‘Yes, she is.’
‘I think we convinced her.’
Convinced her that this fake thing was real. But Elliot didn’t need to pretend. He hadn’t been pretending for a long time. Maybe ever.
Maybe Daisy didn’t believe that he could fall in love with her. Maybe she thought he was following old patterns, but every second spent with her proved Daisy’s theory wrong. And what was he supposed to do? Go date a bunch of other women just so he could come back to Daisy and tell her he wanted her for real, that he didn’t like her just because she grabbed him that day in the flower shop?
‘Should we head to the bonfires?’ Daisy asked.
‘Sure.’
She took his hand, and they weaved through the throngs of people, and Elliot wished he could relax. He wished he could hook up or make out or whatever the hell other people did just for the fun of it. He’d replayed their fuck-buddy conversation a million times in his head since that night. He was sure he should have handled it differently, should have given Daisy what she wanted, settled for just sex. But justkissingDaisy this afternoon had made him want to drop to his knees and promise to be by her side forever. He wished he could detach from his feelings, but he couldn’t.
HelikedDaisy.
More than he should. More than he planned on. And in true Elliot fashion he was blowing this whole thing up way bigger than it needed to be.
And now that they’d made it to the night when everyone hooked up, he didn’t know if he could go through with it. At least not without accidentally proclaiming his feelings for Daisy and scaring her away for good.
ChapterTwenty-Three
Elliot’s flower crown was askew. It sat crooked on his head as he stared into the Beltane bonfire. His dark hair contrasted sharply with the white petals of the daisies, and his cheeks were pink from the warmth of the fire. When he turned to look at her, his eyes were bright with excitement behind his glasses, their lenses reflecting the flames.
Daisy was going to reach up and fix the crown, but she liked it this way, a little crooked, a little messy. Elliot looked playful and undone. He looked like maybe she’d found him dancing in the forest, celebrating the coming of summer, lush and full of life.
‘This is fun,’ he said, gesturing to where townsfolk were walking and skipping and dancing between the two fires, some with their pets in tow, to protect them in the coming year. ‘I mean, historically speaking it’s not exactly accurate. I don’t think the ancient Celts cared much about blessing their pet iguanas, and I’m pretty sure this “May wine” is just sangria…’ He lifted his plastic cup and some of the wine sloshed over the rim. Daisy wondered just how many refills he’d had. ‘But it’s reallyfun.’
Daisy smiled at him in agreement. They were set up on an old blanket she’d thrown in her bag this afternoon. Plenty of other groups and couples were seated on the grass as well, with the two fires in the center. It was fully dark now, the sky above them dotted with stars, and the fingernail crescent moon hung just above the treetops.
She leaned against Elliot’s side, and he put his arm around her, surrounding her with his warmth and she didn’t know anymore what she was doing but she knew she liked Elliot’s arm around her. She liked how he looked at her and how he kissed her. She liked how he made her feel safe and wanted.
Daisy liked a lot of things about Elliot, but she didn’t want to add him to her list of mistakes. She didn’t want to run into him a year from now and have to call him an ex (would she call him that if this whole thing stayedfake?). Running into David and Matthew simultaneously had been a timely reminder of how much she’d screwed up her love life in the past.
And she’d meant what she told Elliot when she’d proposed a friends-with-benefits situation. She was too tired to try again. She was just coming back to life after a year of mourning her last failed relationship.
Falling into another one was a mistake.
Right?
She sighed and Elliot held her closer.
She leaned against him and tried not to think about the future. Things never seemed to work out for her there.
Maybe she wouldn’t think about how this thing ended. Because all thingsdidend. Daisy had been sure she’d found this before, this feeling, this connection with another person, and she’d been wrong every time. That was what she’d tried to tell Elliot the night he made her come harder than either of her exes ever had. But orgasms alone didn’t make for lasting relationships.
She couldn’t put her heart on the line again.
But as she sat snuggled close to Elliot, she couldn’t help but wonder: had being with David ever felt like this? Had Matthew ever made her feel safe? She didn’t know anymore.
Beyond the fires, on the stage, Cliff’s Midnight Dreamers started up, playing Celtic music on fiddles and drums, and was that Norm on the accordion?
‘They’re pretty good,’ Elliot said, his mouth close to her ear, his breath warm on her skin.
‘They really are!’
Alex from the bookstore was wailing on the fiddle and soon Cliff joined in with a surprisingly deep and soothing singing voice. The crowd was up and dancing, abandoning their blankets and gleefully grabbing partners to swing wildly around in a dance that no one really knew, but everyone pretended to.
‘Should we dance?’ Elliot whispered against her ear.
