Bass rattled the windows as the music she’d listened to on her way to work resumed its boom and shake. She turned it down immediately, but not before Chelsea winced.
“Sorry,” Daisy said. “You okay with going to the Spectrum? They have a bunch of places to eat.”
Chelsea nodded. “That’s fine with me. You pick. I’ll eat just about anything.”
They ended up at a vegetarian bistro next to the carousel in the middle of Irvine’s central outdoor mall. It wasn’t crowded, which was surprising for lunch hour. Hauling bags and pushing strollers, shoppers wandered from store to store. Sunlight shone through breaks in the quickly moving cloud cover, which was guided along by gusts of pre-summer wind.
Daisy chewed on the straw of her large lavender lemonade. A plate of crispy vegetarian buffalo strips sat between them. Chelsea cocked her head as she jabbed at one with her fork.
“So, this isn’t actually chicken?” Chelsea asked.
Daisy shook her head. “Nope. It’s soy-based, with some other stuff mixed in.”
“But it tastes like chicken?”
“How about you try it and find out?”
“Honey, when I said I’ll eat anything, I meant anything, but this is a little out of my swing box.”
A heaved sigh and the roll of Daisy’s eyes prompted Chelsea to stab one of the buffalo strips and move it to her appetizer plate. She cut a piece off the end and popped it in her mouth. Her jaw moved slowly, chewing and chewing. Her nose wrinkled and she quirked a brow.
“Well, that’s actually good,” Chelsea admitted. “How long have you been a vegetarian?”
“Twelve years.” Daisy forked one of the strips onto her plate and shrugged. “Maybe thirteen, somewhere around there.”
Chelsea tucked a piece of hair out of her face; her long fingers moved gracefully over the shell of her ear down her throat to rest on the curve of her jaw. It had always been astounding how Chelsea Cavanaugh could make a simple movement look elegant, or a thrift-store shirt look expensive, or a ten-dollar meal seem fit for a queen. The way she carried herself spoke worlds about her upbringing—a pronounced arch of her back, squared shoulders, and lift of her chest—it told Daisy that they had nothing in common.
Everything Aiden had ever said about Shannon replayed in her head.
She understood things she once thought were Aiden’s insecurities haunting him. She realized that every angry fit Aiden threw over his lack of this or that was absolutely real. They were as real as Chelsea was real. They were as real as Laguna Beach, and Vance, and the food in front of her—she’d been a fool to think he’d stretched the truth into an overreaction.
He’s my favorite bruise, Aiden had said to her once.
Now she understood why he’d said it the way he had. It hurt; it stayed.
“Is there anywhere here that sells nice coffee mugs?” Chelsea tested. A gentle pull of her lips formed a smile that Daisy had never seen on Chelsea. “I need to replace the one I broke.”
“I’m sure Aiden understands,” Daisy said. She dunked another buffalo strip in a container full of ranch dressing. “Were you…” Her words ran away from her, skidding over her tongue. She cleared her throat, hoping she could speak without sounding as small as she felt. Were you disappointed? “Did you get your Clock checked to make sure it didn’t malfunction?”
Chelsea licked her lips. Her gaze drifted past Daisy, and then she nodded. “I did, yes, and as it turns out, it wasn’t a malfunction.”
Of course she’d checked. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d asked the question as a test, a way to find out if Chelsea was as shocked as she’d looked that morning when she’d dropped the coffee cup. Apparently, the shock had led to questions, and Chelsea had gotten an answer.
A server set their lunch down. Daisy stirred her macaroni and cheese while Chelsea pushed sliced carrots around on top of her salad. It was quiet except for the occasional crunch of a cucumber between Chelsea’s teeth or the suction of lemonade up Daisy’s straw.
“We can be friends, Daisy,” Chelsea said tenderly. She looked at her half-eaten salad. Her lips were pursed, just like everything else on Chelsea’s body: her voice, her eyes, her mouth, her hands, all of it screamed tension. “I’d like that very much. Would you consider trying to make this work as best we can, and maybe even goin’ to dinner with me on Friday? It doesn’t have to be anything more than that until you want it to be.”
Elation bloomed inside Daisy quicker than she ever thought it could. Even if this was one of Chelsea’s coping mechanisms, some weird trick she’d learned at the convention, or just a way to make her think she was doing the right thing—at least it was there, out in the open.
The forty-eight hours leading up to this lunch had been a wound for Daisy, sore and festering.
“We’re already friends,” Daisy said. She smiled at Chelsea, a real smile despite how small it was. “But yeah, of course we can go to dinner on Friday.”
“Well, good,” Chelsea said through a sigh. Her shoulders drooped; her lips parted into a genuine, relaxed grin. “Should we invite the boys?”
“If you want to.” Daisy tried to suppress her enthusiasm, but nodded quickly. She wasn’t good at hiding things, and having Aiden there would make everything much less terrible, but also much more terrible. She’d take the good with the bad if it meant a double date. “I think they’d like it if we included them.”
Chelsea nodded and scrunched her nose. A laugh fell from her, windy and pretty. Daisy had never heard anyone sound so effortless.
“They’d get their feelings hurt, wouldn’t they?” Chelsea teased.
Daisy was the one who laughed this time, at what Chelsea said and also at the situation as a whole. “Yeah, they’d never forgive us,” she said. Her gaze swept to Chelsea, who was watching Daisy carefully from under her lashes.
Daisy wasn’t religious. She didn’t believe in a god or a goddess, a book or a guru.
She believed in something, though. Bigger than her, with sharp teeth and dangerous eyes, something that would listen to her prayers if she ever had the courage to say them. For a while she’d thought that something was Aiden. After him, it’d been Vance. The suddenness of believing in nothing had twisted inside her throughout college, until she came back to Laguna Beach, to Aiden, to the magic he’d always believed in, the same magic she could never seem to find.
For the first time, she thought she might be looking at the creature she’d always wanted to muster the courage to pray to. Something magic would envy.
7
“Las Brisas?” Aiden cocked his head, shooting Daisy a withering look. “I don’t think they’ll let us in, Daisy.”
“Oh, come on, they’d let us in.”
“Yeah, okay, but you know what I mean,” Aiden said.
“It’s too fancy, huh?”
His nose scrunched, septum ring glinting in the afternoon light. “I went there once with Marcus for his birthday. They serve really good food, but… for a first date?”
“No, no, you’re right. I just want her to be comfortable, you know? I feel like that’s sort of her element.”
“Chic and expensive?”
“Pretty much,” Daisy gritted her teeth. She stared at her phone while scrolling through a list of The Best of Laguna Beach on Google. “The Montage, Mozambique, The Whitehouse… Hey, what about that new place downtown? It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? The place, you know—kind of diagonal from the ice cream shop, where the shoe store used to be…”
“That’s a bar,” Aiden said matter-of-factly.
“It’s a bar that serves food,” Daisy offered with her shoulders bunching around her ears. “And has pool tables, right? What’s it called?”
“The Arcade,” Aiden droned, rolling his eyes. “Which is a stupid-ass name—they have no games, not one, not Galaga, not Pacman, nothing.”
Daisy rolled her eyes, echoing Aiden’s distress sarcastically under her breath. “Not even Galaga?”
“It’s false advertisement,” he countered. “What about The Rooftop Lounge?”
“Isn’t that too date-y?” Daisy leaned back in the wicker chair and stared over the balcony wall. Ocean waves crashed in the distance. The smell of summer charred the air; notes of hot cement, sunscreen, waffle cones, and salt mingled with honeysuckles clinging to the last few days of spring.
“Isn’t this a double date? Because that’s what you told me and that’s what I told Shannon,” Aiden said. He adjusted his snapback brim to face back, grabbed a watering can, and proceeded to water each and every plant with impressive precision. “Speaking of Detective Wurther, you could always ask him what he thinks you should do.”
“He wouldn’t tell Chelsea, would he?” Daisy whispered.
Aiden smirked. “Not if you asked him not to.”
“You’re sure?” She tossed her phone on the table. It landed in the center of one of her open sketchbooks on a page filled with doodles of ethereal faeries.
Aiden steered his attention away from the hanging basket of bright pink begonias and shot her a wilted glare.
00:00
Shannon Wurther 5/21 7:02 p.m.
Arcade right? Downtown?
Chelsea Cavanaugh 5/21 7:03 p.m.
Yes. What do I talk to her about?
Shannon Wurther 5/21 7:04 p.m.
Talk to her about everything
Chelsea Cavanaugh 5/21 7:04 p.m.
That doesn’t help me. She looks like a vampire, Shannon. I don’t know what to do.
Chelsea looked up from her phone once she saw the three dots under Shannon’s text bubble stop moving. He sent a thumbs-up emoji. How helpful.
“Are they on their way?” Daisy asked.
She looked up and found Daisy swaying to the M83 song playing in the background. Her dark purple lips quirked at the corners, and her eyes, rimmed in smoke and glitter and the blackest mascara, blinked expectantly. A lace choker ringed her slender, pale throat, and another necklace, a long silver chain, dangled to the center of her crimson crop top.
“Yeah, they’ll be here soon. You hungry? We can get somethin’ to start if you want.”
“Do you like onion rings?”
Chelsea hummed pleasantly. “With a side of barbeque sauce I do.”
“Do you want a drink?” Daisy’s choppy pixie cut was arranged prettily around her face with one side powder white, the other midnight black. Her features were rounded and defined, in keeping with her heritage. They clashed with her haircut, and her style, and her voice—silky and a little deep. “I’ll order the appetizer at the bar while I grab drinks.”
“Get me whatever you’re having,” Chelsea said. She wanted a martini. Dry. Super-dry. With extra olives. But for some reason she wouldn’t give herself permission to ask for one.
“You sure? I’m just getting a Blue Moon.” Daisy, waiting for Chelsea to order a fancy cocktail in her fancy way and once again set herself apart from her own circle of friends, gave her one last look.
Instead she shook her head. “I’m sure.”
Daisy slid out of her seat at the tall table they’d scouted next to a pool table and walked to the bar. The place where her high-waisted jeans met her skin was two inches below the beginning of her top. A strip of ribcage and spine and stomach showed, a place on Daisy that Chelsea had seen many times. Still, it seemed strange-looking now.
A hand slapped the table. Chelsea jumped.
“Aiden! Goddammit!” She hissed, swatting him hard on the shoulder.
Aiden was all skeleton smiles and mischief. His brows climbed high on his forehead. “What were you looking at, Charm School?”
“None of your business.” Chelsea caught sight of Shannon slinging his arm over Daisy’s shoulders at the bar. “Is there a reason why she dresses like its Halloween all the time?”
“Oh, please,” he purred. He flicked the collar of her navy blouse, which was buttoned down the front and tucked into a black pencil skirt. “Is it uncomfortable sitting down with a stick up your ass all the time?”
She swatted him again. “At least I look presentable.”
“Well, Daisy looks sexy,” he said, taking a step backward. “And not in a…” He paused to take on a mock southern accent. “‘John Deere hired me as their pretty spokesperson’ way.”
“You are the epitome of garbage, Aiden Maar.”
He hummed pleasantly, one eye closed in an infuriating wink. The safety pin through his ear had been replaced by a small hoop. “Love you too, princess.”
She watched him walk away while her stomach did summersaults. Did it hurt to be that smooth? To so easily let go of other people’s judgments? Chelsea ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it over her shoulder as a means of distraction.
Don’t let anyone know what you feel. Her mother’s voice echoed, bouncing off the idea to relax, to stop caring as much as she did about what everyone else thought. You’re a Cavanaugh. You’re beautiful and brilliant and confident. Don’t let them see you as anything else.
Chelsea remembered growing up a child meant for great things, and a teenager destined for immeasurable success, and a woman terrified of failure. She remembered her mother teaching her how to cover bruises with shades of foundation. She remembered her father’s money, empty apologies, and hollow reassurances.
“Chelsea,” Daisy said softly, appearing at her side with two blue beer bottles. She watched Chelsea closely, and an aura of hesitation wrapped around them. “You okay?”
Chelsea straightened in her seat and shook her head. “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”
“The boys are here.”
“I know. Aiden came over to say hi a minute ago.”
Daisy set their beers down and handed her a laminated menu. While Chelsea held the edges with both hands, Daisy leaned over her shoulder to read it. The brush of Daisy’s hair on her chin almost caused her to jump, and the smell of her perfume—autumn and roses and pinecones—came from the span of throat, choker, throat. Chelsea couldn’t decide whether to look at the menu or at Daisy.
She decided to focus on the edge of the menu where Daisy held it, and the flick of Daisy’s thumb over a large ring on her index finger: moonstone set in sterling silver. It matched her septum ring: a hoop with two dainty stones on each end. Chelsea never thought a piercing like that could be anything except revolting and here she was, admiring it.
“Want to order dinner?” Daisy’s voice caught her attention, but, when she tilted her head, she saw Daisy’s chin hovering in front of Chelsea’s mouth, and her eyes flying over the entrée section of the menu. “I’m thinking about getting a veggie burger or the pizza, but I can’t eat a whole pizza by myself.”
“I’ll eat some pizza,” Chelsea offered, looking at Daisy and not at the description of the food.
Trips to the beach had come and gone, dinners and lunches and sleepovers at Aiden’s apartment had happened once or twice or ten times. Daisy had been in Chelsea’s line of sight for months, lovely and obscure, obvious and off-limits. But Chelsea had never looked at Daisy to look at her—not until right now, in a bar, waiting for onion rings.
Despite the lace choker and the stretched earlobes, the piercings, dark makeup, and the knee-high black boots, Daisy happened to be a very beautiful woman.
“Onion rings!” Aiden dropped the basket in the middle of the table. “We ordered our food, by the way. Shannon’s starving.”
“Thanks for waiting,” Daisy said through a groan and a laugh. “Did you guys get the table?” She jutted her thumb at the pool table.
Shannon arranged the racked rainbow of balls on the pool table. He grabbed two sticks and tossed one to Aiden. “Yes, Daisy. We got the pool table. Order your food so we can play,” Shannon said, smiling gentl
y as he chalked the tip of his pool stick.
“Pizza?” Daisy asked.
“Pizza’s fine.”
Daisy walked back to the bar to place their order while Chelsea nervously chewed on a greasy onion ring. Eating kept her busy: her hands, her mouth, performing action after action without room for any lapse. Don’t let them see you weak.
Aiden’s and Shannon’s eyes burned holes in her reserve, causing her to whirl toward them and snap, “What?”
Aiden grinned. Shannon cocked his head; a knowing smile pushed dimples into his cheeks.
“Stop it,” she hissed, baring her teeth. “I should’ve never told her to invite you two.”
“Come on,” Shannon said. He adjusted his dress shirt, which had the top three buttons undone and the bottom half-tucked into a pair of blue jeans. Even Shannon could pull off being messily put together and still look wonderful. Chelsea suddenly felt terribly over-dressed. “You guys are friends; we’re friends. This is fine.” He grabbed another stick and tossed it to her. She snatched it out of the air. “Milford was only good for a couple of things, and learning how to play a mean game of Cutthroat was one of them. You still as good as I remember?”
“Course I am,” she said, sliding off her seat.
“Me and Shannon, you and Daisy,” Aiden said. He tossed a pool stick to Daisy. The poor thing fumbled to catch it. Boots clicked and clacked as she regained her balance. “Ready to get your ass kicked, Charm School?”
The pizza came. Daisy adorned it with far too many chili flakes, and Chelsea used two sides of ranch dressing. Aiden looked ridiculous stretched over the pool table, and Shannon wasn’t too shy to notice. Daisy couldn’t sink a ball for the life of her. Chelsea absolutely kicked their asses at Cutthroat.
“Wow,” Chelsea mused, smiling around a bite of pizza, “even havin’ Daisy on my team didn’t make a difference. I still managed to win.”
Curved Horizon Page 5
