Chapter 30
Daisy
Daisy woke up too early and alone, groaning as she stretched her arms over her head and then collapsed back into the sheets.
It had been a month since she and Dunk got back home after their road trip, and it had been hectic for her.
She had tried to be mad at Stephanie and Karen for interfering in her life by conspiring with Chase about the road trip. But they’d been best friends for so long and it had turned out to be exactly what she needed, so her anger had burned out after less than five minutes of ranting at them. Then they’d spent awhile talking about all of the things that still scared her. Karen, who was usually the most sunshine and rainbows of the three of them, had pointed out, There are no guarantees on happiness, Daisy—and you wouldn’t want one. If it was guaranteed, then it wouldn’t mean poop.
She had taken Shane and Levi fishing to confess that she disliked working at the firm, where the work was boring and she felt indebted to their dad. She’d come to understand that, for now, she didn’t want to do her art full-time because the pressure to earn a steady income was too much. But she’d also come to see that, even if her job was just a job, that didn’t mean she had to hate it. So she told her brothers that she was looking for another job, and they’d helped her break the news to their dad.
While she’d been looking diligently for something that appealed to her in Maybelle and the next county over, she hadn’t found anything yet.
And, through it all, there had been Dunk.
Duncan McCoy.
Even though it had been nine months since Jamie and Leda’s wedding, the very thought of his name still sent a shiver of pleasure through her. Since their road trip, they had been deliriously happy and excited, texting and talking all the time. They made love as if they were teenagers, awed by their explorations, frenzied to do everything as often as possible. But they also spent most nights together, curled up, whispering in the dark like they were having a sleepover. It made Daisy feel secure, which was hard to explain because she hadn’t felt insecure before.
But last night, he’d apologized and said he should sleep at his place because he had a lot of things to do today. Tonight was the big going away party for Jesse and he’d helped Tristan plan it, so he had to help Tristan get ready for it. Daisy knew they were going to clean Tristan’s, nail down grills, food and kegs, gather up picnic tables and lawn chairs, and probably put up decorations. Daisy had put on a big smile, even though he was being shifty; she trusted him, and she knew that he was having a hard time trying to mentally prepare himself for Jesse being gone.
So she was up too early because she missed having Dunk’s giant, sprawling, overheated, sweaty body in the bed next to her.
It was ridiculous, but it made her giggle, knowing it was just another sign of how much she loved him and wanted to make their two lives into one good life.
Since she didn’t have anywhere to be until twelve-thirty, when she was meeting the girls for lunch at Lorenzo’s, she tugged her futon into a couch and watched some movies, surfed the internet, and took a long shower.
While part of her wanted to pretend it was just another summer barbeque, she bit her lip against a sob and took forever getting ready, deciding on a moss green and peacock blue striped shirtwaist dress. She used about fifty bobby pins to make a milkmaid braid crown and put on lip gloss, eyeliner and mascara.
Before she could get too caught up thinking about this last hurrah, Chase called and said that she was downstairs. Shaking herself out, trying to get rid of the frissons of unease and sadness, Daisy got her purse.
“You look so nice,” Chase chirped when Daisy settled into the Shelby’s passenger seat, smoothing a hand fondly over the leather seat.
“Did Jesse really pick Lorenzo’s?” Daisy asked after a few minutes of chatting. It was, without argument, the trendiest place in Maybelle.
“Honestly, I think she’s trying to avoid places where too many people will be. Locals, I mean,” Chase explained as she idled at a stoplight.
Daisy hummed in agreement, understanding Jesse’s need to be somewhere where the least amount of people would approach her. Daisy had been in danger of becoming a hermit after Tyler and she had split, because whenever she went out, everyone had to say hello and ask how she was, sincerity and nosiness making for an uncomfortable mix.
“This is so weird,” Chase mumbled as they parked.
“Uh huh,” Daisy said as they started walking.
“Plenty of friends moved away after college and law school, or left the Bay Area for other jobs or to move back where they grew up,” Chase commented while they pushed inside the Orchid Hotel, where Lorenzo’s took up the top floor. “But somehow that was really different.”
Daisy pressed the up button for the elevator, her eyes roaming the Orchid’s lobby since she was rarely in here. “People go away to college, of course, like Dunk and my brothers Levi and Shane. But they only went for school and they always were going to come back. My brother Conor is the only person, until now, who’s moved away. Of people I’m close to, I mean.”
“What was that like?” Chase asked as they stepped into the elevator.
Daisy smoothed some flyaways off her temple and sighed. “I was younger, just in middle school, and he was my big brother. All my brothers were madly protective of me, but they didn’t, like, play with me or come to school art shows. So it hit my folks hard, and I remember his last dinner in town, we all dressed up, the boys in ties that they complained were choking them the whole night. I was really just excited for him, and a little jealous that he’d gotten his dream job in Kentucky.”
They walked into Lorenzo’s and made their way onto the balcony, which was shaded but still showed off a great view of Maybelle Square, a sliver of the public lake glittering like a stiletto behind the treeline.
Jesse and Leda were already seated, a pitcher of sangria and a plate of brownies on the table.
“Hey, y’all,” Leda said as they sat down, pouring them glasses.
Immediately Daisy picked up her glass and took two long, deep gulps, then picked up a brownie and ate half of it.
“You okay there, Daisy?” Leda asked, arching one brow high.
Caught, Daisy looked up and winced around her mouthful of gooey chocolate. “Um,” she said, then swallowed. “So… are we just pretending that this is a normal, everyday girls’ lunch? Or…?”
All of them blew out sighs and leaned hard against the backs of their chairs. Chase looked up and away, blinking rapidly and suspiciously, while Leda cleared her throat roughly and swigged some sangria. Jesse tried to smile, a heart-wrenching thing stuck somewhere between a grimace and an encouraging look.
No one spoke for another minute, and then Jesse’s elbows plunked onto the table. “Fuck, y’all,” she sighed. “This is harder than I thought it was going to be.”
“Feelings are going to get all over the place, Jess,” Chase stated firmly.
“And it’s okay,” Daisy put in, her smile wobbly.
Leda swallowed so hard that they could all hear her throat click. “Are you,” she began, and then she cleared her throat again and asked determinedly, “Are you sure that you want to go?”
Jesse’s head fell back so that she was looking straight up into the sky. Daisy wanted to take her hand for support, but Jesse didn’t always feel comfortable with casual touches, especially comforting ones, so she held back. Finally Jesse righted her head and looked at each of them, slow and careful. “I’m ready to go,” she said quietly, her voice rougher than Daisy had ever heard it, even at the end of Leda’s wedding after a day of speeches, yelling and singing, way too much smoking and drinking. “You know I… you know I love you all, okay? But it’s just…”
They all sighed. They knew what it just was. Jesse had a great life here in Maybelle, except that there were zero romantic prospects. Daisy knew that life could be good, really good, for a long time when you were single. But at some point, when you got used to how really good life was, you looked around and noticed that you were missing something vital.
“You’ll find someone in Chicago,” Daisy blurted out, certain of it.
“Shit,” Leda hissed as fat tears spilled past her heavy mascara, tracking subtle gray watercolor over her tan cheeks.
“Now I’m going to—” Chase choked out, sniffling.
“I know I’m the newest member,” Daisy barreled on, knowing that sometimes it took a new person, who had maybe been on the outside and had some more perspective and less sheer history, to say this. “But I just know you’ll find someone in Chicago. Or many someones,” she added with a smile that had a little more cheer and a flash of wickedness.
“No more breaking your arm tumbling out of someone’s bedroom window,” Leda put in with a wet laugh.
“And we’ll come visit you,” Chase promised fiercely. “So much you’ll wish you’d moved to… to Madrid just to avoid how much we visit.”
Jesse muttered, “Madrid?”
“It’s one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world,” Chase said with a shrug. “My West Coast best friend says if she ever sleeps with every viable lesbian and bisexual girl in San Francisco, that’s where she’s going next.”
That broke the serious moment, everyone falling over their drinks, crying with laughter now instead of tears, Leda practically howling.
Once they’d wiped their eyes and calmed down, Jesse offered a crooked, soft smile and suggested, “First group international vacation?”
“Yes!” Leda yelled.
The other patrons on the balcony sent them looks.
“Sorry,” Chase called cheerfully.
“Not sorry,” Leda whispered, winking.
“Okay, so, does anyone know anything about Callie Rodriguez’s nose job?” Chase exclaimed, leaning in close.
Daisy gasped and Leda launched into all of the gossip about it.
Jesse smiled, hooking her elbow over the back of her chair, and Daisy felt the way Jesse looked. This was a wonderful moment, a closeness with friends that Daisy was privileged to be a part of. Stephanie and Karen were her best friends, but this was sisterhood, and distance, significant others, maybe babies someday, would never change this.
At four, after more brownies and gossip, they left Lorenzo’s and piled into the Shelby. Chase zipped down the streets, music pumped up high, the four of them singing like an off-key flock of birds.
When they got to Tristan’s, where the barbeque was set to start around five, the guys were sprawled out on lawn chairs set down on the level part of the yard just before the grass turned into rocky mud at the lakeshore.
The grills weren’t on yet, but the music was, and Daisy listened with her heart so very full to the rise and fall of the men’s conversation as she and the other women meandered from the driveway down to them.
“Girls!” Dunk cried loudly. “Guest of honor, Jesse Riley!”
He hooked an arm around Daisy’s hips and brought her tumbling onto his broad thighs, which he widened so she fell between them, giggling.
“Hey, darlin’,” he murmured into her neck, kissing her pulse softly.
Everyone found seats and for a while, it was just like any other barbeque, old friends gossiping and telling tall tales about each other. Jamie sent her a lazy smile and she beamed back at him, realizing that she’d hardly seen him at all this summer. She knew some of that was her, but some of it was him, too; his son Hunter was staying with him and Leda for almost the entire summer, which was new and amazing, but busy too.
About an hour later, other people started showing up, Jesse’s coworkers at the inn, a few more cousins of her and Munn’s, and all of Jesse’s satellite friends like Stephanie and Karen. People brought food and drinks and grills, and they enjoyed a feast while the music blasted and everyone laughed.
At ten-thirty, Dunk and Munn coerced Seth into playing, so Daisy snuggled under a light blanket and listened to Seth serenade them with his beautiful, rough voice. She didn’t recognize all of the songs, but from the way Jesse’s lips were pressed so thin they trembled when she wasn’t shaping all of the lyrics, Daisy knew these had to be her favorite songs.
The mood shifted after that, as people started to leave, not knowing how to say goodbye after the everyday rhythm of the barbeque.
Daisy could tell that Dunk was keeping a hawk eye on Jesse, orbiting to her and being his typical loud, boisterous self to help Jesse get a breather between goodbyes or pulling her away if someone was staying too long and she looked awkward. Now and then, Daisy would whisper I love you and you’re so sweet, and Dunk would flush just a little under his ruddy tan, ducking to kiss her quick and hard.
By the time it was almost one, only the original group was left.
“I should leave y’all be,” Daisy whispered.
Dunk reared back in shock. “What? No! Why? Daisy Rhys, you’re just as important to Jesse as the rest of us. New, but mighty.”
“Please stay,” Jesse said quietly.
Daisy’s throat closed and she nodded once fiercely.
“I feel like we should give toasts, full of advice or something,” Munn mumbled, making some of them snort and nod too.
“Remember that you’re going to have to pick: Cubs or White Sox,” Dunk intoned deadly seriously.
“Finish quitting smoking,” Leda said, trying to sound cavalier.
“You should go to the Art Institute,” Seth suggested. “They have a whole building of modern art and it’s… yeah, you’ll love it.”
“Get a credit card that earns air miles,” Aden suggested practically, but there was a catch in his voice as he finished, “so you can come back soon.”
At that, Leda burst into tears and Jamie, instead of wrapping his arms around her tightly the way he would’ve any other time, pushed her gently into Jesse’s arms. He stood up, his back popping sharply in the hushed air beside the lake.
“I’m going to go tuck these two in for one last sleepover at the Dogwood and then head home. Come on, now,” he murmured, helping Leda and Jesse stand. “We’ve got to say goodnight before dawn.”
Without thought, they all surged forward, hugging each other and cocooning Jesse in the center. She gave in, sagging against Munn and Leda, and sniffled a little bit, but no one would’ve dreamt of pointing that out.
Daisy whispered, “I’ll text you fun facts and memes and all you have to do is send me a snapshot of whatever cool Chicago big city girl thing you’re looking at, okay? I love you and you’re going to be so happy.”
“I love you,” Jesse whispered, crushing Daisy even closer before jerking back and wiping the back of her hand under her nose.
Dunk wordlessly handed out tissues. When Jamie began to gently but inexorably herd the others away, Dunk murmured to Daisy, “We’re not leaving with everyone else, . I’ve got plans for you tonight.”
“Okay,” Daisy breathed, seriously not sure that she had the energy or happiness for one of Dunk’s plans. But she wouldn’t let him down, not when he’d barely taken a minute out of playing the boisterous best friend to process the importance of the night.
Dunk suddenly turned almost green and bolted for Jamie’s truck, skidding into the passenger door as Jamie put the truck into gear, lights switching on. He tripped back to get the door open, unusually clumsy, and flung himself inside, scrambling up the running board.
“I’m going to miss you so fucking much,” she heard him tell Jesse. “Chase helped me install Skype so that we can be cool Skypers.”
“We will be cool Skypers,” Jesse promised, grunting, probably because Dunk squeezed her like a boa constrictor. “It’s okay, Coach.”
“I’m okay, it’s okay, sorry,” Dunk babbled, tumbling back out of the truck and, after a thudding set of heartbeats, he shut the door and stepped back. His chest rose and fell in jagged lines, like a heartbeat monitor, and his hands were in fists as he walked slowly back down to Daisy.
“Come here,” Daisy murmured, holding out her arms.
Dunk sank onto her, burying his hot face in her neck and just breathing for a long while, as Daisy slid her hand through his hair over and over after she tugged off his baseball cap. She might’ve murmured reassuring nonsense now and then, but she was mostly focused on the solid weight of him on her right half, on the softness of his hair between her fingers, on the way his grip on her eased over long minutes.
“I still have a surprise for you, Daisy Rhys,” he said, rolling off her and onto the ground to make her laugh, before he popped onto his feet. “Come on,” he prompted when she eyeballed him, exhausted now. “How about I give you a piggyback ride, huh?”
He turned around and patted his lower back invitingly.
“I never say no to piggyback rides,” Daisy declared, reaching for her optimism, and carefully climbed onto the lawn chair so she could reach Dunk’s back. She gripped him between her thighs and wrapped her arms around his chest, his hands sliding through the bends in her knees to hook her in place. “When on earth did you have time to plan something?”
Dunk chuckled, angling not towards Tristan’s house but towards the magnificent, cabin-like treehouse that Tristan and Jamie had built earlier in the summer. It was supposed to be for Jamie’s son Hunter, but Daisy knew everyone secretly still loved the idea of a treehouse clubhouse.
As they got closer to it, Daisy saw that it was lit up, tiny votive candles flickering in the windows that didn’t have glass panes.
She gasped and then squeaked when Dunk just started climbing the ladder with Daisy still on his back, scaling it without any extra effort.
She half-fell off his shoulders, throwing a knee over his head to land on all fours on the floor of the treehouse when Dunk reached the top of the ladder.
He laughed when his head and shoulders came through the hole and he saw her, telling her, “You know I love that position, Daisy Rhys, but you can’t distract me from the surprise I planned. Sit down now.”
Absently sitting, Daisy looked around, wide-eyed. Beautiful, tiny flames flickered above glowing vanilla-scented votives, and there was a thick, soft knitted blanket with a half dozen throw pillows heaped up. There was an open picnic basket with some chips and salsa, Shelly’s fruit salad, and a collection of baked goods clearly pilfered from the cafe.
Suddenly anxiety pitched in Daisy’s stomach.
This was so romantic, so prepared, almost like he was going to….
Her breath caught. She wasn’t ready for a proposal—they weren’t ready—but… what else could this be? Oh God, she thought, am I going to have to tell him not yet, tonight, on Jesse’s last night living in Maybelle?
But he crawled next to her, the ceiling still barely six feet so he couldn’t fully stand anyway, and then sat cross-legged facing her. He brushed the curls that had escaped her braid over the course of the night back and then tugged something out from behind one of the pillows.
“That’s my teacup,” Daisy said stupidly in surprise.
It was delicate and almost fluted, so that it looked a little bit like a blooming tulip, and it was mostly white with tiny green finials and tiny buds. She hadn’t made too many of the teacups, but it was a new thing she’d been trying with her pottery. They weren’t as funky as her usual ceramics, but they were a challenge, and they were beautiful.
“Hold it, please,” Dunk said.
When she took it from him, she saw something coiled up on the bottom. Her brows knitting together, she fished it out.
The most delicate gold necklace she’d ever seen spun from her fingertip to the bottom of the teacup, glinting in the candlelight. At the bottom, a tiny gold circle with a tiny red stone hung.
“It’s called a—”
“Fairy ring,” Daisy breathed.
“Yeah,” Dunk said, pleased she’d known instead of pouting that she’d spoiled his surprise.
Then, abrupt and enthusiastic as ever, he swooped in and took it from her, fumbling it open with his big fingers and thumbs to clasp it around her neck. It was long enough that the fairy ring nestled in her cleavage, and he stroked it with his thumb, staring at where it lay intently.
“I almost got you a promise ring, but Jesse said that was too cheesy even for me,” Dunk mumbled, eyes still fixed to the jewelry.
Daisy heaved in a breath, the ring teetering between the mounds of her breasts. “Dunk—” she began urgently.
“I got an interview at MCH,” Dunk blurted out, startling her so badly that she finally looked up at him and met his eyes, half-crazed with determination and nerves. Her mouth fell open, but he explained, “Not, like, a newspaper interview. A job interview. For a physical therapist. It’s, uh, you know it’s what I studied in college. And they have an opening there, and it would be way cooler than making sure smelly teenagers don’t put too much weight on the bar and crush themselves.
“But before I go, I want to make sure that sounds good to you,” he went on, rambling, the words scrambling one over the other off his tongue. “Because I get it now, or I’m starting to. It’s not just me, making decisions alone. It affects you and, and our life, so I don’t want to go to it if you don’t think that sounds good. Uh, I can still be the football coach, Principal Lee says there’s still a weak-ass stipend and there’s nothing in the by-laws or whatever for the schools that says only a teacher can coach.”
“Dunk, that sounds so—”
“And if I take that, then there’s this cabin—no, I mean cottage, it’s a cottage, near the back fields of Billy Davidson’s spread that’s for rent. Three bedrooms, basement, with this barn out back. It’s kind of rickety but Tristan says it won’t take much work to do up as a studio—”
“Dunk,” Daisy finally cried, slamming her hand over his mouth.
His eyes sprang open so wide she thought his eyeballs could fall out.
She hastily said, “Take a deep breath, baby. You’re jumping around. Are you…. are you… I mean, what are you doing here? Is this just a nice, uh, long speech to go along with giving me a necklace?”
Dunk actually gulped and then laughed ruefully.
“Sorry,” he apologized, taking a breath. “I was just going to give you the necklace. I had this whole speech about how it’s a symbol, you know, a fairy ring for my fairy princess, how I’m not just in love with you, I’m here for you. I was just going to say I want to start building our life, Daisy, because I get that love is critical, here, for this, but there’s more too, like where to live and proving that I’m responsible and that I have ambitions.”
“I know that,” Daisy promised softly, stroking his stubble.
“But then you gave me this freaked-out look like you thought I was about to propose to you,” Dunk forged on determinately. “And I wasn’t going to; I’m stupid but not clueless. And I didn’t want you to freak out so I started to explain, but I spewed out some crap about a job and a place we could maybe look at and see if you like it, if you want to rent it—”
Love—and relief, because she wasn’t nearly ready to talk about marrying him yet—sent Daisy into a fit of giggles, her hand going back over his mouth. “Ssh, don’t start that up all over again, baby.”
He tried to blow out a breath, his cheeks puffing up, but her hand prevented him from releasing the air very well. The air sort of whistled against her hand, high-pitched but somehow still ridiculous.
His face cracked into that big, goofy grin she loved so much.
“What I’m trying to say,” Dunk said, his words more deliberately measured now, once he’d drawn back from her hand, “is that I got you a fairy ring necklace because you’re my girlfriend, but it’s not high school, so I’m not just going to give you my letterman jacket. I picked the fairy ring because you’re my fairy princess, Daisy Rhys, magical and tiny, but so incredibly powerful. And you may look like pure goodness, but I know you have some wicked fairy in there, too.”
So incredibly touched, Daisy’s fingers came up to cover the necklace, the gold warm now from the heat of her body. Her eyes filled up with tears for about the hundredth time that day.
“And I wanted to tell you, again, when we’re not in the Shelby on the highway, that I am going to learn how to be the best partner in the whole damn universe for you, Daisy. I know we can do this. We can use our playbook to stay a team, to stay strong, to move towards the endzone as fast or as slow as we want, but, you know, moving in the right direction.”
Daisy’s heart was jackhammering so hard in her chest that she thought that if she were to look down at her brand new, beautiful fairy ring necklace, she’d see it vibrating against her skin.
Daisy had been proposed to and she’d been given marriage vows. Those words, no matter how sincere, hadn’t been supported by experience or any true understanding of how hard it was to love someone all of the time, to get along with them and support them. Even when support and love meant yelling at each other or telling the other some harsh truths.
But Duncan McCoy, Daisy knew that he fully comprehended what he was promising, what he was telling her again that he was committed to building with her. It was love, but it was also dedication, stability, and—of course—the full measure of his enthusiasm, optimism, and great sense of humor. It was, for her, much more meaningful than a proposal.
So she got her heartbeat under control and beamed radiantly up at him while she tilted her head thoughtfully. She blinked, long and slow and coy, and gave him back one of his first, funniest come-ons.
“Depends on what exactly the endzone is in this metaphor,” she drawled.
It took him a couple of seconds, but then he grinned fit to split his face and lunged across their knees to catch her mouth in a deep, messy, exuberant kiss. “In this metaphor,” he chuckled against her lips, “the endzone is a happy lifetime with me, Daisy Rhys, my princess.”
The End.