I left him downstairs and headed up to my guest quarters, which was technically Ivy’s old bedroom. The floral wallpaper and boy band posters that surrounded the little twin bed felt quaint and homey and rustled up warm, nostalgic tingles in my belly despite what had just happened. I clung to that comfort as if it were all I had.
I pulled out my phone and checked my email the second I pounced onto the bed, responding to the quick ones and flagging the rest to deal with upon my return. A handful of missed text messages from Harrison instructed me to call him, and I’d learned over the years how much he hated to be kept waiting.
“Hey,” I said after he answered in the middle of the first ring. I kept my voice low.
“How’s everything going?” Harrison asked. It was quiet in the background, and I imagined he was sitting in his favorite leather chair in the living room of our apartment surrounded by Chinese takeout, his iPad, and the Wall Street Journal, of which he still preferred to read the paper version. “Getting anything good?”
“It’s slow going.” My voice was a near whisper. “I should have everything I need by the time I leave Wednesday.”
“Good. Maybe you can come home early.” Harrison’s comment came out of left field. I laughed silently at the notion that perhaps he missed me.
Random.
“I’ll try,” I said, knowing full well it’d be damn near impossible for Beau to let me leave early. He wasn’t going to let me go that easily.
“It’s weird not going with you on location,” he mused. I heard the rustling of paper in the background. Harrison was always multi-tasking. Getting his undivided attention was a luxury I never could afford in our marriage.
“Trust me. You’re not missing a thing. You’d be bored to tears out here.”
For whatever reason, it never bothered me until that moment that Harrison had never cared to visit Darlington during the duration of our relationship. Though in his defense, I once loved that about him. I loved that he didn’t dig up my past – the part of me where he certainly didn’t belong.
“I should let you go,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was going to be an early bedtime for me, but it’d been a long day. “I need to prep for tomorrow.”
“Goodnight, Coco.” Harrison said my name with deep intention, as if to subtly remind me that I was still her. I was still Coco.
I placed my phone on the nightstand and slipped into pajamas before trailing down the hall to wash up for bed. The house was still. If I had to guess, Beau was probably sitting outside with Ruby staring out at the night sky.
Glancing out Ivy’s old window, I caught a glimpse of Beau rocking in his chair down below, his hand resting on top of Ruby’s head as he scratched behind her ears hard enough to make her foot thump.
I always imagined the three of us – me, Beau, and our daughter – were out living some simple little life in some alternate universe somewhere. We were happy. We had a quaint house and made just enough of a living to get by. We were respectable members of the community, involved and charitable. Our lives were simple and filled with happy memories and slow, languid days that blurred together over the years.
I’d once wanted that life with him more than anything. I wanted to keep Mabry. I wanted Beau to come back. I wanted to taste the sweet at the expense of being two struggling young parents trying to make it work.
Instead, my options were limited to making ends meet as a nineteen-year-old single mother or giving Mabry the beautiful life she deserved with Sam and Rebecca.
I clicked off the bedside lamp and crawled under the covers until the faint lull of Beau’s voice trailed in through the drafty old windows. He was down below, singing some old tune I’d heard before. It wasn’t one of his – it was an old folk song his grandfather had taught him when he was younger.
My eyes burned hot until I willed the threat of tears away.
How could a man so entwined in family and sentiment turn his back on his own?
5 years ago
“Hey there, cowboy.” Three little words pulled my attention to the bubbly blonde bartender holding a bottle of whiskey and flashing me the widest smile I’d seen in a long time. “How about we cut you off? Get you back home? Where are you staying?”
My brows scrunched and my eyes squinted. Even in my drunken stupor, I could see she was the kind of pretty little thing a lonely guy could have a nice time with.
“Where are you staying tonight?” she asked. Sleek blonde wisps hung over her eyes until she blew them away with one huff. “It’s closing time.”
I pulled in a long breath and sat up straight, as if a breath of fresh air had the ability to undo the last several hours of drinking. Glancing around the foggy bar¸ I didn’t see a single one of my guys.
“What time is it?” I slurred.
“Damn near two in the morning,” she said. She reached for the crystal tumbler in front of me and slid it away, dropping it behind the bar and out of sight. “Time to go home. Need me to call you a cab?”
“Nah, my bus is across the street,” I said.
“You live on a bus?” she laughed. “Like a camper or something?”
“A tour bus.”
“Ah, what kind of music do you perform?” She rinsed out some glasses and patted them dry with a white towel. Behind her, the other bartender, a man with at least a couple hundred pounds of solid muscle, closed out the cash register.
“You don’t know who I am?” My head cocked to the side as I sized her up and attempted, poorly, to study her face for any hint of a bluff.
“I don’t know who you are, cowboy,” she laughed. “Judging by the way you’re dressed, I know you’re not from Detroit.”
Ah, Detroit. That’s where I was that night.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
Her full lips pulled into an amused grin. “Daisy. Yours?”
“Beau,” I said. Any other girl would’ve been throwing herself at me, fawning, crying, playing coy, anything but being genuine. But not Daisy. She intrigued me. And for the first time in years, she pushed all those invasive Dakota thoughts clean out of my mind for a little bit. With my mind unclear and muddled with alcohol, I couldn’t think of a proper way to invite her to my bus without coming off as a complete sleaze ball, so I gave her a nod and climbed off the bar stool. “Nice meeting you, Daisy. Thanks for…”
My words trailed off. She hadn’t been my bartender. In fact, she hadn’t waited on me all night. I’d been there for hours and that was the first time I’d seen her.
She lifted her brows and laughed. “You want me to walk you home? That street gets pretty busy this time of night. I’d hate for you to become road kill on my watch.”
She tore off her apron and threw it on the counter, revealing a tiny hint of a waist wrapped in a studded belt buckle. A white cotton tank top hugged her upper body, displaying her rack and the way they bounced a little with each step. Daisy hooked her arm into my elbow as we headed outside.
The cool November night air brought a sobering shock to my system, and under the pale moonlight I found myself attracted to the first girl who’d made me do a double take since Dakota, and on the heels of recently discovering Dakota had married and moved on, I welcomed it, shoving what guilt I felt deep down until I could barely feel it anymore.
We ran across the busy road, our feet shuffling toward the bus under the shade of night.
“Wait a minute,” Daisy said as we approached the tour bus wrapped with my name and likeness. “That’s a fancy bus. Beau Mason, Beau Mason. That sounds familiar. It sounds kind of country. I don’t listen to country music.”
“Well, you’re missing out, sweetheart,” I drawled. I pulled open the door of the bus and climbed up. “You coming in, or are you just going to stand there pretending like you’re not intrigued by me?”
“I’m not,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not intrigued.”
“Right,” I smirked.
“I’ll come in,” she said, “but only to make sure
you get to bed. I don’t want you hitting your head on something or throwing up all over yourself.”
“I’m not that far gone, sugar.”
She followed me up into the bus, and I reached for her hand to pull her in. It wasn’t quite fireworks. There wasn’t a spark. There was no magic. But it felt different. She wasn’t a groupie or a raving fan. She wasn’t crying or throwing herself at me. She was just authentic, and it’d been years since I’d been around anyone with the kind of authenticity that could put a man at ease.
She took a seat on a sofa inside my bus, running her hands along the fabric and taking it all in. “So you live on this thing?”
“I do,” I said, sitting next to her. She smelled like the bar. Like cigarettes and bourbon and spilled beer. But the second our eyes met, I forgot all about it. My glance fell to her lips and the way she tugged and toyed them as if it were second nature. But all I could think about was crushing them with mine.
And so I did.
No woman in years had ever told me no.
I’d been conditioned to function in one mode only whenever a pretty girl moseyed into my bus.
It was the only way I knew how to operate, like an entitled, arrogant little prick with too much money and not enough good sense to know the difference between breaking hearts and fulfilling fantasies. The only intelligent thing I'd ever done in my twenties was stay the fuck away from Dakota Andrews, though ironically, she was the only person who could bring me back down to earth.
With my lips on Daisy’s, my hand gripped the back of her neck, desperately tasting what I hoped might turn into something someday. Loneliness crushed me, and finding out Dakota had moved on for good sunk me like stone.
“Beau, stop! Stop!” Daisy pushed me off her, her brows furrowed. She stood up, tugging her top down into place. “Are you insane?”
My hand covered my mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“No, you weren’t.” She crossed her arms. But she hadn’t walked out yet. That was a good sign. “Do you normally kiss complete strangers like that?”
The truth? Yes.
“Only when they’re pretty like you,” I said, hoping for an ounce of redemption but knowing how utterly pathetic I sounded.
Daisy rolled her eyes. “You’ve got some work to do, Beau. I don’t know you, but something’s not right in there.” She pointed toward my heart. At least she wasn’t pointing to my head. “Maybe you’re looking for love. Maybe you’re lonely. Maybe I represent something you want. But you can’t just kiss me. Kissing is something you do with someone you love.” She clasped her hand across her heart. “To me, kissing is very personal. You can’t just kiss me, Beau. Not like that.”
I stood up, keeping a safe distance and resting my hands on my hips. “You’re right, Daisy. You’re right about everything. And I’m sorry.”
I brushed past her, heading toward the back of the bus.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
I turned to face her. “To bed.”
Her face fell a little, as if she didn’t quite want me to go yet. “You tired?”
“Not really.”
“We can still talk.” Her tone was lighter, a little airier than just a second ago. “As long as you don’t kiss me again.”
We collapsed back on the sofa, talking about life and everything in between until the sun came up. And when it was time for her to go, she slipped on a pair of sunglasses from her purse and stood up.
“That went by awful fast,” I said as the fatigue of the night before began to settle in. I glanced at my watch. My driver would be checking in soon. Most of my crew was on other buses or staying in hotels. My bus was my sanctuary – the only home I’d known in years. I glanced at Daisy standing there in her jeans and tank top, and I reached over to grab a tour jacket and handed it to her. “Looks pretty cold out there this morning.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving, Beau?” Daisy asked, slipping the jacket across her shoulders. “What do you do on the road during holidays?”
I’d completely forgotten it was Thanksgiving that week. Most days I didn’t know what day it was, though I knew fall had come because of the changing leaves. “Maybe get dinner at a diner with some of the guys?”
It was usually just another day for me. I’d call home. Say hi to my parents and sisters. That was the extent of my Thanksgivings these days.
“If you’re going to be in town tomorrow, you should come by my parents’ house,” she said. “We love having company. You’re more than welcome. I promise my family won’t bite.”
She twirled a strand of icy blonde hair around her finger and smiled. Apparently she’d forgiven me for kissing her hours before.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could let Daisy leave and walk out of my bus, never seeing her again. Or I could meet her family, spend a little more time with her, and attempt to dig myself out of my deep dark rut.
I raked my hand across my five o’clock shadow, my eyes locking into hers. “Yeah, I could do that.”
The next night after Thanksgiving dinner, Daisy kissed me. Closed mouth and on the cheek. But she kissed me.
“Come with me,” I said to her as she dropped me back off at my bus.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What’s a sweet little thing like you doing working at a bar anyhow?”
“I’m not as sweet as I look, Beau. Trust me.”
“What do you have keeping you here?”
“My family.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to do something crazy before? Shake things up a bit?”
She lifted a single shoulder, though the flicker in her baby blue eyes told me she was considering it.
“You could stay here and work at the bar the rest of your life or you could hop on that bus with me and live a little.”
She toyed with her bottom lip, staring over my shoulder and into the tinted glass windows of the Beau Mason wrapped bus behind us.
“If you don’t like it – if you don’t like me or if I don’t like you – I’ll buy you a plane ticket and ship you home, and you can forget we ever met. How’s that sound?”
She smiled before laughing, and while the notion of riding off into the sunset with that sweet little plaything in my bus seemed exciting at the time, the reality of it wore on me quickly. It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t fireworks and goose bumps.
It was the promise of a distraction.
My intention was for her to be a diversion, and to maybe find something in her I hadn’t been able to find in anyone since Dakota. Daisy was a refreshing change compared to most of the women I met on the road, and I wasn’t quite ready to let her go so fast.
“Fine. I could use a little change in my life about now,” she breathed. “But just for a little bit.”
“Morning,” I said as I met Beau in the kitchen just after sunrise the following day, forcing a smile on my face that proudly proclaimed I was over what had happened the night before.
If the whole news anchor thing ever fell through, I could pursue acting.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
Beau handed me a mug with some co-op brand printed on it and steam rising from the top, filling my lungs with hot, roasted goodness.
“You seem to be in betters spirits,” Beau declared, watching me sip my coffee as I stared out the south-facing window. “I take it you slept well?”
“I did. Haven’t slept in a twin bed in forever, but it was cozy.” I offered a smile. Three more days. I had to make it three more days. If I had to fake it until I made it, so be it. “When should we start?”
Beau turned to face me, hooking one hand into his belt loop. “Miles and Gracie are coming out today. Should be here any minute.”
“No school?”
“Conferences.”
“So you’re babysitting today?”
“Just until noon,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Ivy’ll come pick them back up when she gets
off work.”
Three car doors slammed outside a moment later, and Beau stood to peer out the window.
“Speak of the devil,” he said as he trudged toward the door and slipped his boots on. I waited, watching quietly from inside as two grinning little angels ran into his arms. They looked to be maybe five to seven years of age, and their gap-toothed smiles told me he was their favorite uncle in the whole entire world.
Watching Beau with his niece and nephew held a sweet pain like I’d never tasted before. He would’ve been a good father, or at least he was in that alternate universe we lived in. Seeing Beau play with those kids was like watching a video of what might have been in real time.
He hoisted Gracie up onto his shoulders as he chased Miles around, and Ivy headed inside with two book bags.
“Hey, hey!” Ivy called out when she saw me. She set the bags down on the table. “Some toys and coloring books in there. Beau doesn’t have much out here besides a big yard and couple of empty barns.”
I nodded, smiling and silently observing all the ways in which Ivy Mason was all grown up. I’d been too shell-shocked the day before to really take it all in. Her once-round face had slimmed down a bit, and the smattering of freckles that once bridged her nose had faded.
“What do you do these days, Ivy?” I asked.
“I’m a nurse’s aid at Shady Grove,” she said, referencing one of the retirement homes in town. She held two fingers in the air and crossed them tight. “Hoping they’ll promote me to shift leader once Janet retires next year.”
“You like your new car?” I hated making small talk, but I couldn’t shake the way she was just standing there, staring at me all funny. “It looks really nice. Sometimes I really miss driving. Only get to do it when I travel.”
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