Fuck, she makes a good face when she comes. Pretty and memorable but not off-puttingly over the top like some women I’ve been with. She’s uninhibited without dramatizing her reactions like some kind of act. I don’t need the moans of a porn star from my partners—just undeniable acknowledgment that I’m making them feel good.
And Daisy knew just how to acknowledge. Instantly, I’m struck with the regret of taking a shower this morning, effectively rinsing off her scent and replacing it with my own.
“Sophie’s adding it to the queue now, Flynnbot,” Jude announces with a toothy grin. “Not to worry.”
I shake my head in amusement.
“See, Flynn, this is why all the ladies flock to us,” Ty interjects. “Just like last night, you insist on being, like, the world’s greatest mime or something. I don’t even think I heard you say one thing last night.”
Jude scoffs. “Like you remember anything about last night, bro.”
“Hey, man, I was just celebrating you! My baby brother is getting married! That’s huge.”
“Come on,” Remy announces, his face completely pinched in annoyance and all of my brothers’ bags hanging from his shoulders. “They’re boarding our flight, assholes. Time to get home and not drink for an eternity.”
I smile a little at Remy’s pain. He’s two years older than me, so I know, at his age, he has to be feeling this shit pretty good.
“Bullshit,” Jude denies. “You’re drinking at my wedding, bro, because that’s what you do at all weddings. You dance, you celebrate, and you drink like a fish in the name of the happy bride and groom.”
Not all weddings end with a happy bride and groom, I think to myself, and when I look over at Rem, I note his face has already shifted. No doubt going to a dark, nearly fucking morbid place as he remembers his almost-wedding of nearly a decade and a half ago, and all three of the rest of us see it. It’s like a pin in a shrieking balloon—just like that, pop, all the shit-talk is done.
Jude and Ty step forward and take their bags, and without a word, Remy stalks in the other direction, headed for our plane.
“All weddings? Why’d you have to say it like that?” Ty whispers harshly to Jude as we all hustle along behind Remy toward the gate.
I smack Ty on the back of the head and pass them. “Just drop it.”
The last thing we need on this long flight home is to spend all our time reliving the absolute hellfire of witnessing Remy getting ditched at the altar. That might’ve been over a decade ago, but the memory still holds some serious power.
All we need right now is to get home, sleep off this wild weekend, and get back to normal.
And that we… Well, thanks to a certain woman with emerald eyes and wild curls, it definitely includes me.
Daisy
What a day.
From the instant I took an Uber from Flynn’s house and met Damien and my coworkers at brunch, my schedule has been jam-packed with all sorts of work shit. From meetings with potential furniture and fabric distributors for future staging projects to a big conference at the Wynn where Damien and Thomas updated us on the firm’s goals and plans for the next two years, I barely managed to get back to my room, pack my stuff, and make my evening flight back to LAX.
You were so busy that you almost forgot about the craziness of last night’s wedding bells.
I sigh and look out the window of the plane, watching as the world below passes me by. The sun is setting in the evening sky, and clouds and desert and a weekend of actions I never expected cross my vision.
It feels big and uncontainable, and I feel as small as this view of the world suggests I am. I’m just a tiny speck of life, and all the hugely consequential things I’m hyperventilating over right now are barely even a blip in the universe.
Thankfully, though, for as anxiety-inducing as it all is, the result is an otherwise unattainable level of peace. My life here in the United States will be safe. My job is secure. My dreams have the room to breathe, to fly, to go on.
I must be lost in the tangled web of my thoughts because the gentleman next to me taps my elbow to get my attention and smiles when I turn around. He’s a sweet-looking old man, likely in his eighties if the worn skin, knowing eyes, and scraggly gray hair are characteristics to go by, and I look to him expectantly.
He smiles bigger then, pointing above his own head to the looming flight attendant and drink cart that I’ve completely failed to notice.
“Oh!” I say, a little startled. I have no idea how long they’ve been trying to get my attention. “I’ll just take a water.”