by Ashton Johns
Just like I’d vowed I would, I could remember every touch, every breath and every emotion in our reunion. It felt like years of misery and sorrow just slipped away, and were replaced with light, love and happiness, all wrapped in the beautiful package of Daisy.
We had an awful lot to talk about that night. I told Daisy everything about my dad and my new family and she cried with joy that I finally had people to look out for me. We also discussed Meredith a little more, and I had to stop her from going over to Meredith’s house and punching her. Then I told her about my meeting with Jess and she cried a little more–my beautiful, gentle girl.
Sometimes, I wished I’d let her have at it with Meredith, but the bitch wasn’t worth the criminal record. Dad managed to get the video of Daisy and me from her, though. It appeared she was scared of someone. I had no idea what he said to her when he visited her at the network, but according to Maxwell who went with him, Meredith looked as though she was going to shit her pants. As for Honey, she never did do her interview about our ‘nights of passion’, but she did star in Meredith’s flop reality show, A Honey for Honey. Who knew Honey was actually a lesbian? Not me, that’s for sure.
“What are you smiling at?” Daisy asked, nudging me with her shoulder.
“Nothing, baby. Just thinking how blessed I am.”
She gave me the sweetest of smiles and snuggled into my side.
“I wonder how my mom and pop are getting on?” she asked. “It’s the first time we’ve spent Christmas apart.”
Daisy looked out to the vast, snow covered lawn and sighed. Her parents had gone on a cruise that Daisy, me, Heath and his wife Caitlin had all paid for as their Christmas gift. Heather was much healthier nowadays, so she and Robert had been doing a lot more travelling but had always wanted to go on a cruise, so we’d obliged. They still lived in Daisy’s old apartment and had a good life, finally able to enjoy it.
Heath never did rip my balls off, hence the arrival of Joshua, but he did bruise my jaw. I took the punch, though, because I figured I deserved it, but we were good now and he was one of my closest friends.
As for me and Daisy—after our quiet family wedding six months after the show, we set up a second animal shelter using some of my money from the network. Dad helped me to invest the rest, and that paid for the upkeep of the shelter and for the salary of two other people, Sarah and Drake, to work there alongside us. We also provided respite for owners who were ill and needed help with their pets, as well as providing free or dramatically reduced cost veterinary services for those who didn’t have much money.
Our lives together consisted of each other and our families. We were careful who we let into our world. Some of that was down to our time on the show, but a lot of it was down to only wanting to share our world with the people we loved. There was a lot we could hate about the mansion, but we chose to see the positives of it bringing us together. It was also where we met our very dear friends, Jess and Clint. Both were still in our lives, and even though Jess was making a name for herself in Hollywood she regularly joined Clint and our families to help out at the shelter. Jess becoming famous also meant she was more than generous with time publicizing the place for us and we couldn’t be more grateful. She and Daisy got on like BFFs should, and we were thinking of asking her and Clint to be Joshua’s god parents along with our siblings.
When we weren’t at the shelter, our time was spent at the center that Dad had set up in my mom’s name. It was a center for kids who were either from one-parent families or were in the system and needed a place to have some fun. Daisy and I organized a lot of fundraising events for it but seeing as Dad and Elizabeth donated a huge fucking great chunk every year, The Shelby Sutton Center did okay. In fact, it did more than okay and had been highly commended by Social Welfare, with them sending kids to us all the time. Daisy and I didn’t run it. We had a real good team of professionals to do that, but we loved being there and seeing the kids having fun.
Taking a sip of my wine, I watched as Daisy chewed on her food, looking contemplatively into the distance.
“You okay?” I asked, taking her hand in mine.
“Hmm,” she said with a nod. “Just thinking about what you said, and you’re right, we truly are blessed.”
I looked around at my family, all laughing and joking at Dad trying to take a selfie with Claudia’s cell.
“Yeah, baby, we are.” I lifted her hand and kissed it. “Very blessed.”
“You know what else?” she said with a little grin.
I recognized that glint in her eye. It was bright and dazzling, especially as she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
“What’s that?”
“Well,” she said, squirming in her seat. “You do know it was actually six weeks yesterday since Joshua was born?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said slowly, hoping I wasn’t wrong in what she was getting at.
She smiled seductively making me feel all sorts of happy, when my big-eared douche of a brother killed the moment.
“It means she’s gonna get laid by Kade tonight.” He threw his head back and roared with laughter, thinking he was all sorts of hilarious.
Dad groaned and smacked him around the back of the head, Claudia pretended to vomit, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
As for me, I pulled my beautiful, blushing wife into my arms and when I felt her drop a kiss to my bicep on my new tattoo of a daisy entwined with my mom’s name, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I hate my brother,” I mumbled into her hair with a laugh. “But God, I love you, Dais’.”
“Good, ‘cause I love you too,” she whispered, swallowing hard. “So much, and I am so lucky that I found you.”
“Baby, there was nothing lucky about that. That was because we were both on the path that we were meant to take.”
The End
Acknowledgments
The main thanks goes to you, the reader for taking a chance of us as a duo. We hope that you enjoyed the book and fell in love with Daisy and Kade. Whatever you felt about the book, if you could leave us a review, we would really appreciate it
Thanks to all the bloggers and reviewers for reading and sharing. Claire, Wendy & Julie at Bare Naked Words, once again you’ve been amazing in your support and help. Anna Bloom, for proofreading for us, just because you’re a good friend. We owe you one, or maybe two! Eleanor Lloyd-Jones, thank you for a beautiful cover. We both adore it and you were a joy to work with.
Finally, we would like to thank each other because it would be rude not to. This is our first book together and we had a fun time writing it. It was such an easy process that we were a little surprised how quickly we typed the words, ‘the end’. Our friendship seemed to survive too, so who knows we may do it again one day.
Until next time, cheerio and wherever life takes you remember, it’s the path you’re meant to take.
Victoria & Nikki
