Daisy shut her front door behind her and looked around the dark entryway of her own house. Jonathan could’ve taken the house from her. Hestillcould. She wasn’t going to be able to afford to pay for it on her own. He could afford to pay for both houses. He could afford to pay for two women. Maybe that was where she had made the mistake. A man who could afford two lives ...
He’s really just living the one.
She took a breath and flicked the lights on. The kids couldn’t come home to a place looking like a mausoleum where the remains of her old life were trapped for all eternity.
She also wasn’t entirely in the mood to see her ex. She felt complicated about him right now. Today, when she’d been faced with the thought of cursing him, giving him his just deserts, her old feelings for him held her back, and it had her mixed up.
Anyway, it wasn’t like he would know she had opted not to curse him, and he wouldn’t thank her if he did know.
If she asked Jonathan, he would absolutely say magic wasn’t real. He didn’t like to entertain the idea that Bigfoot might exist (Where are the bones, Daisy?) or that intelligent life might be out there (Who cares? Even if there is, maybe they don’t know about us either) or that the B&B they stayed at on their fifth anniversary felt haunted (It’s an old house; it was creaky). It had always annoyed her, mainly because it just felt arrogant.
Jonathan McNamara, always with the answer. Always logical.
Not that Daisy considered herself overly whimsical. But she wasn’t ... Jonathan. Jonathan liked what he could see. What he could touch with his hands.
Including other women, it turned out.
She resented that whenever she thought of him, she thought ofher. Of the betrayal. Their relationship didn’t and couldn’t stand on its own. They’d had so many years where he hadn’t had affairs and—
Hadthey? That insidious thought burrowed deep into her brain and wouldn’t let up.
He was her high school sweetheart. The love of her life. She’d thought she was his.
What did she actually know about him at all? What did she know about her own life? It was such a humiliating thought. She didn’t have time to marinate on it, though, because almost the moment it occurred to her, she heard tires in the driveway. She pasted a smile on her face, turned around, and put her hand on the doorknob.
“Someone,something, give me strength.” Then she pulled the door open, attempting to smile as brightly as the sun. Her smile faltered, only a little bit, when she saw Amberly sitting in the passenger seat looking perky from her smile to her boobs.
Daisy locked her back teeth together and tried to come up with a mantra. She liked a mantra. She didn’t like feeling out of control.
I can’t control anyone but myself. I can’t control anyone but myself.
Jonathan got out, and thankfully Amberly stayed put even as she waved wildly.
She was just ... obvious, that woman. Like it didn’t seem to occur to her that Daisy might not want to be besties with her—not that they’d ever spoken alone. But she had once commented very sincerely that she took the role ofbonus momvery seriously, and Daisy’d had to stop herself from saying something heinous.
Even so, Daisy couldn’t help but wave back, then lowered her hand like it had betrayed her, as the kids tumbled out of the pickup one by one.
Maybetumbledwas the wrong word. They practically levitated. The kind of energy that spoke to sugar and Red 40 vibrating their tiny bodies straight from the truck into the house.
“Dad got a VR!” Avery shouted on his way past her.
“I played it.” Wren hopped over the threshold and kicked her mismatched rain boots off (it wasn’t raining).
“I don’t feel good.” Alden staggered after his siblings, clutching his stomach in an overdramatic fashion.
“Hello to you too,” she said. “I hope you had a good day.”
“The best.” Alden grinned, suddenly just fine, the red ring around his lips confirming what she had thought. Sugared up. And returned home. Definitely responsible for whatever tummy ache he was currently stricken with.
Then Alden disappeared around the corner after his siblings, leaving her with their dad.
She peered past the kids, at Jonathan, who was standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking so familiar and handsome it made the back of her throat ache.
But just behind him in the car, staring at her phone, was the woman he had chosen instead of her. Instead of their life.
She was ... taking a selfie, her head pressed to the back of the passenger window as she pursed her lips into a pout and held her phone up at an angle.
Daisy gazed back at Jonathan.
