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ELEVEN

DAYNA

He stays for breakfast, as if it’s completely normal not to leave after having sex with me.

It’s weird, because I’ve never done this before with anyone. For the last year, I have pin balled between losers and pretentious pricks who made me feel like nothing more than a convenient stopgap for them.

But Dash, he wants to be here. He sits on my couch like it’s his, moves around my kitchen like he’s made a hundred meals at the stove, and he holds me like I’m not an afterthought.

It feels… Nice . And I don’t know what to do with nice.

Don’t overthink it, don’t freak out.

I let myself be in the moment, in case this is all we ever have. In case he wakes up tomorrow and decides to find someone less complicated.

Dragging less baggage.

In the evening, we eat the leftover takeaway, like he said we would.

We laugh over stupid movies we’ve seen, talking nonsense about bikes and food and everything in between. It’s easy. And that hope in my chest continues to blossom.

When he finally has to leave, there’s reluctance in his eyes. He doesn’t want to go and I don’t want him to either.

He kisses me on the doorstep like he’s never going to get enough of me and then he leaves.

He’s been gone for an hour now, and I already miss him.

Which is ridiculous, considering I’ve only known him less than a week.

I pull on a pair of sleep shorts with his hoodie and snuggle into the fabric while a cheesy horror film plays in the background.

I haven’t watched a second of it, just thinking about him, about everything he said and did while he was here.

My phone vibrates, and I throw out an arm, fumbling on the coffee table for it. It’s an incoming call from Katie. Of course, she wants an update.

Sitting up slowly, my belly full of leftovers and Dash, I swipe a finger over the screen, and before I can say a word, she ambushes me.

“Bitch, you left me hanging. Please tell me he came over yesterday.”

I tuck my hair behind my ear, leaning back against the cushions, avoiding the spring that always digs into my side. “Sorry, I was a little preoccupied getting my insides rearranged by a six-foot Adonis.”

Silence, then she squeals. “I knew it! I knew he fucking likes you. Men like him don’t just hand out their hoodies like Pokémon cards.”

I rest my head back against the couch, staring at the watermarked ceiling above me. “I’m not giving it back other than to top up his smell on the fabric. He smells really fucking good, Katie. He doesn’t have that horrible boy stench that most men have—you know the one?”

“The last time I was with a boy, I was twelve years old, and he kissed me with that much tongue, I thought I was going to drown.”

“A twelve-year-old boy’s kiss drove you to give up the peen for kitty?”

“No, I already fancied Charlotte Turner. Anyway, we’re not talking about me. I want to hear all about what happened with you.”

I grin, and I’m glad she can’t see it, because I’m certain I look unhinged.

“Well, there’s not a lot to tell. He came over.

I tried to give him back his hoodie. He told me I looked better in it and to keep it.

Then he sat down on my couch like he owned it, found us a movie, and when I fell asleep, he ordered Chinese takeaway.

Then he stayed the night. Made me breakfast. We hung out and we ate leftovers tonight before he had to take off. ”

There’s a pause, then, “Holy shit. Please tell me you let that man ruin your vagina.”

“Obviously. Three times. Or was it four? I can’t remember.” It wasn’t sex, though. It was something more, something deeper that I didn’t know could exist between two people.

“You’re still cock drunk,” she accuses.

I’m drunk on everything about this man, but I don’t tell her that. I’m scared if I actually say it out loud, it’ll manifest the opposite. “What the hell is cock drunk?”

“Ensorcelled by his dick. High on his shaft. Dazed by his cum.”

I love how she matches my crazy with a brand of her own insanity. As much as I love Ivy, we’d never talk like this.

“Then yeah, I’m cock drunk.” I close my eyes. “I’m going to feel him for a while.”

She laughs. “Good. It would be a shame if he looked that good but didn’t know how to use the equipment.”

I snort, then say, “I like him.” My tone is serious. “And I think he likes me. And I don’t know how long that’s going to last, because the moment he realises I’m a fucking disaster, he’ll take off.”

I voice the fear that is sitting in my gut beneath the happy glow. What if he does walk away? How do I go back to normal after him?

“It’s okay to hope for good things to happen, Dayna. You’re not going to curse it by saying it.”

“I don’t need to say it. You know me, self-sabotage queen.”

It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but there’s enough bitterness in my words that I cringe.

“Babe, wanting to be happy isn’t a crime. And he’s already seen you messy and misbehaving. He’s still here.”

“True. Maybe he’s crazy. It would be just like me to latch onto a psychopath.”

“Or maybe, and here is a radical thought. Maybe he just likes you, because you’re fun and interesting, and unapologetically you.”

My throat constricts, and I hate that it does. One small amount of praise and I’m folding like a cheap pack of cards. “Then he’s definitely crazy.”

“Don’t make me strangle you with his stolen hoodie.”

“Kinky.”

“Only for you. Now, go to bed. You need to be rested and ready for the next round.”

Warmth spreads through me at the thought of him coming back, hanging around my flat, his boots at the side of my couch, his kutte draped on the back of the chair.

Yeah, I could get used to that.

“Night, Katie.”

“Night, my beautiful friend. May your dreams be full of bikers and orgasms.”

The line goes dead. I shake my head, but before I put my phone down, I open my messages. It’s a little desperate, a little bit needy, but I send him a message.

Hope you got home okay.

I delete that.

Thanks for last night and today. If you want to try something not out of a box, I make a really good lasagna. You want to share it with me? Thursday night?

I hit send and instantly regret it.

Does Dash even eat lasagna? Of course he does. It’s just food. Maybe I should have made something different. Maybe I should have?—

My phone vibrates, and I snatch it up.

Dash:

I’ll bring garlic bread.

And this time, I don’t try to stop my grin.

By the time Thursday rolls around, I’m a bag of nerves. I use the little money I would usually spend going out and drinking my problems away to buy ingredients.

I don’t know why it matters so much. Dash doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who cares about dinner dates and perfect meals. He’s a guy who grabs your throat and bends you over the counter while the food burns.

But I want to impress him. I never wanted to impress a man in my life.

I get dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a sleeveless top before I pull his hoodie on like a security blanket.

Our messages this week have been flirty, but his are always filled with care. He wants to make sure I’m eating, sleeping, looking after myself. I’ve missed him.

Preparation goes off without a hitch, and the lasagna is baking away when there’s a knock on my door. I freeze. He is not due for another half-hour. Maybe he missed me too.

My heart soars at the idea that he might have turned up early because he wants to see me.

“Seriously, you’re putting feminism back fifty fucking years with this giddy routine,” I mutter under my breath, but I can’t stop my smile as I wipe my hands on the tea towel and head for the door.

When I open it, my smile dies. It’s not Dash standing on my doorstep. It’s my fucking mother.

My heart sinks as she scans me from head to toe, taking in my clothes with a look of disdain on her face. “Are you auditioning for tragic and poor? It looks like you fished your outfit out of some sad bargain bin.”

It feels as if she cuts open my stomach and is watching the blood pour onto the floor.

Of course, she hates what I’m wearing—it’s not diamonds and pearls.

It’s not designer. She doesn’t care about the meaning behind Dash’s hoodie, about the way it makes me feel safe, seen.

All she cares about is how I look and appear to the world.

Her world.

“Hello to you too,” I mutter, shutting the door behind her when she steps into my hallway uninvited. “Did you just come round to insult me, or did you actually want something? Because I’m actually kind of busy.”

She sniffs the air as she steps into the living room. “Are you cooking?”

I wrap my arms around my stomach, clinging to the edges of Dash’s hoodie as if it can protect me from whatever venom she’s about to spit at me. “Weird concept, but I eat, just like everybody else.”

She glares at me. “You’re snappier than usual. What’s wrong?”

Don’t stab your own mother with a spatula .

“I told you, I’m busy. If you’d called ahead, I would have told you that.”

She sinks down onto the sofa as if she didn’t hear those words. “Darling, you’re never too busy for your own mother, and I’m not going to make an appointment to come and see you. You’re my daughter.”

“I’m also nineteen years old and I have a life, Mum.”

She waves this off as if it doesn’t matter.

To her, it doesn’t. Everybody just runs to Evelyn Harrington’s timescale, including me.

“Sweetheart, what you’ve built here isn’t a life.

It’s a prison sentence. I don’t know why you insist on tormenting yourself with this,” her eyes roll around my living room, taking in the peeling paint, judging the cheap furnishings I got to make things look homey, “situation.”

I fidget. Suddenly, I’m eight years old again.

I try to ignore the way my chest caves in at her disapproval. I could live in a twenty-bed mansion and she would still find something to complain about.

“As much as I want to spend the next hour having all my many faults pointed out to me, Mother, I’m not joking, I am busy.”