Daisies & Devin Read online

  Daisies

  & Devin

  a novel by

  Kelsey Kingsley

  COPYRIGHT

  © 2018 Kelsey Kingsley

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  Cover: Danny Manzella

  Editor: Jessica Blaikie

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For all of those who have influenced me—

  Thank you for inspiring me to dream.

  “It is a happiness to wonder;

  —it is a happiness to dream.”

  -Edgar Allan Poe

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Dear Reader,

  John Mayer once said that some of his songs are written specifically for the fans, while others are written entirely with himself in mind. I think some people would hear something like that and think, wow, what a selfish guy. But I get it. Because this book? It was written entirely with me in mind.

  I wanted to pay tribute to my favorite things: music, literature, daisies, black cats and tattoos. I wanted to tip my hat to a few of my greatest influencers, Stephen King, John Mayer and of course, Edgar Allan Poe.

  I set out to write a real-life journey, a love story, about dreams and the impact they can have when they come true. And I’m not going to lie; this was difficult for me to write. It was a rollercoaster of emotional torment and, from what my beta readers have said, it wasn’t easy to read. It’s not meant to be.

  Life, love, dreams—none of them are easy.

  But all of them are worth the journey.

  Kelsey

  PROLOGUE

  2006

  “So. How’s life, kiddo?” Dad wrapped an arm around me as I sat on the basement couch with him. “I feel like it’s been months since you’ve been around here.” He felt that way because it had been.

  “Yeah, I know Daddy,” I said, fidgeting with my shirt. “I’ve been really busy.”

  He nodded erratically. He was sweating, and his nose was running.

  He was using again. I could tell.

  “Oh, right, right, right. I know.” He patted my shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’m so proud of you, you know that?”

  I nodded, smiling. “I know.”

  “Damn,” he continued, tipping his head back against the couch. His chest rapidly lifted and fell with his breath. “I can’t believe my baby girl is going to be a college graduate next year. I can’t believe that, one day soon, you’re going to open your very own coffee shop and make your old dad the meanest Frappalatte, or whatever the hell they call those things.”

  I laughed. “It’s Frappuccino Daddy, and I won’t be making that yuppy crap. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” he said, staring at me through half-hooded, dilated eyes. “My little girl wouldn’t sell out like that.”

  He pulled me down to nestle against his shoulder. “So, come on Ky … tell your old man what’s been going on in your life. What’ve you been doing? How’s Brooke? Been to any wicked parties lately? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  The questions dropped on top of me rapidly as he speed-talked his way through the verbal barrage. I swallowed, making a note to ask Mom why the rehab hadn’t worked—again. If we should find somewhere new for him to go. If we should chain him to their bed and never let him leave. Ever.

  If maybe, just maybe, we should let it get the best of him.

  But then I smiled, relaxing against him at the thought of his last question. “I did meet a guy.”

  Dad squeezed around my shoulders. “Ooh,” he teased. “What’s his name? How long have you been dating? When do I get to meet him? Tell me, tell me, tell me.”

  “Well,” I said, shrugging and suddenly bashful, “his name is Devin, and he’s not—”

  “Devin, huh?” Dad nodded his approval. “I like it. What’s his last name?”

  “Uh, O’Leary, but—”

  “O-Lear-y,” he said slowly, enunciating the syllables, scrutinizing as though he could discern his character by the sound of his last name. “He’s got the luck o’ the Irish, does he?” he asked in the worst accent I’d ever heard, and I laughed with a roll of my eyes. “Is he a short little Leprechaun?” he teased.

  At that, I guffawed and shook my head. “Oh God no. He’s freakin’ tall. Like, six-foot-five or something.”

  “Whoa,” Dad said, suddenly serious. “That’s a tall guy you got there. Does he take care of you?”

  I thought about the year of friendship I’d spent with Devin. The weekly movie nights, the talks, the walks around campus and the songs he played on his old guitar. The time he rescued me from that jerk at the party that started it all. And I smiled, letting my mind focus on the memories. On the silver linings against the persistent and dark, stormy clouds in my life.

  “Yeah, Daddy, he’s a really good guy,” I said nodding, not having the heart to tell him that he wasn’t actually my boyfriend. Dad seemed so excited, that I’d finally found someone nice and good to call mine, so, I let him believe it.

  “That’s good,” he said, nodding. “That’s really good. You deserve a good guy, honey. Not like your old dad.”

  My lips twitched and my eyebrows drooped with the impact of the comment. “You are a good guy, Daddy,” I said, wishing there was more sincerity in my voice. “You really are,” I added, hoping so badly that it was enough.

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m not a good guy. I haven’t been a good guy for a long time, but … I do what I can, right? I pay the bills. I love you and your mother. That’s the best I can do at this point.” He was nodding incessantly, reassuring himself, that barely coasting along was as good as it could get.

  We were silent for a few moments. Me, slumped against my father in his basement den, wishing I was with my friend and not there. Him, breathing unsteadily and furrowing his brows, the way he did when he was thinking.

  “Hey,” he finally said after minutes of quiet, shaking my shoulders. “Hey, I need to tell you something.�
��

  I turned my head to look up at him. “Yeah?”

  He tapped my nose with his pointer finger. “I’m sorry for the hell I’ve put you and your mother through. I know I never say that, but … I wanted you to know, okay? I’m sorry. I know it’s not easy. I know it’s not …”

  I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to make him feel bad. I didn’t want to feel bad. “Daddy, it’s fine—”

  “Kylie, it’s not fine. It’s not. But it is what it is. I am who I am, and I’m sorry for it.” His voice was edged and harsh, and my lips tightened, afraid to speak. Afraid I’d cry and make him feel worse. Push him further down into that grisly spiral of chaos and cocaine. “The best I can do is help you out where I can, like the coffee shop and the savings account.”

  I wanted to smile at the thought of the savings account Dad and I had been putting money into for years. The savings account that would buy me my coffee shop after graduation. It was the dream we’d brewed together, on our walks to and from the beach. During our infrequent visits at the rehab center. I wanted to feel the satisfaction of hope for the future, and I felt none.

  “Kylie,” he said, “I want you to promise me that you’ll turn out okay and chase that dream of yours, despite all of this shit.”

  “Daddy, I am okay,” I insisted.

  He shook his head again. “If you were okay, you’d be here more often. You’d bring your boyfriend around.”

  “W-we’re busy.”

  “Kylie, just promise me, okay?”

  I swallowed, and my eyes wandered up to the ceiling. “Okay, I promise.”

  “Good. And promise me that you’ll never settle for less than perfect from any man that you’re with, even this guy Devin. Promise me you’ll always make sure they treat you right.”

  “God, Dad …” I groaned, rolling my eyes. “Isn’t that your job? To intimidate my boyfriends?” I teased, glancing up at him.

  Dad’s expression was unreadable. Sad, angry, doubtful. It broke my heart, and It scared me.

  “Promise me,” he repeated.

  I inhaled the stuffy air of the basement, longing to be upstairs. Outside. Back at college.

  “Yeah, Daddy,” I said. “Yeah, I promise.”

  He nodded, satisfied, and he kissed my temple. “That’s my girl. I love you, you know that?”

  My heart ached as I rested my head back on his shoulder, hating so much that I wanted to be anywhere but there with him.

  “I love you too, Daddy,” I said, hoping so badly that it was enough.

  PART ONE

  In visions of the dark night

  I have dreamed of joy departed—

  But a waking dream of life and light

  Hath left me broken-hearted.

  -Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream”

  CHAPTER ONE

  2005

  Devin

  Most people would say her hair was purple.

  I guess they wouldn’t have been wrong in that assessment, and at first glance, that’s exactly what crossed my mind: That chick has purple hair.

  But the longer I stared at her, clutching the neck of my untouched bottle of beer, the more I saw the complexity of the color. Shimmering violets, illustrious indigos, royal and dark. Purple Mountain’s Majesty. It glimmered gemstones every time she turned her head underneath the old wagon-wheel chandelier in whoever-the-fuck’s house it was and my mouth quirked at the side, as “Mr. Polo” kept trying to grab her attention. He failed, every single time.

  Could I really blame him? No. Not really. She was the type of girl whose attention you wanted. The type that makes you wonder if she’s daring in ways other than her choice of hair color.

  And then, there was his type—Mr. Polo, with his perfectly gelled hair and pressed pants. A piece of Ivy League scum, waving around a wad of his daddy’s money.

  Okay, maybe I was only assuming he was Ivy League. That was up for debate. I couldn’t discern his intelligence at first glance, but I could tell from that little alligator embroidered on his shirt that he had money.

  Guys like that look down on blue-collar guys like me, and they don’t have any real interest in girls like her. Guys like that, only want another notch in their belt. Guys like that, never pick up on the complexity of hair color, of those strands of glistening, purple-hued sapphires.

  They can't.

  That was my job, apparently.

  My cousin, Trent—the reason I was even at this lame party in the first place—nudged my arm with the back of his hand. “So, uh … are you just gonna eye-fuck her all night and let that douchebag have a crack at her, or are you gonna go over there?”

  “She’s not leaving with him,” I snickered, tightening my fist around the bottle of my now-warm beer.

  Trent shrugged, bringing the mouth of his to his lips. “Sure she isn’t.” He rolled his eyes as he tipped it back, swallowing half of it down in one gulp. He sighed his satisfaction and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s pretty hot.”

  “Mm,” I mumbled my reply with a slow nod of my head.

  God, she really was, but … it went beyond hot. I was too far away from her to see the fine details, and the light was too dim, but I could tell from where I stood, that she was of unusual beauty.

  So unusual in fact, that she had held my attention for the entire twenty minutes since we’d arrived.

  She was too polite to give Mr. Polo the cold shoulder, but her disinterest in whatever he was saying was laughable.

  “Can’t he take a hint?” I muttered to Trent, but mostly to myself, and he shrugged again, downing the other half of his second beer.

  “Maybe you could go give him one … you fucking pussy.”

  My eyes rolled in his direction. “You and I both know, I’m not a pussy.”

  “Which is why I don’t understand why you’re standing over here, and not talking to this fucking chick you’ve been eyeballing all night.”

  “All night,” I echoed. “Give me a break. You act like we’ve been here for hours.”

  I shifted my gaze back to her. She was rummaging in a black bag for something. The bag was emblazoned with patches and buttons, a few from bands I recognized, and my lips twitched with the beginnings of a grin.

  What the fuck was my problem anyway? I was perfectly capable of playing the game; find a chick at a party, or wherever, whisk her away, show her a good time. For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t what I’d call a man-whore, I didn’t sleep around on a weekly basis like my jackass of a cousin, but I wasn’t a stranger to a one-night stand either.

  So, what the fuck was keeping me from walking over there and working my magic on her?

  I asked myself this question, as I swallowed around my tightly knotted ball of nerves, but, I already knew the answer. She wasn’t the type of girl you bang and run. I knew this, after only twenty minutes of staring at her and that hair. She was the type you settle into. The type you let rock your world for a few weeks, a few months—hell, maybe even forever. If I went over there and introduced myself, I knew she would swallow me up and she’d have to physically remove me from her life, to make me leave.

  I didn’t do that shit. I was too young, too disinterested, too … too …

  But then, just as I was about to shrug the whole thing off and forget I ever started thinking about a lifetime with a girl I didn’t even know, Mr. Polo went ahead and put his hand on her shoulder while she was still busy reaching into her bag. She shrugged him off once with what looked like a nervous giggle and then again with irritation. Her brow crumpled, her shoulders tensed and when he lowered his hand to take a hold of her arm and tried to lead her away from the wall she stood against, she tugged back, shaking her head.

  My stomach curdled and my veins blistered against my boiled blood.

  “Holy shit. What an asshole,” Trent muttered from next to me, and I glared with narrowed eyes at all of the other assholes in the room surrounding her. They were milling around, completely obliviou
s of the guy trying to take advantage of this poor girl.

  Fuck them all.

  “Dev, you should go kick that guy’s fucking ass.”

  Deciding to make my move, I nodded affirmatively and plonked my neglected beer onto a table. I shoved my way through the living room and into the kitchen where the offending asshole was continuing to tug her along, ignoring her protests.

  “Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said, glaring hard at Mr. Polo, daring him with my eyes to keep a grip on her arm. “Who the fuck are you?” I growled through gritted teeth.

  He didn’t let go, but he wasn’t pulling her anymore. “Nice try, buddy. She’s with a girl. I saw her come in.”

  “I was meeting her here.” The muscle in my jaw ticked and one hand curled into a fist. I had never gotten into a fight over a girl I didn’t know before, but I wasn’t opposed to the idea.

  To prove my point, I confidently slid my arm around her shoulders, not oblivious to the way she tensed under my blanketing touch. Two guys, both over a foot taller than her, staking a claim when they didn’t even know her name. I was almost no better than him, except my intentions weren’t to strip her of her dignity.

  I was trying to save her from losing it.

  I glanced down at her and saw that she was looking up at me with the most startlingly blue eyes I had ever seen in my fucking life. A canvas of patch worked blues, lapis and azure, sky, and a touch of turquoise. Her hair clearly wasn’t her only multi-faceted attribute, and my lips parted with my silent gasp.

  I had never noticed how fucking dull and gray my life had been before. Before her.

  “It’s about time you got here,” she finally said in a smooth voice, relaxing against my side. I released a relieved sigh and slid my eyes back over to Mr. Polo, challenging him, and he finally dropped her arm.

  “Whatever,” he grumbled, defeated and shaking his head. “Asshole.”

  He sulked away to nurse his wounds, but I was pretty certain he’d get over it. There were other girls there, and I hoped someone else would find it in them to stop him. There were only so many heroic moments I could muster and now, I was captivated. Thoroughly entranced by the girl I’d just rescued.