Page 61 of The Summer I First Saw You
“I’m, uh, picking Daisy up.”
His double take is subtle, over in a flash, but I see him trying to put together who I am. She looks young for her agewhile I’m clearly in my thirties. The whole thing appears sketchy as hell.
He nods. “She’s with the manager. I’ll call to the back—who should I say is here?”
“Her uncle,” I reply, though I don’t know why the hell I’ve said it.
He picks up the phone while I go to a bench near the hostess stand, one that probably held tired parents and squirming children earlier in the day when the wharf was busy. I thought I’d be one of those parents by now. The fact that I’m waiting on a twenty-one-year-old to get off work makes that dream feel further away than ever.
Daisy walks out of the kitchen, says something to the bartender, and turns toward me…and all those thoughts fade away.
Her smile—fuck. The way she smiles at me, and only me, is something I want to keep forever. And I want to keep it entirely to myself.
She goes behind the bar and leans down for her bag. The bartender continues drying glasses, but his gaze is on her ass the entire time, and it’s still on her ass as she crosses the room to me.
“You told him you were myuncle?” she asks.
I usher her out the door. “I felt like I needed to explain myself.”
“Well, now we both have some explaining to do becauseItold him you were the guy who came on my face this morning.”
My head jerks toward her and she laughs.
“Oh my God, you really thought I’d say that to someone?”
“You say shit like that tomeall the time.”
She shrugs. “You’re different. At first, because it was fun to mess with you, and now because you really do come on my face fairly often, so it’d be weird if I never addressed it.”
I laugh unwillingly. I’m not sure how she manages to get mehard while making me laugh while annoying the shit out of me all at the same time.
I hold her door. “Does it bother you? That I said I was your uncle?”
She tilts her head, seeming to think about it. “Nah,” she says finally. “It’s for the best that they all think I’m single anyway. I’m a terrible waitress. Being theoretically available means I get forgiven a lot more than I would otherwise.”
I shut the door behind her and go to the other side of the car, my jaw grinding. “Is that why your manager called you to the back?” I ask, my voice calm by force. “Because you’retheoreticallysingle?”
“No,” she says, pulling her hair out of its ponytail and running her fingers through it. “He surfs. He was just showing me pictures of this place in Panama he might buy.”
“You know, I don’t call my employees in at the night’s end to show them pictures of the homes I might buy.”
“Of course you don’t. You didn’t even tell your wife.” When I don’t laugh, she elbows me. “It’s not a big deal. I think he’s got a little crush. I’ll live. It’s an occupational hazard. I’m used to it.”
She’s used to it because she looks…like Daisy. Because she looks like every man’s fantasy, and she’s spent way too many years of her short life fending men off. I don’t want her to have to fucking do that. And I’m hung up on the fact that she’s got to do it even now, when she’s living with—andfucking—me. Her manager is still calling her to his office to look at his photos, and the age-appropriate bartender is staring at her ass every time she bends over.
I possess something that every man wants, and even if Daisy and I were coming clean about what was going on between us, it wouldn’t stop any of them. They’d know she was too young for me. They’d know they just needed to wait for it to run its course. I can’t fault them. Having Daisy for even a briefwindow of time is like winning the lottery—you know the odds are bad, but you still want to play.
On Saturday,we surf early, and she makes us smoothie bowls afterward. “Don’t tell Oliver I put peanut butter in it again.”
I cross to where she stands and pull her against me. “God, I was in agony that entire weekend.”
“Oh?” Her voice is a soft purr against my skin while her hand slides into my shorts. “I wish I’d known. I’d have taken care of it for you.”
I pull her to the couch, helping her out of the clothes she just put on, going down on her until she’s seconds from coming before I slide inside her.
My eyes fall closed as I bottom out. “I want to stay inside you the whole goddamn day,” I growl.
She arches, her legs wrapping around me. “Then do. I don’t want you anywhere else.”
