Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  “Good,” he said, leaning in to kiss my forehead as he reached for the dark blue, velvet box.

  He opened it, revealing the most gorgeous ring I had ever seen in my life. And maybe what set it apart, was the simple fact that it was mine, but all the same, it took my breath away as I sat up to get a better look at it.

  “I didn’t want to get you just a diamond ring,” he explained, plucking it from its pillowed bed. “They’re so typical, and baby, there’s nothing typical about you.”

  The black onyx gleamed in the dim light of our bedroom. Small diamonds were set around the deep black stone; a sparkling halo of light around the darkness.

  “The lady at the jewelry store told me that black onyx is a stone for strength,” he said, turning it over in his fingers. “I figured you’d just like the black stone anyway, but when she told me that, I knew that’s what I had to get. Then, I saw this one, and I thought about us, together, as like … I don’t know, an endless circle of light around this darker thing, and … God, that sounds so fucking lame and depressing,” he laughed, and I shook my head adamantly. Reaching my hands forward to press to either side of his face.

  “No,” I said. “No, it’s not. It’s perfect, Devin. It’s so fucking perfect.”

  He looked into my eyes and scraped his teeth over his lower lip before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I thought so too.”

  A laugh joined the emotional sob that passed my lips as I leaned forward, touching my forehead to his. “Ask me,” I whispered. There was so much excitement buzzing through my veins, I could hardly believe I was sitting on that bed and not bouncing off the walls.

  “Okay.” His grin suggested he was feeling the same way. “Kylie James, of all the dreams that have come true, you will always, always be my favorite. Please, marry me?”

  I didn’t even hesitate for dramatic effect as I nodded against him. “You knew I’d never say no,” I said as the tears joined my smile.

  I held my hand out to him and he slid the ring onto my finger, solidifying the commitment that had begun the moment we met. I wrapped my arms around his neck and climbed onto his lap, burrowing my face against his shoulder as he engulfed me in warmth.

  “I love you, Kylie,” he said, his mouth against my ear.

  I nodded and replied, “I love you too,” as I succumbed to the safety of his arms.

  Because every single story has a hero and Devin O’Leary would forever be mine.

  EPILOGUE

  Two Years Later

  Devin

  Fifteen years ago, at a frat party I didn’t want to be at, my eyes landed on the one woman that would change my life.

  She talked me into singing to her, she gave me something to write my songs about. She encouraged me, she took me in, she gave me purpose and she gave me a dream come true.

  And she thinks she’s done nothing for me.

  She’s wrong. So unbelievably wrong.

  I tightened my tie, straightened my back and turned to Richard.

  “You ready?” I asked him, and he clapped a hand to my back as he shook his head, reconsidered, and nodded with a laugh.

  “As ready as I’m going to be.”

  I smiled encouragingly. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Yeah, it will be.”

  Trent wandered into the hotel suite with a to-go tray stocked with cups of coffee and handed one to each of us. “You guys got a beautiful day out there,” he said. “Way better than the crap we got stuck with.”

  I laughed my sympathies, remembering the persistent thunderstorms that traveled through the area the weekend of his wedding. They’d planned on an outdoor ceremony at their house—finally finished and beautiful—until the very last minute, but despite how quickly we all moved to get everything indoors, Brooke’s dress hadn’t escaped getting stained with mud.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I said, sipping my coffee. “You did have that famous guitarist there.”

  “Uh-huh …” Trent rolled his eyes at the reminder of the sick harpist who was supposed to play as they walked down the aisle.

  Lucky for him, he had a best man that could stand in.

  “And,” I concluded, nodding slowly, “you did have Billy there.”

  Trent tipped his chin and sighed. “Yeah …”

  Three months after Trent was married, our grandfather passed in his sleep. But not before he could give me the pair of wedding rings he and my grandmother wore, with the sentiment that he couldn’t think of anybody more deserving.

  I lifted my coffee and raised my eyes to the ceiling, hoping he was out there somewhere with my grandmother, the love of his life. Watching and waiting with a chess table.

  Richard laid a hand over my shoulder and cleared his throat. “All right, big guy. I’m gonna go check on the bride. Ceremony is in ten. Don’t be late.”

  I nodded with a chuckle. Richard would always delegate. It’s what he did, even though he no longer worked as my manager.

  Just two months after I decided to cut my first tour short, Richard and Kylie’s mom Grace were married and got their happily ever after. It was a small ceremony, held in a cathedral not far from the house Kylie grew up in, with me as the Best Man and Kylie acting as Maid of Honor. Wanting to start their lives together fresh, Richard retired from band management and Grace sold the house she once shared with her husband.

  Then they bought a place in River Canyon, to be closer to us.

  Richard’s last order of business, was to find me a new manager. Someone who would focus on my music and not on the package the songs were wrapped in. Someone who knew business and could take charge, someone who wouldn’t let anybody dig their greedy fingers into me and suck me dry.

  The only person that seemed to make sense was Kylie, and with her help, my first album release as an independent artist, was a great success. She hired some new people at Black & Brewed and we took two months over the summer, to tour and play a total of thirty sold-out shows across the country.

  Turns out, I really could have it all … and I didn’t need to leave her to do it.

  Trent grinned up at me. “You know what’s fucking crazy?”

  “What?” I asked, checking the mirror again and rolling the sleeves of my white button-down up to my elbows. I nodded at my reflection, satisfied.

  “In just a little while, we’re both going to be married men,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “I mean, fifteen years ago, I never would’ve thought we’d end up here.”

  I smiled to myself, picturing her underneath that wagon-wheel chandelier. Unable to tear my eyes away from her.

  My eyes met my cousin’s and I said, “Well, I can’t speak for you, but … I did.”

  “Bullshit,” Trent laughed incredulously. “You had no fucking clue. You were afraid to talk to her, for fuck’s sake.”

  I smiled to myself, looking down at my shoes.

  I didn’t know it then, watching that douchebag try to chat her up, but that uncomfortable feeling roiling in my gut was the knowledge that she was it. The one. The one that would change my life, the one who would need me to change hers. It wasn’t love at first sight and it wasn’t infatuation. It was just a deep-seated knowledge, a cosmic understanding, that she would become my life, and I, hers.

  “I was afraid, because it was real, dude,” I said, quoting myself, remembering that first time making love in her old bedroom. “And real is terrifying.”

  ♪

  Chad, my new back-up guitarist, was playing it wrong, and from the looks on the faces of Sebastian and Ty, they knew it too.

  We had rehearsed “Daisies & You” a thousand times, but he was strumming the F chord when it should’ve been G. I glanced to him and shook my head as I walked down the aisle to the altar. He caught my signal and nodded, shifting his fingers and I flashed him a thumbs up.

  He was a good guy. Not as experienced as Robbie, but just as talented and I liked him a lot.

  I passed my parents, sitting in the front ro
w of the old chapel in River Canyon. They sat next to a picture of my grandparents and my lower lip twitched at the sight, at the reminder that Billy couldn’t be there.

  Trent and Brooke came after me. Walking in slow succession to the tune of the song I’d played so many times.

  Then, Kylie’s mom. Walking alone, beaming at me with every step. The tears were already filling her eyes and I was shot back to the only other time I’d seen her cry. The first time I met her, at her husband’s funeral, dressed in black and standing next to his casket. Those were the tears of sorrow and defeat, and perhaps just the slightest bit of relief. But today, her smile was wide and there was nothing sad in those tears.

  She stopped in front of me, holding her small bouquet of daisies and her head shook as she looked up into my eyes.

  “I couldn’t have picked anyone better if I tried,” she said, her voice quavering as she touched my hand.

  I swallowed and nodded, not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to say anything without releasing the tears I was holding back. The tears I was saving.

  She took her place next to Brooke, and I waited, knowing Kylie would be coming. Knowing it was only a matter of moments before I’d finally see her for the first time as a bride.

  The shift in notes brought the small crowd of guests to stand. My nerves bundled together and combusted as I closed my eyes and with a deep breath, I pictured her, under that old wagon-wheel chandelier. I saw the long road of our journey together; the flirtation, the heartache, the love, the hell, and …

  I opened my eyes and there she was, dressed in a white dress embroidered in daisies and music notes. I bit my lips, blinked and swallowed at my throat, all to compose myself. All to collect my emotions, but there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening as she walked toward me, with Richard on her arm. Her watery eyes were pinned on me—all of those brilliant blues—and I sniffed the tears back, but they were relentlesss. Because she was the greatest dream come true and I couldn’t even begin to believe that she was mine.

  The church was small and the walk was short. She stared up at me, worrying her lower lip as the priest asked, “Who gives this woman to marry this man?”

  This woman. This man. Her. Me.

  Goddamn my composure. It was crumbling with every second, with every breath, and as Richard handed her off to me, a tear worked its way over my cheek.

  “You can’t cry,” she whispered, shaking her head in time with the trembling of her bottom lip. “If you cry, I’ll cry and that’ll be a mess.”

  Speaking for the first time since entering that chapel, I opened my mouth. “’Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears,’” I recited, taking her hand in mine. I brought her knuckles to my lips and kissed her, closing my eyes. Reminding myself that this wasn’t a dream.

  My lids opened to find her wiping a hand underneath her eye, unsuccessfully brushing away the multitude of tears that streaked over her cheeks. Poe had that effect on her and he apparently had the same effect on me, as I tucked my lower lip between my teeth. Biting. Giving in to the tears as I turned to the priest and cleared my throat.

  Kylie

  Two years ago, in an alleyway in Philadelphia, Devin asked me when I had fallen in love with him. I couldn’t find an answer, and I told him I didn’t know.

  Because that was the truth.

  For me—for us, there had never been that one pinnacle moment. That defining memory that would serve as the foundation for what were today. My love for him had been such a gradual thing, that by the time I realized what I felt, it seemed like it had always been there. Protecting me. Making me strong.

  Which was why, between our ceremony at the church in River Canyon and our reception, I asked him to finally accompany me somewhere we hadn’t been in a really long time. Somewhere I needed to go.

  “This is weird,” I said on a deflating exhale.

  “We can come back another time, if you want,” he said, as though we hadn’t just driven an hour from River Canyon to stand there.

  I squeezed my hand around his and nodded. “No, I need to do this now.”

  In my other hand, I clutched the bouquet, the one I never meant to toss and knelt to the ground in my wedding dress. I laid the daisies down on the grass, underneath my father’s name, and I stared at those letters carved into the stone.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I said in a barely audible whisper, “I wanted you to meet someone.” I turned my head, looked up at Devin, and said, “This is that guy I told you about. Devin O’Leary—my husband.”

  Clearing his throat, Devin crouched beside me, gripping tight to my hand as he said, “I wish we’d gotten the chance to meet sooner, sir.” And I smiled at him, despite the tears filling my eyes, because there were some things I’d always regret.

  “We just got married today,” I said, turning back to the headstone. “But, you already know that.”

  In the days leading up to the wedding, the happiness I should’ve felt was squashed by the overbearing weight of my sadness. The despair of knowing I’d be spending my wedding day, the most important day of my life, without my father. I spent my nights, wishing for the power to bring him back for just that one day. To give me away, to let me go, in the way I was forced to thirteen years ago. And, to meet my husband, the only person to protect me from all that pain.

  But in that church, with the sunlight guiding my way down the aisle, I was lifted with an unexplained knowledge that I was being watched. A weightless kiss on the cheek, a not-there touch on the shoulder, as my stepfather left me at the altar with Devin. It was invisible to everybody and there would be no photographic evidence that it happened, but I felt it. And I knew it was him.

  “I know I should’ve come back sooner,” I said, laying my head on Devin’s shoulder. “It’s been a crazy fifteen years since you left. So much has happened, but, I’m here now, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry you were sick, I’m sorry we couldn’t help, I’m sorry I was so fucking ashamed of you …”

  I closed my eyes and jammed my lower lip between my teeth, seeking control over the words I never knew I needed to say. Devin tipped his head to rest against mine, his thumb stroking the back of my hand.

  I breathed and sniffed back the tears, not caring that my makeup was going to be ruined by the time we got back and I opened my eyes.

  “I miss you so much,” I said, urging myself to smile. “I miss you, but I’m okay.”

  I lifted my head and saw a tear dropping from Devin’s eye. I laid my palm over his cheek, catching it before it had a chance to fall to the ground and I moved to press my lips to his. My fingers stroked over his bristled jaw as I pulled away and smiled.

  “I promise, I’m okay.”

  Want more from Devin & Kylie?

  Click here for more:

  GET YOUR BONUS EPILOGUE

  For more from Kelsey:

  I welcome you to join my Facebook reader group, Kelsey Kingsley’s Dear Readers. I promise we don’t bite.

  Also, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated on my latest releases (and other stuff):

  SUBSCRIBE HERE.

  If you or someone you know is suffering from substance abuse, there are people out there who want to help.

  Don’t wait until rock bottom.

  Don’t wait until it’s too late.

  SAMHSA

  (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration)

  1-800-662-HELP (4357)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thank you, John Mayer.

  Thank you, Edgar Allan Poe.

  Thank you to all of the authors, musicians, poets and artists who helped to add a piece to this book. Thank you for the limitless amounts of inspiration. Thank you for bringing me comfort, security and worlds to fall into when mine wasn’t good enough.

  Thank you to my family, as always, for putting up with my perpetual state of psychosis whenever I’m deep in the throes of writing this
stuff. I know it isn’t easy. Trust me; I’m living in my own head. I know what a pain in the ass it is dealing with me.

  Thank you, Danny, for your constant encouragement, and for this fucking cover. I mean, holy crap. I don’t know how you can refuse to read my books and still be able to capture my words in pictures. It’s truly remarkable.

  Thank you, Jess, for the time and effort you put into editing. I don’t know where you squeeze it in, with your crazy schedule and world traveling, but you should know just how appreciated you are. I’m pretty convinced that I have one of the best editors, and friends, in the world, and I am eternally grateful for that.

  Thank you to Emma, Tara and Laura. God, the three of you have made writing this book tolerable. You’ve calmed me down when I’ve been on the brink of going insane. You’ve shared in the bizarre twists and turns the universe has taken me in, and most importantly, you’ve breathed an insurmountable amount of confidence into me. I could never thank you enough for all that you’ve done.

  Thank you, Mr. Levine, for your sixth grade English class. Thank you for introducing me to Mr. Poe, with your theatrical rendition of The Telltale Heart. Thank you for taking me under your wing, for believing in me when certain other teachers didn’t. Thank you for keeping the love for the written word alive in me when it probably should’ve died, and thank you for saving all of your grape Jolly Ranchers for me. I don’t look back on many of my teachers fondly, but you … you were one of the good ones. Thank you.

  And last, but never least … You, dear reader. Always you. Thank you. I could never put into words just how much you mean to me, so I’ll just say, of all the dreams that have come true, you will always be my favorite. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR