Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  I laughed. “Yeah, you can say that. Some things are more important than those fifteen minutes of fame, you know?”

  His eyes twinkled. “I do.”

  “And besides, who the hell is going to kick your ass in chess?”

  His feathery brows lifted and his mouth quirked. “You’ve been practicing?”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “Hell no, I’m just kidding, but hey, Ms. Scott actually smiled at me, so I figured anything could happen at this point.”

  ♪

  I parked the truck five minutes before closing and watched Brooke leave on Trent’s arm. Trent caught sight of me and he turned to Brooke to say something, before heading across the street to the only parking lot in the main street vicinity.

  I rolled down the window. “Hey asshole.”

  “What the fuck, man? I was coming over here to be nice and you have to get all cocky.”

  “I didn’t want it to get weird,” I said, smiling my sincerity.

  He nodded, dropping his gaze to his feet. “Well, brace yourself, ‘cause uh … I’ve missed you, dude. I wish you had been here when, you know,” and he put his arm around Brooke’s waist.

  I nodded, feeling guilty for not making him a priority when I should have. “I know, and hey, congratulations. Sorry I never called you back. I’m a piece of shit.”

  “Yeah, you kind of are, but thanks,” he said with a joking grin. “Maybe we can go out sometime and celebrate with you guys, even though it’s been a month or whatever.”

  “Hell yeah,” I said, and I glanced at the shop. “Well, if she’ll want to be anywhere near me.”

  Brooke glared at me. “Knock it off, Dev. You’re golden. Just don’t try to impress any more douchebag rock stars.”

  “So, you guys heard about that,” I said with a wince and a squeeze of the back of my neck.

  Trent grunted. “Oh yeah, we did.”

  “I deserve that,” I said with a shrug, and my eyes caught hold of a flash of purple. All of those shimmering violets and indigos. Purple Mountain’s Majesty. I watched her box up the pastries and thought, that’s the type of girl you settle into. The type of girl you spend hours talking to and serenading under the stars. The type of girl you propose to the first moment you see her, out of fear of someone getting to her first.

  Nobody else was going to get to her. Never again.

  Trent shoved against my shoulder. “Are you just gonna stare at her all night, or what?”

  I grabbed the handle of the door and I shook my head.

  “You know,” I told them as I got out of the truck, “I think I’ve wasted enough time already.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Kylie

  The night I met Devin O’Leary, he saved me from an arrogant guy who couldn’t take no for an answer. Then he sang to me under the Connecticut sky at the frat party neither of us wanted to be at.

  He saved me so many times over the years. From myself and from the cruelty of fate. From douchebags and from losing my dreams. He was my knight in spackle-stained armor, wielding his guitar, because every story has a hero. And he was mine.

  Still, I didn’t expect to hear that song—“Not Myself” by John Mayer—strumming through the quiet of the coffee shop, on that Wednesday when he should’ve been on his way to Texas. For a second, behind the door of the store room, I wondered if it was him at all. But who else could it have been? Who else would’ve known to play that song, the very first he ever played for me?

  So, with the hope that I was right, I pushed through the door. Eyes closed, afraid to open them and find I was wrong.

  But then, there were the lyrics and his voice, and my eyes opened to daisies and Devin.

  The bouquet was on the table right in front of the stage, and with little help from my wobbling knees, I walked slowly to sit in one of the mismatched chairs. Coming so close, I could smell him. Not his pillow, not the t-shirt I slept in, but him. And I took a deep breath as I sat down.

  I listened to him sing the lyrics that made no sense when he first sang them to me on the curb all those many years ago, but now, they fit. As though he knew then, where time would take us and that one day those lyrics would mean everything. That he’d one day have to ask if I’d want him when he wasn’t quite himself, and if I wasn’t fighting so hard to keep my shit together, I would’ve cut him off to give him a resounding yes.

  With a downward strum over the strings of his vintage Gibson, I clapped, unable to jump to my feet as I normally would, and he said into the microphone, “Thank you, Connecticut. You know, once upon a time, I finished that little ditty off with a rousing chorus of ‘Bigger Than My Body,’ but I have since found, that my body is plenty big enough, so …”

  I laughed, breaking my composure and held a hand to my mouth. As if I had any shot at keeping myself from drowning in a blubbery mess.

  “So, instead, I have this other song I wrote while sitting on my hotel bed, waiting for my cab to come and take me to the airport. It’s a little rough, I’ve never played it before, but you seem like the kind of audience I can experiment with …” He winked, and I sobbed around a watery giggle. “Anyway, it’s a work in progress, so don’t laugh too much.”

  He cleared his throat and bowed his head over the guitar as he strummed a slow tune that sounded the way love felt. It reached my heart and then my ears, and my hand remained over my mouth as he played those chords.

  This bed was made for promises,

  This bed was made for you.

  But I’ve blown your heart to pieces,

  And you’ve cut me down to pieces,

  But maybe together we can save it,

  Let this be the glue.

  And I know,

  It’s been so long since the day we met.

  And I’m,

  Scared I got as close as I’ll ever get.

  When we’ve,

  Barely gotten started yet …

  Has it been,

  Too long since we first met?

  I remember you with your violet hair,

  Under that wagon-wheel chandelier.

  You brought the colors into my life,

  And I swore one day, you’d be my wife,

  But I’m all alone in this fucking bed,

  Begging for another chance at my old life.

  And I know,

  It’s been so long since the day we met.

  And I’m,

  Scared I got as close as I’ll ever get,

  When we’ve,

  Barely even gotten started yet ...

  Has it been,

  Too long since we first met?

  You told me to go chase my dreams,

  But I slept so well with you.

  I thought that I could have it all,

  I think you thought it too.

  We tricked ourselves into believing,

  While the universe kept scheming,

  Baby, I was such a fucking tool.

  He laughed into the mic. “I’m working on that line.”

  And I know,

  It’s been so long since the day we met.

  And I’m,

  Scared I got as close as I’ll ever get.

  When we’ve,

  Barely even gotten started yet …

  Has it been,

  Too long since we first met?

  Please take me back,

  To the day we met.

  Let me go there,

  To the day we met.

  Tell me it hasn’t been too long …

  Since the day we met.

  The tune trickled into a melancholy series of complex notes before coming to a faded stop. His head hung over the guitar, his chest heaved, and me? Well, I was struggling to keep myself from falling apart as I held my hands to my face, allowing the tears to slip between my fingers and over the backs of my palms. I pinched my eyes shut and coached my breathing to slow, before I tipped over the edge of hyperventilation.

  Stepping off the stage, he took one of my hands in his, pulling me to my
feet and I leaned into him as his arms wrapped around me. His cheek pressed to the top of my head, and he said, “Kylie.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, barely audible through my tears and his t-shirt.

  “I’m really fucking sorry.”

  With a shake of my head, I said, “I am too. I was so selfish, thinking you’d always do exactly what I wanted you to do. I never thought about what you might have wanted, and—”

  Lifting his head, he brought his hands to my shoulders and held me away from him, looking into my eyes. “What I wanted never included losing you.”

  My eyes watered with a fresh batch of tears. “Oh God, Devin … I never should have left. You wouldn’t have left me, and I just … abandoned you.”

  Breaking the lock he held on my gaze, he looked up to the ceiling and tipped his head back. “Yeah, well … maybe you shouldn’t have walked away. But I shouldn’t have given you a reason to. So, let’s consider us even, okay?”

  With a deep breath, I looked up to him and nodded. “Okay,” I said, in mild disbelief that he was standing there in front of me, and I asked, “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

  The chuckle rumbled through him and he smiled. “I quit.”

  “Shut up. No, you didn’t.”

  “I actually did,” he said, nodding.

  I shook my head. “But why would you do that?”

  “Because I went out to dinner with this girl named Becca, and I told her I’d rather give up playing guitar for the rest of my life, before I went another day without you,” and he shrugged. “So, I went back to the hotel, told Richard, I was going home, and grabbed the first flight I could find.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, you went out to dinner with another girl?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, she was supposed to be an offering or some shit from Robbie. Thought I at least owed her dinner.” And then, his eyes met mine. “She had red hair and it was hot, but purple is more my color.”

  My mouth had a mind of its own, and I grinned, wrapping my arms around his waist. I breathed him in, held on tight, and said, “Dev?”

  “Yeah?”

  My smile broadened. “Let’s go home.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Kylie

  He insisted on showering before he’d let me touch him, and I guess I should’ve been grateful for that, but it had been weeks and I was desperate to have my hands on his skin.

  I sat on our bed while I watched him get undressed. Slowly, unveiling his tattooed arms, and then his ribbed stomach and carved chest as his t-shirt was pulled over his head and thrown onto the floor.

  “You’re torturing me on purpose,” I whined as his fingers lingered a little too long on the zipper of his jeans, and he grinned.

  “Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry,” and he unzipped, letting his pants sit low on his hips as he walked to my side of the bed.

  His thumb and pointer finger gripped my chin, tipping my head back as he brought his lips to mine, to kiss me repeatedly. Gently at first and increasing in pressure as the series of kisses became more passionate, more urgent, more desperate, and he broke away.

  “Fucking hell,” he said, laced around a groan. “Okay, I’ll be quick. Don’t move.”

  “Come on,” I whined, dazed and deprived, but he moved from the bedroom before I could stop him.

  I listened as he turned the shower on, and I knew he’d be naked behind that door. A rush of desperate heat flooded my groin and I stood up from the bed, walking out of the room to the bathroom door, not surprised to find it was left ajar. I peeked inside, checking to see if he was already in the shower and at the sight of his jeans and briefs on the floor, I had my answer.

  I pushed the door open to find his back facing me, and it took five seconds. Five seconds of watching the rivulets of water make their way over his sculpted back. Five seconds of staring through half-hooded eyes as he bowed his head under the pelting spray. Five seconds of imagining my fingers tracing the cut lines at his hips … before I opened the shower door and still in my pajamas, stepped inside, closing it behind me.

  “You suck at this patience thing,” he remarked as he turned, and I silently nodded, water droplets clinging to my lashes as I stared unblinking at him. Desperate and so fucking needy.

  Matching my silence, he lifted my hands above my head and I held them there as his fingers traced the length of my arms, trailing over my sides until they reached the hem of my wet tank-top. The tips of his fingers slipped underneath, pushing until his fingers and the rolled, sopping material of my shirt rested just below my breasts, and my lips fell open with a silent gasp.

  His open mouth fit over mine, licking luxuriously between my lips before pressing forward, touching his tongue to mine, and the shirt was moving over my breasts. Our kiss was broken only as it passed over my head and I moaned into his mouth when he dropped the shirt to the shower floor and manually wrapped my hands around his neck, pressing my bare chest to his stomach.

  His lazy fingers dropped to my waist, slowly drawing a line above the band of my shorts. Tickling, teasing and I unsuccessfully suppressed my giggle, pulling from his mouth with a laugh that echoed through the bathroom, even above the roar of the shower.

  “God, I’ve missed your laugh,” he said, tracing the line around to my back, pushing his fingers under the waistband and molding his hands to the curve of my ass.

  “Mm, don’t talk,” and I gasped, watching as he lowered to his knees, rolling the sopping wet shorts down over my legs, to the floor, leaving me naked to him. His eyes roamed my body, from my feet and up, up to meet my stare as he leaned forward to press his lips just above the juncture between my legs. “Oh fuck,” I gasped again and I was greeted by a slow sweep of his tongue. A barely-there touch that left my knees knocking and my heart skipping as he stood back on his feet, marking his way with kisses against a hip, a rib, a breast.

  “I missed you, KJ,” he said, as I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. His hands gripped my thighs, hoisted me up to lock my legs around his hips and my back was pinned against the cold, wet shower wall. With his forehead pressed to mine, his hips pushed forward, and I released an exhale. “Fuck, I missed you so much.”

  The tears came—of course they did—and I nodded. “I missed you too, Dev.”

  ♪

  The daisies were on my nightstand, as I curled up beside him naked. Ready to sleep and put away those last few weeks of life without him. I sighed, resting my head against his chest and with his hand, he nudged my head back to look up at him.

  Locking his gaze to mine, he asked, “Have I ever told you that you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen?”

  Swallowing hard, I nodded. “You have. A few times.”

  “Well, have I told you that my life is so dull and colorless when I haven’t looked into them in a while?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “You need some new material, I think.”

  “What about your hair? Have I ever told you I love your hair?”

  I laughed, smiling as I nodded. “Oh, just a bit.”

  “Hmm,” he grunted, twisting his mouth. “You’re right. I need some new shit.”

  With a relaxed sigh, I nuzzled my cheek against his chest, closing my eyes and preparing my body for a day of uninterrupted sleep. Or hell, a week, if I had my way. The weeks spent without him in bed, hadn’t offered a whole lot of rest and my body told me I was in desperate need of it.

  But Devin stirred underneath me and, irritated, I groaned as he gently pushed me away and got up to leave the room.

  “Come on, Dev,” I said with an exhausted sigh, my eyes still shut. My head found my pillow and I sighed. “Come cuddle with me.”

  Coming back in, he said, “I will, but hold on. I just remembered something else.”

  Groaning, I asked, “What?”

  “New material,” he replied, “and I’m only saying it once, so you better listen.”

  “You really are the king of perfect timing right now,” I grumbled, as he sat
on the bed and I opened my eyes.

  “’Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart,’” he recited, “’Of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants; the way it stops and starts.’”

  And immediately, he had my attention.

  Because Devin always had to play the hero, and now, he was solidifying his position as my knight in spackle-stained armor. For as long as we both shall live, and beyond, because we both believed in Heaven and a love that was always more than love.

  “KJ, from the moment I saw your purple hair, all I ever wanted was you. And I promised I’d ask you when I got home and I promised I’d have a ring,” he said, and he placed the box on my stomach.

  “When the hell did you go ring shopping?” I asked, nervously laughing.

  He shifted on the bed. “I went shopping with Richard before I caught my flight.”

  “With Richard?” I repeated, eyeing the box, anxious to open it.

  “Yeah. He bought something too.”

  My eyes left the box only to make sure Devin was serious. “Wow, so … my mom and Richard?”

  Devin nodded, lying back down next to me. “Yeah, I know,” he said, smoothing my hair out against the pillow. “You okay?”

  I couldn’t help the powerful wave of realization that a very long, and very hard, chapter of my life was finally coming to an end, and I couldn’t help that it made me a little sad. Because there’s nothing easy about letting go.

  But I remembered that field of daisies, and I remembered what Devin said: “This is why I believe in Heaven, Kylie.” Turning my head against the pillow, pulling my eyes away from that box, I looked at him and I thought, this is why I believe in Heaven. This man who was put in my path exactly when I needed him. This man who gave up his dreams for me and made my dreams come true.

  He loved me, made me feel like I was always enough, and spent his life making sure I was okay.

  “Yeah,” I said, inhaling and exhaling. Letting it go. “I’m fine.”