Chapter 5

chapter five

Gavin

Daisy fell asleep in my arms pretty quickly, the liquor eventually catching up to her. I laid awake and stared at her for a long time. I watched the way her chest would rise and fall, and wondered who number 4 was on the back of her shirt. Her boyfriend? Her brother? I traced the outline of the number on her back, over and over. It was killing me that I didn't know. That I probably would never know.

I had a sinking feeling that whoever it was probably did have a roster. Most of the guys on my high school team last year would brag about how many girls they'd fuck, even try to get their roster number to match their jersey number, like it was some sort of game. That's not to say I'm a virgin or anything, I just don't have sex for sport.

The only game I played was football and the occasional monopoly. Which usually resulted in Levi flipping over the coffee table and us not speaking for days at a time.

I can feel her stirring against my chest, but before she wakes and says a word, a very abrupt knock on the door causes her to jerk awake. Her eyes are wide as she stares at me, then a voice on the other side.

"Sis, open up! Let's go get some breakfast."

She quickly sits up, and whispers to me. "That's my sister. You have to hide."

"Hide?"

She looks absolutely mortified as she pushes me into the bathroom and closes the door. I press my ear against it, attempting to hear what's on the other side as I pull my shorts back on.

"Grayson's shirt, really?" I hear her sister say from the other room.

Who is Grayson?

"I didn't even realize I packed it, Liv. The entirety of my closet is red and black."

I hear a brief pause and her sister speaks again, "Jake and I are going to explore a little today, you should come with."

"Actually," she hesitates, "I'm kind of tired. I stayed up too late. I made some new friends."

"Okay, well, promise me that you're okay."

"I promise," Daisy agrees and I hear the door close, then the one I'm leaning against flies open.

"I figured you would've snuck out in the middle of the night." She huffs.

"Sorry to disappoint," I snap. "I just thought after last night that…"

"That what?" She sasses. "Nothing happened, sooo…"

She completely flips a switch from last night, you know, when I finally had her laying on my chest not completely hating my guts.

"You know what…" I start, but think better of it, "Nevermind. I'll see myself out."

I pull my shirt over my head, and run my fingers through my hair, attempting to smooth it out. I wanted to spend time with her, but I wasn't going to force her to hang out with me.

"Wait," She whispers, apologetically. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. A lot has been going on lately, and my sister just gets under my skin sometimes. She's kind of judgy."

I laugh, my mind going to Levi and his constant need to hassle me about football and my lack of social life. "I know what you mean. Levi is super judgy."

"Levi doesn't seem judgy," She huffs, "He's fun. Olivia is basically my mom."

"I know exactly what you mean. Levi is all of two minutes older than me and he acts like I still need to be bottle fed."

"She's just so… I don't know. Worrisome. Literally, the girl worries about everything."

"What do you mean?"

She sighs, pulling at the shirt she's wearing. "This is my ex-boyfriend's shirt. I didn't even realize I packed it, and now she's worried that I might be depressed or something."

So that's who Grayson is. The ex.

Suddenly, I want to tear the fabric from her body in a primal rage. I feel a surge of jealousy course through my veins. A jealousy that I'm not even sure is justified.

"Why would she be worried? Was it a bad breakup?"

She shakes her head, "Not really. He was just really good at messing with my head sometimes, so she's worried that I'll sit around and blame myself."

I can feel my jaw tighten. I can't possibly imagine a reality where anything would be her fault. When I look at her, I can basically see a halo hovering above her golden hair.

"Blame yourself for what?"

She sighs, "It's not important."

"Sounds like it is if your sister is worried about you."

"I turned down a great opportunity for a mediocre one to be close to him at college this year."

"Well that seems selfish of him. Why would he want you to do that?"

She shakes her head, embarrassed. "He didn't know."

I raise my brow, "What do you mean?"

"I didn't tell him." She sighs, "I wanted to be with him and felt that he had sacrificed enough for me already."

I want her to elaborate, because now I'm obviously intrigued, but I'm unsure of how to keep asking questions without sounding creepy. So I don't.

"Well, if you aren't going to go with your sister, what are you going to do today?"

She flops down face first into the pillow and mutters what I think is "Sleep."

I stare at the back of her shirt, basically burning it off of her with my glare.

She rolls over, still gripping the pillow, only her eyes peeking over the top, before pulling it down to speak and catching me by surprise.

"You want to hangout today?"

I point to myself, and look around behind me. "Me?"

She tosses the pillow at me playfully, "Yes, you Phoenix."

I can't help but crack a smile. Had I not acted like a nervous fool maybe she would've retained my actual name. "Are you ever going to let me live that down?"

"What? Your incessant rambling?"

"Is that what it is?" I act shocked.

She laughs, "I've known you for five whole minutes and you have said more random shit than anyone I've ever met."

"I'm not usually like that," I argue. "Call it a ramble of passion."

She snorts, "Like a crime of passion?"

"Do I look like a criminal?" I smirk.

She raises up on her knees and crawls to me on the bed, looking cute as hell.

"You do kind of have those crazy eyes," she whispers, and her lips graze my ear lobe. When she backs away and her eyes lock with mine, I feel this insane urge to kiss her.

"Okay," she grins, "maybe not criminal eyes. More like seat belt citation eyes."

I roll over on top of her, causing her to squeal.

"I am way more dangerous than a seatbelt ticket."

Her thigh is bare against my hip, and I imagine what it would feel like if I didn't have my pants on, if her skin was touching mine.

"Yeah?" She questions, "Why do I feel like that is a huge lie?"

I use my forefinger to push the hair from her forehead to behind her ear,

"Because it is. I don't get in trouble."

"The golden child of the family, huh?"

Something about that comment guts me. I can't exactly pinpoint it at first, but it's enough to pull me into a sitting position.

"What's wrong?" She asks, "I didn't mean to strike a nerve."

I think about blowing her off but for the first time maybe ever, I want to open up to someone.

"I wouldn't refer to myself as the golden child."

She sits back on her knees, her eyes turning to a more troubled look.

"Levi?" She questions.

"It's complicated," I sigh.

She waves me off, "It's okay. You don't have to talk about it. There's tons of things I don't like talking about, so if anyone gets it, I do."

Shit. Now I'm curious.

"What do you not like talking about?"

She raises her brow, crossing her arms all sassy like. "Why should I tell you when you won't tell me?"

I lay back on the bed with a thud, "Touche′."

She jumps on top of me, placing her hands on the pillow and caging my head in. "You could just tell me, you know. It's not like we will see each other again."

I stare into her brown eyes. I don't like thinking about the very likely truth of not seeing her again, because something inside of me wants to see her every single day.

She rolls her eyes, her small frame falling to the pillow next to me, "Stop lookin' at me like that."

"Stop acting like you aren't going to be so obsessed with me that you won't stalk me after this cruise."

She pulls her phone up in front of her face, pretending to search, "Phoenix…."

"Richardson." I smile. "It's Richardson."

She looks back to her screen typing away, before shoving it in front of me. "It says Pheonix Richardson doesn't exist."

I thought about taking her phone from her hand and typing my Instagram handle into the search bar so that my profile fills the screen, but I decided to at least let her ask me for my real name first.

She drops her phone to the bed, "You probably already have thousands of fans on there.You don't need me. Plus, I bet the entire female population is following you."

For some reason, I feel like maybe she's insecure. Probably something to do with that Grayson guy eating away at her self confidence.

"They aren't you."

She blushes a bit, pulling her nails to her lips, biting them subconsciously. The way her eyes dart from me to the bed, and back to me, is adorable.

"Ok," I huff, here goes nothing.

"Levi was better than me. He always was, at everything. So when he got sick, it was hard. Suddenly, I wasn't just Levi's brother anymore. It was the first time that I was the only kid on the field with Richardson on their jersey. Things changed."

"For you?"

"For everyone. My brother almost died, right in front of the entire town. It was the longest twenty-two minutes of my life. I just remember staring at him, laying there on the turf, watching as they gave him CPR. I was so scared, and there wasn't anything I could do. I remember the coaches holding me back, and I was crying in front of everyone. I remember screaming, begging them to help him. I remember the exact sequence of the lights on the ambulance as it drove away."

"Phoenix…"

"He finally woke up a couple days later, and they took him off the vent. The first thing he said to me was, "Your heartbeat saved my life." I had no idea what that even meant and he was on so many medications he was basically high, but he swears to this day that he felt my heartbeat while he was unconscious, like he was living inside my body."

Her eyes go wide, and I know how crazy that sounds. That's why I don't tell many people what Levi said, because it doesn't make sense to them.

"Do you think he was dreaming?" She asks.

I shrug and she touches my bicep, "It's okay."

"I felt it, too. I know that makes me sound like a lunatic, but I feel like it was some kind of twin phenomenon."

She shakes her head, "No. It doesn't."

"I hated finishing the season while he watched me from the stands. I felt like everyone was watching me, waiting for me to suddenly be better than I was. To be Levi."

She closes her eyes, drawing in a deep breath before speaking, "Your parents?"

"Yeah," I sigh, "My parents. My teammates. Everyone."

Grabbing my hand, she traces the bones beneath my knuckles, "That must've been so hard for you."

"I'm sure it was harder for Levi."

"Don't do that," she snaps, "Your feelings are valid, Phoenix. It's not a competition."

I shake my head, "I've never really talked about this before. Like, ever."

"That was kind of the point though, right?"

"Yeah," I smirk, "I guess it was."

I've always been this way. I'm careful, mindful of my words. I don't say anything without reason, and if I'm saying something then I mean it. That's why I don't really talk about my feelings. It's hard to find someone that I feel is worthy of my words.

Which is why, now, I can't shut up.

She is more than worthy.