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I shift. Daisy’s the only person in the world—other than my brother—who gets what we went through as kids, because I’ve always been straight with her about it. Some people figure if you have money, you have everything, but it’s not like that at all. “It was a watch of our dad's. He left it to me before he went. I never told anyone. But Tris used to look at it, back when our dad was stillaround.”
Her fingers thread through mine and she squeezes my hand. “That’s sweet of you. What’s going on with you and Trislately?”
I shake my head, wishing I could use our point of connection to draw her closer. “He’s had a bigger chip on his shoulder since Mom checked herself into rehab. He accused me of being the good son. He’s too young to remember how things were. With her, I can be patient, but by the time I’m done dealing with her, I don’t have it in me to deal withhim.”
Daisy cocks her head, eyeing me over her drink. “You can love your family. Doesn’t mean you have to likethem.”
I can’t do anything but stare at her, because right when I’m feeling off without knowing why, there she is, fucking gettingme.
“Ben and Daisy! We need to grill you.” Kendall and Rena appear, and they drag us back to the booth with theguys.
This is the moment we’ve been preparingfor.
I hold Daisy’s hand as we head back to the booth, aware every step of the feel of her fingers throughmine.
“So,” Hunter says, “how’d you start dating? Because you’ve known each other a long damn time to make the changenow.”
We exchange alook.
Stick close to the truth. “I needed D to help me with a problem with my…” I trail off. Maybe it's the long week that has my brain stuttering to come up with alie.
Her eyes widen on mine, and she’s on the same wavelength. “Bomb."
“Bomb?” I mouth, and she shakes herhead.
“Yes,” she goes on slowly. “Ben got one of those bath bombs as part of a corporate gift. You know, the kind you drop under the water? And he didn’t know how to useit.”
DearGod.
My best friend is either a worse liar than I thought or a sadist, because the guys are dying of laughter and the women are keeling over on their highheels.
“So you explained it to him?” Renadrawls.
Fuck me and my engineeringdegree.
Daisy tries to pull her hand away and I tighten my grip.Hell no.I didn’t need to wear a Boss suit and drag my ass to a club to have a woman to cut my balls off in front of ourfriends.
“I knew how to use it. But I invited her over to demonstrate in person. Turned out she’d been wanting to get me naked for a long time.” I rub my thumb against her palm and shesquirms.
“He did,” she answers levelly. “See, Ben’s had this mole on his back he wouldn’t let anyone check, including his doctor,so…”
Tris is wiping his damp eyes, and that’s fucking it. I'm taking his birthday gift back, because he's getting more than his money's worth laughing at me, courtesy of my fake girl and—after tonight—ex-bestfriend.
I drag her closer, bend my lips to her ear. “You’re going down forthis.”
“Sounds epic,” Hunter says when they stop laughing long enough to respond. “So why did it take you guys so long to gettogether?”
This time, we’re both caught in theheadlights.
It’s a legit question. I let her answer, because I’m honestly curious what she’llsay.
“When you get comfortable with someone who accepts you as you are,” she says, her hand tightening in mine, “it’s hard to change the scope of a relationship. It's a risk. You put your heart on the line, everything you've built, everything you said you wanted just byasking.”
I turn that over. She’s not wrong. As usual, she sees beneath the surface way too damneasily.
Daisy leaves to use the bathroom. After another round of drinks at the booth, I excuse myself to track her down. I find her in a corner, frowning at her phone. I know without asking she'sworking.
“I had a dinner tonight about Aiden Vane," Isay.
