Page 68 of The Summer I First Saw You
This morning didn’t go the way I’d wanted it to. I reacted badly to Daisy’s response—or lack thereof. I need to apologize, yet…those pieces of Daisy she hides away are an itch that only gets worse when scratched.
There was something going on with her when we discussed the furniture. There was something going on when we spoke about school, too. The ex-boyfriend? Someone else? I have no right to ask for those pieces of herself that she’s hiding, but I want them anyway. I want them a little more every day.
I nod along to the guy talking on the other side of my laptop and have just picked up my phone to text her when the receptionist hands me a note.
Someone’s here about your friend Liam. She says it’s an emergency.
I hang up the call and brace myself for the worst, but the woman who enters my office—Liam’s new girlfriend, who I’veonly seen once—is texting as she walks in, and appears more irritated than upset.
“Hi. I’m Emerson Hughes,” she says, shaking my hand. “I’m a, uh, a friend of Liam’s.”
“What happened?” I demand. “Is Liam okay?”
She waves me down as she takes a seat. “Nothing happened to him. He’s fine.”
I stare at her.She must be fucking kidding me. “Did you seriously tell my secretary that Liam had an emergency just so you could get an unscheduled appointment? I was in the middle of a conference call.”
“Liam does have an emergency,” she says without apology. “He just isn’t aware of it.”
I sigh. Every minute she sits in my office for this unscheduled meeting is a minute I won’t be spending with Daisy this afternoon.
“Liam’s going to lose Lucas Hall,” she says. “You know how long he’s worked on it, but they’re putting it to a vote tomorrow, and my company has made it impossible for him to win.”
Liam has talked for years about turning the property into a hotel. I’m disappointed on his behalf, but what good can I possibly do twenty-four hours before the hearing? “I’m not sure what magic you think I can wield to fix this,” I tell her. “I’m not on the town council, and I don’t have any sway with them.”
“I need you to get an injunction,” she says. “The building has historic significance and the only way it can be torn down is if structural defects make it unstable. We paid off a shady inspector—I can get you proof that the report was incorrect, enough to get the state to put the vote on hold.”
She’s making it sound far easier and less time-consuming than it will be. I’d have to go to San Jose and argue with fifteen clerks before I got to the right person, all while the work I wassupposedto get done today sits on the back burner—which means no surfing with Daisy tonight, or watchingher peel her wetsuit off, or following her into the shower afterward.
I scrub a hand over my face. “To clarify, you’re asking me to cancel everything and do unpaid work on your behalfall dayto solve a problemyoucreated for my friend.”
“All day and all night,” she says, and at last, there’s ahintof apology in her voice. “I think I’ve got a guy who will invest in this and give Liam the money he needs, but I’ll need you to come to LA with me and write up the agreement tonight once you’ve gotten the injunction.”
For fuck’s sake. “I’m not going to LA. You can figure that out on your own.”
“Don’t you have some girlfriend there you never want to be away from?” she asks. “I’m offering you aprivate planeto go see her. I’ll even stay until morning if you want the night there.”
“My plans are here.”
She was inpersuademode before, but suddenly her expression…wobbles. She swallows as she looks away, as if she’s trying not to cry. “Please. It’s important.”
I want to sayno. But this is for Liam, who’s been one of my closest friends for most of my life and to whom I now owe a debt—one I hope he never gets wind of.
But God do I regret the way I left things with Daisy. Those minutes in the kitchen I’d spent upset were minutes I could have spent being grateful I had the pieces of her I did.
I gave them up. And now I’m about to give up even more.
For twenty-four hours,I’m so busy I barely have time to think. There are multiple meetings in San Jose, and I wind up at a judge’s home at sunset to get the injunction signed. Every time I pick up the phone to call Daisy, I get sidetracked by conversations with Emerson and the investor in LA.
When I finally walk out of the hearing about Lucas Hall the next day, I’ve had no sleep and almost no food, but all I want is Daisy…I want all of the hours I missed yesterday and the hours I’ve already missed today, and I don’t know why the hell I left things with her on such a bad note but I’m going to do my best to make up for it.
I stop into the office after the hearing to grab my stuff. Baker says we need to talk, and I don’t even reply. I just walk out into the sunlight and head to the only place I want to be in the whole fucking world.
36
DAISY
Iused to have a nightmare in which I’d walk into a final exam only to realize I’d forgotten to attend class all semester.
