She wrinkled her nose, playfully shoving me away and I leaned back, laughing, drunk on my music. “You want honesty?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“’Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry,’” she said.
My eyebrows lifted and my mouth quirked into a sheepish little smile that probably would’ve embarrassed me, had she been anybody else. “Uh, what?”
“Oh, it’s, um … it’s Poe. I memorize a lot of his quotes and stuff,” she said, her blush creeping over her cheekbones. “Well, anyway,” she continued, not waiting for a response, “I guess all I can really say is that, you are wasting your time building houses.”
“You’ve never seen my houses,” I said pointedly.
She found my eyes and held my gaze. “I don’t need to to know that you could never love anything as much as you love playing that guitar.”
I just smiled and nodded, because It was then, in that moment, I truly knew there was one thing I could love more than that guitar, if she let me.
But, she saw it: my dreams of being a musician, a singer, a song-writer. She understood it and she accepted it, just like my grandfather, the man who gave me that guitar. She didn’t tell me it was silly, the way my father had after I graduated high school. She encouraged it, and I had only just met her.
I opened my mouth to reply to her when a bleached blonde stumbled across the lawn.
“Ohh, Ky-lie!” she crowed, dropping on the grass behind that purple-headed enigma, flinging her arms around her neck. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, my beautiful, beautiful b-best friend.”
“The drunk friend?” I asked, grinning so hard it hurt.
Kylie nodded slowly. “Yep.” She unwrapped the girl’s arms from her neck. “Come on Brooke. Get off me. You reek.”
“I smell like beer and s-e-x,” the friend, apparently named Brooke, said, poking Kylie’s cheek with every letter. “That spells sex, by the way.”
“Yes, thank you,” Kylie replied with an accompanying eye roll.
Brooke’s eyes landed on me as I bent over to zip my guitar back in its case. “And speaking of sex … who’s the Kurt Cobain wannabe? He’s fucking h-o-t.”
Kurt Cobain wannabe? I glanced down at my plaid flannel, Van Halen t-shirt and jeans, and shrugged. I guess it was a fair assessment, and Kylie laughed at my self-scrutiny.
“This is Devin,” she said.
“You met another poet-freak? That’s so adorable. Did you guys do it? Because Ky, if you don’t wanna do it with him, I will. He’s h-o-t.”
“Yes, you’ve already spelled it out for me,” Kylie grumbled, her cheeks blazing crimson and heat. I could only laugh, knowing my own cheeks were matching in color. “And no, we didn’t ‘do it,’ Brooke. Some people can go to a party without getting laid.”
“Only the boring ones,” Brooke grumbled, falling backward against the grass. “Hi Devin.”
“Uh, hi Brooke,” I said, unsuccessfully hiding my amusement.
“You look like you’ll fit in p-perfectly in Kylie’s coffee shop,” the blonde mumbled, rolling her head lazily against the grass.
“Coffee shop?” My eyes met Kylie’s, and she flushed.
“I don’t have a coffee shop, but one day I will,” she hastily explained, and I nodded.
“Well, I hope that works out for you,” I said sincerely, and looking back to Brooke, I wondered where my own drunken companion was. I glanced back toward the house. “So, um … I should probably find my cousin and get out of here.”
I hated saying that. I wanted more time. It didn’t feel like I’d had enough, and it wasn’t fair. I wanted to stomp my feet and whine and protest against Father Time for stealing the perfect night away without my permission.
“Yeah,” she said with regret. “I should get her back to the dorms.”
What is it about that moment that feels so awkward? The moment when you don’t know if you should get her number, even though you just spent the most incredible hour and a half of your life walking and talking with her and serenading her under the stars. Maybe it was only that I didn’t know what it was—did she like me? Did she want to go out sometime? Did she simply want a friend—a friend with benefits, perhaps?
I swallowed, pushed a hand through my mop of hair and stood up. As I grabbed my guitar case and opened the truck’s backseat, I hoped to some higher power that she would make the move, or at least give me some kind of hint.
“So, are you going to ask me for my number?” I heard her say. I turned around and looked down at her. “Because if you’re not, I’m asking for yours. You’re too nice not to be friends with.”
“Friends, huh?” I asked, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
Kylie glanced over to her friend before drifting her eyes back to mine. “I’m not really looking for anything more than that right now,” she said in a quiet voice. Her gaze dropped to the asphalt and her feet shuffled against the pebbled ground as she added, “Sorry.”
I’d be lying if I said my disappointment wasn’t stifling. What guy likes being friend-zoned? But … I resigned myself to being happy just to know her in any capacity, and besides, things can change. Things change all the time.
So I grinned and crouched down in front of her. “I can handle being friends,” I said, as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. With a sigh of relief, she fished hers from her patchwork bag. We exchanged numbers, programming them into our phones, and she smiled as she stuffed hers back into its home.
“I’ll call you,” she promised, her eyes twinkling lapis and azure.
My cheeks were aching from all that damn smiling. “Not if I call you first.”
CHAPTER TWO
2006
Kylie
“Brooke!” I banged on her bedroom door. “Are you alive in there? It’s like, 6 o’clock at night.”
The muffled grumbling from inside told me she was alive and I opened the door without warning. Brooke was half hanging off her bed with her platinum blonde hair forming a haloed mess around her head.
I groaned. “Devin just called. He’s going to be here in like, ten minutes. God, what are you doing?”
“It’s just Devin,” Brooke mumbled, her mouth dry and fuzzy. “I don’t need to impress him.”
“Trent’s coming too,” I chided, and her head lifted. She had been into him ever since they met at that party a year ago, unbeknownst to Devin and me till later. and I smirked. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Get the fuck up.”
I left her room to finish straightening up in the living room of our dorm. I had lucked out again this year, getting Brooke as my only roommate in a two-bedroom suite complete with living area, kitchenette, and a private bathroom. I hoped I could be as lucky next year, my last year of college until I’d have my bachelor’s. I felt ready to move on, especially when I felt the hope for a brighter future.
Dad was doing better. The daisies on the table told me so. I turned to smile at the flowers, their petals holding happiness and sunshine, and I thought about my father. His sickness. The color that was coming back to his face. The weight he was putting back on. It had been three months since he’d last sent me daisies, but a bouquet arrived that morning, and I had known it was going to be a good day.
A knock on the door whipped me around and I ran to answer it. Two tall men stood in front of me wielding snacks, beers and soda. I threw myself immediately at the tallest of the duo, while the other flanking his side rolled his eyes with an impatient, teasing groan.
“Hey Dev,” I said, squeezing him tight around the neck. It had been two weeks since I’d last seen him. That was two weeks too long to go without seeing your other best friend.
I noticed the Friday the 13th t-shirt he was wearing, and I squealed, clapping enthusiastically. “Oh my God, you got it!”
He laughed. “Yes, thank you, but you didn’t need to send me anything.”
“Oh, please, it was nothing. I was browsing Amazon and it popped up. It made me think of you.�
� I was only half-lying. I’d been browsing Amazon in search of something to send him, because after a week, I missed him. And I was always thinking of him.
“Okay, okay … let me in here,” Trent grumbled, pushing through us to walk into the suite and dropping the grocery bags on the table. “Brooke around tonight?” he asked casually, and I looked up at Devin with a knowing look.
Hearing her name, Brooke emerged from her room, fresh faced and looking as though she hadn’t just fought against an army of zombies. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and her jeans and t-shirt gave her that casual-cute look she tried desperately to pull off around Trent whenever he was hanging out with us.
“Hey Brooke,” Trent said with a lopsided smile, and Devin waggled his eyebrows at me.
“Hey,” she said before sinking her teeth into her bottom lip.
“Uh, should I get this movie started or what?” I asked the room, and like two anxious children, Brooke and Trent ran for the small loveseat we used as a sofa, leaving Devin to scour the floor for somewhere to sit.
“Hold on,” I said to him, running into my bedroom to grab my pillows and blankets. I came back, dumping them on the floor at his feet. “Here, do something with these while I get the DVD going.”
“What the hell do I look like?” he grumbled, as he set to work.
“What are we even watching?” Brooke asked, as Trent handed her a beer.
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning,” I said grinning, flashing them the movie’s case. “Dev and I already saw it in the theater, but ugh, it was so good.”
“It was fucking gory,” Devin laughed, still fashioning a nest of pillows and blankets. “But it was great. Remember that couple that had to leave because the dude’s girlfriend kept freaking out?”
“Oh great,” Brooke groaned, rolling her eyes. “A horror movie. You guys know how much I love those.”
“Oh come on,” I said with a snicker. “Like you’re actually going to watch it, anyway.”
Her mouth fell open and her cheeks burst with a red flush. “Kylie! Oh my God …”
Laughing, I shoved the movie into the DVD player and grabbed the remote. I turned the lights off, grabbed a couple of sodas, and dropped down to the floor with Devin. He engulfed me in his tattooed arms, cuddling as we always did during movie night and I settled against him. Breathing in his skin, scented with cedar and pine from the job and the musky spice of his cologne. His scent was a warm blanket on those days when I needed comfort. He was the protection I needed, something I sought desperately, when the shadow of reality perpetually loomed over me.
I hit ‘play’, and rested my head on his shoulder as my eyes diverted momentarily to the daisies on the table.
It was a good day.
♪
“Don’t look now, but it seems like Trent finally made his move.”
I lifted my head to find Brooke making out with Devin’s cousin, and I screwed my face up with sarcastic disgust.
“It’s about time,” I whispered back, lowering myself down to his shoulder again.
The credits were now rolling over the screen, and despite the two people on the couch making sloppy, kissing noises, it felt private and secluded in our nest of bed clothes. Devin laid his cheek on the top of my head and sighed.
“You got daisies today,” he commented.
I nodded against him. “Yeah, my dad sent them.”
“You haven’t gotten them in a little while.”
Devin and I had been inseparable for a little over a year, and he took note of things Brooke hadn’t noticed, even after nearly a decade of friendship.
“Nope,” I said, a short nip in my tone. I hadn’t intended on it, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Because to talk about it meant to admit it. It meant to open myself up to the possibility of ridicule, of shame—of losing him.
I couldn’t risk that.
He sensed my reluctance and nodding once, changed the subject. “I wrote a new song yesterday.”
“Yeah?” I asked, my interest sufficiently piqued.
“You wanna hear it?”
“Uh, does a bear shit in the woods?”
He chuckled, and nudged me off him, rolling up and unfolding himself from the makeshift bed. He stood, outstretching a hand and pulled me to my feet. We glanced at the oblivious duo, pulling at each other’s hair and clothes.
“How do they not notice us here?”
He wrapped an arm around my back, guiding me toward the door. “I guess I wouldn’t either, if I finally got the chance, after building up over a year of tension.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably right.”
We walked through the dorm hall and out the heavy doors, a warm blast of humid air hitting us as we stepped outside and headed toward the parking lot. Devin’s truck was a monstrosity next to the little sedans and SUVs, bought by mommies and daddies throughout Connecticut.
“You wanna go somewhere else, or do you want to chill out here?” he asked, getting the keys from his pocket.
It was a good day and doing something spontaneous felt like a nice idea. “Let’s go somewhere,” I said, and he nodded.
“Okay then,” he said, opening the passenger side door.
He held my hand as I got in. He always did, the damn thing was so high off the ground. Then he rounded to the driver’s side, getting in without issue.
I smirked. “Must be nice being a giant.”
“You literally say that every single time you’re in here,” he laughed, putting the key in the ignition.
“Well, it literally blows my mind every single time,” I retorted with a laugh of my own, trying hard to not pay attention to the song.
“You’re too easy to impress. You gotta make me try harder,” he said, turning in his seat to back out of the space.
This was one of those moments when I liked to watch him. The widening of his warm, milk chocolate eyes as he looked backward. His elbow on the shoulder of his seat, his fingers clutching the back of mine. The hand of his opposite arm, tensed on the wheel and turning expertly. Absentmindedly. It was control and power driving a vehicle that big and it impressed me, when I could barely handle Brooke’s station wagon.
Shadows cast by the parking lot lamps moved over his chiseled features, and I wondered momentarily why he was single. Why he was never with anybody. He was only my friend, but I could acknowledge that he was the most attractive friend I’d ever had. Built like a contractor, muscled and defined, impressively tall, with deep, brown eyes and a full head of hair to match. His jawline was made to slice through hearts everywhere and was peppered with the perfect amount of stubble.
Okay, let’s be honest—Devin was gorgeous. I remember the first time I met him—at that party over a year ago, when he came to my rescue—and I could only stare for a few long, hard beats of my heart. I wondered what the hell a guy who looked like that, would want with a girl who looked like me. And now, after knowing every part of his sweet and generous soul for over a year, I wondered why he wasted his free time with me and not with some girl who would at least put out for him.
He caught my eyes and flashed me his lopsided grin. “The hell are you looking at KJ?”
“Nothing,” I said with a groan, rolling my eyes. I feigned my dislike toward the nickname—my initials—but I loved it. A special thing, just for me.
“Uh-huh.”
I looked out the window as he drove, twirling a strand of my orange hair around a finger. It had been a gorgeous bright red only a month ago, but it had faded to an ugly, rotten pumpkin color and it needed to be redone. I loved the purple—Vivacious Violet—I had a year ago, when I met Devin. I thought it suited me and the cool-toned pastiness of my skin, but I also liked to experiment, and that red-turned-orange had not been a good one.
“What color should I dye my hair next?”
“You’re letting me pick?” he asked, his eyebrows raising toward his hairline.
“I’m asking for a suggestion,” I said, poking him in
the arm. The muscle of his bicep barely budged at the pressing of my fingertip.
“Um, what about pink?”
“I did pink a few years ago,” I said, releasing a long sigh.
“I never saw it.”
I shrugged. “Okay, maybe I’ll do pink then.”
“Or … you could go back to that, uh, purple thing you had going on last year.”
“You liked it?”
The quirk of his lip raised higher. “Yeah. It was hot.” He turned his head momentarily, stealing his eyes from the road to glance at me. “And I mean that in the least creepy way possible.”
I laughed. “I’ll let it slide,” I said, as my stomach flopped excitedly at the compliment.
I leaned over and turned up the music. Devin sang along, his voice like butter, and I slumped against the door, listening. I could listen to him sing forever.
“I think I’m going to buy some studio time,” he said, mid-chorus. He blurted it out, like he’d been holding it in for too long, and I turned toward him with surprise.
“What?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding and glancing at me. “I mean, I’m not sure when just yet, but I’ve been writing a lot, and I have the money, and I think … I think I’m going to find a recording studio and see how much it would cost to get an EP made up.”
“Devin!” I bounced in my seat. “Oh my God! That would be amazing!”
He laughed. “Well, I don’t know about amazing, but … I’ve been thinking a lot, you know? I like working at my dad’s company, and I’m good at it, but I’ve been there since I was eighteen. That’s six years, and when I think about everything I could’ve done with my music in that time, it just …” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “I guess it just feels like I’ve been wasting my time.”
“No, definitely. You need to go after your dreams,” I said, sounding like a fortune cookie, but it was true. “That’s what I’m doing. As soon as I graduate, I’m getting my coffee shop, and you’re going to play there.”
He chuckled. “You still think so huh?”
“I don’t think so Dev—I know so.”
Daisies & Devin Page 3