Intercepting Daisy

by Julie Brannagh

  Like she wasn’t going to cry it off.

  “I’ll get it,” her mom called out.

  She heard Grant’s voice, but she couldn’t quite make out what he and her mom were talking about. A minute or so later, he walked into the family room with a bouquet of flowers. She wanted to run into his arms—that is if she could run. He wasn’t smiling. Despite the flowers, her heart sank.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Would you like to sit down? Can I get you anything?” she said. She couldn’t really get off the couch, but she could at least offer.

  “No, thank you,” he said. He glanced around. “Your parents have a beautiful home.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He laid the bouquet on the coffee table near her injured ankle. “I heard you got hurt. These are for you.”

  She reached forward to pick up the flowers and breathed in their scent. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

  Daisy’s mom peeked around the corner. “Honey, I have some errands to run. I’ll be back in a while, okay? Grant, it was nice to see you. Stay as long as you like. Help yourself if you’d like something to drink or eat.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Spencer.”

  “Call me Claudine. I’ll see you later,” she said. Daisy heard the garage door open and the sound of her mom’s car backing out.

  “How did you hear I got hurt?” she said.

  “It was on the national news. Some of the morning TV shows were talking about the fact you must have had the worst day ever between being revealed as the author of Overtime Parking and getting hurt while trying to break up a fight.”

  “You watch morning TV?”

  “When I’m on it,” he said. It was like a knife to her gut. He let out a long breath. “So, I have some questions for you.”

  She stifled herself before blurting out, “I’ll bet.” She pulled breath into her lungs. “Grant, I am so sorry. I should have told you about the book when we met. I actually should have never clicked Upload, but mostly, I should have been honest. I’m not sure I could ever apologize enough.”

  “Do you have any idea what the past month has been like for me because of your book?”

  “You said in the media that you were flattered,” she said.

  She knew the second the words left her lips that she should never have said it. It was stupid. She owed him the most abject apology she could muster up. He was right—she couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to deal with the fact that the sports media were a hell of a lot more interested in talking about Overtime Parking than Grant’s passing statistics and touchdowns scored. He had worked so hard to become a starter, and instead of being able to bask in that achievement, he’d become the butt of so many stupid jokes because of her book. The last thing she should be doing was anything but apologizing.

  “What was I going to say? ‘Some person I’ve never met wrote something about me that I’m never going to be able to live down’? The only way to get people to stop talking about it was to laugh it off. I can take a joke like everyone else, but, Daisy, this is my career. Everything I do or say is spread all over social media, written about, and talked about on TV, whether I like it or not. How would you feel if someone did the same thing to you?”

  She put the bouquet of flowers back onto the coffee table. She couldn’t look at him. Even worse, he didn’t yell. His voice was quiet. There was so much hurt and anger in his expression, and she couldn’t face it. She’d done this. She hadn’t thought through the consequences of anyone deciding to actually read her crazy little book, and it had ended up being a lot worse than she could have imagined. She folded her hands in her lap. Her ankle throbbed, she couldn’t run away, and she wished she was anywhere else in the world right now.

  “My parents were here for the first game I started for the Sharks,” he said. “I wanted them to meet you. I thought you were different than any other woman I ever went out with. I thought they would be proud.”

  “Why did you think I was different?” she said.

  “You have your own life, and you have a career. You don’t depend on anyone else to make your decisions. I knew I had to work to get your attention. You’re smart, friendly, and outgoing. I thought they’d think I made a good choice.”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “I wonder if I ever knew you,” he said, and her heart broke. She fought back the tears that rose in her eyes. “I mean, we slept together. We talked for hours. I trusted you. I thought you cared about me. Who are you, anyway? Are you the woman I met, or did you conceal yourself in some attempt to be who you’re not? I understand that we haven’t been together long, but I can’t understand how you could do this to me.”

  “I’m that woman you were getting to know. I’m still that same person.”

  “But I’ll never know if you were out with me for me or because you wanted to find out if I lived up to your fantasies.” He let out another long breath. “I might play football for a living, but I’m just a guy,” he said. “I want to be with someone who is interested in all of me, not just the famous part. I know I’m kind of quiet and sometimes don’t have a lot to say. I hoped you’d want to be with the real me. I hoped I could find out more about you. I wanted to stay with you.”

  Hoped, he’d said. In other words, there was no way out of this.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. She felt hot tears roll down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was silly and stupid, and I should have kept it to myself. I didn’t realize this would have such an effect on you and your career. I really enjoyed spending time with you too. I wanted you most of all. More than your career and more than the book. Please believe me.”

  She brushed more tears off of her face with both hands. She needed to face this without falling apart. She could cry later, when he was gone. She would be back to first dates again. Or maybe she wouldn’t date for a long time after this. Maybe she needed to take a hard look at what she really wanted in life. She wanted Grant, but he no longer wanted her.

  “I really care about you,” she said. She summoned the courage to look into his face. He still wasn’t smiling. The look in his eyes was sad and resigned. “Would you please take another chance on me?”

  He ignored her words.

  “I keep trying to decide if you have some weird fixation on me.”

  “I wrote down a bunch of my fantasies. That’s all.”

  “Involving me. Were you ever going to tell me you wrote that?”

  “Yes. Eventually.” The hot tears were streaming down her cheeks now.

  “After we fell in love? After we were married? At the baptism of our first child? When?”

  She bit her lip.

  “So you weren’t going to tell me,” he said.

  “I knew I had to tell you. I tried so many times. I couldn’t say it. I realize it wasn’t fair to you, and I should have told you a long time ago. But I wasn’t sure what would happen when I did.”

  “How hard would it have been? ‘Hey, Grant, funny thing. You know that book you keep hearing about? I wrote it. Isn’t that hilarious?’ I had to tell people the truth about my life, but you couldn’t be truthful with me? How many other things have you lied to me about?”

  He folded his arms across his chest.

  She swallowed hard. “I haven’t lied to you about anything else. I’m so sorry. Please believe me.”

  “I’m sorry too,” he said. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

  She nodded. There really wasn’t anything else to say. She’d apologized, but there wasn’t an apology that would help with something like this.

  He took a deep breath and stared into her face again. “And by the way, as of this morning, I’m benched. The team has signed another vet QB, and Johnny’s starting on Sunday.”

  “Oh my God. That’s awful. Are they crazy?” Tears rose in her eyes again. It wasn’t original, but it was all she could think to say. Were they nuts? The team wouldn’t
win with anyone else, and the thought that she was part of that decision left her shaken. What could she say to him that would be enough?

  He reached out to pick up his jacket and slipped it on.

  “It was nice to see you,” she said. “Thank you for the flowers.”

  He nodded at her. She reached out for her crutches so she could walk him to the door.

  “No, don’t. I can find my way out,” he said.

  He got to his feet and walked away without another word. She heard the front door shut behind him, his car driving away, and then silence.

  GRANT SPENT THE rest of the afternoon and most of the evening sitting on his couch in front of the TV. Something was on. He wasn’t watching it. He thought about calling downstairs for some food, but he wasn’t hungry. He opened a beer, but he didn’t drink it. He kept remembering the look on Daisy’s face as he’d talked to her. The longer he’d talked, the sadder she’d looked, and he couldn’t help but recall her tear-streaked face.

  He knew the difference between women who cried to manipulate men and women whose tears came so seldom that they shook one to the core. Daisy hadn’t cried because she thought he was going to buy it. She’d cried because she knew she’d made a mistake.

  He’d told himself he was going to state the facts—her book had caused trouble for him professionally. He’d had enough of people giving him a bad time about it. He hadn’t been able to remain calm and factual, though. He’d asked her if she was a stalker, and he knew damn well she wasn’t. She’d done something and hadn’t realized the impact it would have on his life. The teammates who had given him so much shit had told him they were a bit envious. After all, they joked, most guys would love to know that a woman desired them that way, even if they weren’t into her.

  His anger and hurt were fading into something much worse. The longer he thought about it, the more he realized he was full of shit and a real asshole to boot. He’d lied too. Maybe she should be mad at him for riding his high horse when he still hadn’t explained that he should have been truthful about his own life. To everyone, including her.

  After several hours staring blankly at the TV, he realized it wasn’t the book at all. Sure, the book didn’t help, but the other guys in the league who had had something similar happen laughed it off.

  The problem was him. He didn’t believe that a woman like Daisy would care for him when she found out that he wasn’t such an exciting guy when he wasn’t wearing a football uniform. She wasn’t going to stick around for someone more introverted. She should be where there was excitement and variety, new things to see and new places to go. She deserved a guy who wanted to join in on every experience with her. The compass tattoo on her hip was perfect. She’d always find her way home, wherever that might be for her. She was everything he’d ever wanted but knew he could never hold onto, like starlight.

  And he’d hurt her. He’d hurt her as much as he believed she’d hurt him. Did that make him better somehow? Maybe it just made him an asshole.

  The difference between what he wanted and what he thought he could have engulfed him. He’d lost the job he’d been fighting to get for years now. He’d met the woman he wanted to build a relationship with, and he’d walked away from her.

  He couldn’t imagine what was next.

  Chapter Eighteen

  One month later

  GRANT COULDN’T STOP thinking about Daisy. It wasn’t like he didn’t have anything else to do these days. The team had benched him, and Johnny’s performance on the field was abysmal, but they couldn’t move forward with their new backup QB, either. The vet had torn his ACL two plays into the game last week. Terrell, the free safety (and emergency QB), had ended up taking the field. Terrell still had a hell of an arm, but the coaching staff had to dumb down the offense so badly to get through the game, that the Sharks had lost 45–3.

  Grant was the Sharks’ starting QB again, at least through the regular season. Or at least as long as the team continued to win.

  He heard the chirp of a voice mail message left on his phone. Daisy had called a few times since the last time he’d seen her. Things hadn’t gone so well for her lately, either. According to Matt, she was not only removed from the Sharks’ charter flights, she’d been suspended by the airline. She’d also removed Overtime Parking from the publisher’s servers.

  The first couple of messages she’d left weren’t anything like the sweet, funny Daisy he knew. “I wanted to call and apologize to you again for what I did. I am so sorry. I don’t think I can figure out a way to say it enough,” she’d said. He’d always heard the smile in her voice before. Now she sounded like she wanted to cry.

  She called and left a message on Thanksgiving, wishing him a happy holiday and saying she hoped he was having a really nice celebration. His conscience was on fire. She wasn’t pestering him or asking for a thing. She wished him well, and he was acting like a gigantic asshole by not accepting her apology.

  Everyone else was accepting his apologies these days.

  Mid-December during football season meant twelve-hour days at the practice facility—watching film of the Sharks’ future opponents, meeting with his coaches and teammates, and going to practice. The Sharks were in the playoff hunt. When he wasn’t in official meetings, he was in the unofficial kind: sitting in front of his locker with Tom Reed, who was sharing the secrets of his long pro-football career. That is when he wasn’t giving Grant all kinds of shit about every subject under the sun. He’d told Grant he was retiring at the end of the season. The actual statement was, “I’m out of here, asshole. Try not to fuck things up for yourself again, will ya?”

  Today’s subject was a particularly painful one. If it had been anyone else but Tom, Grant would have been looking for some type of revenge.

  “Did you call her yet?” Reed said as he shoved his feet into a pair of cross trainers. “You’re wasting time.” He grabbed Grant’s phone out of his locker and looked at the screen. “She sent you a text. You need to answer her.”

  They both knew who she was. Grant had gone back to Daisy’s parents’ house about a week after he’d told her they couldn’t see each other anymore and knocked on the door. He wanted to talk. He actually wanted to apologize for the fact he knew he’d hurt her too, but more than that, he wanted to see her. Nobody had answered.

  He’d also stopped by her place, where Catherine answered the door.

  “She’s not here,” Catherine said.

  “Will you tell her I was here?”

  “I’ll consider it.” And the British, very proper Catherine shut the door in his face. Catherine’s reaction was calm in comparison to that of some of his teammates’ wives and Amy Stephens when they discovered that he had broken up with Daisy. The guys got it. The women, while sticking up for him publicly, told him privately that they really liked Daisy and they wished he’d reconsider.

  His favorite reaction: Amy Stephens had sent him a bill for flowers from Crazy Daisy and written across the front of it, “Apologize to each other and move on. Love, Amy.”

  Grant picked up the water bottle next to him on the bench and took a long swallow.

  When he wasn’t thinking about telling Daisy what a stupid asshole he was, he was getting told by guys like Tom to man up and make his move.

  “You think I snapped my fingers, and my wife came running? Oh, hell no. I had to put on my track shoes and chase her.”

  “So you think I should pursue a woman who actually published a book saying she wanted to boink me on the top of the Space Needle?”

  Tom Reed rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Some guys would think that was a benefit. I get that you’re still pissed, but she’s apologized over and over. How long are you going to make her grovel?”

  “I’m not making her grovel—”

  Tom stared at him. “Don’t kid a kidder. Back to how I met my wife. There were so many other guys who wanted to date her, and I was one more. I set myself apart from the pack by finding out what she liked and listening to what she wa
s talking about. Not the uh-huh, yes, dear listening, the kind of listening when you bring up something she told you a week later. She kept talking to me; I kept listening to her and bringing her little things, like a flower or one of the peanut-butter cookies she liked from the coffee place down the street from our college campus, and she finally agreed to go out with me. I still bring her a cookie when I stop by the coffee place to get her skinny latte. Every time, she acts as if I handed her a fistful of diamonds.” Tom leaned forward and poked Grant in the chest with one finger. “You want to build something that will last a lifetime, you start small. You can’t forget her, and she can’t forget you. That sounds like something you might want to look into. What does she like to do? What makes her happy? Get out of your head and start talking.”

  “I stopped at her house. She wasn’t home.”

  “A month ago. Text her. Start the conversation. Come on, Parker. You persisted until you were a starter, and now you’ve earned your damn job back. Are you giving up this easily? Be a man. Talk to her.”

  Grant heard the chime of an incoming text on Tom’s phone.

  Tom whipped the phone out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and said, “I’m out of here. Gotta go see about my girl. Later.”

  DAISY’S SPRAINED ANKLE healed, and she went back to work about a month later, after a meeting with her bosses. After some good-natured razzing from her coworkers, she settled back into her weekly flying routine. She really enjoyed her job, but she wanted something to do on her time off that distracted her from thinking about Grant.

  She’d tried to call him a few times to apologize again and say she understood why it wasn’t going to work with them. It was best to let go, especially when he didn’t return her calls. She knew she’d always care about him.

  He’d meet a wonderful woman someday, ask her to marry him, and move on with his life. She needed to move on with hers. As a result, she’d sat down at the kitchen table in her house during her month-long suspension one day with her tablet and keyboard, opened the word-processing program, and typed the first sentence of what she hoped would be a funny and interesting memoir of her life as a flight attendant.