by Zoe Lee
“Remember that you’re going to have to pick: Cubs or White Sox,” Dunk intoned deadly seriously.
“Finish quitting smoking,” Leda said, trying to sound cavalier.
“You should go to the Art Institute,” Seth suggested. “They have a whole building of modern art and it’s… yeah, you’ll love it.”
“Get a credit card that earns air miles,” Aden suggested practically, but there was a catch in his voice as he finished, “so you can come back soon.”
At that, Leda burst into tears and Jamie, instead of wrapping his arms around her tightly the way he would’ve any other time, pushed her gently into Jesse’s arms. He stood up, his back popping sharply in the hushed air beside the lake.
“I’m going to go tuck these two in for one last sleepover at the Dogwood and then head home. Come on, now,” he murmured, helping Leda and Jesse stand. “We’ve got to say goodnight before dawn.”
Without thought, they all surged forward, hugging each other and cocooning Jesse in the center. She gave in, sagging against Munn and Leda, and sniffled a little bit, but no one would’ve dreamt of pointing that out.
Daisy whispered, “I’ll text you fun facts and memes and all you have to do is send me a snapshot of whatever cool Chicago big city girl thing you’re looking at, okay? I love you and you’re going to be so happy.”
“I love you,” Jesse whispered, crushing Daisy even closer before jerking back and wiping the back of her hand under her nose.
Dunk wordlessly handed out tissues. When Jamie began to gently but inexorably herd the others away, Dunk murmured to Daisy, “We’re not leaving with everyone else, . I’ve got plans for you tonight.”
“Okay,” Daisy breathed, seriously not sure that she had the energy or happiness for one of Dunk’s plans. But she wouldn’t let him down, not when he’d barely taken a minute out of playing the boisterous best friend to process the importance of the night.
Dunk suddenly turned almost green and bolted for Jamie’s truck, skidding into the passenger door as Jamie put the truck into gear, lights switching on. He tripped back to get the door open, unusually clumsy, and flung himself inside, scrambling up the running board.
“I’m going to miss you so fucking much,” she heard him tell Jesse. “Chase helped me install Skype so that we can be cool Skypers.”
“We will be cool Skypers,” Jesse promised, grunting, probably because Dunk squeezed her like a boa constrictor. “It’s okay, Coach.”
“I’m okay, it’s okay, sorry,” Dunk babbled, tumbling back out of the truck and, after a thudding set of heartbeats, he shut the door and stepped back. His chest rose and fell in jagged lines, like a heartbeat monitor, and his hands were in fists as he walked slowly back down to Daisy.
“Come here,” Daisy murmured, holding out her arms.
Dunk sank onto her, burying his hot face in her neck and just breathing for a long while, as Daisy slid her hand through his hair over and over after she tugged off his baseball cap. She might’ve murmured reassuring nonsense now and then, but she was mostly focused on the solid weight of him on her right half, on the softness of his hair between her fingers, on the way his grip on her eased over long minutes.
“I still have a surprise for you, Daisy Rhys,” he said, rolling off her and onto the ground to make her laugh, before he popped onto his feet. “Come on,” he prompted when she eyeballed him, exhausted now. “How about I give you a piggyback ride, huh?”
He turned around and patted his lower back invitingly.
“I never say no to piggyback rides,” Daisy declared, reaching for her optimism, and carefully climbed onto the lawn chair so she could reach Dunk’s back. She gripped him between her thighs and wrapped her arms around his chest, his hands sliding through the bends in her knees to hook her in place. “When on earth did you have time to plan something?”
Dunk chuckled, angling not towards Tristan’s house but towards the magnificent, cabin-like treehouse that Tristan and Jamie had built earlier in the summer. It was supposed to be for Jamie’s son Hunter, but Daisy knew everyone secretly still loved the idea of a treehouse clubhouse.
As they got closer to it, Daisy saw that it was lit up, tiny votive candles flickering in the windows that didn’t have glass panes.
She gasped and then squeaked when Dunk just started climbing the ladder with Daisy still on his back, scaling it without any extra effort.
She half-fell off his shoulders, throwing a knee over his head to land on all fours on the floor of the treehouse when Dunk reached the top of the ladder.
He laughed when his head and shoulders came through the hole and he saw her, telling her, “You know I love that position, Daisy Rhys, but you can’t distract me from the surprise I planned. Sit down now.”
Absently sitting, Daisy looked around, wide-eyed. Beautiful, tiny flames flickered above glowing vanilla-scented votives, and there was a thick, soft knitted blanket with a half dozen throw pillows heaped up. There was an open picnic basket with some chips and salsa, Shelly’s fruit salad, and a collection of baked goods clearly pilfered from the cafe.
Suddenly anxiety pitched in Daisy’s stomach.
This was so romantic, so prepared, almost like he was going to….
Her breath caught. She wasn’t ready for a proposal—they weren’t ready—but… what else could this be? Oh God, she thought, am I going to have to tell him not yet, tonight, on Jesse’s last night living in Maybelle?
But he crawled next to her, the ceiling still barely six feet so he couldn’t fully stand anyway, and then sat cross-legged facing her. He brushed the curls that had escaped her braid over the course of the night back and then tugged something out from behind one of the pillows.
“That’s my teacup,” Daisy said stupidly in surprise.
It was delicate and almost fluted, so that it looked a little bit like a blooming tulip, and it was mostly white with tiny green finials and tiny buds. She hadn’t made too many of the teacups, but it was a new thing she’d been trying with her pottery. They weren’t as funky as her usual ceramics, but they were a challenge, and they were beautiful.
“Hold it, please,” Dunk said.
When she took it from him, she saw something coiled up on the bottom. Her brows knitting together, she fished it out.
The most delicate gold necklace she’d ever seen spun from her fingertip to the bottom of the teacup, glinting in the candlelight. At the bottom, a tiny gold circle with a tiny red stone hung.
“It’s called a—”
“Fairy ring,” Daisy breathed.
“Yeah,” Dunk said, pleased she’d known instead of pouting that she’d spoiled his surprise.
Then, abrupt and enthusiastic as ever, he swooped in and took it from her, fumbling it open with his big fingers and thumbs to clasp it around her neck. It was long enough that the fairy ring nestled in her cleavage, and he stroked it with his thumb, staring at where it lay intently.
“I almost got you a promise ring, but Jesse said that was too cheesy even for me,” Dunk mumbled, eyes still fixed to the jewelry.
Daisy heaved in a breath, the ring teetering between the mounds of her breasts. “Dunk—” she began urgently.
“I got an interview at MCH,” Dunk blurted out, startling her so badly that she finally looked up at him and met his eyes, half-crazed with determination and nerves. Her mouth fell open, but he explained, “Not, like, a newspaper interview. A job interview. For a physical therapist. It’s, uh, you know it’s what I studied in college. And they have an opening there, and it would be way cooler than making sure smelly teenagers don’t put too much weight on the bar and crush themselves.
“But before I go, I want to make sure that sounds good to you,” he went on, rambling, the words scrambling one over the other off his tongue. “Because I get it now, or I’m starting to. It’s not just me, making decisions alone. It affects you and, and our life, so I don’t want to go to it if you don’t think that sounds good. Uh, I can still be the football coach, Pri
ncipal Lee says there’s still a weak-ass stipend and there’s nothing in the by-laws or whatever for the schools that says only a teacher can coach.”
“Dunk, that sounds so—”
“And if I take that, then there’s this cabin—no, I mean cottage, it’s a cottage, near the back fields of Billy Davidson’s spread that’s for rent. Three bedrooms, basement, with this barn out back. It’s kind of rickety but Tristan says it won’t take much work to do up as a studio—”
“Dunk,” Daisy finally cried, slamming her hand over his mouth.
His eyes sprang open so wide she thought his eyeballs could fall out.
She hastily said, “Take a deep breath, baby. You’re jumping around. Are you…. are you… I mean, what are you doing here? Is this just a nice, uh, long speech to go along with giving me a necklace?”
Dunk actually gulped and then laughed ruefully.
“Sorry,” he apologized, taking a breath. “I was just going to give you the necklace. I had this whole speech about how it’s a symbol, you know, a fairy ring for my fairy princess, how I’m not just in love with you, I’m here for you. I was just going to say I want to start building our life, Daisy, because I get that love is critical, here, for this, but there’s more too, like where to live and proving that I’m responsible and that I have ambitions.”
“I know that,” Daisy promised softly, stroking his stubble.
“But then you gave me this freaked-out look like you thought I was about to propose to you,” Dunk forged on determinately. “And I wasn’t going to; I’m stupid but not clueless. And I didn’t want you to freak out so I started to explain, but I spewed out some crap about a job and a place we could maybe look at and see if you like it, if you want to rent it—”
Love—and relief, because she wasn’t nearly ready to talk about marrying him yet—sent Daisy into a fit of giggles, her hand going back over his mouth. “Ssh, don’t start that up all over again, baby.”
He tried to blow out a breath, his cheeks puffing up, but her hand prevented him from releasing the air very well. The air sort of whistled against her hand, high-pitched but somehow still ridiculous.
His face cracked into that big, goofy grin she loved so much.
“What I’m trying to say,” Dunk said, his words more deliberately measured now, once he’d drawn back from her hand, “is that I got you a fairy ring necklace because you’re my girlfriend, but it’s not high school, so I’m not just going to give you my letterman jacket. I picked the fairy ring because you’re my fairy princess, Daisy Rhys, magical and tiny, but so incredibly powerful. And you may look like pure goodness, but I know you have some wicked fairy in there, too.”
So incredibly touched, Daisy’s fingers came up to cover the necklace, the gold warm now from the heat of her body. Her eyes filled up with tears for about the hundredth time that day.
“And I wanted to tell you, again, when we’re not in the Shelby on the highway, that I am going to learn how to be the best partner in the whole damn universe for you, Daisy. I know we can do this. We can use our playbook to stay a team, to stay strong, to move towards the endzone as fast or as slow as we want, but, you know, moving in the right direction.”
Daisy’s heart was jackhammering so hard in her chest that she thought that if she were to look down at her brand new, beautiful fairy ring necklace, she’d see it vibrating against her skin.
Daisy had been proposed to and she’d been given marriage vows. Those words, no matter how sincere, hadn’t been supported by experience or any true understanding of how hard it was to love someone all of the time, to get along with them and support them. Even when support and love meant yelling at each other or telling the other some harsh truths.
But Duncan McCoy, Daisy knew that he fully comprehended what he was promising, what he was telling her again that he was committed to building with her. It was love, but it was also dedication, stability, and—of course—the full measure of his enthusiasm, optimism, and great sense of humor. It was, for her, much more meaningful than a proposal.
So she got her heartbeat under control and beamed radiantly up at him while she tilted her head thoughtfully. She blinked, long and slow and coy, and gave him back one of his first, funniest come-ons.
“Depends on what exactly the endzone is in this metaphor,” she drawled.
It took him a couple of seconds, but then he grinned fit to split his face and lunged across their knees to catch her mouth in a deep, messy, exuberant kiss. “In this metaphor,” he chuckled against her lips, “the endzone is a happy lifetime with me, Daisy Rhys, my princess.”
The End.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my husband first, not just for supporting me, but for inspiring me with his dad-level puns. Also for being a great editor; the commentary is worthy of a comic strip.
Warmest love and appreciation for my mom, who was nearly the first beta reader to finish, and for Lorrie, who’s seriously the coolest mom-in-law.
Thank you to Candace for being my best friend and an amazing sounding board, and for patiently reminding me that I am funny.
To Karen Ferry, for being the very first author to reach out to me just to say hi. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy our friendship and how enthusiastic and supportive you’ve been.
Shout out to Staci, for being Dunk’s earliest fan and promising me that I could in fact write a whole story about him.
Huge thanks to my beta readers Matt, Nan, Lorrie, Candace, Karen, and Amanda, your input is always so meaningful.
Thank you to all of the bloggers and readers. I’m so awkward online, but I promise I appreciate you all to bits and pieces, not just for supporting me, but for supporting all of the authors you love.
Also By Zoe Lee
Pour Your Heart Out
Chase Cade is as untethered as a kite without a string.
The minute she drives past the “Welcome to Maybelle” sign after six months traveling, she knows the quaint little town is something new entirely. It’s more than the good food and welcoming people -- with the exception of the gruff bartender she meets her first night out.
Aden Riveau couldn’t be more rooted in Maybelle if he were an actual tree.
In a town that caters to tourists, his bar is the only place the locals have all to themselves. Everyone knows him and he knows everyone, and nothing spoils his peace more than having to deal with nosy, gawking tourists who don’t stick around.
She’s only in Maybelle for a vacation, and he’s never taken a vacation in his life. He can’t stop thinking about how different she is, and she can’t stop trying to figure him out. But her reservation has an end, and his never will, unless he can find a way to pour his heart out.
Fifteen Nights
The deeper they look, the harder they fall.
Jamie Houston was supposed to just be Leda Riveau’s Thursday night (and maybe Friday morning) fun.
After a romantic and professional disaster three years ago in Nashville, Leda is back in her hometown of Maybelle County. She has a great job, awesome brothers, and friends as allergic to emotions as she is. That's all the sweetness she needs to go along with the bitter taste Nashville left in her mouth.
After all, a girl with her own hashtag - #ledagoesnuclear - cannot be expected to do relationships, no matter what her brothers think.
Jamie is a serial monogamist with a three-year-old son and a long commute--he's not afraid to commit. Although the timing has never been right, he's always had a thing for Leda. He knows full well she doesn't do serious, but that was before the tension between them became explosive.
What starts out as a casual Thursday night arrangement gets messy fast between interfering friends, an amazing son, a sad brother, a pushy mom, and chemistry so intense it’s scary.
How does a man who needs forever win a woman who hates romance?
About the Author
Zoe has been writing since she was a little girl, growing up north of Chicago. Since then, she's lived i
n Ohio and San Francisco, and now lives near Boulder. She has a job that she loves, but it doesn't sound exciting to anyone else. She does yoga and takes dance classes when she can. She has a husband, who reads her romances, and an amazing little girl, who is way too young to read what Zoe writes (yet). She's inspired by her family and friends, books and art, and all of the places she's traveled.
Connect with Zoe Lee
https://www.facebook.com/ZoeLeeBooks/
@zoelee_books
@Zoe_Lee_Books
http://www.zoeleebooks.com/
