Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  “So, about women wanting him,” Kylie teased, wrapping her arms around my waist.

  Richard’s eyes sparkled under the fluorescent lights. “We can make it known that he’s off the market, if it makes you feel any better,” he said, his voice lilting on a laugh.

  We moved from the hallway to the sitting area. Ty and Sebastian were occupying a worn couch, sucking down bottles of water. At the sight of me, Ty reached into the mini-fridge beside him and pulled out a full bottle and held it up. Opening my hands, he tossed it at me and I caught it, raising it in thanks.

  “Dude … Dude! You are a fucking force to be reckoned with,” Sebastian said, holding his bottle up, toasting. “I mean, I’ve played for some good people, but you went on like a fucking tornado, man, and you didn’t. Fucking. Stop.”

  I laughed, embarrassed. “Come on …”

  Kylie reached up and pat my cheek. “Aww, Sebastian, you’re making him blush.”

  My eyes rolled, my ego pulsed, and just as I was about to revel in how fucking good it all felt, Robbie staggered in from the hallway, with a walking stick masquerading as a woman on his arm. At the sight of me, she shrieked something unintelligible and wrenched herself away from his grasp to rush toward me, hands flapping as she teetered on her high heels.

  “Oh. My. God.” She enunciated every word, brazenly pressing one hand to my chest and one to hers. I noted very clearly that she was ignoring Kylie and the possessive hold she had on my waist, growing tighter by the second. “You’re Devin.”

  I nodded. “Uh … yep, that would be me.”

  “Oh. My. God!” She was breathless. Both hands were on my chest now. “You are so much taller and hotter than you look on stage, oh my God. How tall are you?”

  “You’re, what? Six-four? Six-five?” Robbie casually asked, pulling a carton of cigarettes from his pocket. Like his conquest wasn’t throwing herself at me with questions about my height and comments on my appearance.

  “Uh, I—”

  “Robbie, you didn’t say Devin would be back here,” she said, cutting me off with a blowfish-pout, turning to whip her face in his direction. “I want him instead,” she told him, and he shrugged.

  “Suit yourself, sweetheart, but be sure to take good care of him, okay?”

  My mouth fell open to protest as Kylie’s features contorted with more anger than I thought possible. Before I could say anything, she pushed the blonde’s hands off my chest.

  “I don’t think so,” she spat out, and the girl glared angrily at her.

  “You’re that bitch he pulled on stage,” she pushed from her heaving chest. “Why would he choose you over me?”

  Before Kylie could open her mouth again, I wrapped an arm around her, squeezing reassuringly. I held up a hand to the stick-thin blonde and smiled politely, appreciatively even. “She’s actually my wife, so that would be why, and I’m not interested in anybody else. But, I’m sure Robbie is quite capable of, uh … showing you a good time.”

  Kylie’s gaze was glued to me, my t-shirt clenched between her fingers, while the blonde blinked her disbelief.

  “You’re married?” She shook her head, as though she didn’t want to accept it could be possible that I’d be in a committed relationship.

  Her eyes fixated ahead of her, at Kylie’s hand on my chest. “So, why isn’t she wearing a ring then?”

  I couldn’t believe the audacity of this woman, challenging me and the status of my relationship with the love of my life. Asking these questions, as though she had a right to know. My eyebrow twitched and I fought the urge to blast her with every defensive retort pulsing through me. But I glanced to Richard and saw the look in his eyes. A warning, cut with sympathy, and I inhaled deeply.

  “We, uh, don’t believe in material things?” I glanced at Kylie to back me up and she nodded affirmatively. Satisfied, I turned to the blonde, saw the acceptance of her disappointment, and tossed in, “Would you like me to sign something for you, though?” I felt strange for asking. I felt powerful for having a reason to ask.

  She reached into her tiny sequined purse for her ticket, and Richard handed over a Sharpie. It was the most surreal moment, seeing my hand scribble the same name printed on that ticket. Like I was posing as someone far more important than Devin O’Leary, contractor. But when I handed it back to her, I watched as she examined it. Pleased and clutching it to her chest. Smiling with childish awe up at me, and it was in that very moment when I realized Devin O’Leary, contractor, was dead.

  “Thank you,” she breathed, her chest heaving with labored breaths.

  “Thank you for coming out,” I said with a genuine smile, capping the Sharpie and stuffing it into the pocket of the unfamiliar jacket. “Have a good night.”

  And with my arm around Kylie’s shoulders and my heart pumping a mile a minute, I walked us toward the door that would lead us to the black van, where a driver was waiting to take us back to the hotel. Where I would take all my remaining adrenaline and make love to her, and hopefully have a good night’s rest before checking out and heading toward New Jersey.

  Outside, there was a small swarm of women waiting for me. While the other guys and Robbie’s companion climbed into the van, I stayed out for a few minutes. With Kylie and Richard hanging in the background, I took the requested selfies and signed concert tickets, and when I finally said my goodnights, I climbed into the back of the van with Kylie at my side.

  She kissed me hard and whispered a breathless “wow” against my lips.

  “Yeah,” I agreed in a whisper, to keep the others from hearing over the radio. “This shit is getting fucking crazy.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she said, nodding, “but that’s not what I was referring to.”

  “What?” I asked, my eyes dropping to her lips as I imagined how good they were going to feel around my aching erection.

  “You called me your wife,” she said quietly, glancing quickly at the blonde in the middle row, and just like that, my thoughts were pure again.

  My eyes met hers. “Yeah, well, I needed to make her back off.”

  Kylie dropped her gaze to my chest with a hopeful smile tugging at her lips. “Is that the only reason?”

  The pounding of my heart decreased to a series of nervous flutters. “And maybe it kind of feels like you already are my wife.”

  It felt as though I had just asked her to marry me, and maybe I had, unofficially. And maybe I hoped she would accept, unofficially, because everything else was coming true for me, so why not that?

  She edged closer, lifted her gaze and reached out to grip my t-shirt between her fingers. “When the tour is over and you’re back home, will you ask me?”

  “Ask you, what?”

  With a smile as beautiful as my love for her, she said, “To marry you.”

  “So you can reject me in the comfort of our own home and not in front of these people?” I teased, lowering my lips to hers.

  “No,” she said, reaching up to tug at my hair. She sighed; I knew she was going to miss it.

  “Then why?” I asked again, teasing the ends of her hair with my fingertips.

  “Because, when you do ask me, and I say yes, I want to rip your clothes off and make love to you on our couch. Not in the back of a van with a bunch of strangers,” and she laughed, pecking her lips gently against mine. “And maybe I would like a ring.”

  “Who says I don’t have one now?”

  “You would have given it to me already,” she laughed, tugging at my hair again.

  “Touché,” and I grinned. “Okay, when I get home, I’ll buy you a ring.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, kissing me again. “But you know, you can keep calling me your wife, if you want. If it keeps the groupies at bay.”

  “You can call me your husband too,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her, as much as the seatbelts would allow. Fucking safety precautions.

  “For the groupies?”

  “Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I just want to
hear you say it.”

  Laughing, Kylie eased her head down to my shoulder, her face contorting into a yawn that I felt straight to my soul. Fuck, I was exhausted and the adrenaline was fading quickly. I rested my cheek against her pillow-soft hair, and she sighed her contentment.

  “Okay,” she said, brushing her lips against mine, “husband.”

  I grinned, and younger, day-dreaming Devin O’Leary nearly crapped himself.

  He was doing that a lot these days.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Kylie

  Devin was snoring, filling our hotel suite with a low motor-rumble. An irritating touch to the happy jingle coming from my phone on the other side of the room.

  With a grunt, I shoved his body off mine and quickly jumped from the bed to grab the vibrating phone from the desk.

  “Mm,” he responded to my escape, rolling his head against the pillow. “KJ … come back to bed …”

  My heart was desperate to go back to him, as I clutched my phone in both hands. It had stopped ringing, and I considered not calling whoever-it-was back until in the morning. My time alone with Devin had become a rarity and those moments, even the ones in which we were sleeping, were cherished.

  But I made the mistake of checking who had called and saw it was Brooke. Suspecting Trent had proposed, I slipped into the bathroom quietly to call her back.

  “Am I interrupting?” she asked immediately, in her teasing voice.

  “If you had called about forty minutes ago, I’d say yes,” I said, unable to contain the lilt in my voice. Unable to ignore the overwhelming sensation of being empty and without him. “But Dev passed out and I was falling asleep when you called.”

  “He’s sleeping?” She sounded immediately disappointed. “Can you wake him up?”

  I grimaced. “I guess I could, but he hasn’t been sleeping much lately. I’d feel really bad waking him up when we have to be up in a few hours to hit the road.”

  Brooke signed and I heard Trent in the background, saying he’d call Dev soon. He encouraged her to “just tell me.” I clenched my fist, bit back my squeal, and waited for her to give me the official announcement of their engagement.

  She sighed wistfully. “Okay, okay … so, Kylie, guess what?”

  “What?” I asked, my voice tight and ready to snap under the strength of my giddiness.

  She allowed a dramatic pause before exclaiming, “Trent finally proposed!”

  “What do you mean finally?” I heard Trent ask incredulously.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth, squealing into my palm to not wake up Devin, but then … I wanted to wake him up. I wanted him to share in this. To celebrate, to reminisce on that party we all met at by happenstance. To remember that none of this—none of us—would’ve happened if we hadn’t all been at the same place at the same time, and I left the bathroom to head back to bed.

  “I’m so happy for you,” I whispered excitedly into the phone, and Brooke shrieked into my ear.

  “Oh my God, Kylie, I’ve been wanting to call you all fucking night, but I knew you’d be at the show and I didn’t want to interrupt, and …”

  Her voice faded from my cone of hearing as I realized what she was saying.

  My first best friend and Devin’s cousin had refrained from telling us about the most momentous occasion in their lives, because of his rapid succession to stardom. They had felt less important in comparison, and I stopped my walk to the bed and felt my breath catch in my throat.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Oh, I just, you know … I figured it could wait, and—”

  I shook my head and turned around, hurrying back into the bathroom and closing the door behind me. “Brooke, why would you even think that?”

  “It’s not a big deal, Ky,” she said lightheartedly. “You guys have been really busy with everything going on.” She talked like it was the most normal thing in the world for me to not have time for her, as I sat on the toilet, thrusting a hand into my hair. Wondering how things would change in another six weeks, six months, six years. “But seriously, you better not be too busy to be my maid of honor, because I need you.”

  “Shut up! You just better not tell me to dye my hair a more normal color or to cover my tattoos, because that definitely isn’t happening,” I joked, managing a laugh in my tone.

  She snorted. “Guess I better write you out of the wedding party then,” she deadpanned. “But in all seriousness, I’m actually thinking of dying my hair blue. Get it? It can be my something blue.”

  I giggled lightly through my blend of excitement and strange disdain over the current state of my life. “I love it. You totally should.”

  “Anyway,” she said with an adoring sigh, “you should get to sleep. I’m going to go screw my fiancé. Oh God, Kylie, I fucking love saying that! When is Devin proposing? It feels fucking amazing.”

  I laughed, suddenly a bundle of jitters. “Actually, he told some chick tonight that I’m his wife, to get her to back off.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “I know, right?” My fingernails found themselves between my teeth. “Then he said he’s going to buy me a ring when we get home and that he’d properly ask, and …”

  Sometimes it struck me out of nowhere—that we were even together—and I had to take a moment to let my heart rejoice and resettle.

  This was one of those moments.

  I slid my fingers over my lips and gently closed my eyes. The moment I uttered the word “husband” filtered into my mind. The thought of him as the man I would undoubtedly marry and spend the rest of my life with. The fact that we were even in a position to consider marriage, that I had just made ferociously aggressive love to him an hour ago, before he passed out for the night.

  “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Brooke asked knowingly, her voice gentle and light.

  Pulling from the moment, I groaned. “Sorry. It’s just crazy that this is my life right now.”

  “Yeah, sweetie, I know the feeling,” she said, sighing. “You have to see the rock on my finger. I can’t stop staring at it.”

  “I’ll see it soon,” I laughed, not bothering to mention I had already seen a picture of it. I knew it wasn’t nearly the same as seeing the real deal. “And then we can talk all about the amazing wedding you guys are going to have.”

  “I can’t wait,” she replied happily, and we both sighed.

  “I should go to bed,” I said regrettably, suddenly missing Devin horribly and needing his arms around me.

  “Yeah, me too. I need to go consummate my engagement. Trent’s really getting impatient.”

  My groan was coupled with a laugh. “Have fun. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, and hey, Brooke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Congratulations. I love you guys.”

  “We love you too,” she said, and the line went dead.

  I pulled myself to my feet and walked back to the bed. Devin had taken to snuggling with a pillow, and gently, I pulled it from his tattooed grasp to replace it with my body. He breathed out a contented sigh, burrowing his face into my hair.

  “Kylie,” he muttered, tightening his hold on me.

  My heart pulsed and clenched. I pressed my back into his chest, engulfed myself in the heat of his body. “Hey babe,” I answered, unsure if he was awake or coherent enough to respond.

  He sighed again. “I fucking love you,” he said groggily.

  “I love you too.” I laced my fingers with his, brought his hand to my lips and kissed his thumb.

  He hummed gently and I heard the sleepy smile in his voice. “Of all the dreams that have come true, you’ll always be my favorite.”

  My lips parted with a soft exhale. I squeezed his hand tighter, corresponding with the squeeze of that palpitating organ in my chest. “You’re just saying that,” I said weakly, wondering how long I would last before my damn emotions got the better of me.

  He shook his head against my hair. “No,” he said, gruff and sincere. “I’d rather lose everything el
se before I ever lost you. I spent too damn long needing this—needing you. I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with myself if you weren’t there for me to need. It would be the end of me.”

  “Dev,” I croaked, my eyes filling with hot and powerful tears. “Go back to sleep. You’re exhausted.”

  Pulling his hand from mine, he planted it into the bed, anchoring himself as he lifted. I turned my head to look into his eyes, to gaze at his stubbled jaw and the head of hair I was going to miss more than I wanted to admit.

  His hand cupped my cheek. “I heard you on the phone,” he said as his eyes fixated on mine. “I can’t believe this is my life either. Sometimes, I have to remind myself I’m not dreaming, because I’ve dreamt of this shit for so long, I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

  “Babe …” I reached out to cup the prickly curve of his jaw.

  His thumb ran over my cheekbone and I closed my eyes. His thumb gently smoothed over my eyelid and I sighed. “But when I feel you, I know this is real. I could never feel you in my dreams.”

  I nodded, blindly smoothing my hand over his face. “I know, babe.”

  He brought his lips to mine, kissed me with passionate intent. Our lips parted simultaneously, and he delicately stroked his tongue over mine. Not as a prelude to a hand up my shirt, or between my legs, but to ensure the things we now knew from months of togetherness: that this was real.

  With his forehead pressed to mine, he whispered, “I love you.”

  I nodded against him. “I love you too, Devin.”

  He kissed my upper lip and lowered back to his pillow, putting his arm back around me. He held me tight. Kissed my shoulder. “Don’t forget that when they chop my hair off.”

  I laughed through the warning pang that hit my stomach. “Don’t let them change everything, okay?”

  “Baby …” He chuckled. “They could never change everything.”

  “They have the power,” I teased, while also meaning it.

  “Nope,” and he shook his head, brushing his lips over my neck and yawning. “They can’t change this. I won’t let them.”