Page 35 of Guys Can’t Write Romance

Chapter twenty-four

Hangovers, Waves, and Flying

Rhino shuffled groggily into the living room, rubbing at his face as the smell of slightly stale beer mingled with the salty ocean air wafting through the open window.

He stopped abruptly at the sight of Chad sprawled across the couch, a blanket half-falling off his chest and one arm hanging dramatically over the edge.

“What the...” he muttered. He looked over at Chad’s bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. He walked over and peeked inside, his eyes widening at the sight of Daisy asleep in his bed.

He walked back to Chad and did what any good friend would do — he slurped his protein shake as loudly as possible until Chad’s eyes squinted open.

Chad groaned. “I will literally pay you to stop existing right now.”

“Bro,” Rhino said. “Did you know there’s a chick in your bed?”

Chad pulled the blanket over his head. “Yeah. Thanks for the update.”

“Wait! Hold up!” Rhino said as something clicked in his brain. “She’s in there, and you’re in here? Did you miss the class on the birds and the bees?”

Chad muttered something incoherent and hungover beneath the blanket.

“Sorry, bro. I don’t speak blanket,” Rhino said.

Chad pulled the blanket down just enough to expose his eyes, shooting Rhino a flat, tired glare. “I said, we got drunk, and she needed a place to crash. That’s it.”

“So, you were a gentleman?” Rhino snickered.

“Go finish your protein drink,” Chad groaned, pulling a pillow over his face.

Meanwhile, in Chad’s bedroom, Daisy blinked groggily against the morning light streaming through the blinds.

Her head pounded with the worst hangover she’d had in recent memory. She slowly sat up and took in the unfamiliar room, her brain struggling to process what looked like a crime scene.

The blanket across her was crumpled and disheveled, yet cozy and warm.

A ‘Jaws’ poster and several horror movie posters hung on the walls, taped at slightly tilted angles that only Daisy would have noticed.

A surfboard stood in the corner, while sports gear and piles of clothes cluttered the floor. Definitely Chad’s bedroom.

“Right,” she muttered under her breath, combing her fingers through her hopelessly tangled rat’s nest of hair.

Then, for the moment of truth. She bit her lip as she cautiously lifted the blanket and sighed with relief when she saw her dress was still on, although probably wrinkled beyond repair.

Looking over the edge of the bed, she saw her shoes neatly placed on the floor.

There was even a glass of water on the nightstand beside her.

Despite the pounding in her head, something warm bloomed in her chest as she realized Chad had been a perfect gentleman.

She swung her legs out of bed and grabbed the glass of water, gulping it down.

With a groan, she walked into Chad’s bathroom and looked in the mirror.

It was worse than she had feared, her long wavy hair knotted in hopeless tangles and her mascara having found its way to her cheeks.

For a second, she debated over crawling back into bed and hiding under the covers.

This was going to suck.

Daisy shuffled into the living room like a hungover zombie on a bad hair day. She found Chad sprawled on the couch beneath a crumpled blanket, a throw pillow over his head and one arm dangling over the side. Seeing this made her heart feel lighter.

“Morning,” she croaked, surprised her vocal chords even worked. She was way too hungover to muster anything resembling pep, but she managed the smallest tired smile in Chad’s direction.

The pillow lowered from his head, and he looked over, his hair sticking up on one side with comical bedhead that Daisy wouldn’t have traded for the most perfectly groomed GQ hairstyle. It was Chad, at his unglamorous best. “Hey,” he muttered, managing something resembling a smile.

“Hey back,” she said. “You slept out here?”

“Yeah,” he said, yawning as he stretched. “This drunk girl stole my bed.”

Her smile warmed. “That drunk girl thanks you for not taking advantage of her ridiculously drunk self.”

“Tell her she’s welcome.”

As she watched him lazily sit up in his crinkled t-shirt and cartoonish bedhead, Daisy realized that somewhere between the bar games and the bad karaoke, she had fallen in love with Chad McKenzie.

“Yikes!” came Rhino’s obnoxious laugh from the kitchen. “Now I know why tigers eat their young.”

Daisy looked over and saw him grinning at her. “Thank you. It took work to get this look just right.”

Rhino smiled. “You wear the hungover werewolf look like a champ, Fields.”

She smiled, despite herself, and turned to Chad. “Can you drown him the next time you go surfing?”

“Consider it done,” he said, brushing what looked like Doritos crumbs from his shirt.

“So, what’ll it be for breakfast, lovebirds?” Rhino hollered.

“What’s on the menu?” Chad said.

“Let’s see. I can whip you guys up the hangover special, or we’ve got a honeymoon special in case your night got really wild. Although I will need to have a talk with Chad about the meaning of marital bed.”

“An omelet’s just fine,” Chad said, exchanging a brief look with Daisy, whose cheeks had just flushed pink.

“How about you, Fields?” Rhino said.

“Just toast. And a hole to crawl in and die.”

After breakfast, Chad and Daisy walked to a small beachfront cafe where they ordered two coffees to-go.

They took their coffees to the boardwalk, where they sat down on a low concrete wall facing the ocean.

The morning waves rolled in gently, while a cool breeze brushed their cheeks.

In the distance, the faint outlines of surfers bobbed on the horizon.

Chad glanced at Daisy, who was holding her cup with both hands. “Praying to the coffee gods?”

She shook her head. “They’re not awake yet.”

He chuckled.

“You better not be laughing at my hungover werewolf look, or I’m telling Chloe.”

“I’m not that brave,” Chad laughed. “I was just remembering you trying to convince me you weren’t drunk last night by trying to walk a straight line.”

“Ugh,” she groaned, rubbing her temple. “Just tell me I didn’t try to do a Riverdance Irish jig in these heels.”

“Nope. I would’ve remembered that.”

“Good. Because it’s been known to happen during drunken Daisy antics.”

“You know how to Irish dance?”

“Kind of. My mom made me take lessons as a kid.”

“Are you any good?”

Daisy gave a light chuckle. “Chloe describes it as watching a drunk person trying to put out a fire with her feet.”

Chad almost spit up his coffee. “That line’s going in my book,” he laughed.

Daisy grinned. “Thank you. We’re here all week.”

He laughed and sat back while she took her first careful sip of coffee.

The warmth and caffeine hit her bloodstream like a lifeline.

She breathed in deeply of the ocean air and felt her whole body relax.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, just watching the rhythm of the waves as they crashed softly in the distance.

“Thanks for last night, Chad,” Daisy said softly. “You really came through for me, and that means a lot. I haven’t laughed that hard and had that much fun since...” She turned and looked at him. “... the last time I hung out with you.”

“It was pretty epic,” he said, giving her back a soft rub. “It’s good to know there’s someone worse at karaoke than me.”

She smiled. “We make a pretty scary team, don’t we?”

“We won’t be winning talent shows anytime soon. But I like to think of us as entertaining.”

“Me too.” She brushed a stray strand of hair from her face as she stared out over the water, taking in the warm sun and cooling breeze. “You’re safe, Chad,” she said after a moment. “I really like that about you.”

“Safe? Have you met me?” he grinned.

She smiled. “What I mean is, I can get silly and have fun and drink with you, and I know you won’t cross any boundaries until I’m ready. You’re protective of me.”

“That’s my gobs of toxic masculinity at work.”

She smiled. “You do have really nice arms.”

“When did you notice?”

“When you put them around me.”

“You mean when I was coaching you.”

She grinned. “You’re still sticking with that story?”

He nodded in acknowledgment. “I should probably work on my subtlety.”

She shook her head. “Don’t. It’s cute watching you blush.”

“That’s actually never happened before.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’m usually the one making everyone around me blush.”

She smiled. “My new mission is to make you blush every time we go out. Even if I have to tickle you to make it happen.”

“Can I just concede defeat at this point?”

“Smart boy.” She gave his leg a friendly pat.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while after that, sipping their coffees and watching the waves roll onto shore. Several surfers bobbed over the waves as they paddled back to the lineup.

“What’s that like?” She asked. “Surfing.”

He thought for a moment, his easy grin slipping into something more thoughtful.

“It’s like flying, I guess,” he said finally.

“When you catch a wave, it’s you and the water, and nothing else.

You don’t have to think about anything. You just feel it.

All your baggage and the stuff weighing you down, it just floats away for a little bit. ”

Daisy pictured it in her mind as he described it. “It sounds nice,” she said. “I can’t believe I’ve lived in LA eleven years and never tried it.”

“I can teach you, if you want.”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“No. It’d be fun. Chad and Daisy’s next big adventure. I have a spare board you can use.”

She smiled at this. “I like our big adventures. Count me in.”

“Hey lovebirds!” Rhino’s voice called out, breaking the moment. “Daisy’s pink-haired Uber driver’s here.”

Chad and Daisy turned to see Rhino heading toward them with Chloe in tow.

“Hey. If you two were about to kiss, I can circle the block a couple times and come back,” Chloe said, a mischievous grin on her face.

“You’re fine,” Daisy said, her cheeks blushing as pink as Chloe’s new hair as Chad helped her down from the wall. His cheeks were noticeably pink, too.

“Can we pick up where we left off later?” she said to Chad as she smoothed her dress.

“Definitely,” Chad said.

“Love the hungover cave girl look,” Chloe said to Daisy as her car inched through traffic on their way home. “It screams ‘Operation Make Daisy Laugh’ was a resounding success.”

“Should I brace myself for an interrogation?”

“You know it, girl. And I’m prepared to use enhanced interrogation techniques if I have to. But before you do, I should tell you Boring Banker stopped by the apartment this morning.”

Daisy groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “What did he want?”

“He said he tried calling you, but you weren’t picking up.”

Daisy slid her phone from her purse and looked at it. Her stomach tensed when she saw a string of missed calls and increasingly concerned texts from Ethan.

“Nine calls?” Daisy said.

“I always knew he had stalker tendencies.”

Daisy gave a slight nod as she slid the phone back into her purse.

“So. About last night,” Chloe said, a mischievous grin lighting her face. “And no sparing any gory details.”

Daisy took a breath. “Long version or short version?”

“Let’s start with the last chapter and work our way back.”

Daisy nodded. “It was fun.”

Chloe cast her a sideways look, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Only fun? Because the Bride of Frankenstein hair says it was a lot more than just fun.”

Daily laughed lightly while trying to mat down her hair. “Okay. It was a lot of fun.”

Chloe let out an excited squeal. “Now, we’re getting somewhere. So, are we talking silly, ugly, drunken, hope-nobody-filmed-this fun?”

“The karaoke might have come close.”

“You actually found someone brave enough to sing karaoke with you?”

Daisy nodded. “Scary, isn’t it?”

Chloe chuckled and nodded. “I’d say that’s a game changer. So what about drunken stripteases on top of tables?”

Daisy shot her a look. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“Social media.”

Daisy shook her head. “No. Thankfully, no blackmail material or walks of shame. Clothes stayed on.”

“And after you got back to Chad’s apartment...?”

“Clothes still stayed on. Chad let me crash in his bed, and he took the couch.”

“Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.”

Daisy nodded. “He keeps surprising me.”

“I’m glad. He’s kinda grown on me, so I would’ve hated to have to kill him.”

Daisy let out a light laugh. “Who’d have thought Chad McKenzie would turn out to be a gentleman?”

“Did you ever think it might be because he likes you?”

Daisy looked at her. “You think so?”

“It’s pretty obvious, girl. The guy drops everything to take you on a rescue mission. That pretty much spells it out.”

An unexpected warmth filled Daisy at hearing this. She turned to look out the window at the passing buildings.

“So, big picture time,” Chloe said. “What are you going to do about Boring Banker turned stalker and New York?”

Daisy groaned. “I’m going to not think about it.”