Daisies & Devin

by Kelsey Kingsley

  My eyes closed to my present, and I was faced with the treasured past. A vision of Devin on that first night we met, at that party neither one of us wanted to be at. With his shaggy hair, his chocolate eyes and his voice that made me forget, and made me hope. It made me feel alive, made me hold on. I reminded myself that had things been different then, had my life been less distracting, never, ever would I have caged that beautiful thing into the borders of friendship.

  I reminded myself of that night by the lake. The moment in which I grasped onto the hope that he would kiss me, that everything I knew we were would finally come to be.

  Then, that afternoon in the sunlit field behind the cemetery on the darkest day. All of those daisies, whispering their reassurances that Dad was okay, and Devin …

  Goddammit, Devin was the only one to make me okay. Always.

  The moments were copious, all tucked away in a heart-shaped box I kept in my mind. They were memories I held at night, after sending a boyfriend home. I had dreamed of the day he would confess his feelings for me, of the day I’d finally be brave enough to throw caution to the wind and tell him I’ve only ever wanted him, and now …

  All I could think was, how fucking happy I was, that he decided to come home and put a stop to the lies we’d been telling ourselves for years.

  “Why have we been so stupid?” I finally managed to croak through the stones lodged in my throat. I turned to him, giving up the fight against the tears glazing my eyes. A cocktail of fear and relief trickled over my cheeks as I timidly moved closer.

  “No. Not stupid,” he said, cautiously cupping my cheek in his warm palm. “Just afraid of losing something we couldn’t live without.”

  I nodded. “I’ve lost too much, Dev. I can’t lose you.”

  He stroked the callused pad of his thumb over my cheekbone. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His fingers pushed into the strands of my forever-purple hair, and my eyelids floated shut as a gasp whispered past my lips. I stiffened under his touch, and he softly said, “Relax, I’m not going to bite.”

  I anxiously giggled, pinching bits of my shorts between my fingers. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said, my voice strained and shaking. “I’ve had to listen to you have sex a few times too many. Thin walls.”

  He shifted on the couch. I bit my bottom lip, waiting with eyes closed. He pressed his forehead to mine, and in a whisper, he said, “I’m sorry. If I had known … if I’d had any clue …” He shook his head. “I’m a fucking asshole, and I’m sorry.”

  I raised a hand, felt for the rough stubble along his jaw, and my palm conformed to his cheek. “I’m sorry too. For Nate, and …”

  He took a slow, deep breath and said, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  This was it. My heart knew. It told my brain in a hammered chorus of thumps and pumps, and with the nudge of his hot breath against my skin, my lips parted. His fingers tangled further into my hair, his nose grazed over mine, and I held my breath.

  His jaw tensed under my touch. “Fuck,” he muttered through gritted teeth and he pulled away.

  My eyes snapped open as he stood up. “What?” I asked, startled and abandoned.

  Face tipped downward, he pinched the bridge of his nose, turning away from me. “Can I tell you something without you thinking I’m a pussy?”

  “Dev, you once told me that you watch The Notebook when you need a good cry.”

  He turned around with a tension-relieving laugh. “You got me there,” he said, and sat back down. He clasped his hands behind his head, threading his fingers through his hair. “It’s just that, I’ve been dreaming about this moment for a third of my life, and I’m really fucking nervous.”

  “So am I,” I admitted. “It’s okay.”

  My whole body was trembling, I realized. So was his. Sitting there, I saw the extent of his own anxiety and the depth of his feelings. How similar they were to my own.

  With shaking fingers, I reached out, touching the far side of his face, and gently turned his head to look at me. His stubble was rough beneath my fingertips, and I smiled with trembling lips, thinking of all the times I’d been annoyed at him for not cleaning out the sink after he had trimmed. I pressed my other hand against his face, and I held him as I moved closer, kneeling next to him on that couch, in the apartment where we had made a home … together.

  My eyes homed in on his mouth, his parted lips and I felt his breath on my face.

  “Who was your first kiss?” I asked him, whispering and scared.

  “I didn’t know her name,” he admitted, his cheeks pinking a little in the darkened living room, lit only by the light over the dinner table. “It was at a party in junior high. I got dared to kiss her, so I did.”

  “So, it meant nothing?” I searched his eyes, and he shook his head.

  “I can’t say I’ve ever kissed someone and had it mean something,” he replied honestly. “Who was yours?”

  “Logan Roberts,” I said, allowing myself a small smile at the old memory. “He was the neighbor of one my cousins. I had a huge crush on him, and when I was sixteen, on the fourth of July, he kissed me.”

  “Under the fireworks?”

  My face was on fire with the heat of my blush. I laughed, rolling my eyes to the ceiling. “Yes, under the fireworks.”

  “How romantic,” he teased, bringing his hands up to cup my face. “I think I might have to track this Logan Roberts down and kick his ass, if he can still make you blush like that.”

  “Shut up,” I said, laughing, “and don’t worry. Logan is now fat, married, and has three kids.”

  Devin chuckled. “Very happy to hear it.”

  For one second, my eyes lifted to Devin’s, finding within them a certainty that everything would be fine and that this wasn’t a mistake, and I felt the pull. His hands, gently luring me toward him, to tip forward against his solid body, and I anxiously awaited the pressure of his mouth on mine.

  “Shit,” he muttered, his lips whispering against my skin.

  So fucking close.

  “What?” I asked, breathless and ready.

  “The cat. The meatloaf.” He shoved me away and clambered off the couch.

  “Wow, Dev. Way to kill the fucking mood.” I pouted as he hurried to the table, grabbing plates and balancing them on his arms.

  “Sorry, sorry …” he grumbled, moving into the kitchen. “You know he can’t eat onions though, and if we … you know … get a little distracted, we won’t even know he’s on the table, and that’s one issue I don’t want to deal with,” he called out, as I listened to cabinet doors opening and Tupperware lids being pried off.

  “Uh-huh,” I said with a sigh.

  “Shit,” I heard him mutter. “Seriously, we hardly ate. Are you hungry? Should we—”

  “Devin! My fucking God,” I groaned, flopping back exasperated against the cushions. Because there was only one thing I was hungry for, and it certainly wasn’t meatloaf.

  He emerged from the kitchen. “Relax, I’m kidding,” he said, and then …

  He came for me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Devin

  Over the years, I had often seen Kylie stretch out along the couch in our apartment. Leisurely and comfortably with her hands and feet pointed toward either end, elongating her body in a way that could have been described as feline elegance. It was an artform, or a ballet, even.

  Every single time, I would watch her and wish I could do more than just watch. An act of voyeurism and lust. I always wanted to ease myself over her, slide my hand under her shirt and lay claim to her mouth with mine—and then I’d shake those thoughts away, reminding myself that we were friends. Just friends.

  But on that Thursday night, in the apartment we both called home, I had been given permission.

  I walked forward, forgetting entirely about meatloaf, the past, and performance anxiety. I crouched down to the floor, placed one hand on her stomach and allowed my pinky to brush ever-so slightly against the smo
oth, taut skin above her waistband. Her lips parted, a soft whine escaped her throat at the bold touch to the little strip of exposed skin, and how fucking lucky was I, to draw a noise like that out of her.

  Her eyes met mine, all of those multi-faceted blues. They took on a different mood, one I’d never had the pleasure of witnessing before.

  “Have I ever told you how beautiful your eyes are?” I asked her, cocking my head to take them in as she laid there.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “They were the first thing I really noticed—and, I think, loved—about you. They’re full of so much color, so many shades of blue, that the rest of the world feels dull when I’m without them for too long,” I said, talking in a graveled tone. “I wrote a song about them. Perhaps you know it … ‘Edge of a Blue Existence.’”

  Her eyes turned to kaleidoscopes filled with sapphires and topaz, as they filled with tears of recognition. “Oh God, Devin …”

  “’Not quite there, not quite here/The distance is stifling, while being so near/On the edge of a blue existence/But as long as I’m here, as long as you’re here/I’d keep from falling, I’d keep myself stalling/To catch a glimpse, of that blue existence.’” I sang in whispers, afraid, as though she had never heard me sing before. And in a way, it was as though she hadn’t. Because now, she was listening with new ears, and with an understanding of what the words truly meant.

  “I am … the most oblivious person on the fucking planet,” she said, the tears spilling over her cheeks and into the upholstery of the couch.

  I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have been made to guess.”

  Her cheeks deepened in color and my thumb, resting on her stomach, hooked underneath her skintight tank-top. “You’ve driven me insane, wearing these things around here,” I said, edging closer to her mouth. My thumb stroked the sensitive skin, then slid higher, pulling the shirt up with it. “Such a fucking little tease.”

  “Jesus, Devin,” she gasped and shut her eyes to my touch. I groaned from somewhere deeper within me, somewhere desperate and primitive, as I leaned closer.

  “Say that again,” I whispered, a thread of breath between her lips and mine.

  “Jesus,” she whispered with a playful smile, and I grinned.

  “Try again,” I chuckled.

  Her eyes opened, and she smiled as she said, “Devin.”

  And my name was given new meaning.

  With that final push of affection, my lips touched hers for the first time, and my mind spiraled. Dizzy with unexpected sensation and emotion.

  I never knew that something as simple as a kiss could mean anything. Every pair of lips I had kissed before, every woman that had laid beneath my hand … They had all felt similar, damn near identical to each other. Soft skin, softer lips. Kissing was kissing, and none of it ever meant a fucking thing. A means to an anticlimactic end.

  But Kylie’s lips, Kylie’s body. Kylie’s breath, and Kylie’s little gasps and whines … This. This was my first kiss. The others had only been practice to ensure that this one would be perfect beyond all comprehension. To ensure that when my tongue passed from my mouth and into hers, to taste her for the first time, I would know without a reasonable doubt that I was stoking a flame that would never die down, would never burn out. I knew, with every reverberation of a moan, that this was it.

  She was mine, and I was hers.

  And it meant everything.

  My hand pushed further up her shirt, gliding over paper-smooth skin and stopping just below her breast. My fingers dared to only whisper lightly over the warm curvature. It was uncharted territory, and I silently waited for permission to proceed. To know once and for all if she was as soft and perfect as she looked.

  “No,” she said against my lips, breaking the kiss I never wanted to end, and my confidence tanked.

  “What?” I asked, opening my eyes and wondering frantically what I had done wrong.

  Kylie took my hand in hers, interlacing our fingers, and pushed it lower, until my pinky finger rested over the waistband of the shorts she wore to bed. “Here,” she whispered against my mouth, but my confidence still wasn’t finding the boost it needed.

  “You go straight for the gold, huh?” I laughed uneasily, slowly running my fingertips over the fabric. Slipping them under just enough to find that she wasn’t wearing any panties. To feel her smooth, shaven skin. Buzzing with excitement and panting, I pressed my forehead to hers. “Holy fuck.”

  “Dev, please,” she begged, whining and spreading her legs. With her hand over mine, she pushed my fingers even lower, and together, we touched a place I could hardly fantasize about.

  I gasped at the heat emanating from her body, and with encouragement, I explored her arousal, feeling equal parts inadequate and blessed as hell that I could finally be the one to touch her, to hear her moan my name. My open mouth hung above hers, my forehead against hers, and my fingers moved lower and lower still.

  “What do you want, Kylie?” My voice was rough to my ears, unfamiliar. “Show me what you want me to do to you.”

  “Oh God.” Her fingers fluttered over mine, positioned them over the very source of her warmth, coaxing them inside. “This. I need this.”

  My groan was guttural, responding to the grip her body had around my fingers and my erection strained against the confines of my jeans, wanting so badly to replace my hand.

  With a shuddered moan, one hand coached me, while the other pushed into my hair, gripping and pulling me back to her lips. She kissed me with an urgent desperation, scraping her teeth along my lower lip, sucking my tongue into her mouth. The nerves had subsided and were pushed aside to make way for her animalistic need for pleasure and my eager desire to give it to her. To please her. To behave as the slave my heart had been to her for years.

  And at the bittersweet end, my mouth mimicked the manipulations of my hand—thrusting, circling, stroking, teasing—and her hips rose to meet my palm, until she erupted in a chorus of quivers and groans. Sobs and pulsations.

  Elated, I smiled against her lips, my labored breaths matching hers. I kissed her softly, at least a million times and wished there was time for a million more. When her orgasmic daze subsided, she smiled. Sighing as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “How was that for a first kiss?” I asked, grinning with more confidence than I knew what to do with.

  “Fuck, Devin,” she sighed breathlessly, her eyes blinking lazily as she looked into mine. “It was everything.”

  It really was.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kylie

  There are moments in my life I wish I could wipe from my memory.

  The first time I realized my father had a problem. Walking in on him, snorting a line of coke. The sight of his bloody nose. The razor. The mirror. His horrified expression when he saw me, standing in the open doorway of the living room.

  The moment I learned he was dead. Never to recover. Never to be a success story. The blacked-out emotional outburst, the shattered glass, the cuts on my hands. Devin, Devin, Devin … Holding me, cleaning my wounds, sweeping my floor.

  But this … Waking up with him for the first time, his sturdy chest against my cheek. His rhythmic heartbeat underneath my ear, playing the music of his life.

  I never wanted to forget this moment. Knowing what it was like to blink myself awake and see him above me, eyes closed and dreaming. What it was to feel his arm draped over me, fingers intertwined with mine; afraid to let go, even in sleep.

  I watched him, unsure of if I ever really had. Years of living together, years of being friends, and I wasn’t sure I had ever taken just a moment to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest or listen to the slow, even breaths he pulled in and out of his lungs. The gentle, almost endearing way he snored through lips that were just slightly parted.

  Lips I had spent the night before kissing and learning.

  I chewed my inner lip at the memory.

  We never did have sex. But, that delirious, delicious
moment in which he first kissed me, something had moved in my soul. Something that needed the utmost intimacy. Something possessive that needed to mark him with my body and my scent. Something that surprised me. I’d never been so bold before, with all those dull boyfriends I’d had over the years. Guys who couldn’t bring me to orgasm with their hands alone.

  I closed my eyes, reliving that moment when Devin, overcome by passion, clambered from the floor and onto the couch. Lying over me, grabbing my wrists and pinning them above my head. Pressing his solid erection between my open thighs, hooking my ankles around his waist. Sliding and grinding as his tongue memorized every corner of my mouth, every curve of my throat. Teasing ourselves with the imitation of something we both wanted but wouldn’t yet initiate—was it too soon?

  A little moan escaped my throat, remembering my hand, working between our writhing bodies, and grazing the length of his erection with the very tips of my fingers before unzipping his jeans. Sliding my hand under the waistband of his briefs, I had dragged my curious fingertips over him for the first time, closing my palm around him. Hot and hard, I tightened my grip as he thrust his hips. Assaulting my mouth, bruising my lips, as I returned the favor and brought him to a climax that left him ragged and shuddering against me.

  And then I smiled, recalling those powerful after-moments, when he had pressed his forehead to mine. Holding my face between his hands and whispering my name between jagged breaths. Making claims that he would never be with another woman for as long as he lived, and I believed him.

  I tightened my arm around his waist and hooked my leg around his. He’d fallen asleep in his work clothes. Worn, spackle-stained carpenter jeans, a heather grey t-shirt with his father’s logo. I burrowed my nose against his chest, inhaling his scent of sawdust and woodsy musk, and I sighed with one single thought invading my sated mind: This is it for me.