Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  Nodding, I joined her with my own chuckle. “Yeah, I’m thinking you’re right, but you know what? I’ll try your gator tail, but promise me we can find a McDonald’s if I don’t like it.”

  Extending a slight hand, she grinned. “You got yourself a deal.”

  Climbing out of the uncovered Jeep and closing the door, I rounded to the driver side to offer Becca my arm. Her smile was flirtatious as she slipped her hand into the crook of my elbow.

  “I never woulda expected you to be such a gentleman,” she admitted, blushing a little as we walked together to the door.

  Pulling it open and allowing her in first, I asked, “What did you expect?”

  “Well, you know those music types,” she said with a more timid smile. Shy, her blush deepening.

  Thinking about Robbie, I chewed at my inner cheek and nodded. “Yeah, I do,” I said, as I wondered if Robbie White had ever been like me at one point. Nice, gentlemanly. It was hard to imagine, but wasn’t it possible that the rock star lifestyle is what had ultimately destroyed him and any redeeming qualities?

  The hostess greeted us with a wide grin. “A table for two?” and I nodded, feeling the guilt of being out with a woman who wasn’t Kylie.

  “Right this way, please,” she continued, grabbing two menus, as she led us towards a small table.

  I whipped my head around at the sight of a giant alligator and asked, “Is that thing real?”

  “Oh, him?” the hostess asked with a light laugh. “He won’t bite ya, honey, don’t you worry.”

  “But it’s real?”

  We stopped at a small table covered with a gingham cloth. The checkerboard pattern reminded me of the chess games at the nursing home, and fucking hell, I missed Billy.

  I wondered how he’d feel about me now.

  “As real as you and me,” she said with a beaming grin, and then she laughed. “Or, well, at least he was at one point.”

  “Right,” I said with an uncomfortable nod as I pulled out Becca’s chair.

  “Would you like to hear our specials for the night, or would ya just like to take a look at the menu while you wait for your waiter?”

  Becca smiled up at her. “We’ll just wait, thanks.”

  “Sure thing, honey. Enjoy your meal, all right?”

  And with that, she was gone, back to her station at the door and Becca looked to me as I sat down.

  “You’re afraid of a little ol’ gator, huh?” she said with a teasing glint in her eye.

  Grabbing my menu, I glared at her from across the table. “There’s nothing little about that thing. But no, I’m not afraid of it. I’m just not a big fan of looking at what I’m about to eat.”

  “You’re lookin’ at me, aren’t ya?”

  I coughed, choking on nothing as my gaze dropped to the table. I could hear the siren’s song, luring me to my demise, but that was normal, I told myself. It was different and it was going to feel strange, but I would get over it. Just as I had been with all those women before, while my heart always, always belonged to her.

  How had I done it then? How had I looked at someone else without her eyes, without her hair? I couldn’t remember, but once upon a time, that’s exactly what I did. I could do it again.

  “Too forward for ya?” she asked, and I lifted my eyes back to her.

  “No,” I replied honestly. “I’m just, uh, getting out of a very long-term relationship.”

  Becca nodded sympathetically. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with ya.” Her cheeks flushed with the hint of what was to come later in the night and I longed for my bottle of whiskey. “Anyway, I’ll switch places with you, so you’re not havin’ to look right at Mr. Gator over there. Would that make ya feel better?”

  “Actually,” I said, “it would.” And with that, we traded places. A short-lived game of musical chairs. “Thank you.”

  “Quite welcome. Now, I recommend the crispy gator and the sweet tea. Unless you’re a root beer guy, in which case, Albita’s is amazing. Do you have that where you’re from?”

  “Can’t say we do, but I do love a good root beer.”

  “Then, that’s what you’re gettin’.”

  Our server came by and Becca did the honors of ordering for us both. I watched her talk about corn maque choux with a look of confusion plastered over my face, and when the waitress walked away, I asked, “What the hell did you just order for me?”

  “Wow, you’re not the most adventurous, are ya?”

  I glanced up from my menu allowed myself a look at her unnaturally red hair. The frame of fire illuminated her tawny skin and cinnamon eyes. With her full lips and concaved cheeks, she had the features of a magazine model, with a body to match, and that traitor in my pants didn’t care that my heart was in Connecticut. He stirred, and I dropped my eyes back to the laminated pages in my hands.

  “Not really. I’m more of a, uh, meatloaf kind of guy,” I replied, trying to keep my breathing normalized

  “Well, corn maque choux is a, hmm … creamy sorta corn dish. Peppers and onion, garlic and pepper … It’s delicious, if you don’t have a sensitive stomach. Although, if you do, you’re in the wrong place,” she said with a giggle, and I was reminded of all those women I slept with before Kylie. Too many women.

  I decided to not tell her that I do have a sensitive stomach. I also decided to push the fact, that Kylie knew that already, out of my mind. That Kylie never would’ve brought me to a place like this, that Kylie might have been out with some guy right now. Eating, drinking, going back to his place.

  Because, this is what we did, what we always did. We didn’t get attached; we just moved on.

  Becca’s hand slid over the table to rest over my wrist and I looked at her painted nails. They sparkled under the light, a holographic disco ball of colors, but without Kylie’s eyes to put the hue in my life, they grayed and dulled immediately.

  “I’ve never been on a date with a celebrity before,” she said gently.

  It should’ve been the word date that made me look up, but it wasn’t. It was that other one—celebrity—that peeled my eyes away from her nails, as I felt a cold shiver making its way over every ridge of my spine in slow motion.

  “You think I’m a celebrity?”

  She giggled again, looking away with giddy embarrassment. “Well, yeah. I mean, you have almost a million Instagram followers, and—”

  “I do?” When the fuck had that happened? When the hell had I last checked?

  “Yeah!” Becca’s eyes dropped back on me. “Your videos on YouTube get millions of hits too. Do ya not check these things?”

  I shook my head. “My, uh, my wife would look at all that stuff for me. I just post the pictures to my Instagram, but I never see how many people are following me. It never really mattered.”

  It was her turn to drop her eyes to the table. “Your wife, huh.”

  “Yeah, she’d handle all that social media stuff for me,” and I laughed, pushing a hand through my hair, missing the length of it. “God, she’s obsessed with looking at that shit. She gives me the play-by-play of that hashtag … What the fuck is it?”

  “Daisies and Devin,” she said, shifting in her seat and playing with the edge of her napkin.

  I nodded, smiling. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s always telling me what people are saying, always …” And I stopped myself, my mouth hanging open as my eyes dropped to the tablecloth. “Or, she did, anyway.”

  Looking up at me, she asked, “Is she, um … alive?”

  Startled, I blinked rapidly, nodding. “God, yeah, she’s—holy shit.”

  “What?” she asked, bored, and not even trying to hide the fact.

  “I know what she’s doing.” Becca shook her head in response. Of course she did, she didn’t know Kylie, or the past, and so, without a second thought, I said, “Her dad was a drug addict. She’d sometimes say she wished she had stopped trying to make him better. She wished she had let go, let him fuck up sooner, instead of holding on for so long, because it
was always going to lead to the same outcome.”

  “What happened to him?” she asked, slowly developing an interest in my revelation.

  “He died,” I said plainly, and that startled her.

  Her eyebrows jumped, her lips parted and her gaze fell to the table in time for the waitress to bring our food. “I-I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Plates of crispy gator, gator sausage and corn maque choux were distributed between us, along with two glasses of root beer. To my surprise and despite my hesitance to actually eat alligator, it smelled ridiculously good and the growl coming from my stomach reminded me of how fucking hungry I was.

  I grabbed my fork and knife, preparing to dive in, when Becca asked, “So, what is she doing?”

  “What?” I asked, looking up to see she hadn’t even noticed her food was sitting in front of her.

  “You said you knew what your wife was doing, so … what is she doin’?”

  “Oh,” I said, putting the utensils back down. “She won’t lose someone else she loves, so she’s letting me go. She’s, uh, I guess, letting me fuck up my life.” She’s letting me become Robbie.

  “How the heck could she think you’re fuckin’ up your life? You’re an overnight success story. That happens to like, one in a million people, if that. You’re so incredibly lucky,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I mean, gosh, you can’t turn on the radio without hearing your music.”

  “But it’s not my music being played on the radio,” I disputed. “That shit they’re playing on there? That’s what they told me my music should be, and that’s why she left. Well … she left because she has a life in Connecticut she needed to go back to, but she left me because I was allowing them to change me, for the fame.”

  “That’s your decision to make, though.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I didn’t make that decision. I let them make it for me and I didn’t say anything. I’ve been a puppet for the past several months of my life and it took her leaving, for me to fucking see it. God, I’m such an idiot.”

  Scrubbing a hand over my face, I looked to the rafters and thought of Black & Brewed. The nutty, bitter scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the shop. The whir of espresso machines and gentle singer-songwriter music filling the space. The leather-bound books on the shelves.

  Home.

  “If that’s what it takes to get yourself a Grammy, though …” She laughed lightheartedly, attempting to lift the heavy mood from the atmosphere, and I dropped my eyes back to her.

  “I don’t need a fucking Grammy,” I snapped, a little harsher than intended. “I never wanted a Grammy. I never wanted a platinum record, or a sold-out stadium tour.”

  “Then, what do you want?”

  “All I ever fucking wanted was her,” I said, saying it out loud. “That’s all I fucking want. I would rather never play my fucking guitar again, than live another day without her.”

  Becca’s mouth fell open and her eyes stared blankly toward me. “Wow.”

  “What?” I asked gruffly.

  She smiled sadly. “I just hope someone can love me like that one day, so much that they’re willing to give up their passion, just to be with me.”

  I nodded, wrapping my hand around my glass and lifting it to her. “I hope so too,” and with my toast, I drank and swallowed. Licking my lips, I said, “Holy shit, that’s really good.”

  “I told you.”

  “You did,” I said with a smile.

  We ate in silence, because the night wouldn’t go beyond that table. She knew I wouldn’t sit in her Jeep again and that I wasn’t going back to her place. This wasn’t my life. This was never supposed to be mine. I gave it up, to be with Kylie, and after thirteen long years of waiting, I finally got her.

  Why the hell would I give that away?

  ♪

  My fist connected with the doorframe.

  I didn’t want to knock; I wanted to break the fucking door down. Still, I had to keep some semblance of composure, and that was hard to do. With monotonous carpet on either side of me, I waited impatiently, unsure if I would even get a response.

  And then, it opened.

  “We need to talk,” I demanded as I pushed my way into the hotel room.

  Richard closed the door behind me. “It’s about time.”

  “What?” I asked, turning to face him before sitting on the couch. I glanced around, and said, “My room is nicer than yours.”

  “No shit,” he mumbled with a smirk.

  He was dressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants. I liked Casual Richard. Casual Richard was so much better than Suit Richard. Suit Richard saw dollar signs when he looked at me, but Casual Richard saw a friend—maybe even a son. He cared, he listened and I knew with the way he sat across from me on the bed, he was going to listen then.

  “I was wondering when you’d need to talk,” he admitted.

  Nodding, I said, “I need to go home, Rich.”

  “I know,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Normally, I’d give you the ‘you’re under contract’ spiel, but I’ll be honest with you, Devin …”

  “What?”

  “I think I made a mistake with you.”

  Narrowing my eyes and curling my lip, I shook my head, working through whether to be disgusted or confused. “What the hell does that mean?”

  He held up a palm. “What I mean is, you’re a good guy, Dev, and an even more talented man—one of the better ones I’ve worked with—but when I met you, I thought, talent isn’t always what you need to be successful. Look at the ones who go for the shock value—you think they do it because that’s who they are? Hell no, not in most cases. But, they have to, because talent alone doesn’t get them there. You, though? I misjudged you, and I never should’ve pushed to change the fundamentals of your act. I owe you an apology, for screwing this up.”

  “You think you made a mistake signing me?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Signing you? Absolutely not. That was the right thing to do, but changing you? I know I made a mistake there. You’re a wizard with your voice and your guitar. You didn’t need a band. You certainly didn’t need Robbie White around to influence you with his crap. I fucked that up.”

  “And you figured this out, when?”

  “When Kylie left,” he said, and I nodded.

  “Wish you had said something sooner,” I grumbled, wishing I had too.

  With a regretful smile, he nodded. “Yeah, well, I might’ve been a little too preoccupied with another epiphany.”

  “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?” I asked, tapping my fingers against the armrest.

  Richard stood up and crossed the room to the mini-fridge. “You want a drink? And if you say booze, I’m kicking you out of here. You’ve had enough to drink since she left.”

  I laughed. He was right about that. “Sure, grab me one of those Orangina things,” I said with a nod and a small bottle went sailing through the air to my waiting hands. “Thanks.”

  Pulling one out for himself, he closed the door and came to sit beside me. “I’ve been in this business a long time, Devin. I’ve seen a lot of acts come and go. I’ve been around the globe more times than I can count and I’ve slept in more hotel rooms than I’ve slept in my own bed, and you know what?”

  “What?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “I am really fucking tired.” He twisted the cap off and glanced at me. “You know I’ve never been married?”

  “Can’t say I did,” I said, opening my Orangina and bringing it to my lips.

  With a short nod, he said, “I never had time. I didn’t think a relationship could really fit into this life.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek, thinking. “But then, you met Grace.”

  Richard nodded, unable to contain his smile. “I did, and completely by accident, too. In line at the grocery store, of all places. I took one look at her and knew I needed to get her number before I left.”

  Kylie’s purple hair u
nderneath the wagon-wheel chandelier. “Yeah,” I responded with my own nod. “I’ve been there.”

  “It was my dream to be in the music biz,” he continued, “until I saw her, and then all I wanted to do was make her smile.” He laughed, turning to me. “I sound like a cheese-ball, huh?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, man. Not to me.”

  One of his heavy hands landed on my shoulder and it squeezed gently. “I knew you’d understand.”

  I looked out into the room. “What happens now? Am I done?”

  “With music? God no, this is just the beginning for you. But don’t worry about that right now. We’ll figure it out,” he said, squeezing again. “Important things first.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Kylie

  “I don’t know how to do this, Mom,” I whispered into the phone, choked by the impending tears.

  It had been four weeks without Devin. Four weeks of ignored phone calls and four weeks of drunken voicemails that I’d so foolishly allowed myself to listen to. Those updates he felt the need to give me and the way he ended every message with another “I love you.” The pleas to call him back, to text him, to tell him I was okay. That’s all he ever wanted to know—that I was okay.

  I told myself I didn’t care, but goddammit ... I couldn’t stand the pain in my soul every time I dared to take a fucking breath.

  “Kylie, what’s—”

  “I-I don’t know how you did it,” I blurted on an abrupt sob.

  “How I did what, honey?”

  “Let him go!”

  “Oh, Kylie … Devin’s going to come back. It’s only been a few wee—"

  I sniffled, shaking my head. “I broke up with him, Mom! I told him I was done.”

  “Why did you do that?” She spoke gently, coddling me in the way she never did after Dad died. In the way I wish she had.

  I didn’t know how to tell her the truth. I didn’t know how to confess that it scared me, seeing him smoking that joint. How it had shaken something in me, something suppressed and silenced for all those years. That seeing him with Robbie, shook and startled those hidden parts of me. That Robbie fucking White represented all of those things I hated and that Devin was feeding right into it. How I needed to let him go, before I witnessed the destruction of someone else I loved.