Since word got out that we’re back together, my mum has been been biting my arm off to have Daisy over.
Italy was good, but I’m glad to be back. Too many weird vibes there, and me and Dais don’t need any of them.
And then, honestly, we were together properly again all of forty seconds before we went off to Italy — have you ever moved into a house, and you can be properly moved in, all unpacked, but then you go away on holidays, and you’ve only spent a night or two in the place before you left? It still doesn’t really feel like yours yet. It doesn’t start to feel like yours til you’re back in your own bed, learning to use the washing machine, burning yourself in the new shower… living in it. You know?
I just want to be living in it with Daisy.
Sunday brunch with Mum, a thing she’s been trying to push on us this last year. They haven’t always gone over well.
Sometimes they’re at home, sometimes they’re out — when they were out, sometimes I’d bring Vanna. Usually lived to regret it.
Mum wasn’t a fan.
Daisy looks nervous on the way over. I’ve got my hand in her lap as I drive and she’s holding it with both of hers, pinching my fingers without knowing she’s doing it.
“Mum loves you—” I tell her with a little frown.
“Yeah?” She looks over at me.
“Yeah.” I nod.
“Who else will be there?”
“Jo?” I shrug. “Callum, maybe—”
“Not your dad?” she asks my hand.
I shrug. “I’m sure he’ll be on the property… I doubt he’ll be at the table.”
I pull in up the driveway and breathe out, feeling some kind of relief to have her with me. I did my best not to imagine her here, in my life how I wanted her to be — because I wanted her to be happy more than I wanted me to be happy. Love fucks you up. I wasn’t like that before. I wanted me happy more than anyone, and now I’d probably stick my hand in a blender if it’d make her smile.
“Daisy!” Mum throws her arms around her neck and squeezes the shit out of her. “Sweetheart, it’s such a pleasure to see you—” Mum kisses my cheek quickly. “Hello, my darling—”
She whisks Daisy away towards the dining room.
“Now, I’m not nearly the chef you are, Daisy, so I’ve had this morning catered—”
“Mum—” I roll my eyes.
“You didn’t have to do that—” Daisy shakes her head, looking back at me, embarrassed. “I’d eat Cornflakes if you gave them to me.”
“Mum, we could have just gone out—” I follow after them.
“Oh, rubbish — I love having my boys home.” She ushers Daisy to her seat. I sit down next to her as enough food to feed Papua New Guinea is is carried out to us.
“Who else is coming?” I frown at it all.
“Me,” says Uncle Callum, sitting down across from me. He gives me a tight smile.
“Cal,” I nod at him. “Been a minute — how are you?”
He eyes my arm around Daisy.
“Well.” He smiles and I don’t honestly care for it. I’ve never liked him much. “Look at this—”
His eyes dance from me to Daisy and he opens his mouth to say something when Jonah bursts in.
“Sorry!” he bellows. “Sorry, sorry — I’m late. Came from Tottenham.”
“Why?” Daisy frowns.
Jonah ignores her question, gruffly hooks his arm around her neck and kisses the top of her head, then walks around and sits next to Uncle Callum.
Jo doesn’t mind him.
“For the love of God, Jonah—” their mother sighs, walking in carrying a platter of croissants. I don’t know why, there’s five of us and I think twelve croissants. “Is that lipstick on your neck?”
Jonah touches his neck, thinking. “What colour is it?”
“Red,” I tell him.
Callum turns to Jo and squints. “I’d say it’s more of a burgundy?”
“You have one on the other side of your neck that’s decidedly hot pink.” Daisy points at it.
“Jonah!” Mum cries. She waves her hands carelessly at the food. “Eat, everyone — eat— except for you—” She smacks a danish out of Jo’s hand.
“Are both those lipstick marks from Taura?”
Jonah’s face pulls and then he glances over at me. “Is it better or worse if I say yes?”
I shrug.
Daisy frowns a bit. “Who are they from, then?”
My brother stares over at her, saying nothing. I can see it resting on his face somewhere that he feels shit about it, but he doesn’t know what else to do.
This shit with Taura, it’s been going on too long. And I think he doesn’t know what else to do. Jo’s locked it down for months — which is weird for him — and all it does is show me that we’re fucked. No matter what way that sword falls, we’re fucked.
And then my mum, my brother and Callum all freeze, staring at something behind me.
Daisy looks over her shoulder, curious.
“Oh.” She smiles. “Hello.”
My dad says nothing as he sits down at the head of the table.
“Dad,” I say. Not a question, but not a statement either.
He glances over at me, like he’s surprised to see me.
“Christian,” he says, blinking a few times. Drunk, I wonder?
Then he looks past me to Daisy, blinking. I shift in front of her because I don’t want him staring at her — then he shifts his gaze over to Jonah.
“And Jonah.” Long pause. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“No!” Mum says, swatting her hand in the direction of her eldest. “He’s off pleasure—” She points a finger at him. “Do you hear me? Enough! You’re twenty-five. Pick one.”
Jonah presses his lips together and stares at his plate. Stops one of the butlers. “Bloody Mary, mate.” Jo catches my eye. “Three of them—” he calls after him.
“So, what happened with you and that bloody police officer in the end then, ey?” Uncle Callum asks, sipping his tea.
I squint over at him, pissed off, open my mouth to say something but Daisy beats me to the punch.
“He asked me too many questions that weren’t his business.” She gives him a curt smile and Uncle Callum did not like that one.
His head pulls back. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
Daisy Haites, love of my fucking life, cocks an eyebrow. “Do you?”
That’d hurt his ego, I know it would. Because no matter how you slice it, she’s higher on the food chain.
Callum’s in no direct line of succession. Mum and Jo and me would all have to take a bullet for him to get a seat at the table, and even then, our family in London doesn’t hold power how hers does.
She’s a fucking Haites.
“What happened to the blonde one, then?” Dad asks suddenly, waving his hand in Daisy’s direction.
Barnesy drops her cutlery on her plate and glares over at the man she married.
Daisy’s little body goes tense next to mine so I hook my arm around her.
“Jud.” Mum stares him down, then looks over at Daisy apologetically. “She’s never even been here. He’s never met her. I don’t know why he’d—”
Me and Jo stare over at each other, tired of his shit.
“What?” Dad shrugs. “I can’t Google the girl my son’s knocking about with?”
Uncle Callum scoffs.
“What the fuck, Dad—” Jonah growls. “She’s right fucking there.”
“Who?” He blinks, and Daisy sits up a little straighter, not as fazed as you’d think.
“My girlfriend, Dad.” I give him a glare. “Daisy.”
Dad’s eyes pinch as he stares over at her. “Was the other one your girlfriend?”
“No.” I breathe out loudly through my nose.
“And how old are you, Daphne?”
“Daisy,” I say loudly, my hands balling up into fists.
“Daisy,” Dad says, over-annunciating her name on purpose. “How old are you?”
She scratches the tip of her nose. “I’m twenty-one.”
Dad stares over her, properly seeing her for the first time.
“What do you do, Daisy?” he asks, not looking away from her.
She picks at her croissant. “I’m in third year med.”
“You’re a doctor—” He blinks, intrigued, glancing between the rest of us.
She gives his a gracious smile he doesn’t deserve. “Not quite yet.”
I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss the back of it, steady her, even though she doesn’t need it.
“What’s your specialty going to be?” he asks, reaching for his orange juice.
Me and Jo trade confused looks — our Dad hasn’t spoken this much in about fourteen years — and Mum, she’s sitting at the other end of the table, watching on curiously.
“Hmm—” Daisy purses her lips. “I think I’d like it to be paeds, but I think it’ll probably be triage, in the end.”
He frowns a little. “Why’s that?”
Daisy shrugs like she can’t help it. “I guess triage is probably more beneficial in my family’s line of work…”
He tilts his head. “And what is your family’s line of work?”
She nods her chin over at him. “Same as yours.”
“Ah.” He nods, flicking his eyes between me and Jo, then back to her. “Did you get into medicine because of that?”
“Um.” She frowns, considering it. “Probably to combat it more than anything?”
“Combat it?” repeats Uncle Callum, instantly offended. “You don’t like what your family does?”
Daisy’s eyes flicker from mine to Jo’s to my mum’s, like her foot’s caught in a trap.
“I mean—” She forces a polite smile at Callum. “Does anyone? No one grows up wanting to be a criminal, do they?”
I stare over at her, love her more than I did a second ago, I don’t know why. Just do. Then she points at me. “—Rugby captain.” She nods over at Jo. “Party Cruise director, I presume—” And Mum sniffs a laugh.
Then Dais looks at Mum. “What did you want to be growing up?”
Mum’s face falters a little, like she hadn’t thought of it in so long that she’d forgotten that once upon a time, before Uncle Beau died, and before Harvey left, she used to have a life that wasn’t like this. The question stumps her. She just blinks a few times.
“An English teacher,” my dad says from the other end of the table, staring at his wife, brows low, jaw tight.
They hold eyes and the air goes thick with words they refuse to speak, and then Dad turns to Daisy, giving her a wisp of a smile. “She wanted to be an English teacher.”
Taura
8:37pm
8:37pm
Hey
Hey!
When are you going to tell him.
Tell who
Jonah.
Tell him what?
That’s it’s not him.
I know it’s not him
How do you know?
Taura.
What the fuck?
How do you not know?
