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This is my fault. I knew exactly what I was getting into, knew exactly how this would end, and I went along with it.
Why?
Because I thought I could convince Daisy she’s worthy of love? That the right man will want to stay with her forever?
That’s what I told myself. But it’s alarmingly clear now that I hoped she’d fall for me.
I don’t believe for a moment the other men she’s dated just left because they couldn’t take her workaholic nature. I believe they weren’t enough to be more important to her than her work. They couldn’t hold her attention.
I thought I’d be different.
I was dead wrong. And now I’m paying for it.
My body pulses with the need to get out of my skin and my head. The rumble of thunder warns against an outdoor run. And there’s only one other activity I can totally lose myself in.
Three hours later, every surface in the kitchen is covered with bowls of food. I’ve got three pots bubbling on the stove and a tray of roasting vegetables in the oven.
My chest still aches, unshed tears burn behind my eyes, and I want to scream at the world.
“Wow.” Honey walks into the kitchen in the black pants and matching polo shirt she wears to work in the diner, her black/blue hair up in some sort of Princess Leia, double-bun arrangement, eyes wide. “Are we having a party?”
“Daisy left.” I stir the pot of broth I’m making from all the vegetable scraps I didn’t use in the rest of my cooking. “And we’re going to need to go grocery shopping.
“I don’t need to go grocery shopping.” She sits at the kitchen island, pulls the huge tossed salad I made in front of her, and starts eating out of the bowl with her fingers. Which is going to get messy fast, considering I drenched everything in my homemade balsamic vinaigrette.
“Oh.” She closes her eyes and licks her fingers. “I want to drink this dressing. Where did you learn to cook like this? And why aren’t we making you cook for us every day?”
“Daisy. Left. She’s not coming back.”
The empathy in the look she gives me makes my gut churn. “I know. She told me before I left for work. I’ll probably never forgive her for bailing on the battle of the bands, but that’s likely to be a total clusterfuck anyway because someone told the Sullivan cousins about it. The whole family will probably show up and some of them can actually carry a tune and play an instrument.”
The Westons and all their cousins are notoriously competitive. The Sullivan cousins are viciously so and good at pretty much everything they attempt.
Now that Levi’s moved back to town, I wouldn’t be surprised if his brothers move here too.
“And the not coming back part?”
She stretches out a hand to me. “Give me a fork.”
I sigh, but I grab a fork and a bowl and hand them over. “Use the salad tongs and put it in a separate bowl. That’s what they’re there for.”
She fills her bowl to nearly overflowing. “She’ll be back.”
Her words give me hope and I hate it. Hope has never worked out well for me. “Is this something you’re ‘sensing?’”
She shrugs, her smile mysterious. “With the way you can cook, I don’t know why she’d ever leave.”
I slide the casserole dish with the stuffed pasta shells and homemade marinara sauce over to her. I can’t eat a bite. Her reassurance is doing nothing to make me feel better.
If I was enough for Daisy, if she loved me the way I love her, she never would have been able to leave.
Honey grins up at me and digs in like everything is right in her world.
I envy her. I don’t think anything in my world will ever be right again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Daisy
