Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

I can’t look away.

Daisy spins in the center of the aisle, mid-walk, and when she faces me again, she wags her brows, continuing on.

Cute, Calloway.

I zone in on her blonde hair again. She must have dyed it last night with her sisters’ help, the secret “thing” Rose and Lily teased.

Something about her choice to return to the shade she had when we met—it sends my whole fucking soul on an ascent. The nostalgia of first love—for both of us—flies to the forefront.

Times where we raced faster and farther. Times where we slowed down with one another.

And I see us in the sky. I see us in the sun and clouds. In the grass and trees.

I see us in everything.

“Fuck,” I curse beneath my breath, rubbing my face dry for a second. I drop my hand about the same time Daisy is beside me, her sisters sniffling.

Rose is passing a box of tissues between them.

Daisy wipes beneath my eyes with her thumb.

Don’t let her fool you. She’s full-blown fucking crying with a weepy smile. I cup her cheeks with my hands and brush her tear-streaks away too.

Sully clears his throat, catching our attention as he stands behind us. Daisy was the one who asked Sully to officiate our wedding, which I thought he’d reject based on all the duties that came with it. Before she even asked him, she said to me, “He’s your best childhood friend.”

“Summer camp friend,” I corrected her.

To which Sully scoffed and said, “Dude, we’re best friends.” He nodded to Daisy. “He doesn’t believe me whenever I say it—thinks that I’m too good for him or something.”

It was true. He climbs and meets up with more people than just me. To assume that I’m his best fucking friend has always felt false. Even if he tells me it’s not.

So when Daisy asked him to officiate, he actually started crying. That’s when I realized that we were best friends growing up. Still are.

“We’re gathered here today,” Sully begins, placing his hand on my shoulder and then Daisy’s, “to witness the union between two of the craziest people on planet Earth.”

Everyone starts applauding in affirmation of that and I kid you fucking not, our husky barks too.

Daisy laughs, and my hand falls to hers.

Then Sully takes a step back from us and says, “So I took a poll yesterday from your friends and family.” He wears a goofy fucking smile.

I shake my head at him like what the fuck did you do?

“I figured something out—but I guess I already knew it.” He nods to both of us. “You two have sacrificed a lot for the people you love. So now, right now, and whatever time that’s left—this is your time to be happy. We’re all here ready to watch you.” He pauses. “Not in a pervy way.”

We all laugh.

Then he gestures to Daisy and me, backing up to show that it’s our time to speak.

I face her, and she places her palms flat on my chest, a playful smile growing.

“So,” she says, “I’ll go first.”

I nod, my hand on her waist.

She starts, “During Christmas, I asked you when you knew that I’m the one, that this is the ‘can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff’—do you remember that?”

“Yeah.” Like it was yesterday. We made a promise to tell each other our answers during our wedding. I didn’t write mine down because it’d take me a decade to figure out the best way to phrase it. I doubt that I’d ever find the appropriate words. I don’t care how it fucking comes out anymore. The right way will be the first way.

Her restless hands move from my chest to arms. “I’ve thought a lot about this.”

I’ve wondered what her response would be, but I didn’t fucking try to guess.

“The simple answer,” she says, “would be the moment you dove in after me, but back then I hadn’t discovered the depth of your compassion, how much you truly love living life, and how we seem to fit, even when we shouldn’t.”

I pull her closer, my hand lost in her hair, and I hang onto her words.

She clutches onto my biceps. “I knew. I knew at the Alps when I ran so fast outside in deep snow. Barefoot. Barely clothed. You’d done so much for me before then.”

I stayed by her side after she was drugged at a New Year’s Eve party. I taught her how to ride a motorcycle. I’d watch movies with her until she fell asleep every night. Too frightened to be alone.

But she picked this moment.

I search her eyes that contain all the fucking reasons why.

“You always cared about me. You were always there for me, but this time felt different. You wrapped your coat around me, picked me up in your arms, and said, ‘When life gets fucking hard, you can always turn to me. You need to run? I’ll run with you, Calloway. Just put on some fucking shoes first.’” She smiles, tears streaming down her cheeks, and I feel another one roll down mine. “I realized then that I’d never want to be vulnerable with any other man but you. Someone that understands me. Respects me. Loves me—so wildly. You were the only one. You are the only one.”

She was seventeen.

My whole body tightens with sentiments beyond me, and I bring her closer and whisper, “I love you.” She playfully bites my shoulder, our family and friends shedding tears faster than I can count.

What I have to say is only for her, even if everyone else can hear. I hold her hips, my forehead nearly against hers as I say, “I have you fucking beat, sweetheart.”

Confusion and curiosity light her big green eyes.

“I knew,” I say slowly to her, “that you were the only girl that I’d ever fall in love with—could ever fall in love with—in Cancun, Mexico, on the boardwalk of a bungee jump.”

She begins to sob, shaking her head.

I cup her face between my hands. “I knew back then, Daisy Petunia Calloway, because you were the only girl I’d ever met that was as deeply caring and as fucking lonely as me. If anyone was going to fill my heart, it was you. Only you.”

She was sixteen.

Age played a huge factor in suppressing whatever feelings I could eventually have—the feelings I would have. I knew then that if there was any chance of me finding the one—it’d be with the girl that I felt emotionally connected to.

It was her.

I didn’t believe I’d find anyone else on that level. Not for a fucking second.

Tears wet her lashes. “You never said anything before.”

“I never thought I’d be with you.” I feel hot trails scald my face. “I was fucking content with the idea of being alone for the rest of my life.” I said as much to my brother at one point. “You want to know what I am now?”

She nods.

“I’m more than fucking happy, Dais.” I lean down to her and whisper, “Thank you.”

We kiss suddenly, an I love you and thank you in her lips that’s beyond what words can fucking speak. I kiss her as savagely as she kisses me.

Her infectious smile rises against my lips.

Mine grows, in step with my wife.

And I vow, “Wherever you go, I’ll go.” As long as I’m alive, this will never fucking change.

DAISY MEADOWS

On my wedding night, pink and purple bubbles overflow the Jacuzzi tub in our hotel suite, thanks to a unicorn bath bomb. I’m chest-deep in shimmering water, leaning over the side with my cell in hand. Ryke stepped out for a moment when his phone rang, disappearing into the bedroom. His muffled voice is barely coherent from the tub.

I tap a couple buttons on my phone screen and an automated voice sounds, “Please wait for the beep and then record your outgoing voicemail. Press one to end the message.”

I clear my throat.

BEEEEP.

“Hi, it’s Daisy. Not Duck and not Duke. Definitely not Buchanan. I’m a Meadows. If you haven’t misdialed then leave your name after the beep, and I’ll call back when I return from the moon