A stifled laugh breaks from my chest. “Me? What happened to us figuring this out? That day in the garage when I told you about the Spanish test you said we would figure it out.”
Nothing.
All he offers is a long look interrupted by the occasional blink.
“You think you have it figured out.”
“Yes,” he whispers.
I laugh. “Well, you’re wrong. So keep figuring.”
“I haven’t told you what I think. How can you know I’m wrong?”
No. I’m not acknowledging this. The words will not come from my mouth. “Goodnight.”
“Do you know how many times a day I think of the irony of your name being Swayze?”
Fuck him for going there. He’s going to ruin this.
“Yeah? Too bad my parents didn’t give as much thought to my name before they branded me with it.”
“Her eyes were brown.”
Keeping my back to him, I cover my face and shake my head.
“She was feisty and completely incorrigible. You have a meeker personality. That’s what makes you so good with Morgan. But with me … I see the spirited girl. You’re ballsy with me. I guess some things never change.”
“I’m not her,” I whisper to myself. She doesn’t exist in my head outside of the stories he tells me. I’m an extension of his mind. I see a part of his past. My ballsiness with him is me, not Daisy. He doesn’t know me. I’m not meek.
“Can you look at me?”
“Goodnight.”
“Ask me something about her. Anything.”
I’m not her. I’m not her.
“Did you have sex with her?”
“No. Ask me another question.”
He’s baiting me. I need to walk away, but I can’t. This story of their childhood together has become my addiction.
“Do you think she loved you as much as you loved her?”
“Yes. Another one.”
“Did you love her more than you loved Jenna?”
“No. Another one.”
“So you loved Jenna more?”
“No. Another one,” he demands with a bite of anger to his tone.
If my questions anger him, why keep insisting I ask more?
“You loved a fifteen-year-old girl as much as you loved the woman you married? The woman who’s the mother of your child? That’s insane. You were fifteen.”
“We don’t love with our brains, we love with our hearts. We love on instinct. Love is undefinable and resides in all of us. There are no requirements to love someone. Daisy was my first love. Jenna was my last love. Morgan is my forever love.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Did you make up with Daisy before she died?”
Emotion reddens his eyes as his Adam’s apple bobs once. “Goodnight.”
Do all the answers lie between his limit and mine? We may never know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Swayze?”
I dream of Griffin getting in a motorcycle accident. I’m not sure it’s a dream. It feels too real, the worst pain ever.
“Swayze?”
I stand next to his family as mourners file through the funeral home to give their condolences. The shiny metal casket is closed. People who die in motorcycle accidents don’t have open casket funerals.
“Swayze?”
As I blot my eyes with the same handkerchief my mom held at my father’s funeral, Nate appears, holding Morgan. She’s wearing a dress. It’s yellow like a Daisy, not black. I’m glad he didn’t dress her in black. Babies shouldn’t wear black. He holds her in one arm and pulls me in for a firm embrace with his other arm. My hand presses to his tie. It’s gray. I wonder who tied it for him?
After he squeezes another round of tears out of me, he tells me how sorry he is, but that he’ll be waiting whenever I’m ready. Ready for what? Then he leans in once more and whispers, “I love you, Daisy.”
“Swayze?”
“What?” I startle and bolt to sitting, squinting against the light shining into the bedroom from the hallway.
It was a dream. I blink back the tears that sting my eyes. Fucking hell, it felt real. I need to call Griffin.
“Um …” Nate clears his throat then looks back over his shoulder toward the hallway, rubbing his neck. “I’m leaving and …”
I start to adjust the spaghetti straps to my nightshirt and realize half my right boob is sticking out—half of my boob but all of my nipple. “Oh my god! You just saw my—”
“It’s fine.” He risks a quick glance before settling his gaze back onto my covered chest.
“It’s fine? Are you referring to my boob or are you brushing it off as no big deal?”
Meek personality my ass.
Nate’s eyes snap to mine. “Neither. Both.” He shakes his head. “The light’s off, I didn’t see anything. I just wanted you to know I’m leaving so you know to listen for Morgan.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. And … I didn’t see anything.”
“You’re a liar.” I pull the sheet up to cover my chest just for safe measure.
“I’m not lying.” He retreats to the door.
“I still don’t believe you.”
He chuckles. “Fine. When I get home tomorrow, I’ll sketch what I saw … which was your mouth open, snoring, one arm like a goal post by your head and the other draped over your chest. I don’t know why you had your boob out.”
I throw the pillow at the door, but miss him. “I didn’t have it out. It just …”
“Bye, Swayze.” He grins and disappears around the corner.
Without giving a second thought to the time (4 a.m.), I call Griffin. I need to hear his voice.
“Yeah?” His groggy greeting wraps around me like a warm blanket. It’s not sexy. It’s not filled with excitement. I’m not sure he looked at the screen to see it’s me.
But minutes ago my mind mourned him in the worst way. Stupid nightmares. He doesn’t have to be awake, sexy, or excited. I just need him to be.
“Hey,” I whisper past the lump in my throat, wiping away the tears running down my cheeks.
“Baby, is everything okay?”
“It is now.”
“Swayz … it’s the middle of the night. Why are you awake?”
“The professor just left for the airport. I’m going to go back to sleep, but I needed to hear your voice. I …” I sniffle.
“Baby, are you crying?”
“Bad dream. That’s all.” I wipe more tears. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Did something happen to me in your bad dream?”
I nod, unable to speak past the pain. It felt so real.
“Swayz?”
“Y-you … died.” I hold back the sob that’s dying to escape.
“I’m fine. Okay?”
Another nod that he can’t see. “Go back to sleep. I just needed …” I bite my quivering lower lip.
“I need you too,” he says.
Yeah. That. Exactly that.
“I don’t deserve my grocery store guy. But can that be our little secret?”
He chuckles. It’s a sleepy rumble. “You were a mess that day in the grocery store. Everything that came out of your mouth was a string of words tripping over themselves like dominoes. And you eye-fucked the hell out of me.”
“What? Not true.” My back straightens.
“Totally true. I felt thoroughly violated by the time I pulled out of the parking lot.”
“Griffin Calloway, you’re drunk or hungover. Where is this coming from? You’ve never said this to me before. Ever …”
More chuckles ensue. It makes my cheek miss his chest, my ear miss the thrumming of his heart. I love it when I’m sprawled out on his bare chest, our bodies tangled in sexed-up sheets while we talk about something that makes him laugh.
“It’s true. I thought, ‘Man, she’s a fucking disaster—a mumbling mess of hormones who has stripped me ten times over with those eyes that I think are blue, but I don’t know for sure because her gaze hasn’t ventured any higher than my chest.’”
“Thanks, Griff. I’m starting to feel less brokenhearted over you dying in my dreams.”
“But … are you ready for the good part?”
“Oh, wow! Is there really a good part to this?”
“The good part was dinner with my parents the night after we met. My mom asked about my day …”
I grin in spite of myself. That’s where he gets it.
“I told her I met a girl. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was just a feeling. You were this feeling inside of me that shook me to the core. It wasn’t any one thing—your looks, your words, your voice, your demeanor—it was all of it … or none of it. I still don’t know. I just felt like I’d arrived somehow. And I still feel it every fucking day.”
Right here, on the other end of the phone, is my old soul of a grocery store guy. “Come home to me in one piece. Okay?”
“I’ll try.”
“If you don’t, I’ll die.”
“That’s tragic. Don’t die, Swayz.”