“And look what we have here,” she waved her hand at Aiden, then at Shannon, “a trashy criminal with his equally trashy boyfriend.” She paused and jutted her thumb between Daisy and herself. “And their trashy friends.”
“Someone put this in the history books. Chelsea Cavanaugh refers to herself as trashy, December tenth, at…” Aiden checked his phone and laughed. “… 9:54 p.m.”
“My daddy told me he’d skin me like a pig if I ever got one,” Chelsea said.
Again, the room went quiet.
“So, if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Daisy. I’d like you to put a trashy tattoo on me, please.” Chelsea crossed her arms over her chest and looked at Daisy down the bridge of her nose. Her eyes blazed with determination, but Daisy saw them fracture, saw fear and hopelessness battle seamlessly as her control began to slip.
“As long as you put one on me,” Daisy said.
Chelsea nodded, her lips creased in a fond, cautious smile. “All right.”
35
Daisy traced the curve of Chelsea’s hipbone with the tip of her index finger. She pressed her knuckles against the meeting of hip and waist, tailbone and backside. Chelsea stayed still on her stomach with her cheek pillowed under folded arms and her lashes sweeping up and down with every glance and blink she cast over her shoulder. Candles laid out in lines around the walls formed puddles of transparent white on the coffee table.
“You sure you want to do this?” Daisy asked. It sounded like a shout in the thick quiet that occupied the rest of the apartment. A moment would go by, and she’d catch murmuring from the bedroom, or the shifting of bodies getting closer on top of sheets, or a breathy laugh from Shannon, or a whisper from Aiden. “I mean—you can get it removed or covered or something later, that’s not a big deal, but it’s still a permanent thing, and I understand if—”
“Daisy,” Chelsea said, “I’m sure.”
Daisy hadn’t realized how long she’d waited for her name to sound like that in someone’s mouth. She tried to slow the utterance in her mind, replay it again and again, because when Chelsea said Daisy she meant Daisy, and it had taken this long, in this place, sitting on the floor in an apartment by the beach, avoiding a storm next to an absurd collection of potted plants, for Daisy to swallow the sound and truly enjoy it.
“How about a bat?” Daisy teased.
Chelsea arched a fair brow, and her legs tensed so her hips pressed up against the weight of Daisy, who sat comfortably astride the backs of her thighs. “A little picture of you?”
“I’m not a bat,” she mumbled, picking the needle up from the plate next to them. Courage forced its way into her wrists, wrapped over bone, fit between knuckles. Curiosity crawled around Daisy’s stomach. She dragged the edge of the needle high on Chelsea’s thigh, right under the seam of her lace underwear.
Chills scaled Chelsea’s legs. Her body went rigid; her chest lifted in a deep inhale.
I want to put my mouth here. She pressed the cold side of the needle against Chelsea’s inner thigh. And here. Over top of her underwear. And here. Against the base of her spine.
“You’re a moonflower,” Chelsea whispered, letting out a long, shaky breath. “They open at dusk and close at dawn. They’re supposedly mystical.”
“You think I’m a magical flower?”
“I know you’re a magical flower,” Chelsea reiterated.
“I wasn’t aware you knew much about plants.”
“I don’t. A friend enlightened me.”
Daisy brushed the tip of the needle across Chelsea’s lower back. The thought of Aiden enlightening Chelsea Cavanaugh in any way, shape, or form seemed impossible, but everything about this night seemed impossible. Ink in skin, an unseen storm, electricity replaced by tiny flames—nothing was real—they weren’t who they needed to be, just who they wanted to be, doing what they wanted to do.
The needle clattered against the plate when she dropped it, and Chelsea purred as Daisy’s teeth sank into the skin peeking above her panties. “Right here?” Daisy asked, following her mouth with her hand. She kissed higher, leaving lingering bruises along Chelsea’s hip.
“Right here.” Chelsea reached around and touched the patch of flesh between her hip and backside, high up on her leg. “Do you know what it looks like?”
“Yeah, do you trust me?”
Chelsea laid her head on her arms again; one eye focused on Daisy. “Yes,” she said.
Daisy pressed her lips against the place Chelsea had touched, cleaned it with a cotton swab soaked in antiseptic, and went to work. She dipped the needle in a miniature cup full of black ink and poked Chelsea’s leg.
“Ouch,” she growled against the inside of her elbow. “It stings.”
A couple hundred stings later there was the messy, black outline of a quarter-sized moonflower etched into the outside of Chelsea’s thigh. A wave of blood, smeared and diluted, tinted her olive skin beneath the raised ink of a very fresh tattoo.
Daisy used a wet cloth to remove any excess ink. “All done.”
Chelsea squirmed until Daisy slid off her thighs and took a seat beside her.
“Well, get a look at that,” Chelsea said reverently, when she twisted around to look at the moonflower tattoo. “It’s not that trashy after all.”
Strands of wheat-colored hair glowed bronze in the candlelight, flowed over Chelsea’s shoulders in wave after wave: gold after white, maple after brown sugar. Shadows sighed against Chelsea’s cheekbones, her button nose, and small mouth, and pointed out places that Daisy had noticed but hadn’t noticed: a freckle just shy of her chin on the left side, two piercings in her ears, one set used, the other left unoccupied, brown lashes instead of black, naked skin with a barely-there sheen of moisturizer.
Chelsea Cavanaugh was beautiful like cold November nights, and loud like a symphony. Daisy craved fall; she hungered for unfamiliar music.
They got a new container of ink. Chelsea twirled a needle on top of a dying flame flickering in the center of a candle. The bedroom door shut gently, and Daisy listened to the noises behind Chelsea’s breathing: the chatter of Aiden and Shannon dwindling into sleep-stolen sighs, palm trees singing in gusts of wind between their leaves, a steady drum of raindrops on the roof and the balcony and the street, Mercy perched on the back of the couch yawning at them.
Daisy lay on her back. Her shirt had been thrown close to her suitcase; her bra had been unclasped in the center and folded open to expose her sternum.
Chelsea crawled over her, let her mouth tickle the very edges of Daisy’s lips, and said, “Are you sure?”
Thunder cracked in the distance; lightening illuminated the golden living room in the whitest white.
“I’m sure.” Daisy lifted to kiss her, but Chelsea moved her mouth. She placed her lips over Daisy’s pulse, shoulder, collarbone, the silk cup of her bra. Daisy imagined Chelsea’s teeth under the fabric of her clothes; she thought of breath on her belly button and bruises left behind on her hipbones. “Either you tattoo me, or—”
“Don’t rush me,” Chelsea growled.
Heat filled Daisy’s cheeks and grew low in her belly. She swallowed a tentative breath and allowed her eyes to close and her body to relax. Chelsea’s hands and lips were a metronome lulling her into compliance.
“Here?” Chelsea’s open mouth hovered between Daisy’s breasts and settled on the low point of her sternum.
“There,” Daisy agreed, chewing restlessly on her bottom lip. “Is a rose too cliché?”
“It’s your body. Do you have something else in mind?”
“Yes, but you’ll laugh at me,” Daisy admitted, smiling at the ceiling.
Chelsea scoffed. “I certainly won’t.”
“A bee,” Daisy dared, laughing. She covered her mouth to keep quiet. “A bumblebee.”
Chelsea tried not to laugh, but pressed her face against Daisy’s st
omach and chuckled. “Why on earth do you want a bee tattooed on you?”
Daisy coiled a piece of blond hair around her finger. “Without bees, we wouldn’t have flowers.”
The quiet occupying the apartment turned its eyes toward them. Chelsea inhaled a deep breath. Her hands played on Daisy’s waist, and her fingers ran this way and that, along her sides, over her ribcage. Mercy hopped off the back of the couch and flopped beside Daisy to watch them. A whistle of sharp wind hit the sliding glass door, and Daisy craned her neck to see if she could catch sight of the storm to make what was going on outside the candlelight remind her that this was real.
“You would be here with or without me,” Chelsea said softly. “You would be your wonderful self, whether it’d been me or someone else who timed out with you, whether we met or we didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t be as much of me,” Daisy said.
Warm hands glided from ribcage to collarbones, as Chelsea trailed along Daisy’s bra strap with her pinky finger. “You were enough before our clocks went off,” Chelsea whispered. “You’re more than enough now. There’s nothing broken inside of you that I need to fix; there’s no chasm I’ll fit into. You’re a creative, unique, amazing woman, and I love you every day for being unshakeable. I’m not your bee, honey. I’m just hoping to god that you don’t wake up one day and realize you’re too good for me.”
Daisy closed her eyes. She told her heart to stay put, but it insisted on jumping against her ribs. Her nasal cavity burned, so she adjusted her septum ring as an excuse to pinch her nostrils and cut off any potential tears.
“Too good for you,” Daisy echoed through a laugh. She heaved a sigh and listened to Chelsea shift, to Mercy meow, to the storm around her and inside her keep raging. “I know you lie, but I didn’t peg you for a liar.”
A short gasp cut the room into two moments:
Daisy and Chelsea before tonight.
Daisy and Chelsea after tonight.
Chelsea gripped both of Daisy’s wrists and slammed them against the floor above her head. Her knees squeezed Daisy’s hips as they lay stretched on the carpet, nose-to-nose, with Chelsea’s eyes narrowed terribly and beautifully.
“I am not a liar, Daisy,” Chelsea snapped, keeping her voice low in the sleepy apartment. “I tell you I love you, and this is what I get? You think I’d lie about that?”
“I’m not too good for you. Say it.”
“No.”
“Say it.” Daisy flexed her arms, arching up into Chelsea’s tight grip.
Chelsea’s teeth gnashed. “No,” she said again, pressing the word against Daisy’s mouth.
Flipping Chelsea over onto her back would result in a very ornery Mercy, the risk of falling onto the plate with the needle, and exerting strength Daisy didn’t have the energy to muster. Instead she kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. She opened her mouth to catch her breath and couldn’t, too caught up in keeping quiet to do anything except touch and breathe.
Daisy wanted to peel Chelsea’s fears off like layers of clothes. She wanted to toss them away and get a good look at what lived underneath them.
Chelsea let go of her wrists and mapped out the skin between throat and ribcage, sternum and pelvis. Her hand hovered over Daisy’s chin and mouth, covering up little noises that kept choking their way over Daisy’s tongue.
“I love you, too,” Daisy said between Chelsea’s knuckles, one hand clutching weakly at her wrist, the other pawing uselessly at Chelsea’s shoulder. “I love you, do you hear me? Do you get it?”
“I hear you,” Chelsea hissed, “but the boys will hear you too if you don’t quiet down.”
Daisy’s lips parting for Chelsea’s fingers to press on her tongue. She tried to empty her mind, but her thoughts were a rush of heat and oh and the cat is watching and a potted plant just fell off the table outside and I am in love with her, I am in love with her, I am in love with her.
Chelsea covered Daisy’s mouth with her palm, and Daisy couldn’t help the jump in her hips, the squirm of her legs over Chelsea’s shoulders, and the weak sound in the back of her throat that she desperately hoped wasn’t as loud as it sounded inside herself.
“Stay,” Chelsea said, one hand pressing on Daisy’s belly to keep her still, the other swiping crudely across her mouth. “It’s a bumblebee that you want?”
Daisy nodded, drifting somewhere between I hope the pot didn’t break and I am in love with her.
Mercy’s tail swished, close enough to tickle Daisy’s cheek.
“Say it one more time,” Chelsea whispered, sultry and dark.
The storm had passed in the middle of the witching hour.
“I love you,” Daisy whispered.
The needle pricked her skin, and she gasped: heartbeat slowing, thoughts sharpening, body decompressing.
An hour later a pretty little bumblebee was etched into her chest, black as night, with its wings open wide, barely touching the edges of her small, pale breasts, amidst a warzone of blooming, watercolor bruises left behind from Chelsea’s teeth.
36
The storm left with the night. It crept out to sea and dove into the ocean, allowing the sun to break over the eastern horizon and turn the sky into a lazy wash of turquoise bleeding into deep navy, dusty orange wrapped in kiss-bitten pink. Gold- and gray-tinted clouds hovered far out on the edge of water; the night was wrung delicately from them by a new day.
Early winter mornings meant cold, cold beaches, and bitter, frigid air. Chelsea buried her feet in the sand just shy of the oversized blanket she shared with Daisy, Shannon, and Aiden. Daisy had another fluffy blanket wrapped over her and Chelsea. Aiden’s back fit snug against Shannon’s chest as he lounged between his legs. A third blanket tucked around Daisy’s knees covered his lap. Daisy’s warm frame leaned against Chelsea’s side; her hand played absently with Chelsea’s arm as it coiled over her shoulder.
Waves lifted high and crashed, a soundtrack behind their breathing, the backdrop of Laguna Beach. After the witching hours came the minutes that belonged to yawns and stretches, warm breath, and slow, generous touches, to things unwrapped and dismantled, to beehives of turbulent honesty compressed into raw, unburdened truth, to confession cracked open to shed its skin.
Wind snapped at Chelsea’s cheeks. She ran her fingers along the top of Daisy’s arm and said to no one in particular, “Tell me something true.”
Aiden tilted his head back against Shannon’s collarbone. “I’m grateful.”
Daisy hummed. She turned and glanced up. Her dark, woodsy eyes were bright in the early morning light. “I’m a different kind of happy than I’ve ever been.”
“I’m really glad that case is closed,” Shannon said softly; a laugh bubbled in his throat.
Aiden heaved a sigh. “Me fucking too. Your turn, Charm School.”
“I like who I am,” Chelsea said. A faraway wave crashed against the sand. “I’ve surprised myself.”
The sun lifted over the trees and buildings and warmed the air enough to soothe the breeze still biting at Chelsea’s face. She rested her chin atop Daisy’s black-and-white head and let her fingers dangle over the sharp edge of Daisy’s shoulder. Their hands laced and pulled apart, fingertips playing along heart lines and nail beds, wrist veins and bony knuckles.
Shannon met her gaze with his cheek pressed against Aiden’s temple and offered a gentle, amiable smile.
“Fuck, what a year,” Aiden rasped.
What a year.
Chelsea thought back to the plane ride, landing in LAX, and making her way to the comfortable little beach town that would become so much more than just a comfortable little beach town. She was desperate for answers, hungry for experience, scared of life.
She looked at Daisy, because there was nothing in the world she would rather look at: the edges of Daisy’s cheekbones and the fullness of her bottom lip, the shape of
her eyes—the things that lived inside them—terrible, wonderful, brilliant things. Daisy’s voice, like stepping on autumn leaves, like a wave breaking, like a chorus praying.
“I’m glad it was us,” Daisy whispered.
Chelsea nodded. It could’ve meant a thousand things, but they would all be true.
She was glad for them, for Daisy’s and Chelsea’s unorthodox meeting, for their collision, a broken coffee cup, two hearts turned upside down, two boys rushing to their rescue. She was glad for the slowness of love, for the delicate tiptoe of ice cream dates and first kisses, black lipstick stains on the collar of her shirt and love bites beneath her hipbones. She was glad for The Hollow and the memories that lived there—for the magic that manifested inside Daisy Yuen, brought to life in streaks of paint and smudges of charcoal.
She was glad for fate, for the dizziness, the strangeness, the awfulness, the beauty of it. Because fate had decided on them, on Daisy and Chelsea, on Shannon and Aiden, on the constellation they would become despite the odds.
Fate had looked at the four of them and sighed.
Fate had looked at the four of them and said, ah yes, there they are.
And there they were.
Chelsea kissed Daisy, because there was nothing in the world she would rather be doing. “Get in the water with me,” she said, pressing the words against Daisy’s lips.
Daisy lifted both brows; she had a playful twist to one side of her mouth.
It was a dare or a promise or a declaration, a genesis, metamor-phosis—freedom.
Chelsea stripped off her shirt.
Aiden followed suit. “I’m in.”
“Absolutely not,” Shannon said.
“Oh, come on,” Chelsea howled. She unbuttoned her pants and stepped out of them.
Winter gnawed on her exposed skin. The new tattoo on her leg stung.
This is what it’s like, Chelsea thought.
Aiden hauled Shannon to his feet.
The four of them bounced off each other as they made their way toward the waves. Daisy spun Chelsea in a circle; their mouths clashed clumsily at the first touch of water against their ankles. The silence made room for their laughter, for Daisy’s lips, wet with the sea on Chelsea’s cheek, for Shannon’s hands on Aiden’s face, for looking out over the horizon, and breathing in a new life.
Curved Horizon Page 30
