Chapter 27
Dunk
They crossed the county line sometime after dinner.
Aden was at work and Chase was at the diner with Seth, according to her social media. They went to Dunk’s so he could get his truck and drop off their luggage, then followed Daisy in the Shelby to Aden and Chase’s. Daisy parked the Shelby in their garage and then Dunk drove them straight to Irish’s, figuring the odds of running into their friends at the dive bar were low.
Then there were so many shots that Dunk lost count.
“One Hot Damn shot for my Princess and one Mad Dog shot for the Coach,” he slurred, carrying the round to their table in unsteady hands.
Daisy used two hands to take her shot with drunken, exaggerated care.
“May the face of every good news and the back of every bad news be towards us,” Dunk intoned solemnly, his grandfather’s favorite Irish toast.
Smiling lopsidedly, Daisy raised her glass, so Dunk clinked his against hers and then flung the shot down his throat, grunting at the taste.
Other than the toast and short exchanges on what to drink next, they hadn’t spoken at Irish’s at all. Dunk’s throat was raw and his body was sore with the residual tension from hashing out every fucking thing in their lives for eight hours.
It had been just as brutal as Dunk predicted.
Parts of it had made him feel guilty and dumb and naive. Upset and regretful and like he’d missed a million opportunities. Confused and hopeful and demoralized. A hundred times, he’d almost jerked the Shelby onto the shoulder, gotten out, and walked all the way back to Maybelle alone.
But he hadn’t, because learning was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I feel like we’re best friends now,” Dunk blurted out in confession.
Even after everything they’d said to each other today, that still made his stomach swoop unpleasantly, but he held eye contact.
Daisy’s eyelashes fluttered and her lush mouth curled up the tiniest bit on the right side, which was her quietest, most loving smile, just for him.
“Like, we survived that car trip together,” he went on.
“Do you think we’ll ever have another fight that bad?” Daisy asked in a small voice, that smile uncurling and her lips flattening out in uncertainty.
Dunk had had a lot of defining moments in his life, and even the hardest ones, he came through positive and still happy. But today had been the most important day of his life, no question.
Things had always been pretty easy for him, without a doubt—making friends, playing football, coaching, getting a girl to smile at him. People had always smacked him on the back of the head and rolled their eyes and told him that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
And he had always taken it in stride, confident that it was just good-natured teasing and that he knew more than people thought. Like, he’d stolen the keys to Chase’s rental car, sick at the idea that she’d leave Maybelle before she and Aden could really talk to each other and see they were meant. Like, he’d seen Jamie and Leda circle each other, so he’d stuck his foot in his mouth, sure that they were a perfect match, if Leda could rediscover her bravery and if Jamie could be patient. And he’d been so right, both times, and now his best friends were happy as hell.
But today, Daisy had done the equivalent of stealing keys and getting two people in the same room together one New Year’s Eve. She had questioned everything about his life, everything about how he made his choices and spoke to people, everything about how he saw himself.
She hadn’t torn him down, though. She hadn’t told him that he was stupid or that he didn’t know what he was talking about, not once.
What she’d done was yell, “Damn it, Dunk! You’re more than a jock, more than a coach, more than the comedic relief, more than the guy girls call for some fun! You’re a generous, loyal man who inspires the kids you coach and helps your friends even when they don’t know they need it!”
He swore to God, his eyes had filled up with tears.
She’d changed his life in that moment. He never would have said that he lacked confidence—he would have called himself cocky, actually—but with one tiny, impassioned speech, Daisy had cracked him open, turned him inside out, and shown him… himself. Not the cocky, fun jock, but him.
So he couldn’t look at her and wink and make a joke when she asked him, almost frightened and a little bit resigned, if they would ever have a fight that bad again. He had to take a deep breath before he smoothed his thumb over one of her drink-flushed cheeks and asked, although he knew the answer already, “Are you planning on leaving me anytime soon?”
“No,” she denied vehemently.
“Then, yeah, probably, darlin’,” he told her in a soft voice. “But I swear I won’t give up and run off, and I’ll try my very best not to hurt you just because I’m hurting.”
There was a big, weighty silence. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. All of the banter, sex and words they’d shared lay beneath their feet, a playing field and a foundation and a garden for good things to grow in.
And then Daisy Rhys’s eyes widened to giant dish-size proportions before her head dropped back and she shrieked with laughter, “Do you really, truly, seriously want to recreate that scene from Ghost with me?”
Dunk gasped in outrage. “What’s wrong with that? He thinks she’s incredibly sexy while she’s doing her art—he thinks her passion’s sexy!”
“More like he thinks her hands working the clay are sexy.”
“Daisy,” he said in deadly earnestness, “hands are always sexy.”
Her hands dropped to his, broad palms with the light dusting of blond hairs running past the bend in his wrists, forearms veined and flexing. “Mmhmm,” she hummed in agreement, eyes going vacant as she stared.
“Besides, you shouldn’t be judging my Ghost fantasy when we should be talking about your thing for my coaching jersey,” Dunk informed her, face splitting into a dopey, wide smile. “Oh, Coach,” he mimicked in a falsetto, “what play are we running next? Please say it’s the Quarterback Sneak.”
“You were a running back!” Daisy squealed.
“I knew you watched me play,” Dunk bragged smugly.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he could hear the suppressed laughter as she drunkenly continued their banter. “I can’t believe you still live in your mom’s basement and that no one ever asked you if you want to be a gym teacher for the rest of your life.”
Dunk exhaled happily and pointed a finger at her, circling it in the air right in front of her face, dodging her swatting hands. “I told you, Rash asked me about it, and I’m going to work on that. Besides, I can’t believe that you tried to convince yourself that you want to work at the firm,” he retorted. “Also, see? I told you: we’re best friends now. We’ve been through the shit together. We spilled about our deepest secrets, our relationships. We yelled about our families, living situations, careers, bad habits, and fashion choices. Hence, best friends.”
Slumping onto the sticky table, Daisy cracked up, the force of her laughter making the whole rickety thing shake.
“Everybody knows you want your girlfriend to be your best friend too!” Dunk exclaimed hotly, shoving one of her shaking shoulders lightly. “I mean, don’t be some weirdo who has no other best friends, but like—”
Daisy sat up again, cradling her chin in her hands, and replied with a huff of amusement, “Listen, Prince Charming, just… sssh. Cause I’m tired and… oh my God,” she interrupted herself, her skin going pale and clammy in a second, “and I’m, I’m going to—”
Then Daisy threw up, right there on the dirty floor of Irish’s Pool Hall, and Dunk was horrified and impressed all at once.
“Coach,” Irish’s owner yelled from behind the bar. “You know where the bucket and mop are. You get that girl outside then you come back and clean that up. And you’re both banned for a month, damn it!”
“Yes, sir,” Dunk sighed.
He hefted Daisy into his arms and carried her outside, then laid her on a very old, slightly musty blanket on the bed of his truck. After she was settled, he tromped back inside and mopped up the love of his life’s frankly horrifyingly neon puke—Tequila Sunrises, his brain reminded him—before settling their tab and apologizing.
“You call one of the Riveaus to drive you home,” the owner told him sternly, “it’s not last call yet, I know at least one of them is still working.”
Screwing up his face, Dunk considered his options and then called Seth, who hadn’t been a part of any shenanigans in the last two years.
“Hey, Seth,” Dunk greeted him.
“Hey,” Seth said. “You okay? You sound like you have laryngitis.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Listen… Daisy and I are back in town, we got trashed at Irish’s, Daisy threw up, and—”
“Give me ten minutes,” Seth said with a dry laugh, disconnecting.
“Night, Irish,” Dunk sighed, saluting the owner.
He waited for Seth to walk the half-mile from Wild Harts to Irish’s, watching Daisy sprawled out like a cat in a sunny spot. She was snoring. Not delicate snuffles, but huge lion with a sinus problem snores. He just grinned, utterly charmed.
“When did y’all get back?” Seth called out as he crossed the lot.
“Four hours ago,” Dunk said.
Seth joined him and cocked his head, evaluating Daisy. “She’s out cold, man. You could hold her on your lap, or I could drive to your place at like five miles an hour. It’s much closer to here than hers, right?”
“I’ll sit in the back with her,” Dunk decided, groaning pathetically as he hauled himself onto the bed next to her. “Please don’t fucking take Apple Road though, I’ll throw up if you go over train tracks and the speed bumps over near the middle school,” Dunk told Seth.
With a nod, Seth took the keys and drove them to Dunk’s, then opened the garden apartment door while Dunk carried Daisy bridal-style to his bed. He backtracked to the door, where Seth leaned nonchalantly against the frame like he had all the time in the world.
“How are you getting back? Want me to call a taxi?”
“Nah, I got it covered,” Seth said, clapping Dunk on the shoulder.
He turned, but Dunk called after him, “That’s it? You don’t want to know what happened? You don’t want to know how the road trip went?”
Seth shook his head and smiled a little, answering dryly, “I know you read romances. You know I write love songs. I can always tell when it’s a love song about a breakup and when it’s a love song about forever.”
Then he ambled off, whistling All You Need Is Love.
“Mysterious motherfucker,” Dunk whispered in awe, shutting the door.
Although he was exhausted and still half-drunk, Dunk remembered to get a water bottle and a garbage can to put near Daisy’s side of the bed before he tugged off her shorts and shoes. He stripped, drank like a gallon of water, and lay down on his side, watching Daisy some more, everything but Daisy swimming in and out of focus, and fell asleep grinning like a sap.