Page 32 of The Summer I First Saw You
“What do you mean they’re not paying you?” I demand. “By law, they have to pay you.”
She waves her hand. “The restaurant is the least of my problems, believe me.”
I shut the microwave door and turn toward her. Under Daisy’s perpetually sunny outlook I’ve sensed something, and it was something I mostly wanted to ignore. Things are too complicated between us already. I want to take care of her the way I always did, and at the same time, we’d both be better off if I stayed away. But is she lonely? When I was her age, I was only at home to sleep, nothing more, while she doesn’t go out at all.
“I know I was a dick about letting you stay here, but you’re allowed to have friends.” I have to force the next words out. “You’re allowed to have a social life. Or date.”
I picture some idiot showing up at the front door to get her. I wish I could retract the offer.
She forces another smile. “I’m good. I’m not looking to date, and I’ve just been pretty content with the way things are.”
Is that why I was so reluctant to meet Oliver in Malibu? Because I’ve been kind of content with her too?
“I’ll come home in time to surf tomorrow,” I tell her. It’s a promise I really can’t make because God knows what will come up at work, but I’m making it anyway. “We’ll surf until the last minute and order a pizza for dinner.”
Her smile is not forced. It lights up the room like the starriest night of the fucking year.
We geta solid two hours of surfing in the next afternoon. Between sets she tells me she hates the new job and the one customer she waited on “sucked,” but she doesn’t elaborate. Being in the water seems to take care of whatever it is that ails her, however. By the time we’re done, her shoulders have lowered, and her eyes are peaceful again.
She takes one of her beloved outdoor showers. I’m carrying the pizza into the kitchen when she shows up, her hair damp, her face flushed. She appears to be wearing nothing but an oversized sweatshirt—all I see are tan, muscular thighs running all the way up to its hem. I glance away fast and carry the pizza to the table, suddenly famished.
My appetite has been entirely absent for a full year. It’s reemerged with a vengeance since she arrived. A lot of appetites have.
“Pizza is one of those foods,” she says, groaning as she swallows her first bite. “I thought you were so lucky to have a housekeeper-slash-cook growing up, but nothing beats a standard delivery pizza.”
Pizza, sunshine, surfing, a shower outdoors or the smell of her body wash—these things all thrill her, and she tells me about every single one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who relishes life quite the way Daisy does.
“I thought you guys were the lucky ones,” I reply, already reaching for a second slice. The Dohertys’ tiny house was crowded and chaotic—Bridget, Liam, their parents, and then Daisy—but it was full of life. There was always noise and laughter, always something cooking and someone yelling, while my father’s homes seemed empty. The staff knew they’d better be silent whether he was there or not and scurried out of any room I entered.
She rolls her eyes. “In what possible way werewelucky?”
“Your house was lively and you guys hadfun. You’d have been too little to remember it, but your mom took you and Liam on this trip down through Big Sur once. You rented some kind of log cabin and saw a waterfall emptying into the ocean.”
Her mouth curves. “Dude, you realize you can reach Big Sur in ninety minutes, right?”
I laugh. “I know. But it sounded very cool when I was twelve. Anyway, we can order in pizza or whatever you want going forward. You don’t have to cook.”
She blushes. “I like cooking for you. I know I’m not supposed to, and I’m sure Audrey thinks women like me are putting feminism back a hundred years, but there you have it.”
My gaze drops to her bare legs. “I think Audrey would be more troubled by the fact that it looks like you’ve got nothing on under that sweatshirt.”
“Maybe if Audrey had wandered around in nothing but a sweatshirt more often, you’d have seemed a little happier when you were stuck with her.”
“So you’re saying that my marital problems could have been solved by a slight wardrobe change? And here I thought our issues ran deeper than that.”
Her smile is knowing,adult. “I’m saying that if you were married to a woman who was wearing nothing but a sweatshirt when you got home, she’d probably welcome you back by climbing into your lap and showing you how much she’d missed you. And that would solve a problem or two right there.”
My jaw locks, and my eyes fall closed. I can’t help but picture Daisy straddling me on the couch, pulling one of my hands between her thighs to show me how fucking eager she’d been for my arrival.
“Yeah,” I croak. “That might have solved a few problems.”
Right now, though, it’s only creating them.
18
DAISY
I’m alone on Friday and making dinner when my mom calls.
