Mechislav
I’m standing in my bedroom holding two shirts and wondering when I became the kind of man who does this.
I wear clothes because being naked in public is generally frowned upon and because Eduard expects anybody representing the family to look like they didn’t dress in the dark.
Beyond that, I’ve never cared. The black one is clean.
The gray one is also clean. I look between them for longer than I’m willing to admit, then put the gray one back and wear the black.
I’m outside her house at five to seven. She lives in a narrow redbrick place on the other side of town, wedged between two houses that look almost identical.
When I knock, I hear movement upstairs, followed by something hitting the floor and a very clear “Shit” through the door.
My mouth pulls at one corner before I can stop it.
There’s more movement, fast this time, then the lock turns and Daisy opens the door wearing one boot.
Her hair is down, mostly, though one side is caught inside the collar of her sweater, and there’s mascara on one eye but not the other.
“You’re early,” she says, slightly breathless.
I tell her it’s seven. She looks over her shoulder at the clock in the hall and makes a small sound when she realizes I’m right.
Then her gaze comes back to me and travels down over my chest. She pauses there.
“What?”
“Your shirt is very fitted.” She blinks a few times as though that will suddenly make it looser.
I look down at it. “It’s just a shirt.”
“Yes, I understand the basic concept.” She smiles, glances down at herself, then back at me. “I need three minutes.”
“You have mascara on one eye.”
Her hand flies up to her face and she rolls her eyes.
She disappears back into the house and leaves the door open behind her, so I take that as an invitation and step inside.
The hallway is small and warm, with photographs covering most of the available wall space.
Landscapes, people, buildings, a black and white image of an old man laughing with his whole head tipped back, a child holding a balloon, the bridge in winter with mist sitting low over the river.
There are books stacked on the radiator, more books on the stairs, and a camera bag taking up an entire chair in the front room.
The place feels lived in. Not tidy, but hers.
Daisy appears at the top of the stairs hopping on one foot while trying to pull on her second boot. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“I doubt it.”
“You’re thinking I have too much stuff.” She begins to come downstairs and smiles.
“I’m thinking that this place is beautiful in the same way you are.”
She frowns.
“Chaotically?” She reaches the bottom step, tilting her head at me.
“Wonderfully so,” I admit.
She grabs a coat from the banister and almost knocks a framed photograph off the wall with the sleeve.
I catch it before it falls. It’s one of hers, Delilah and Jasper on their wedding day, standing outside the church.
They aren’t looking at the camera. Jasper’s forehead is pressed to Delilah’s temple and she’s laughing at something he’s said.
“I gave them the big version,” Daisy says. “That was one of my favorites. I asked before I put it up, in case Delilah thought it was weird but she was fine with it.”
I look at the photograph again. “You’re good.”
She goes still for half a second, then starts buttoning her coat. “Thank you.”
I put the frame back and she reaches for her bag. I take it before she can. She looks at my hand around the strap, then at my face, and says, “Right,” like I’ve proved something she was already beginning to suspect. I hold the front door while she locks it and follows me down the path.
“You’re getting very good at this boyfriend thing.”
I stop walking.
Daisy makes it two steps before she realizes I’m not beside her. When she turns around, her cheeks are already changing color. “I didn’t mean…”
“What?” I ask. “Did you just call me your’ boyfriend?”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you enjoying this?”
My mouth curls into a grin. “A little.”
I walk toward her and she stays where she is until I’m close enough that she has to tip her head back. “Am I?”
“Are you what?” she asks, turning her head slightly.
“Your boyfriend.”
She takes a breath and looks at me properly. “If you want to be.”
I lean down and kiss her. It was supposed to be quick, but her hand finds the front of my coat and curls into the fabric, and her mouth opens under mine before I can remind myself we’re standing outside her house in full view of half the street.
By the time I lift my head, Daisy looks as though she’s forgotten where we’re going.
“Dinner,” I remind her, pressing my lips to her forehead.
“Right.”
Neither of us moves.
“Mechislav, you’re still kissing my forehead.”
I realize my mouth is resting against her hairline. I straighten and tell her to get in the car. She laughs all the way to it.
I take her to a restaurant across the river where I know the owner and where nobody is stupid enough to ask questions about who I am. Daisy notices the second we walk in that the manager comes out personally to greet us.
“You come here a lot?” she asks, once we are seated.
“No.”
“Then why does he look like he’s about to offer you his firstborn?” She gestures to the manager who is watching us from the bar with a slight nod of her head.
“He owes Eduard money.”
Daisy stops dead and looks at the manager, then back at me. “Actual money?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” She pauses, then leans closer. “See, these are the things I’m going to need context for.”
“What kind of context?” I ask.
“Any kind that makes me not think the worst.”
“He just owes Eduard money.”
“That is somehow not as comforting as you think.” Daisy picks up the menu, and within five minutes she’s told me what she nearly wore tonight, why she changed it, what Delilah said about seafoam paint, and what Bohdan thinks of the trim color.
I don’t say much. I don’t need to. I like watching her talk.
Her hands move with it, so do her eyebrows, her whole face.
She leans forward when she gets interested in her own point and then sits back when she realizes she’s been speaking for several minutes without interruption.
“Sorry,” she says, blushing.
“Why?”
“I’ve been talking forever. It’s one of my more annoying qualities.”
I shake my head from side to side. “It’s one of my favorites,” I say.
She smiles. It’s small and private, and something about that makes my chest feel too tight.
We order our food and drinks while Daisy continues chatting about the bookstore.
The food arrives and Daisy steals potatoes from my plate after specifically telling the waiter she didn’t want any. It’s strange, but I like that she takes food from my plate. It’s fresh and new and feels like something only real couples do.
I push the plate closer to her and she takes another.
While she eats it, I find myself thinking about breakfast. Her sitting opposite me at my table with her hair up badly and one of my shirts on.
Her cameras on the chair. Her talking before I’ve had coffee.
Her books stacked up in places where I wouldn’t expect to find them.
I’ve thought about women before. Wanted them. Slept with them. I have never thought about where they would put their things.
Daisy catches me staring. “What?” she asks. “You look like you’ve gone somewhere in your head.”
I look down at my plate while she waits. I could lie. I don’t. “I was thinking about you in my apartment.”
Her fork stops halfway to her mouth. “Naked?”
“No.” The surprise on her face is immediate enough to offend me. “You wearing one of my shirts. A camera on my table. Your mascara on the hallway shelf.”
Her expression changes. Only slightly, but I see it. I continue before I can decide not to. “And a stack of books somewhere I’d trip over them.”
Daisy puts her fork down. “Mech.”
I hate when she says my name like that. Softly. It makes me want things I have no business wanting in a restaurant.
She presses her lips together. I drink some water and give her a moment before I tell her I’m not asking for an entire future with her again tonight. Her shoulders loosen, and I hate how much that bothers me.
“I don’t want you thinking I rejected you,” she says, pushing the last bit of food around her plate with the tip of her fork.
“You did reject me.”
“I rejected moving in, marrying you and having your children before breakfast,” she counters.
“All excellent ideas, despite the hour.” I wink at her.
She points her fork at me. “That. That’s the problem.”
“What?” I ask, shrugging.
“You say things like that like you’re asking whether I want coffee. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“I know what I want.” I place my knife and fork on my plate and signal the waiter to clear the table.
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“Do you know what you want?”
She lowers the fork and waits for the plates to be removed. “Yes.”
I wait.
She looks around the restaurant as though the answer might be written somewhere over my shoulder before bringing her eyes back to mine. “I want this.”
“Dinner?”
She glares at me. “You know what I mean.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. When she speaks again, there’s no joke in her expression. “I want to be with you.”
There are very few things anyone can say that leave me without an immediate response. Daisy manages it regularly. I lean back against the booth.
I think about it. “I want to be with you too.”
Her face softens.
“And I will try not to propose again before dessert.”
She laughs so hard she has to put her napkin over her mouth. I sit there watching her and feel something inside me settle.
I don’t need her answer tonight. I already know mine.
Daisy has spent the last weeks fixing up a shop she’s wanted for years because she needs to know she can make something that belongs to her.
I understand that part. What I’m struggling with is the part where I stand beside her and don’t immediately remove every obstacle from her path.
I’ve spent my whole life solving problems. You find the weak point, remove it, move forward.
Daisy doesn’t want that. She wants to know she can move the thing herself.
So I can wait. I can stand beside her while she does it. And when she turns around, I’ll still be there.
We leave just after ten. The cold catches her the second we step outside and she presses herself against my side while I unlock the car. I put my arm around her and ask her to come home with me. She looks up and there’s hesitation, but it doesn’t last long.
“Okay.”
I kiss the top of her head.
On the drive back she talks about opening stock and whether she’s ordered too much romance because apparently there is such a thing as too much romance, which sounds objectively false. By the time we reach my apartment she’s yawning between sentences.
She kicks her boots off inside the door. Her coat lands over the back of a chair. Her bag goes on my table.
I look at it.
Black canvas. Two camera lenses in the side pocket. A notebook sticking out of the top.
Daisy catches me staring. “What?”
“Nothing.”
She comes closer. “Liar.”
I put my hands on her waist. “You put your bag on my table.”
“I can move it if you have a preferred place.”
I kiss her forehead. “Leave it there.”
Her eyes search mine before she smiles and reaches for my hand. “I need to brush my teeth.”
“There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom.”
I hear the bathroom door close a moment later, followed by the sound of running water. I stand in the kitchen looking at Daisy’s bag on my table and think about how natural it looks there.
Then I open the drawer beneath the counter where I keep spare keys.
I take one out and hold it in my palm.
For a moment, I imagine handing it to her when she comes back into the room.
Then I put it away.
I can wait.