“It’s ten till one.”
“In the afternoon?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Hence the sunlight. Listen, I was out running a few errands and I happened to be in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by. And give you these.” It was only then that I realized he’d been holding one of his arms behind his back. He brought them arm forward, presenting me with a small bouquet of brightly colored flowers. Not roses, but something that looked like daisies, except instead of white they were
brilliant shades of red, pink, and yellow.
“Oh,” I said, smiling. “Those are beautiful.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I saw them and I thought of you. I know I said I’d give you time to think about everything, and I’m still doing that—I just wanted to stop by and give these to you.”
I took the flowers from him, our fingertips brushing. “You can come in,” I said. “Just . . . give me a minute; I did just wake up.”
He followed me back into my apartment, and I was acutely aware of how disheveled and terrible I must look, but he didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “I should . . . go change.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “You look beautiful just like that. And look, if you still need time to think about things, just tell me and I’ll go. I’m not trying to rush you or anything.” “I can’t ignore what I feel for you,” I said. “I don’t want to ignore it. I like this feeling. I like the way you make me feel, I like being around you, and I don’t want to have to stop that. Even though you having a baby with someone else wasn’t what I was really envisioning.”
A look of relief crossed his face. “Daisy,” he said. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that. I know it’s asking a whole lot, too, to expect someone to get involved with you even when you’re going to have a kid with someone else. But I want you to know that Annie and I have talked about things, and yeah, eventually there will be a kid around some of the time, but that is not going to change the way I feel toward you.”
I thought about what Carl had said earlier, about trusting my feelings. I thought about how I’d felt around Billy, how I’d felt around Jonathan—two very nice guys that I enjoyed being around. But being with them paled in comparison to how it was when I was with Ian, and if I was to be honest about how I truly felt, he was the person I wanted to be with, and nothing else mattered.
We both smiled, and he cupped my chin in his hand, tilting my face toward his, then he leaned down and kissed me.
We spent the whole day together—what was left of it—and that night we went out to get burritos at a place in Cambridge that Ian liked. He couldn’t find a parking spot in front of my building, so we ended up having to park around the block, and when we rounded the corner and started walking toward my building, I saw him sitting there on the steps again.
“Shit,” I muttered. Ian looked at me.
“What?” he said, following my gaze. “You know him?”
But before I could answer, he was getting up and hurrying toward us. I could feel Ian’s energy change; the air suddenly seemed sharp, almost cold, although that was impossible—wasn’t it? It was the middle of summer. I glanced up at him and saw him staring intently at Noah.
“Daisy,” Noah said, shooting a wary look at Ian. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ian,” he said. He was several inches taller than Noah and outweighed him by at least twenty pounds. “Can we help you with something there, boss?”
“I was just waiting for you to get back,” Noah said, looking at me now. “I’ve been here for—”
“Do you want him waiting here for you?” Ian asked me.
“Noah,” I said. I no longer felt scared now that Ian was standing right there beside me, but I suddenly didn’t want anything bad to happen to Noah, either. “Noah, please, why don’t you just leave me alone? I’ve told you that I’m not interested. You’ve got to stop doing this.”
“Daisy, if we could just talk for a second—”
Ian let out a short, barking laugh. “I don’t think so.”
“I think that’s up for her to decide.”
“Yeah, and I think she’s already made it clear how she feels about it by asking you to leave her alone. She doesn’t want to talk to you; she doesn’t want you hanging around; she wants you to fuck off to wherever it is that you came from. Comprende? Now, I’m not the sort of person who likes to have to repeat myself, so if you are unable to get that message through your thick fucking skull, perhaps you need me to soften it up for you a bit first. And I’m referring to your skull, not the message. Daisy’s been far too nice with you as it is; I’m a lot less nice than she is. So about face, kid. Go find someone who’s interested.”
I could see Noah sizing up Ian, realizing that there was no way in hell he’d ever come out of any physical altercation with him on top. He gave me one last pleading look.
“Fine,” he said when I didn’t say anything. “I don’t know who you think you are, telling people how to live their lives,” he said as he started to walk away. “You don’t get to call the shots!” he shouted, right as he was about to disappear around the block.
Ian stared after him, jaw clenched.
“Come on,” he said after a minute, “let’s get inside.”