Chapter 27
chapter
twenty-seven
DAISY
I wake to the sound of Miles breathing. Slow and even, close enough that I feel each exhale move through my hair.
For a few seconds, I don’t open my eyes.
I stay exactly where I am, tucked into the narrow dark of his bunk, my arm folded between us, my cheek pressed against the warm solidness of his chest. The curtain is half-drawn, letting in a thin blade of morning light that cuts across the room and gleams off of the shelf above us.
This bunk is still ridiculous. It’s too small, too hard along the edges, too low overhead. My hip is pressed against the wall. One of my feet has gone numb. Miles’s knee is wedged against mine at an angle that would make an orthopedic surgeon weep.
And I have never been more comfortable in my life.
His arm tightens around me in his sleep like a reflex. Possessive in that quiet, unconscious way that couldn’t be less performative. His hand spreads over my back, fingers flexing once, like some part of him felt me drifting too far away and decided absolutely not.
My throat tightens and my eyes prick. I breathe him in to keep myself from crying, because I am evolved. Barely.
He smells like sleep and the cedar soap he pretends he doesn’t buy in bulk. He also still smells like me.
Last night. Heat creeps up my neck. I press my smile into his shirt. There are worse places to wake up than tucked against a man who fucks like he’s making up for lost years. A soft sound rumbles in his chest.
“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough from sleep.
I tilt my head back. His eyes are still closed. Glasses absent. Hair crushed against the pillow. One side of his face creased from sleep. The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
“You awake?” I whisper.
“No.”
“You just contradicted yourself.”
“Residual consciousness.”
“Impressive.”
His mouth curves faintly. His hand slides up my spine, warm and slow, then settles between my shoulder blades.
His eyes open then. Sleepy. Dark brown in the dim light.
He studies me like he’s checking to see if I’m real.
“Miles. If you’re worried I’m leaving again, I’m not.”
Then he nods once and pulls me closer.
My face ends up tucked under his chin.
I should make a joke. Something about his tiny coffin bunk. Something about spinal trauma. Something about how this whole situation has the energy of a wilderness hostage negotiation.
Instead, I let myself stay quiet. That still surprises me.
Before Miles, silence always felt like something that needed fixing. A gap to fill before someone decided I wasn't interesting enough. So I'd jump in. Make it funny. Make it sexy. Change the subject. Perform. Whatever it took to keep the air moving.
Somewhere between campfires and long drives and sitting across from Miles while neither of us said a word, silence stopped feeling like failure.
Out here, silence has texture. It has morning air and soft breath and a man’s thumb moving absentmindedly over the back of my shirt.
It has space.
I lie there and listen to it.
A couple of months ago, my life fit inside a very different shape.
Recording booth. Studio notes. Launch calendars.
Sponsor reads for lube and dating apps and lingerie companies with names that sounded like extinct flowers.
Dinner reservations at places with lighting designed to highlight cheekbones.
Friends who asked if I was okay, but really meant, Did the audience like you this week?
I knew how to be that woman. The laugh. The hair. The witty responses. The woman who could talk about sex for forty-seven minutes and still reveal almost nothing worth hurting over.
She built a good life. A glossy one. Expensive sheets. Strong drinks. Perfect lighting. A career made out of saying intimate things in a voice that kept everyone at the exact right distance.
Then I climbed into an RV with a bunch of cryptid weirdos and ruined everything.
A laugh slips out of me.
Miles shifts. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Daisy.”
I lift my head just enough to see him. “I was thinking about how unbelievably off-brand all this is for me.”
His brows knit. “Sleeping in an RV?”
“Sleeping in an RV. Hiking voluntarily. Caring about trail ethics. Knowing the difference between thermal drift and actual movement.”
His mouth curves.
“Also,” I add, “having strong opinions about battery storage.”
“That one is concerning.”
“I still think my system is better than yours. No offense.”
He laughs as he brushes a strand of hair away from my face, and the movement is so gentle it makes my ribs ache.
“Did you miss LA?” he asks.
“My apartment?”
“Your life.”
His voice stays careful. I know what he’s really asking. Do you wish you hadn’t come back? Do you wish you’d stayed clean and safe and far away? Do you regret this?
I think of my king-sized bed, enormous and soft and lonely. The latte with foam art that tasted like a waste of $10.
I think of Marissa cross-legged on my comforter, telling me I sounded like myself for once. The note on my phone where we started building something new.
I think of the imprint that will belong to stories like this one. Stories about belief. Mystery. Obsession. Wonder. People reaching for things no one else understands.
I think about the version of me who sat in that hotel room with seventeen tabs open and finally understood that withholding part of the story could be an essential component of good storytelling.
Then I look at Miles. At this ridiculous bunk. At the strip of sunlight creeping across the wall.
“No,” I say. “I miss Marissa. And good water pressure. And delivery sushi. But I don’t miss feeling like I had to watch myself from the outside all the time.”
He nods once, his face stoic yet soft, like he knows exactly how much that confession cost. I swallow before I can bury it under a joke.
“I like myself here.”
His hand stills against my back, and I keep going.
“I like the girl who lives out of a duffel bag and forgets mascara exists. The one who gets irrationally angry when people ignore FAA drone regulations. The one who doesn't mind smelling vaguely like campfire for three days straight.”
He smiles. “I like her too. But… just so you know, I like all of you. The girl who can walk into a room full of executives and somehow leave with exactly what she came for. The one who asks questions nobody else thinks to ask. The one who built something out of nothing because she refused to let people tell her to stay quiet.”
Miles tips my chin up until I'm looking at him and my breath catches.
“I don't want part of you, Daisy.” His thumb brushes my jaw. “I want all of you.”
I press my forehead to his chest and let the feeling of being chosen move through me. The RV shakes violently as someone slams the Machine’s door shut. Taylor’s voice follows.
“Rise and shine, bitches!”
I freeze.
Miles closes his eyes.
“Morning’s over,” he mutters.
I bite my lip to keep from laughing.
Owen’s voice cuts through from the kitchenette. “Stop yelling this early.”
“I’m just creating an atmosphere.”
“You’re creating problems.”
Miles groans.
“Your family’s here,” I whisper.
His arm tightens once around me.
“Stay another minute.”
I want to. So I do.
One more minute in the narrow warmth of his bunk.
One more minute before plans and maps and danger and the final push.
One more minute where the world is only his breathing, my heartbeat, and the strange, steady certainty that this place—these people—have become home.
Eventually, we emerge, clumsy and a little sweaty.
Miles first, hair wrecked, glasses on crooked, trying very hard to look like a man who did not just spend the night with my elbow cutting into his ribs.
I follow two minutes later, wearing leggings, an oversized sweatshirt, and the expression of a person prepared to commit violence if teased before coffee.
A grin spreads slowly across Jax’s face as soon as he sees me.
“Nope,” I say, pointing at him. “Whatever you’re about to say, bury it.”
He places one hand over his heart. “I was going to say you look well-rested.”
“Wow.”
“Emotionally healed?”
“Jax.”
“Glowing?”
Taylor pulls a bagel from a bag and shoves it in Jax’s mouth to shut him up. “Eat your breakfast.”
He splutters around the bagel. “I’m being silenced.”
“No, we’re being spared,” Maya says from the kitchenette, not looking up from an equipment checklist.
Owen sits at the tiny table with a coffee and a map, watching everyone with the exhausted patience of a man trapped in a sitcom he did not audition for.
His eyes flick from Miles to me. One eyebrow lifts. I narrow mine back. He smirks into his coffee.
“Let’s get some real food before we talk through the plan for today. Diner in twenty.”
“Second breakfast!” Jax cheers.
Miles ignores him. “Final route discussion. Then we pack.”
The levity slips a little. Miles’s gaze finds mine for a quick check-in. A question without words. I nod once. He nods back. And just like that, the morning becomes motion.
This diner sits just as I left it. A bell over the door jingles when we walk in. Half the room turns. Then they look away.
We’ve become recognizable thanks to the mayhem my podcast caused. After all these years of being stopped by listeners while walking around Los Angeles, I’m too tuned into the markers of recognition: the double takes. The quick whispers. A phone lifted too casually.
My stomach tightens. Old reflex. Old panic.
Then Miles’s hand rests on the small of my back, firm and grounding, and I breathe.
We slide into a corner booth, claiming it with the territorial efficiency of people who have spent too much time living in shared spaces.
Miles sits next to me. Knee against mine under the table. No hiding today. That realization moves through me like sunlight. We’re not obvious, exactly. But he doesn’t pull away when our legs touch, and I don’t either.
The waitress appears with a coffee pot and a look that suggests she has no interest in what we’re up to.
“Everyone need coffee?”
“Yes,” we say in near unison.
She looks at Jax. “You look like pancakes.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment.”
“Wasn’t one.”
Maya snorts.