Epilogue
VANDAL
“What’s in the bag?” I ask Havoc when he arrives at the house three weeks later.
“Nothing,” Havoc says, hoisting a large canvas bag that’s obviously filled with an exceptionally bulky item.
“Dude. That is way too big to be nothing.”
“Okay,” he says. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about. But let’s just say we’re about to undertake some sophisticated engineering.”
Elsie runs into the living room. “Did you bring the things for the fort?”
“It’s meant to be a secret fort, Els-bells.”
Elsie stops, then looks at me, then goes to Havoc and whispers to him. “If we build it by the pool, we can pretend we have a moat.”
Havoc offers her his fist for her to bump. “Like the way you think.”
“What mischief are the two of you up to?” Daisy asks when she walks into the living room. She looks pretty as a fucking picture in a denim dress that floats around her thighs and little boots that make a token effort at making her taller.
It’s rare for Daisy, but she’s wearing a little makeup. Nothing too much, but just enough to make her best features even prettier.
Elsie pretends to zip her mouth and throw away the key.
Daisy laughs, and the sound does that funny thing it always does to my chest. Three months since Camila was arrested, it still gets to me. And I don’t take it for granted.
It took Daisy and Elsie a while to settle after what happened.
There were bad dreams and nights when a teary Elsie would climb into our bed.
And there were also tough mornings when we had to drop her off at kindergarten.
It’d break my heart as much as hers when she’d cling to my neck and beg me not to leave her.
The school has been great. So has the family therapist Doc from New Jersey helped me find.
They say time heals.
I’m now a big believer that it’s true.
Right now, Elsie runs through our house like she owns it, and I find myself wondering what it would feel like to give her a sibling.
“Have fun on your date,” Elsie says, shoving us toward the door.
“You behave for Havoc,” I say.
“I always do,” she says, but every adult in the room laughs because we know how she can be.
The sun is beginning to set as Daisy climbs on the back of my bike. And I feel instant ease when she slides her arms around my waist. Her half helmet bumps against mine.
“You excited?” I ask.
“For dinner?” Daisy replies.
I turn to look at her. “Yeah.” I slide my hand along her thigh, nudging the dress higher as I go.
“Maybe seventy percent excited.”
I chuckle at that and start the bike. The engine rumbles beneath us as a familiar vibration settles in my bones. We ride toward the small strip where the local store and Annie’s bar and a handful of other businesses are, past people enjoying themselves on a regular Friday night.
Then Daisy’s hand slides beneath my cut, her fingers dipping between buttons on my shirt.
“Daze,” I warn. We aren’t going so fast that wind and revs drown it out.
“What?” she says innocently.
“You know. Behave.”
“I am behaving,” she says.
I bark out a laugh at that. “You absolutely are not.”
Her fingers drift lower, over my cock that is suddenly interested in what she’s doing. “Still behaving.”
“Babe. I’m trying to take you on a date.”
Daisy chuckles. “I know.”
“You spent forty minutes doing your hair.”
“I know.”
I slow the bike and pull over to the side of the road, put down my feet, then twist to look at her. “So why does it feel like you’re trying to sabotage dinner?”
She rests her chin on my shoulder. “Because I missed you.”
I was gone two days. Forty-eight hours.
And since then, we’ve had to squeeze intimacy around sleep schedules and Elsie insisting on camping on our bedroom floor the first night I was home.
“Wait,” I say, taking the hint. “Let’s choose this or that. This…we carry on with our plans to go to dinner.”
Daisy smiles, and I can’t resist trying to kiss her. It’s messy with the helmets and position. “What’s involved if I pick that?”
“That is I find us a pizza, we go to the clubhouse, and I rail you for the next three hours. You can make as much fucking noise as you want.”
Her eyes widen. “That. I pick that.”
I laugh and wrap her hands around me. “Are we really bailing on a fancy dinner in the next town for clubhouse pizza?”
“Vandal,” she says close to my ear.
“Yeah, babe.”
“I don’t give a crap about the pizza. We’re bailing for the railing.”
God, I love this woman. I love the life we’re building; I love who we are to each other. When we pull up at the clubhouse, I help her off the bike.
“I thought you two had date night,” Knox says when I see him by his bike.
“We do,” I say as I take Daisy’s hand and lead her inside. “Pizza first?” I ask.
Daisy shakes her head, her blonde curls falling around her face. “Definitely not.”
And I kiss her, right there in the middle of the clubhouse. “Me neither.”