity to get back at you. So he did it.” She looks over at me, giving me a sad smile. “And I let him,” she adds. “I gave him that ammunition.”
“Daze,” I say, holding a hand out to her. “Come here.” She lets out a hard sigh, but she stands and walks around to where I sit. I pull her into my lap, laughing a little as I nuzzle at her neck. “Was that so hard?”
She rests her head on my shoulder as she traces her fingers up and down my forearm. “No.”
I press a kiss to her temple as I wrap my arms around her. “I never stopped to think about what my leaving would do to you,” I say, blowing out a breath. “After everything with your dad, I didn’t think, and I feel shit about that.”
She nods, pressing a kiss to my neck as she murmurs, “Yeah, I know.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I tell her. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, but especially that. You’re my girl, Daze, and I should have realized what me leaving would feel like to you.”
She presses another kiss to my neck before lifting her head from my shoulder. “I thought we were done with apologies?”
Grinning, I lean in and kiss her, brushing my lips against hers in a slow kiss. “We are,” I murmur against her mouth.
She nips at my bottom lip, smiling as she says, “So how about we both agree we did things that hurt each other, but we’re moving on?”
I laugh, kissing her again before I say, “Pretty sure I might have said that already?”
Daisy smirks, brushing her hand over my hair as she says, “Yeah, maybe you did.”
“Hmm,” I murmur, sliding a hand down to her ass.
She squirms in my lap, which of course only serves to get my dick hard, something I’m sure she can feel. “Must have felt good to punch him though?” she asks, a playful smile on her face.
I burst out laughing, my grip on her ass tightening as I grind her against me. “It felt fucking awesome,” I say, leaning in to kiss her, deeper this time. “You know what else feels fucking awesome?”
“What?” she asks, laughing.
“You,” I whisper against her mouth. “Sitting on my face, then sitting on my cock.”
She laughs again, her hand slipping around to the back of my neck. “Is that right?”
“Yep,” I reply, sliding a hand up her thigh to where I know the tattoo of my name is permanently etched into her skin.
“I want to run my tongue along this,” I say, my finger slowly tracing back and forth across the spot.
“I want to see the letters of my name, know that it’s me and only me who gets to taste you and fuck you. ”
“Only you,” she whispers, tracing her tongue along my bottom lip.
I slide my hand higher, brushing it along her shorts, pressing a little harder as my fingers slide over her clit. “I want to kiss you right here,” I whisper. “Run my tongue through your wetness, push it inside you and lick and suck your pussy until you come all over my face,” I tell her.
She smiles, her grip on my neck tightening. “I like the sound of that.”
“Not done,” I reply with a chuckle.
“No?”
“Nope,” I tell her. “Because after you’ve come all over my face, I’m gonna kiss my way up your body, let you taste yourself on my mouth as I slide my dick inside you and fuck you nice and slow, pushing you closer and closer to the edge until you come again.”
Daisy lets out a soft moan as she crushes her mouth against mine.
“You like the sound of that?” I ask with a laugh.
“Uh huh.”
“So you wanna eat dinner first or you want to get started?” I ask, already knowing what her answer will be.
Daisy pulls back, hitting me with a look that has me laughing. “Really?” she deadpans.
I shrug. “I don’t know, maybe you’re hungry. Big day cleaning and shit,” I tease.
Daisy slides off my lap, grabbing my hand as she yanks me up off my chair. “Miles Olsen, you do not get to tease me with all that sex talk and then not deliver,” she says, giving me a hard stare.
Laughing, I grab her ass and pull her against me. “Babe, trust me,” I say, leaning down to kiss her. “When it comes to sex, I always deliver,” I add, before lifting her up and carrying her inside.