Chapter 23
Dunk
The next morning, Dunk ran so hard and so fast that his muscles were trembling and his limbs felt like noodles by the time he collapsed in some public park. His tee shirt was tucked into the waistband of his basketball shorts, but his bare torso was still slick with sweat, his loose hair wet.
But no matter how hard he pushed his body, his mind wouldn’t shut the hell up.
What Daisy had said last night…
Did she mean that she had been in love with him, and had known that he was in love with her too? Or had she meant that she had known that he was in love with her, regardless of whether she had been in love with him too or not? If she’d been in love with him too, was she still?
And no matter what the answers to those questions were, that still didn’t help him figure out what to do about any of it.
He had taken their relationship as a lesson. It had been his first relationship, really, and he’d read enough romances to know that those lessons were hard-won and worth listening to. He had learned that his desire to make his partners happy and satisfied wasn’t enough. He had learned that he was a little more possessive than he’d ever expected, since he had wanted more of Daisy’s time and focus than she’d been able or willing to give. And it had been alright that it ended.
When things ended, Dunk didn’t forget what he had to leave behind, but he didn’t go backwards. After his injury in college had ended his dreams of a career in football, he had looked forward and found a new dream. He’d pursued that too, becoming the MHS football coach, and he’d succeeded at it. It may not have brought him the money or fame that playing in the NFL might have, but it had brought him satisfaction, joy and friendships with students and their families that he’d never regret.
But now he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake with Daisy.
He pulled out his cell, pausing his Country Workout Playlist.
Aden had been with his first girlfriend on and off for like a decade before he’d finally ended things for good. He knew about going backwards to try to make something work a second, fifth and twentieth time. Of course, in the end it hadn’t worked out, but even all of that drama had lead him straight to Chase, who was the love of his life.
“Hey, Dunk,” Aden drawled calmly. “How’s it going?”
Dunk spewed out the events of the last two days and the potential revelations from last night, pacing around the park like a businessman furiously trying to close a deal, his voice rising and dropping.
“First of all,” Aden began once Dunk had wound to a close, “just because trying again with my ex turned out to be a shitty idea, it doesn’t mean that it’s always a shitty idea. Come on.”
“I know, but—”
“Second of all, you need to talk to Daisy about this,” Aden snapped.
“How?” Dunk practically bellowed.
“Like adults,” Aden suggested deadpan. When Dunk started making incoherent protesting noises, Aden rode over him, “You didn’t break up because there was a problem you couldn’t solve. You broke up because it felt different to you and you didn’t know how to handle it.”
Dunk sucked in an affronted breath and protested, “Your girlfriend not having any time for you is a problem! It’s a big damn problem!”
“Did you, I don’t know, tell her that it was a big damn problem because you’re in love with her, not because you’re some whiney douchebag who doesn’t recognize that a woman needs her own life?”
The words were harsh, but Dunk wasn’t a subtle man; anything less than such a brutal hit wouldn’t have really registered with him, not when he was so worked up and confused and second-guessing himself like this.
“She thinks I’m selfish, whiney douchebag?” he yelped.
“I doubt it,” Aden scoffed. “Word is, she’s gone on one or two dates with a bunch of guys, but no one’s lasted. She’s either still missing you or she doesn’t know what she wants. My money’s on missing you, since she’s agreed to drive three thousand miles alone with you, McCoy.”
“When did you get so wise?” Dunk mumbled.
“Bartenders are born wise,” Aden joked smugly.
Dunk blew out a breath and slowed down his pacing. “Thanks, man.”
“Uh huh,” Aden said. “Bye now.”
Dunk started to jog back to the motel while he evaluated the situation like a coach trying to revise his second half strategy based on how the first half had gone. He didn’t know how Daisy had felt about him when they dated, he didn’t know for sure why she’d agreed to this road trip, and he didn’t really know if he wanted to try to get back together with her. All he knew was that he had been in love with her before, he could easily fall in love with her all over again, and he needed more information.
So he got back to his room, showered and dressed, packed, and knocked on Daisy’s door, determined to act like everything was normal.
“Mornin,” he said.
She stepped out, purse and little suitcase in one hand, wearing a loose purple maxi dress with her hair in one of those flyaway braid crowns.
Still want her with everything in my body? Hell yeah.
“Mornin. There’s a donut place right down the street, do you want to stop there for breakfast and coffee?” she asked, almost bouncing at the thought of donuts, which he knew was basically her favorite food ever.
“Let’s do it,” he agreed.
They headed to the Shelby, swung by the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru, and then started up the GPS to get them onto Route 66 headed east.
Daisy was driving today, her hair glinting like gleaming copper in the bright southern California summer sun, her dress rippling across her thighs. She sang along with his Shelby Summertime Playlist, which was half songs about driving and half love songs, her voice sweet and wobbly.
But after an hour, once they were out of the tangle of L.A., Dunk turned down the volume and said, “We’re driving for like ten hours today. I’m going to go crazy if we don’t talk or play a game or something.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Daisy agreed, smiling over at him while she changed lanes to get around a truck. “But I don’t know any car games except for Punch Buggy, which I am not playing with you.”
“Okay… if we’re going to be friends,” Dunk said, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible, “then let’s get to know each other.”
“Like how?” she asked, a tiny frown forming.
Dunk rubbed his jaw and asked, “What’s the story of your birth?”
“What?”
“Me, I was ten pounds and two weeks late. My mom threatened to dump salt all over Dr. Hart’s gardens if she didn’t do a c-section.”
Loud, brash giggles erupted out of Daisy. “Your mom’s so cool.”
Dunk smirked, since his mom was awesome, and stretched his arm along the window. “So, the day Daisy was born…” Dunk prompted.
She shrugged and said, “My parents tried not to make too big of a deal of our births, especially mine because Conor was adopted and he was already ours when I was born. But when we were kids, my parents would skip a day of work a couple times a year and take us on family adventures.”
“I like that,” Dunk said. “My parents probably couldn’t have skipped work like that without planning it way in advance. But me and the guys would skip Fridays and go fishing for the weekend, and one of my sisters would always get us some beer. We refused to bring the girls and it made Leda so outraged, like she and Jesse didn’t do things without us.”
“How’d you meet them? Aden and Jack and Munn?”
Dunk laughed and squinted behind his aviators. “You know, darlin’, I don’t even really remember,” he admitted. “It must’ve been second grade or so, because I remember Seth running around in pull-ups.”
“I met Stephanie the day her first cat got run over by Billy Davidson’s dad,” Daisy told him, sounding almost sheepish about the lack of humor in it. “Shane was walking me home from school and Billy’s dad just came tearing around the corner and… smash. Billy was in the car too, and he and Shane bonded over how gross it was, while I hugged Stephanie.”
“See now, Daisy,” he teased, “it’s stories like that that got everyone calling you Princess and Buttercup. While the boys are being gross, you’re being a sweetheart taking care of strangers.”
That made her pause for a second, as if she were turning over the idea in her mind, and then she snorted. “I don’t know… My first art class, when we were talking about perspective, I used up practically a whole sketchbook trying to show that squashed cat on the road.”
“Hell no, did you really?” Dunk gasped, then practically busted a gut laughing his ass off at the very idea. “Okay, okay, mad props. Except now all I can picture are those drawings of goth Disney princesses.”
“I love those,” Daisy replied with a wicked grin.
“Do you love the hipster Disney princes too? With the beards and the beanies and tattoos?” Dunk couldn’t help but continue to tease.
“Of course! It takes talent to reproduce a character and make it modern and interesting and sexy,” Daisy pointed out, her passion for art and creativity throbbing in her voice, making her face light up.
Dunk teased her some more about Disney princes, then they moved into their favorite comic book characters’ costumes, into which of the movie and tv adaptations they liked, and from there, they were off and running for four hours arguing about that. Dunk didn’t consider himself a secret nerd, but after long days working out, teaching, and coaching, he went home and sacked out on his couch. He watched a lot of ESPN, yeah, but he watched action too, plus ABC dramas with his mom and shows about fixing up and decorating houses with Jesse when she chilled.
But then Dunk saw a sign for the Grand Canyon, and he unthinkingly reached over and grabbed Daisy’s hand. “The Grand Canyon!”
“Oh!” Daisy cried. “Somehow I didn’t realize we were going to be so close to it. I think we definitely have to go. How could we drive by it?”
Since they’d gotten an early start, on the road by eight, if they sped some, they would have time to get to there and watch the sun set over it.
On their way to one of the most beautiful sights in the world, they started talking about all of the other wonders of the world they’d love to see. Dunk’s were all sporty in some way—scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, climbing Machu Picchu—while Daisy’s were all artsy in some way— the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. Predictable, sure, but who cared when they were about to see the Grand Canyon for the first time?
When they got there, they pulled on light sweaters and switched out their sandals for sneakers, the closest either had to hiking boots. It was late enough that they didn’t have time to hike all the way down to the bottom of the canyon or anything like that, but they had enough time to soak it in.
They stood before this thing that was so indescribable, yet so instantly recognizable thanks to the probably hundreds of photos of it they’d seen their whole lives. Dunk didn’t even hesitate, reaching out and hanging onto Daisy’s hand, creating a physical connection to mirror the emotional moment they were having together. It was so humbling, so powerful, and as the sun streaked the clouds one color after another, darkening, the air cooling rapidly, he didn’t think he’d ever experienced anything like it.
And when Daisy leaned her head against his arm and sighed, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that there wasn’t another person in the whole world he would rather have been with in those moments.
He had one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World spread out in front of him, but he only truly cared about the beautiful, generous, passionate, funny woman at his side, sharing this with him.
He swallowed hard and slipped his arm loosely around her waist, and stood there, taking her weight, for as long as she wanted to be there, content and calm. For the first time, with the vast scale of the Canyon, he understood that his issues with Daisy had been tiny and easily scaled. He’d only been too inexperienced to understand his feelings, and that had made him feel dumb talking to Daisy, which had led him to quit.
But he was all done with that, because Daisy Rhys was his Grand Canyon, his Sex Cinderella, and he didn’t care how dumb he sounded or how many times he put his foot in his big mouth, he was going to win her back because Coach Dunk McCoy was no quitter.