Every single thing went into this piece and I feel naked staring at it.
Fuck, I can’t live without her anymore. I don’t want to. Learning to do it in the last ten years has been the worst kind of hell.
Maisy gave me back something I haven’t had in a long time by reminding my heart it could still beat and feel—and it’s always been for her. She’s it for me. I can’t let her go without a fight.
She’s what’s most important to me now.
Not my parents’ ghosts.
Not taking down her parents for condemning me to a life of gruesome nightmares, emptiness, stripped of everything. The life my own parents had a hand in damning me with. But they couldn’t take everything away from me. I fought and survived and found my way back to her.
You and me, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Her voice echoes in my head. We said it to each other as kids. We’re not soulmates, not fate—nothing poetic like that. But we do fit together.
I was surviving before, but I wasn’t living until Maisy Landry was mine again.
My hands flex at my side. Why am I sitting here pretending I’m a gentleman when I’m anything but? I’m not a good man. Maisy is my daisy and I’m going to go fight for her to prove it.
Determination settles in my bones and I grab my keys for the motorcycle while putting my phone to my ear. As soon as the call connects, I’m talking without waiting for a greeting.
“I need you to do something for me,” I say, swinging a leg over the leather seat. “And I need it done yesterday.”
My thumb swipes over the smooth material. Everything around me reminds me of her.
Colton’s laugh filters through the phone. “Really making a habit out of breaking the rules. If Wren finds out about these IOUs, he won’t be a happy camper.”
That guy hasn’t been happy since his light left this world. There’s nothing left in him but brutality.
“I don’t care.” My voice doesn’t shake as I give everything I have to make this right for her. “I’ll pledge my entire life if I have to in payment.”
Colton grunts, then goes quiet when he realizes I’m deadly serious. After a minute, he asks, “What do you need?”
I start the bike’s ignition, mentally mapping every field of wildflowers I know of. I’ll start with the one by our tree, where I found the purple daisies ten years ago.
“Holden Landry’s admissions acceptance and football draft. Reverse it. Erase the blackmail evidence we sent.”
“Uh, why?” Colt drawls. “That’s the opposite of what you’ve been working on.”
“It’s important,” I snap. Pausing to draw in a deep breath like Maisy was showing me this week before she left, I lower my voice. “Please, Colt. Just help me out with this. If I don’t fix it…”
I don’t finish, shutting down the thought. Life without Maisy isn’t something I’m going to think about, which means failure is unacceptable.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. Text me.”
Hanging up, I take off in search of the flowers that always remind me of Maisy with fire burning in my blood. I’ll pick every wild daisy I find until there aren’t any left. She deserves that and more, and I’ll give her the whole fucking world before I’m done proving to her how much she matters to me.
By the time I make it to the bakery, I have to nudge my way through the opening day crowd spilling onto the sidewalk. A few people give me sharp looks and wide berth, the Wilder name still hard at work, but I ignore all that when I hear her laugh ring out inside. The light, airy sound ripples over me.
Maisy.
It’s impossible to stop the way my heart stutters.
“Let me through,” I say.
People move aside, glancing curiously at what I’m carrying and I reach the door. My hands shake slightly as I step over the threshold into the bustling bakery.
The fresh scent of cookies hits me first. Maisy’s friend Thea stands behind a wood counter overflowing with treats beaming at the people waiting in line with Connor nearby, pride filling his gaze. A few conversations slow to a stop and I almost have to laugh. Everything is bright and cheerful in this place, and I’m darkening the door in ripped black jeans and a dark t-shirt, probably looking like a damn psycho.
All of that fades the moment I lay eyes on her across the room, perched on top of a table with Holden and one of her friends, heart-stopping smile wide and hazel eyes lit up with life. She’s wearing a pair of cut off shorts with bleach splatters and a white stretched out muscle tank over the sports bra she had on the day she left. Her eyes meet mine and she stops. I want to cut open my chest and hand her my bleeding heart right then and there.
Because it’s hers. It’s always been hers. The damn thing beats only for her.
It sits in my throat as I take one staggering step toward her, then another. In three long strides I’m in front of her and for a second I hate this place because I can’t pick out her floral and coconut scent. The irrational feeling passes after a beat.
Is this what love is? This crazy madness that latches onto the body?
“Fox,” she says.
Holden shifts in his seat, away from the girl who seems to be with him to slide between me and his sister. I bite off the urge to snap at him to get out of my way.
“If you think I’m going to stand around while you hurt my sister some more—”
I cut him off. “The last thing I want to do is hurt her.”
“Dude, move,” Maisy says instead, nudging her brother aside. “I’ve got this.”
Holden’s brows flatten. “You’re good?”
Maisy rolls her eyes. “Yes. Shoo. Go enjoy your date over there.”
He swings his gaze back to me and I recognize the protectiveness in his expression. The girl with him takes his hand and tugs him toward the bakery counter.
“I’ll be watching,” Holden promises before turning around to hug the girl from behind, lifting her off her feet to make her laugh.
“So will we,” mutters another of Maisy’s friends with dark hair and a sharp gaze.
“Oh my god,” Maisy says in exasperation, taking my wrist and tugging me closer to a mural of the sun and moon painted on the wall. She peers up at me with a worried pinch between her eyebrows. “Is everything okay? Did you find out something else?”
God, this girl. I hurt her and she still asks if I’m fine first.
Words fail me. They’ve never been my strong suit. The carefully thought out apology I planned while I picked flowers for an hour flies from my head.
Licking my lips, I try. “I brought you these.”
Her gaze falls to the flowers in my hand. At least two of them are crushed from my choking grip, their stems bent. In my head it was a more romantic gesture than the reality, but her lips part.
“Purple daisies,” she whispers.
“Yeah, I… They’ve always reminded me of you, Maise.” I carefully touch the petals of one of the blooms sticking out. “Wild, stubborn, beautiful, and free.”
Her eyes fly to my face, bouncing back and forth as she drinks me in greedily.
“You are. Doesn’t matter what keeps you down, you’ll overcome it. You bend to grow where nature will let you, but you also crop up wherever you want because nothing holds you back. You’re a wildflower.”
My wildflower.
A small sound escapes her and I want to reach out to bring her closer, but if I do I won’t get this out. I rummage in my pocket for my phone and open the screenshot Colton sent me as I was pulling up in front of the bakery.
“I’m sorry. I know I fucked up, but I’ll do whatever I have to so I can make it right.”
“Fox, is this—?” She reads the text again, fingers curled around my phone.
“Yes. I reversed it. Well, Colt did, but if he still wants it, it’s his. They’ll take him next semester. I’m working on yours next.”
“Don’t bother,” she mutters. “I’m not going to Northwestern.”
Blood
rushes in my ears and I focus on not crushing the daisies in my fist. “Are you going to leave?”
“Someday soon. Not by myself anymore, I hope.”
“No.”
It’s out before I can hold it back. Because I don’t want her to see the Pacific ocean again for the first time without me being there to watch her face as she takes it in.
“No?” She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. “What makes you think you can control what I want?”
“I know I can’t. But I hate the thought of you with anyone else.”
Just thinking about it makes me want to wrap my fingers around the neck of whoever would dare touch her and squeeze. A flash of possessive anger spears me as I take in the muscle tank hanging off her body and I hate that it’s not one of my shirts. She laughs, breaking me out of the dark, murderous vision.
“Good thing I wasn’t planning on that then.”
The words that failed me before burst out of me in one breath. “I love you.”
“You do?”
Maisy’s throat works and I hold her gaze.
Nodding, I say it again. “I loved you back then and I love you now. It never went away, even when I believed you lied. Even when I thought I hated you, the whole time I was in love with you.”
Taking another step, I close the distance between us, bending close enough to graze my lips over her temple. I touch the stones I gave her on the bracelet, a piece of me that she carries with her everywhere. She tilts her face up and all I want to do is wrap her in my arms and never let her go. I hold up the fistful of wildflowers between and offer my heart to her.
“You’re my daisy,” I rasp. “It’s always been you.”
Thirty-Four
Maisy
Hearing him say those words starts a riot inside me. My heart skips a beat, tripping over itself like it wants to burst from my chest into his arms, where it belongs. Where I belong.
I draw in a shaking breath.
The second he walked in here I wanted to go to him, but I had to wait out the urge just to see what he would do. Since I left and talked it out with Thea, I knew what he meant to me.
Holding myself back from touching him, hugging him, kissing him was a sweet form of torture building the anticipation until I can’t take it anymore. Now I can give in.
There are smudges beneath his eyes and stubble shadowing his jaw. He hasn’t been sleeping.
Oh, Fox. I hope his nightmares haven’t returned.
The daisies are choked in his desperate grip, some wilting and a little sad. But they’re the same color as the one he gave me all those years ago when he promised I was his daisy and that he’d marry me someday.
I’m still his daisy.
Warmth blooms like the flowers he brought me, unfurling in my chest bringing a sense that feels a lot like happiness.
“I’ll walk away from everything if it means you’ll forgive me. I choose you, Maisy. I know how much you want to see the ocean. I know because the ocean is in my soul, too. We’ll go together. I’ll take you to California.” He puts a hand over his heart where the ocean is inked into his skin. “I just needed you to know all this. I’ll wait for as long as you need, forever if I have to. You and me, remember?”
My heart turns over and before he can say more, I press up on my toes, fisting his shirt before I kiss him. People around us cheer, but all I’m focused on is the slide of his lips against mine, the scrape of his stubble on my jaw, the soft relieved groan he pushes into my mouth when he wraps his arms around me.
The wobbling axis of my world rights itself in that moment.
Fox was never going to hold me back from what I want. Deep down, I knew that. I was scared to love him as much as I do because I worried it meant I’d lose myself in his black hole.
I was going to go back to his place after the opening to talk things out with him now that my head is clearer, but he was one step ahead of me. I didn’t ask him to reverse Holden’s ruined college draft, but he still made it better. He took action for his mistakes and it makes me fall for him even more than I already have.
Fox makes me feel alive. He’s always known who I am and encouraged the wild streak I can’t tame. He’s who I’m meant to be with, who my heart sings for.
Pulling back from the kiss, I rest my forehead against his jaw, simmering with the joy bubbling through me. “I wasn’t going to leave without you. You’re who I meant I wanted to go with, like we said. Your workshop and my studio. Our own little adventure.”
He squeezes me closer, probably crushing my handpicked bouquet of wildflowers even more. A laugh huffs out of me and I hug him back.
“I want you if it means the good and the bad. I’d relive the years of missing you, the pain of you coming back, all of it because it meant after all that my heart would be whole again.” His lips touch the top of my head and I sink further into his strong embrace. “We found our way back to each other.”
“We did,” he murmurs.
Fox releases me and seals his lips over mine in a searing kiss I feel down to my toes. I smile into it. He pours so much into it that I sway slightly and he catches me. Cheers sound around us again and I recognize my friend’s voices among them.
A throat clears and I lean back to find Holden hovering with the girl he met at school that he’s been wrapped up in. I lift my brows in question.
“You’re good?” he asks, glancing from me to Fox.
“I was until you interrupted.”
The girl with him snorts and hooks her arm in his. “I told you to let them be, big guy.”
Holden’s cheeks fill with color and he rubs the back of his neck, muttering an apology under his breath. This girl is good for him and part of me is glad he ended up at the community college, or they’d never have met.
“Come on.” I take the bouquet of flowers Fox picked for me and slip my hand into his. “I still haven’t been able to introduce you to everyone.”
I take him to the table where Devlin and Blair are. Gemma and Lucas joined them while Fox and I were working things out. When Connor sees us at the table, he pulls Thea away from the customers and they come over, too.
“You’ve grown a shadow,” Devlin deadpans, making Connor snort.
“Dude,” I say mildly. “Guys, this is Fox.”
They introduce themselves and he keeps a hand tucked in my back pocket.
“That’s your bike out front?” Lucas asks.
“Yeah. It was my dad’s,” Fox says. “I had to rebuild most of it until I got it back.”
Lucas whistles low in understanding. “I have a 1990 Jeep I rebuilt. It’s a labor of love.” He throws a sardonic look at Gemma and plays with her hair. “Something some people don’t appreciate.”
A low laugh rolls through her. “That was one time, babe. One time. Besides, you were a dick then and you know you deserved it. Let it go.”
“Never,” he mutters, leaning in to kiss her cheek, making her smile affectionately.
Blair smirks. “Nothing wrong with stealing a man’s pride and joy.”
“I beg to differ,” Devlin says, but there’s fondness lacing his tone.
Thea comes around the table to size Fox up, hands on her hips. She’s half his height, if that, but the fierce look on her face makes him stand at attention.
“Do I have to give you the shovel spiel?”
“The what?” Fox asks in bewilderment.
“The best friend, you-hurt-her-we-bury-you warning,” Blair supplies with a gleam in her brown eyes.
“Oh.” A short laugh leaves him and his hand flexes on my ass in my back pocket. “I’m pretty sure she’d bury me before you had the chance.”
Thea’s expression melts into a smile at the pride in his tone and Fox relaxes. “Good answer. Be right back.”
She disappears into the back and returns shortly after with a fresh plate of cookies shaped like suns and moons baked in honor of her bakery opening. I’m so proud of her and as my friends all chat, I lean into Fox and feel a true sense
of happiness. He doesn’t exactly fit in with them easily, not when the rest of the guys have the bond of knowing each other from childhood, but he’s not out of place either. He stays quiet, listening to us as we tease each other.
Holden joins in for a while, he and Fox talking in low murmurs while Gemma shows me photos of a hike she and Lucas drove north of their college for in the spring. I glance up and see them laughing together. It feels good, like the broken things between the three of us aren’t beyond repair.
Our parents might have done irrevocable things, but we aren’t them and we won’t make their same mistakes.
Fox brushes his lips over my ear several minutes later. “Ready to get out of here?”
“Yes.”
I say goodbye to my friends and congratulate Thea for the millionth time on doing what she always wanted. She hugs me tight in one of her magic embraces and tries to wink at me—tries and fails because she can’t actually wink for shit—and I promise to check in with her later. Fox takes my hand.
Outside, the summer sun shines down on us, glinting off his motorcycle.
He hands over the helmet and closes his fingers over my wrists before I put it on. “Who’s shirt is that?”
“This?” I look down. “Mine. Well, Holden’s first, but I stole it from him three summers ago. He brought me clothes over at Thea and Connor’s apartment yesterday since I didn’t have anything.”
He visibly relaxes, grabbing a handful of the material and tugging me in for a quick kiss. “Good,” he rasps against my lips. “I don’t have to kill anyone today.”
Snorting, I push him off with a playful grin. “Were you going to deck Connor if I borrowed it from him?”
He mulls it over, jaw moving side to side. “Maybe. He’d hit back, but it would be worth it.”
“No hitting my friends, even if they know how to fight.”
“Fine.” He smirks, raking his gaze over me. “No wearing anyone else’s clothes. Only mine.”
Savage Wilder: Dark New Adult High School Bully Romance (Sinners and Saints Book 4) Page 29
