16. Daisy
DAISY
Half awake, half asleep, I can’t make out what the buzzing is. Everything is sluggish and drowsy. I can barely open my eyes. But when the sound starts again, I’m awake enough to realize it’s my phone.
Which is odd, as it’s been an age since I got a call on it. Because exactly four people have this number. My mom, Annie, Katie—the organizer of the camp Elsie is at—and Vandal.
I pat around on the side table and squint at it.
Vandal: Are you awake?
Vandal: I’m outside.
Vandal: Let me in, Daze.
Then I hear footsteps in the hallway. My heart races, even as I way too quickly accept the fact I think he just broke into my house.
Or it could be the two men I saw. The two men who made me race home and do an inventory of how quickly we could pack up and leave. I asked my parents if they had any more friends who could help Elsie and I out with a place to live. They said they’d ask around but weren’t hopeful.
Just as I sit up in bed and turn the lamp on, my already ajar door is pushed open. And Vandal fills the entire doorframe.
“You did not just break into my house,” I whisper in hushed tones.
He steps in farther, and I notice he’s doing his best to not make more noise. He’s almost tiptoeing in those heavy boots of his. And he takes great care to slide the door fully shut.
“I leave that ajar so I can hear Elsie if she needs me,” I say quietly.
Vandal doesn’t say a word. Instead, he moves over to me and sits on the side of the bed. “Sorry I woke you.”
I shake my head and almost splutter. “You let yourself into my house. That’s not normal, Vandal.”
“I didn’t want to wake Elsie by knocking too loud.”
At least there is a modicum of logic to his choices. “I appreciate…the sentiment. But it doesn’t mean you can just pick the lock and walk on in.”
“Wanted to check you were okay,” he says. His breath smells of strong minty toothpaste, and his hair is damp in places, like he recently washed it. But his eyes are as red as the last time I saw him.
I glance at my phone and check the time. “It’s two in the morning. I was absolutely okay because I was fast asleep like I was supposed to be before my phone started buzzing.”
Vandal takes my phone and puts it back on the side table. As he moves, the strap of my tank top slides off my shoulder. Vandal watches as it falls, then gently reaches for it, and his fingers brush against my skin as he lazily returns it to my shoulder.
It’s hard to hide the trail of goose bumps that emerge.
“Why did you need to check I was okay right now?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I heard from Knox that Maren was worried about you today.”
“So much for making new friends,” I say.
Vandal slides his hand beneath mine, palm down. The move means we’re not really holding hands, but mine covers his large tanned one. There is ink creeping to his knuckles where the letters IOMC sit.
“What do you mean?”
“Girl code. I thought I was making a new friend in Maren. But if she’s gonna run back to Knox and report everything involving me so that it gets back to you…and that means you show up at my house in the middle of the night…then I’m—”
“Breathe, Daze,” Vandal says.
I take a deep breath as I’m told. “I thought better of Maren.”
Vandal shakes his head. “That’s not what happened.
You need some backstory. Two men came after Maren recently.
They thought she was mixed up in something she wasn’t.
But it didn’t stop them from coming after her.
My guess, without speaking to her, is that her decision to tell Knox about the two men has to do with that. Plus, Knox runs this town.”
His words are enough for me to bank the volley of allegations I was about to make about Maren’s character. “So, how did that go from being a private conversation between a woman and her partner to you sitting here?”
Vandal looks around my bedroom. It’s not much, but I’ve managed to make it comfortable. It’s not like I ran here with nothing. We have our clothes, the majority of our belongings. There are home touches such as my bedding, which is crisp and white.
And it’s clean.
“Knox heard you were there too and told me it threw you.”
I’m grateful I didn’t tell Maren I recognized the tattoo. I made a call in the moment to disappear back to the apartment. I guess the way I feigned a headache was unconvincing.
My head spins with all the possible answers and outcomes. So I think on my feet. I can undo what I say at some point in the future.
“I thought they could be the men from the apartment down the corridor. They got evicted, and I didn’t want trouble.”
Vandal’s shoulders immediately relax. “Were they?”
I shake my head. “No. They weren’t. I haven’t seen those men since they were kicked out, so I’m hoping they’ve moved along and gone to another town.”
“You know you can message me if you ever feel unsafe,” he says. His shoulders are hunched, and he stares at a spot on the floor.
“Does that include when bikers break into my house?”
He turns slightly to look at me from the corner of his eye. “You should never be scared of me.”
“I probably should be, but somehow I’m not. Elsie is going to be mad she missed you. You’re all she talks about. Vandal this and Vandal that.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “We could wake her.”
I huff. “First rule of parenting is if they’re sleeping, you don’t wake them unless the world is on fire.
Plus, you let her get up at two in the morning to talk to you, she’ll be in here again tomorrow night expecting me to talk to her because you told her it was okay. So, no. We aren’t waking her.”
His hand turns beneath mine, so our hands are linked.
“I was having a real shit night, Daze. I know you’re probably pissed that I messaged and woke you and broke into your house, but…
” I hold my breath because I don’t want to interrupt his train of thought.
He sighs and adjusts how he’s seated on the bed so he’s facing me.
“This, seeing you, made me feel a little better.”
I squeeze his fingers, but they barely budge. They’re so much thicker and stronger than mine could ever be. But something tells me Vandal is someone vulnerable wrapped in a hard shell.
“You want to talk about it?” I ask.
“Just this,” he says, pointing to his scars. “Means I can’t do what I normally do for my club. Leaves me feeling a little…useless.”
“That must be hard.”
He rubs his thumb over the back of my hand. “The worst.”
“You know what I say to Elsie when she’s feeling down?”
He looks at me, and I’m struck by how blue his eyes are, like a rich shade of dark denim. “What’s that?”
“Everything passes. Nothing is ever permanent, Vandal. If you wait long enough, the feelings pass, the sun comes out, you get a chance opportunity, or you decide to step up and give fate a hand in deciding what’s next for you. But whatever state you’re in right now isn’t permanent.”
Vandal rubs a hand over the large scar on his skull. “Some things feel pretty permanent.”
I shrug. “Meh. Makes you look badass.”
“Not sure I see it the same way. Are you sure you’re okay? I’m sorry you got scared, even if it didn’t turn out to be who you thought.”
“I’m okay.” I lean back on my pillow, but Vandal doesn’t let go of my hand. “It actually felt like the first normal day since I moved here. Like, Elsie is happy, and she had a playdate. I had a playdate of my own. You think I should trust Maren?”
He wraps our joined hands in his free one. “Yeah. What she did was all for the right reasons. Protecting the town. Letting Knox know about two newcomers. And wanting to make sure you were okay. I think you can trust her.”
I wonder when I decided that I could trust Vandal. That I would accept his opinion on such things.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
As if on cue, his stomach rumbles, and we both smile. “Haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
I tug my hand from his, shove the covers back, and kneel in front of him. I place a hand to his cheek, just like I would to Elsie. “You need to start taking care of yourself, Vandal.”
He leans into the touch. “Maybe I just need a reason to.”
I huff at that. I climb out of bed and tug my robe over my pajamas. Then we walk to the kitchen, and we get busy making burgers.
The fridge is bursting with fresh produce and meat and dairy. If I opened the freezer drawers, they’d be the same. “You want a soda?”
“I’ll take a cola if you have one, please,” he says.
Our fingers touch as I hand it to him.
“I think you know I do. Havoc blew your cover. He told me that you were the reason I got two anonymous grocery deliveries of more food than we could eat in a week.”
The corner of his mouth twitches in a smile. “Havoc should learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“It was good of you.” I don’t need to tell him how dire things had gotten. But the money I’ve saved on groceries afforded me the opportunity to buy Elsie new sneakers. “But for the record, Elsie and I don’t need a twelve-pack of chicken breasts. I froze eight of them.”
He reaches out and wraps one of my curls around his finger. “Better to be safe than sorry.”
Every clatter and bang when we open the fridge or put a pan on the stove causes us both to stop and stare in the direction of Elsie’s room.
“She’s usually a good sleeper,” I say as the burgers sizzle.
“I envy that,” Vandal says, and there’s a wistfulness that tells me he means every word.
“You don’t sleep well?” I slice up a tomato. Enough for the two burgers.
He shakes his head. “Not really. Is there any of the potato salad left?”
I know when a man is changing the subject, but I find it sweet he remembers what he ordered for us. “Yeah. Bottom shelf.”
When the burgers are ready, I put them onto a plate and slide it along the counter to him.
Vandal grabs the knife I sliced the tomatoes with, cuts a burger in half, and then hands it to me. “You can’t make a meal for me and not have any of it for yourself.”
“I already ate dinner with Elsie.”
He keeps the burger offered to me. “Don’t make me eat alone, Daze.”
In fairness, the scent of the burgers made me hungry, so I take it. And Vandal waits for me to take a bite before taking one of his own.
I laugh as I chew. “Were you waiting to see if I’d poisoned them or something?”
He shakes his head while he mumbles through a mouthful of food, “Just wanted to make sure you were getting fed before me.”
I cover my mouth. “That’s very chivalrous.”
He shrugs but continues to eat. For the most part, it’s a silent but not awkward affair. In between bites, we clean up. I put the container of potato salad away; Vandal rinses the pan. We do it as silently as we cooked, but occasionally, we brush against each other.
He places his hands on my shoulders when he walks back from the fridge. And I find myself placing my hand on his chest as I reach for the knife.
Maybe it’s the domestic intimacy, but the air between us becomes painfully intense.
When we’re done, he takes my hand and leads me back to the bedroom. I wonder if he’s going to stay the night and then wonder whether I want him to.
I miss the comfort of falling asleep with a man next to me. And it’s a long while since I had sex, casual or otherwise.
“Get in,” he says, and I do as he says. He brushes his knuckle down my cheek. “Thank you for turning today around for me.”
But just when he moves as if to leave, I say five words I probably shouldn’t. Five words that have no place in my life.
“Do you want to stay?”