Daisy Haites: Chapter 29

We shouldn’t be normal. New Year’s Eve wasn’t normal.

He went to bed early. I stayed up late with my ex-boyfriend, who maybe gave me the thrill of my life when he spent the night maybe flirting with me. I don’t trust it. When I went to bed that night, Tiller was asleep and when I woke up the next morning, he was gone.

Gone for that fake work thing he had to go to to get away from all my favourite people, and I know that we’re being stupid, and I know one of us should just make the call, because it needs to be made — but every time I think about doing it, I think about the morning after our Valentine’s Day date, when he snuck out of my bed to go downstairs to buy me a coffee and I didn’t hear him sneak out but I heard him sneak in, because someone sneaking in to my house are the sorts of sounds I’ve been trained to listen out for, so I hid behind a wall and hit him over the head with a medical text book, and the coffees went flying everywhere, and he fell to the ground, and I dropped to my knees, half in shock, half laughing, and he had such a big lump, and even still, he laughed and he pulled me into his lap, holding his head with his free hand, and he kissed me and said, “You don’t have to do shit like that anymore, Dais.” And for some reason, that was one of the most romantic things anyone had ever said to me.

Tonight after work when Tiller gets home, I can tell he’s in his head.

He lies down on my bed face-down, climbs up my body, buries his face in my neck and doesn’t say anything, just stays there quiet with these breaths that sound like sighs every now and then.

I put my hand on his head, push it through his hair, feel confused how I can feel like I need to end it and how badly I don’t want to, even when I do?

Then there’s a knock at my bedroom door.

Julian pokes his head in. “Everyone clothed?”

“No, Tiller’s naked.”

“Daisy—” Tiller growls before rolling over, fully clothed.

Julian rolls his eyes and walks in, nodding at Tiller with his chin.

“You were right.” Julian nods once as he sits down on my bed. “About the painting. It was a setup.”

I glance up at him, proudly. I love being right. “I know.”

“So thanks.” He shrugs, uncomfortably. Doesn’t really like thanking people, my brother.

“Any ideas who?” I cross my arms and my brother nods cautiously, eyes flicking from me to Tiller.

“Yeah, I’ve got some ideas.”1

I frown. “Anyone I’ve heard of?”

“Nope.”2

My frown deepens. “Anything I should be worried about?”

My brother gives me a tight smile that he doesn’t mean to be tight and ruffles my hair. “No, Face.”3

My brother stands and walks towards the door. “I’m ducking out for a meeting — you two want anything picked up on my way back?”

Tiller shakes his head, doesn’t say anything — and I can already tell by his face that we’re about to get into it.

“I’m fine—” I flash my brother a quick smile to rush him along so I can just bloody get this over with.

Maybe tonight’s the night?

Tiller shifts, propping himself up next to me. “What’s he talking about?”

“Hmm?” I don’t glance at him, I keep scrolling my phone, trying to keep this conversation light and vague as long as possible.

“What was he talking about?” he says again, taking my phone out of my hand and tossing it on the bed.

I take a breath. “I just told him something.”

“What did you tell him?” His jaw’s gone tight.

I try not to look annoyed and open my face up so the light can enter.

“I just saw something that didn’t line up, so I told him.” I shrug it off.

“You’re being evasive.” Him, annoyed.

“And you’re being nosy!” I jump off my bed, crossing my arms and staring down at him. “You don’t want to know, don’t ask—”

“Daisy—” Tiller gives me a steep look as he stands up and glares down at me. “I’m an investigator at the NCA, my girlfriend can’t be helping criminals!”

I take a measured breath. “He’s my brother!”

“He’s a criminal!”

“So what?” I shrug haphazardly. “Would you have me just let him get arrested?”

“Maybe?” he yells exasperated, and it feels like a slap.

“Get out.” I point to the door.

“No.” He stands firmer.

“He is my family!”

“You ran away from him, Daisy! For eight months!”

And this just tumbles out of my mouth without my coherent permission: “And they were the loneliest eight months of my life.”4

That’s like a slap for Tiller, I can tell with how his face goes. Then he’s all silent for a minute, like I’ve pulled the rug of us out from under him.

“I’m sorry—” I start, and he shakes his head to silence me.

He’s making the face men make when they’re upset with you, but they’re trying to be stoic and hold it together but they really want you to stop talking because if you keep talking a crack will appear and if a crack appears the veneer will chip away and they won’t be composed anymore and they’ll lose face when they already feel like they’re losing.

“He is a wanted criminal,” he over-annunciates to make his point.

“He,” I point in the direction of the door my brother just walked out of, “is the only family I have!”

“Then why the fuck did you help me sabotage his job last year?” He towers over me. Says it like he thinks I’m a traitor for it too.

“Because I was saving him!” I yell.

Tiller shakes his head. “From what?”

The room goes quiet, like someone’s vacuumed up all the air.

“Himself.” I peer up at him.

His face starts to soften how it always seems to eventually when it comes to me.

“Tiller—” I reach for his hand. “I get that for you, raised how you were, there is good and there is bad, and there’s nothing in-between. But for me—” I give him a look. “—how I was raised, in my world — which for me, is just as real as yours—” He rolls his eyes. “Yes, governed by different forces but with laws nonetheless, and what my brother did on that job violated the rules we created for ourselves so we could coexist in this life. Julian crossed our line, Julian did wrong by me on that day. But everything else… Everything outside of my forbidden three—” I offer him a hopeless shrug. “I don’t know how to care about — not in the way you want me to.”

Tiller sits back on the bed, drops his head in his hands and sighs loudly.

I pull his hands from his face and sit myself down on his lap.

“Can you just kiss me and forget about all of it?” I sigh, tired, feeling on the edge of tears and I use this to my advantage — I need this conversation to stop. I let my bottom lip go a little. It trembles and my eyes get a little glassy.

Tiller’s face softens how I knew it would because he has a thing he thinks about when he’s ready to break up with me too5— I know he does — I can see it, whatever it is, whatever he thinks of, play out in front of his eyes, and right when he’s about to undo his seat belt, he thinks of me like that and then his face changes and instead of undoing it, he pulls it tighter.

He pulls it tighter. Slips his arms around my waist, pulls me in towards him, and he brushes his lips against mine and it’s in the kiss.

A Judas Kiss, that what Jack always calls it.

The kiss before a break up.

I know it’s coming. I can feel it like you can feel a sun setting. Everything gets cooler and darker and more shadowy and that’s what we’ve been like since Christmas, and I should have called it already, but I think of him in the coffees on the floor, how it felt to wake up next to him, how he felt like morning light no matter the time of day; it’s hard to walk away from the light. He is light, Killian Tiller. He’s very beautiful, very light filled, he sees everything in black and white, I think — or he used to, I think the world is greyer for him now because of me — that’s not what I want for him. It’s not what I want for him and still I say nothing, I kiss him back, give him a Judas kiss of my own. Then, I guess they’re all Judas kisses lately. He tells me he has to work. It’s a lie, he just got back from work. He’s getting sloppy.

It must be nearly 2am on our sinking ship.

I wander down stairs to the kitchen because my bedroom feels convoluted now, for about a hundred different reasons, and besides, the kitchen is and has always been my safe place.

So imagine my dismay when I walk into it and Magnolia Parks looks up all bright-eyed from the 18th-century Neoclassical white Italian marble table I bought last week.

I let out a groan. “Do you not have your own place?”

She sits up a bit straighter, folding her hands in front of her.

“I do.” She nods once.

I lean down on the bench, rest my chin in my hands. “Is it being fumigated?”

She blinks twice. These big, wide-eyed stupid blinks. “No.”

I lift an eyebrow up. “Then why aren’t you there?”

She breathes out her nose, pushes back from the table and gives me an uncomfortable smile as she walks towards the door. “I’ll go.”

“Oh no—” I say, in quiet sarcasm. “Don’t… stay…”

She stops, turns and looks at me with a tiny frown.

“You know, I didn’t know.” She crosses her arms over herself defensively.

I stand up, feeling annoyed already. “Know what?”

“That Christian loved me still.” Her mouth goes pouty, and I can see more bubbling up to the surface, like she’s wrestling with herself. “Sort of.”

I give her an unimpressed look. “What?”

“I mean, maybe I did—” She shrugs. “—know. On some level.”

“Oh, you mean like the obvious one?”

“No.” She scowls at me a little bit, like I’m sinning against her by not following along with her incessant babble. “On the one where acknowledging that he still loved me meant acknowledging that he treated me special, and I didn’t want it to stop because when it did I felt alone. And I don’t like to be alone.”

I stare over at her, confused. I — why did she…?

It throws me a bit, her being honest like that. I don’t want to think it, but there’s something disarming about her. It’s annoying. I want to keep being annoyed by her, so I focus on the negative.

“Is that what my brother is to you?” I ask her, eyebrows up. “Just a thing for you to do so you don’t feel alone while your boyfriend’s off feeling up other girls?”6

I regret it as soon as I say it, to be honest. There’s something about the way her face goes with BJ, you don’t even need to say his name, just the air of him knocks the wind out of her, and I’ve got to be missing something… That there’s more to it than I know, there has to be. That or she just loves him too much and stupidly, probably like me with Christian, and for whatever reason — and knowing her, it probably is stupid — they just can’t be together.

I feel shit though as she turns back to the door.

I let out a little groan.

“Wait,” I call to her and her head drops back as she stops. Like she thinks I’ve asked her to stay just so I can keep being a bitch to her.

She turns on her heel.

“What?” she asks, tiredly.

“I’m going to open a wine,” I tell her, though I don’t completely know why. Stupid, disarming bitch. “Do you want some?”

She stares at me for a couple of seconds, confused, then she nods quickly.

And then, I don’t know what happens, it’s an hour later and we’re two and half bottles deep, sitting on the kitchen floor and she’s telling me with a true and absolute conviction that my brother is definitely not an art thief while she braids my hair.

“Because he’s just so sexy, and charming, and sexy with his hands and his mouth and his—”

“Okay.” I frown, cutting her off.7

“He’s just so like, obviously not an art thief.8 Like probably he’s a professional something. Like a, something very sexy and shouldery,9 like a rower.”

“A rower?” I repeat back as I roll my eyes, catching at my reflection in a soup spoon. I look quite good.10

“You would know how to braid hair.” I sigh. “Girls like you always do.”

She peers at me, confused. “Girls like me?”

“The popular ones.” I shrug, annoyed that she’s made me say that out loud.

She purses her lips, thinking about it.

“I have hair that’s more like my mother’s hair — you know, like, white person Caucasian hair—” She shrugs. “A bit wavy, it kind of — well, no, actually — I haven’t done it in a few days, this is what it looks like.”

And honestly, fuck her because it looks like a fresh fucking blow out.11

“But Bridget’s is a bit more afro-textured, from our dad—” She looks confused at herself. “I mean father.”

She corrects herself for no reason and I frown, because what?

“And anyway, when she was little, Bridget didn’t like her hair in her face so I learned how to braid it for her.”

Fuck. What a sweet story.12

I give her a bit of a glare. “Why didn’t your mum just do it?”

She gives me a pleasant, little bleary-eyed smile. “Not that kind of mother.”

“Oh.” I nod once. I eye her, looking for something else to dislike. “Why is your posture so good, then?”

She shrugs. “I modelled a bit in high school.”

“Oh.”13

“But probably really, it’s because if I slouched my grandmother would whack me in between my shoulders with a rolled up Argumenty i Fakty.”

My mouth falls open. “Was your grandma a Soviet?”

“Defector.” She shrugs.

“And what’s going on here?” my brother says, confused from the kitchen doorway. Happy-confused though, maybe? And then Christian’s head peers out from behind him and I sit up straighter and instantly Magnolia tugs me back by the shirt so I look less eager, and I don’t understand how she can be so acutely aware of some things and painfully oblivious to others.

“You’re back.” Magnolia smiles over at my brother and truthfully, her face might look like it relaxes a bit in his presence.

Now that the boys are in the room and I have a sober frame of reference, I can tell we both are (but she in particular is) much more drunk than I realised.

My brother nods once, trying not to smile at her how I know he wants to. “I’m back.”

“That took a very while longer than you initially said,” she tells him as she stands to her feet and immediately stumbles.

Julian lunges for her and catches her before she even has a chance to get close to the ground, then plants her back on her feet, before he peers over at me.

“What the fuck did you give her?”

“Oh, you know — some absinthe, a bit of Flunitrazepam—” I shrug sarcastically and Julian doesn’t like the joke. His face goes dark. “A Napa Valley Chardonnay that she didn’t like, she said it was too big—”

“It was very big!” she whines.

Christian shakes his head. “Palette of a toddler—”

I smile over at Christian, pleased he’s being mean to her too.

Magnolia points right in his face. “You take that back Christian Hemmes, you know I have a very fosiphticated palette!”

I giggle a bit and Christian cocks an eyebrow. “Do I know that?”

“Come on.” My brother lifts her up onto his waist14 and carries her over to the bench. “Let’s make you a sandwich.”

“No—” She pouts. “I wouldn’t like for that.”

She brings her knees up to her chest, hugging them. Then Christian takes a step towards her, frowning a bit. “Would you not?”

She shakes her head, eyes closed, stubborn and drunk.

He goes and stands right in front of his old friend, gets closer to her face than I’m comfortable with and then a jealousy that ruined us this time last year rears it ugly head again and I grab Magnolia’s wine that she left three quarters full on the bench and throw it back in one go.

Christian stares at Magnolia, eyes pinched as they search over her face looking for something I don’t understand. He nods his chin at her.

“Did you eat today?”15

Her eyes pinch back at him and she puts her nose in the air. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Before.”

Julian pauses at the fridge, looking over at them, frowning the same as me.

“When before?” Christian presses.

“Before Daisy came into the kitchen — I was sitting at the table, and I — remember?” She looks at me for back up. “I was sitting at the table?”

I nod along confused. I don’t remember her eating though.

Christian flicks his eyes over at me to verify, jaw still tight as he looks back at her. “What was it?”

“What?” She blinks a lot and my brother folds his arms over his chest.

“What did you eat, Magnolia?” Christian asks, over-annunciating every word.

There’s this strange, weighty pause as she thinks of the answer. And it could be because she’s drunk, or it could be the other thing, I don’t know — I feel a bit woozy too now.

“Leftovers,” is what she goes with.

“You don’t like leftovers,” he tells her.

Her eyes pinch. “I like Daisy’s.”16

I’m curious now so I walk over to the sink to check if that’s true and then I slip on some wine Magnolia split before they got here that I forgot about and I go down like the ship me and Tiller are on.

Both Christian and my brother reach for me, except unlike Magnolia, I do hit the ground.

“Are you okay?” Christian asks as he dives down on to the floor next to me.

I feel stupid and embarrassed I fell in front of Her Grace the Lord High Empress of Decorum and maybe Blighty herself, so I nod quickly, trying to get up so no one can see my face flushing.

Christian sits back a little and offers me both his hands. “On three, yeah? One, two, three—” He pulls me up but my ankle gives way again — definitely not broken but at the very least, absolutely sprained and possibly a torn tendon — I’ll need to look at it in the light.

Christian catches me this time, slipping an arm under my knees and scooping me up.

Magnolia’s watching, wide-eyed, gripping my brother’s arm like she’s watching the exciting part of a movie. Julian’s just standing there, watching, hint of a smile on his face, then he and Christian trade looks.

No words, just my ex-boyfriend’s eyes saying to my brother, I’ve got her, as he nods towards the stairs.

Julian gives him a small nod and a subtle wink.

“Bring me up some ice,” he tells my brother as he carries me out.

He says nothing as he carries me up the stairs and my heart’s galloping in my throat because he’s carried me up these stairs before for different reasons and him holding me like this makes me think of them even if I shouldn’t.

“Christian,” I say quietly.17

He glances at me, his face all serious. “Mm?”

“I don’t think that she did eat.”

His mouth pulls tight. “Yeah.” He nods, his brow gets more serious. Keeps carrying me up the stairs. “No, I know. She goes like this sometimes when she feels—” He trails, gives me a quick smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep an eye on it.”

He looks a bit sad and I feel a bit sad, not just because of him but for her because I wonder for the first time if her life is less perfect than I thought.

Christian opens my door, sits me down on the edge my bed, and looks down at me, shaking his head with a tiny smile. “Fuck, Dais, if you wanted my attention this badly all you had to do was—”

“Fuck you.” I glare at him, propping myself up on the bed, despite how much it hurts me to do so.

He gives me a look and gives me a tiny shove that sends me off balance and straight back down. “Don’t be stupid.”

Happy brings up the ice and I flash him a quick smile, self-conscious of the fuss.

“Thanks, mate.” Christian takes it from him before he manoeuvres my ankle and sits down next to me and carefully rests my ankle on him as he begins to inspect it.

“It’s swollen,” he tells me.

“I know.” I say it like he’s an idiot because obviously, I have eyes too, and anyway, I go to med school, not him. Or I did until I stopped being normal again.

He pokes the swollen area and I wince. “It’s probably not broken though.”

“I know.”

“You just rolled it. Maybe tore it.” He inspects my ankle more than he needs to.

“I know!” I say loudly as I roll my eyes.

He stares at me for a few seconds, jaw a little tight, then he clears his throat, nodding once, and then I see his mouth twitch. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Are we fighting?”

Our eyes catch and my heart’s knees buckle. I give him a look, my eyes smiling a tiny bit more than they want to.

“We don’t fight.”

He shifts the ice on my ankle and then stares at nothing on the other side of the room.

“Where’s Tiller?”

I watch Christian a few seconds before I answer because I don’t often get to stare at his profile and it’s just… everything. He’s perfect. Like he’s made of marble. Forget David, he is the real masterpiece over there with those angles and that nose that looks like a Disney prince.

I swallow. “He’s at work.”

Christian nods once. “Oh.”

“He doesn’t need to be.” I tell him.

“Oh.” He turns to look at me. “Why then?”

My head drops back and I stare up at the ceiling as I sigh. “Tiller’s whole identity is wrapped up in being good. And I’m…” I trail.

“The best?” Christian offers me18 and I flash him a tiny smile that’s probably sad at the edges because I don’t know whether he means it.

“Not good… enough,” I tell him.

He shakes his head, eyes angry. “Bullshit. He said that?”

I lay down on my bed, legs still draped over my ex-boyfriend.

I flash him a quick, wounded smile. “He didn’t have to.”

Christian shifts the ice again and looks over at me, cheeks a bit pink.

“Is it a bad vibe that I’m up here?”

I purse my lips. “Maybe?”

“Should I go?”

I cross my arms over myself, feeling self-conscious. “If you want to.”

He presses his mouth together, squints a tiny bit. “I don’t.”

Our eyes hold and my face goes still.

“Then stay for a minute.” I shrug.

He leans back on my bed so he’s lying down on it too, except it’s not bad, not even sort of in the vicinity of cheating because we’re lying perpendicular to one another which is the least sexy angle.

He looks over at me, pulling my ankle up onto his chest and settling back into it.

“If it’s all the same to you, Baby, I might even stay for five.”