Mechislav
It’s been a week and I’ve kept my distance from the shop. Eduard has given me extra duties and tried to keep me busy. Jasper has complained I’m even surlier than usual and that the men in the yard are threatening to quit.
I ignore him.
I don’t care.
All I care about is Daisy, and I spend every night parked just out of sight of her bedroom window, and watch her house.
She isn’t in any danger, it’s just the only way to be close to her.
“The Rudakov shipment has gone out,” I tell Jasper, dropping the clipboard on his desk. He has been here running things a lot more since Sammie gave birth to Eduard’s second child a couple of months ago.
“Great,” he says. “You coming to the opening tonight?”
I give him a flat look. He knows very well I won’t be going. Daisy hasn’t called or texted or so much as looked in my direction since she left my place after the car accident.
She made it clear after the first night, she didn’t want to be wrapped up with a man like me. I should have stayed well away.
Now she is all I think about, all I care about, all I want.
“I’m just saying, Delilah mentioned how nervous Daisy is. She might appreciate the support.”
“She doesn’t need my support,” I grumble. “She sure as shit doesn’t want me anywhere near it.”
I grab my car keys and head out. Only I’m at the end of the road where I can turn right and head to my apartment, or left and head over the bridge to the bookstore.
I go left.
I drive past the bookstore on the corner and see the signage that Bodhan put up a few days ago.
It’s gold writing over a green sign, much like the previous sign, only this one says All the Words in a fancy script with a stack of books either side of it.
Balloons line the windows, the lights are on inside, creating a warm glow that is inviting and comforting all at once.
I pull up across the street and watch as Delilah carries a tray of cakes and sets them out on a table. Kimmie is in there too, straightening something on the wall.
The afternoon darkens into evening and people start turning up. Most of them I recognize from various places, my cousins, Daisy’s colleagues from the paper.
Then I see Daisy. She is wearing her hair down over her left shoulder, covering what’s left of the wound on her head, I suppose.
And she is wearing a dress. The only other times I’ve seen her in a dress was at Jasper’s wedding.
It was green. This one is a shade of copper that makes her hazel eyes flash gold. She is beautiful.
I thrust my hand in my pocket and palm the ring that I’ve been carrying with me since the day after the wedding.
It’s a vintage design. Rose gold with a diamond and citrine on the shoulders. Unusual, but the second I saw it I knew.
But what I knew and what Daisy knew were two very different things.
The night is winding down when Daisy goes to the door of the shop and opens it, glancing both ways down the street before crossing to my car and tapping on the window.
“Are you going to come in, or are you going to sit out here all night watching the shop like some weird book stalker?” she says.
I get out of the car without saying anything, because the truth is, I’m terrified of what might tumble out of my mouth if I open it right now.
I’d end up proposing to her again. Or telling her how beautiful she looks. Or how I’ve barely been able to eat since she walked out of my apartment.
We cross the road in silence and she pushes the door open.
It’s warm inside, and everything is cast in a cozy golden light that looks exactly right for this sort of shop. The sort of shop you could lose yourself for hours in.
The door through to the café is open, and two of the cats have wandered in and made themselves comfortable on the counter.
Lilah, Eduard’s daughter, is asleep on a beanbag under the stairs with a book under her hand and her thumb in her mouth.
Delilah and Jasper are laughing at something Natan just said. There are still a few others inside too. Bill has popped through from the café and a woman I recognize from Daisy’s street is pulling her coat on and preparing to head home with another young woman who I don’t recognize.
Demyan seems to know her, he is looking at her with a combination of recognition and confusion as the older woman kisses Daisy on both cheeks and then both women head out of the door.
“Here,” Daisy says, thrusting a glass of champagne into my hands. “I’m going to make a toast.”
She taps the side of her glass with her fingernail, and then says “ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,” when no one notices.
Everyone turns to face her. Demyan coming down the steps to join us.
“I just want to say thank you for making tonight so wonderful. I couldn’t have done it without you all.”
Delilah shouts, “Hip hip!”
And everyone else follows with “hooray!”
The shop looks amazing. Just as she described it when we first stood in here together. The rolling ladder, the pale, dreamy walls, the floor to ceiling shelves.
Daisy is hugging Kimmie, Sammie and Delilah and waving goodbye to my cousins as Eduard scoops up Lilah and carries her out to his car.
I’m leaning against the counter, feeling something a little too close to envy for my liking, when Daisy locks the door behind them and turns to me.
“Thank you,” she says, tapping her glass to mine and taking a drink. I follow suit.
“You don’t need to thank me,” I reply. “I just want you to be happy.”
She pauses for a moment, watching me over the glass of gold fizz.
“I do need to thank you, because this happened because of you. I saw the invoices, Mechislav. Had an entire mental breakdown over them. Then with the accident and everything, I just got overwhelmed…” she trails off, twisting her mouth to the side as she figures out her next words.
“The truth is, you’re quite intense. In every possible way, and I’m not used to that.”
I nod, feeling like this is a break up when as far as I know we aren’t even together to begin with. My hand goes to my pocket, feeling the ring there and my chest feels that pang of pain that I’ve been having more often recently.
“But, this last week without you has felt strangely empty, and I realized that maybe your intensity is something I can get used to if it means my life is fuller, richer. Because it is, when I’m with you. Fuller I mean…”
She is rambling, and I didn’t know how much I missed it.
“But if you’d rather not, because I’ve been quite flighty and all, I understand that too.
But I need you to know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me with this shop.
And the hospital care after the crash…and the other stuff…
you know.” She blushes, immediately telling me what she means, and I can’t help the tug at the corners of my mouth.
“Anyway, that’s it, I suppose.” She laughs. “That’s all the words.”
I put my glass down and pull her against me. Without any words at all, I kiss her, wrapping one arm around her waist and letting the other one go to the back of her neck.
She moans into my mouth, bringing her hands up to the lapels of my jacket and tugging.
When we pull apart, I pull the ring from my pocket and hold it out to her.
“You don’t have to marry me,” I start, my own words making me feel sad, which isn’t something I’m used to. “But I bought this for you and would love for you to accept it as a gift, a congratulations on a successful opening, if nothing else.”
She looks at it for a long while, then looks up at me.
“And if I want it to be an engagement ring?” she asks.
“Then it one-hundred-percent is.”
She holds out her left hand and I slide the ring into place. It’s almost a perfect fit.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, quietly, before looking up at me.
“I bought it the day you told me you didn’t want to be with me. I saw it and immediately knew it was for you, even if I couldn’t be with you.”
“Oh,” she says, looking at it again.
“I guess I didn’t consider how intense I am. I should have paid more attention. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too for being such a chicken. It’s not that I don’t want a future with you, because I do. It just all felt too much too soon.”
I nod. “I promise to take things steadier and check in with you in terms of my intensity.”
“I promise to take a second to breathe before running from you when something scares me.”
“I promise not to let anyone hurt you because of me.”
“I don’t think you can promise that, but as long as you’re by my side afterwards, I can deal.”
I stroke my thumb down her cheek, then push the hair away to see what’s left of her headwound. There’s a small scab and a tiny bit of faded bruising, but otherwise she is fine.
“How’s your leg?” she asks, moving away to switch off the lights and shut the shop down for the night.
“Okay,” I say with a shrug.
“So it’s not going to hold you back from any sort of activities,” she says, looking at me over her shoulder.
I watch her as she walks towards the door, her ass hugged perfectly by her dress.
“Absolutely not,” I say, following her into the night.