The Girl With Daisies (Midtown Brotherhood #3)

by Savannah Blevins

  The Girl with Daisies

  Midtown Brotherhood Book 3

  Savannah Blevins

  The Girl with Daisies

  Copyright © 2016 by Savannah Blevins.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: December 2016

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-68058-943-6

  ISBN-10: 1-68058-943-1

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

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  Chapter One

  CALLEN’S LITTLE PROBLEM

  Eight women waited inside the LeMonte bar on 6th and West, all of them brought there under the pretense that Callen would choose one of them to go on a date.

  The Bachelor. Callen Copley edition.

  At least that was what Leila and Magnolia, the wife and fiancée of Callen’s two best friends, called it. During the past year, the girls had morphed into the big sisters he never knew he had and didn’t want. They thought their antics were cute. Callen considered it more like an extreme form of torture. Callen had difficulty talking to women under normal circumstances. Slap on the added pressure of sobriety and a room full of his friends dissecting his every move—he absolutely had to escape this nightmare before random women started trying to fondle him in public.

  The noisy streets of Manhattan bellowed behind him, but suddenly he couldn’t hear anything except his own screaming in his head.

  Bad idea. Alert. Alert. Bad idea.

  “I’m not going in there.” Callen crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the bright blue door of the bar and then back to the determined face of Leila. “And you can’t make me.”

  Leila slung the end of her red hair over her shoulder with confidence. “Maybe I can’t.” She motioned her chin over her shoulder where her husband Henrik stood with her brother Austin. “But they can.”

  Callen played right wing forward for the New York Rangers. Henrik was his beloved Captain—quick feet with a laser focused aim. Austin, the size of a small bulldozer, was Callen’s protection detail out on the ice. Alone, with some thrifty dodging ability, he could have run for it and gotten away. However, he wasn’t quick enough or strong enough to get past both of them.

  Panicking, Callen tried a different approach. “You’re acting as if I’m some kind of charity case. I date. I don’t need your help.”

  Magnolia’s stance stiffened in front of him, her hands clenching around her hips. “When was the last time you went on an actual date?”

  Callen made a face. It wasn’t his fault that his three best friends were in stable, happy relationships. Being single wasn’t a disease that needed to be cured. He enjoyed the bachelor life. He could get a date if he wanted one. Most likely.

  He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his holey jeans. “That’s beside the point.”

  “You know they’re right,” Henrik said from behind him.

  “Oh, they are definitely right,” Austin added.

  Callen shot a glare over his shoulder. “You two stay out of it.”

  Leila eased up beside him, placing her hand calmly around his arm. “Just take a chance, Cali. Trust us.”

  She tried to guide him forward, but his feet were planted securely in place. He would not be lured into that nightmare willingly.

  Magnolia tried her smile that could make Austin agree to anything. He recognized it immediately. Callen watched her use it with success on his love-struck friend too many times. “We thoroughly screened each girl. They are all great. You can’t go wrong in there.”

  Callen didn’t have to step foot inside that bar to know those women. He knew no matter how pretty or how nice, they wouldn’t be his type. Sure, Leila and Magnolia probably picked out girls they thought he would like based on what they knew about him. But, honestly, how much did his friends actually know about him?

  He told them basic things about growing up in the backwoods of Anahim, British Columbia, and they’d seen him go on several dates with different girls over the last year or so. None of them were his type, though. Not that he could explain his type if they asked him.

  He could show them.

  The vision of a blue-eyed blonde filled his head. A waitress at the Midtown Bistro. He still hadn’t quite figured out his fascination with her. Hell, he didn’t even know her name. It would be too easy for her to wear a badge or have someone yell for her while he was in the vicinity. There was something about her that fascinated him. The hair, maybe?

  The waitress had beautiful silky blonde hair with a natural wave. It looked a little different every time he saw her. There were always braids in it. Sometimes she had tiny braids that wrapped around and framed her face, while other days it was one long draping tail down her shoulder. Last week, he found himself guessing what it might look like that day while he walked the block from his apartment to the restaurant. One thing was for certain. No matter what her hair looked like, she always had flowers in it. Small, white blossoms tucked into the crisscrossed sections. Callen wasn’t a flower expert, but he was pretty sure they were daisies. Always daisies. He really wanted an up close look one day to be sure.

  “Callen?”

  He came out of his daisy-induced daydream back to the harsh reality in front of him. He sighed. “Ladies, honestly, I really do appreciate the work it took to put this…intervention together. However, it isn’t necessary.”

  Their expressions turned solemn. Leila squeezed his arm. “It’s okay to admit the truth. We’re here to help you. We know talking to women makes you anxious.”

  Callen’s eyes rounded. “Who told you that?”

  “No one. We have eyes, Cali.” Magnolia joined Leila on the other side of him. “It’s not hard to notice how you take a double shot of tequila every time you even approach a girl.”

  “You’re the strong, silent type. We get that. We only want to teach you how to work that to your advantage.”

  Callen’s lips parted a little. “You want to teach me to hit on women?”

  Magnolia grinned. “We want to teach you to talk to them…preferably sober…so you can find the right girl.”

  Callen set his chin. “And what if I had plans to be an eternal bachelor?”

  They both looked skeptically at him. Yeah, he was full of it. He wanted what they had…someday. Not necessarily today.

  He coul
d tell them about the girl with daisies. It might get them off his back for a while. His chest tightened at the thought. No, that would only lead to more interrogation. He’d end up having to give them daily reports.

  Have you talked to her yet? No.

  What about today? Did you talk to her today? Nope.

  Callen, it’s been six months. Did you finally say hi this time? Negative.

  It would be a terrible idea to tell his friends about the waitress. Callen attempted to backpedal away from the door, but the girls, who were freakishly strong, managed to hold him in place. “Okay,” he said, pulling his arms free so he could negotiate. “Let’s say talking to women does make me anxious. Do you really think throwing me into that snapping piranha pit in there is the way to cure me? How is there any teaching involved in watching me stand there awkwardly while some woman talks my head off?”

  “He does have a point,” Austin said.

  Henrik elbowed him. “Dude, don’t take his side. This is better than reality TV.”

  Leila turned his chin so he looked down at her and away from his good-for-nothing friends. “It’s like pre-approved speed dating. We will introduce you to the first girl. You’ll have five minutes to buy her a drink and chat. Then we’ll interrupt and move you on to the next girl. At the end of the night, you pick one for a date.”

  Callen ran his hands down his face. They’d already started to turn clammy. “And these women…they are all okay with this?”

  Magnolia patted him on the chest before straightening his jacket. “You’re a catch, Cali. It wasn’t that difficult to convince them.”

  Austin chuckled. “And they paid them.”

  Callen’s gut sank, his eyes popping open a little wider. “You paid them?”

  Magnolia rolled her eyes. “No. He’s messing with you. We know all these women. We simply asked them if they wanted to meet our friend.”

  Leila grinned widely. “And I might have flashed around that photo of you from the ESPN Body issue last year. Either way, they jumped at the opportunity to meet you. Literally.”

  Callen groaned, tugging the hard metal of his lip ring between his teeth as he ran a hand anxiously through his hair. “This is such a bad, bad idea.”

  They were all right. Talking to women did make him anxious. Talking to anyone he didn’t know caused his stomach to knot up. Make that stranger a female and he practically became mute. Sure, he was confident. Girls were attracted to him. He had an awesome job. He had interesting things to talk about. None of those things made words come out of his mouth. At least, not words that made any sense.

  “Umm…ladies.” Henrik stepped forward, his amusement now transformed into concern. “Cali’s turning a very odd shade of blue.”

  “No,” Austin said, correcting him as he studied his face intently. “He’s turning green. Puke green.”

  “Watch out,” Henrik yelled, leaping forward to try to save Leila and Magnolia.

  It was too late. The anxiety had turned to panic, then mixed with fear, self-doubt, and a little physical pain, creating this blob of everything he hated about himself in the bottom of his stomach. Normally, it would sit there, this odd, nauseating sensation that only he could feel. It didn’t sit mildly by this time. Callen vomited.

  He threw up for the entire world to see, his shame landing on the shiny leather of the girls’ shoes, to everyone’s complete horror. Himself included. He didn’t want his friends to know about his issue. Especially when all it took to cure it was a little alcohol. Of course, that meant he normally never went out on second dates. He could live with that.

  But now his friends knew. The guys who teased everyone about everything knew the thought of talking to a bunch of women in a crowded room made him physically ill. They gave him a hard time about everything, from his lip ring to the way he cut his hair, to the angle he sent the puck on his backhand. They wouldn’t forget tonight. Ever.

  He looked up at the girls with the sincerest apology he could muster on his face. He could hear Henrik behind him. “Callen…are you okay?”

  The embarrassment hurt. Henrik and Austin weren’t just his friends. They were co-workers. He looked up to them. He backed away. He meant to do it slowly, but he found his feet moving too fast. A hand caught his shoulder.

  No. Two sets of hands caught his shoulders. Henrik and Austin held him in place. “Cali,” Henrik said without an ounce of amusement in his voice. “It’s okay. We’ve got you.”

  Austin moved in front of him. “The fun is over. You don’t have to go in there.”

  He looked up at his friends. There weren’t any smiles or cocky grins. He’d been so positive of their reaction. These were the guys who stole his clothes during his first away game trip and made him walk off the plane with no shirt under his suit jacket.

  No matter how long he waited. No matter how confused he looked. Henrik and Austin’s resolve remained the same. Austin placed his hand on the side of his head. “What do you need right now?”

  “I want to go home,” he said simply.

  “All right.” Henrik nodded then motioned toward the girls. “We’re going home.”

  The drive back to his apartment moved in front of Callen in a giant blur of multicolored lights. His heart started to settle back into a normal rhythm once the familiar streets and buildings began to appear around him. The cold sweat that broke across his face disappeared. He leaned his head back against the seat and stared up at the gray ceiling of Henrik’s car. “I can play hockey in front of millions of people on a nightly basis, but I can’t talk to one woman.”

  Henrik smiled over at him. “You can talk to women, Cali. I’ve seen you pick up girls.”

  Callen rubbed his eyes, unsure if the last hour had been a dream or some freakish parallel dimension. “When I’m three sheets to the wind. I’ll talk to a rock after a couple shots of good bourbon.”

  Austin, who rode in the back seat, scooted up on the edge. He slapped his hand over Callen’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, all right? Just relax.”

  Callen continued to study their calm and concerned faces. “I have to say, you guys are taking this new, very embarrassing information about me exceptionally well.”

  Henrik smirked at him. “You’re part of the family. We take care of each other.”

  Austin snorted. “That, and Henrik would rather you not puke in his car.”

  Henrik laughed. “Yeah, my kid does enough of that on her own.”

  They made it back to Callen’s place, and once he entered the safe, stranger-free confines of his apartment, he instantly felt better. He immediately went to brush his teeth and grab a bottle of water. The girls arrived by the time he made it back to the living room.

  He bit his lip, staring over at Leila and Magnolia and their obviously bare feet. “I’m really sorry about your shoes.”

  “Don’t worry about our shoes.” Magnolia sat beside him and gave him a quick hug. “They’ll never smell the same again, but they can be replaced.”

  “Yeah,” Leila agreed. “We want to apologize for putting you in that kind of position. We had no idea.”

  Callen didn’t say anything else after that. They all settled into their normal hang out routine. Henrik took control of his remote, while Austin started riffling through his cabinets for food, and the girls planned how to redecorate his apartment. As he sat there and watched the scene evolve around him, he suddenly understood why the girls had tried to set him up. He was the odd man out. He was the only one in their group of friends who wasn’t actively moving forward in his life. Maybe that had been okay for a while. They’d all kind of gone through the ‘just out of college, bachelor gone wild’ phase. In fact, until Henrik met Leila, they had been a triple threat. Now he was the only one left clinging to his singledom.

  He enjoyed the solitude. He’d grown up with it. He was an only child, who lived four hours away from the nearest city. His father would fly him in his trainer plane to hockey practice every other day. Even during those couple hours
at the rink, he’d been the outsider. He liked the guys on the team, but they weren’t friends. He didn’t get to hang out with them after practice, because he had a plane to catch back home. And then there were the girls. The only girl he got to see besides his mother during his homeschool sessions were the ones he saw in the stands at his games. He’d spent the majority of his childhood and most of his teenage years alone on the frozen creek down by their barn, dreaming of the day he’d leave the snow-capped mountains behind.

  He looked around him at his friends’ smiling faces as they argued over which movie to watch. Henrik wanted to watch The Sum of all Fears, while the girls debated for some chick flick. He was happy to have them—real friends who cared about him. He definitely didn’t want this to still be him in ten years, though. The outsider who, at the end of the day, still went home to be alone.

  He needed to start now. Small changes. Pushing himself a little every day outside of his comfort zone.

  The waitress popped in his head again. He still didn’t want to tell them about her. This was something he needed to do on his own. He needed to do it for himself.

  Maybe he would try to talk to her tomorrow.

  Maybe he wouldn’t go to the Bistro ever again.

  As laughter echoed around him, he thought maybe…just maybe…he could talk himself into it for her. The girl with daisies in her hair.

  Chapter Two

  PENNY’S NEW SHOES

  Penny Duchene slid off her new pair of ink black stilettos, flexing her tortured toes against the tile floor of the staff bathroom. Yes, it was unsanitary to place your toes against the grimy bathroom floor of any New York City establishment, even one as clean as the Midtown Bistro. She didn’t have a choice, though. It was either remove the death contraptions or lose a toe.

  Penny liked her toes.

  She hated the dress code requirements at the Bistro. Closed toed shoes and black on black. Neither of those things coincided with her personality. Penny would sport her strappy gladiator sandals and favorite floral sundress all year long if the weather in New York would permit it. Spring was in the air—she could feel it. She’d be able to ditch the Eskimo look for her beloved Boho chic style any day now, but it wouldn’t matter as far as her job at the Bistro. She would be stuck in her matching black shirt and skirt combo with her devil shoes no matter the weather.