I had worked through so much of my issues with touching, but nothing would ever make someone that I hated handcuffing me feel okay.
“Hey,” I said. “You doing alright?”
“I’m fine. Better now. Just making sure you aren’t going to run,” she said, holding me tighter.
My eyebrows jumped up, but she didn’t look at me. “Run? The only place I would like to run to is our apartment, so we can be done with this shit and watch a movie.”
“A movie? After today, you want to watch a movie?”
“Yeah, we’re getting Bailey and watching a movie.”
“Okay…but why?”
“Because ever since that night at the track, all I have wanted to be able to do is sit with you two and watch a movie.”
“What do you mean? With us two or the entire crew?”
I wrapped her up in my arms more. “Entire crew sounds great. Then this time, I get to show off my family and not get inundated with questions and pitiful looks that I don’t have one.”
“They did not do that.”
“They absolutely did.”
“You said, your family.”
“Yeah. Now I have my own little family within my large, loud, endlessly growing family.”
“I didn’t realize we were now a family.”
“I told you, I’m ready, Daisy. For you, for Bailey, for our own kids. You tell me the moment you’re ready because I’m here waiting.”
“I’m ready,” she said, quickly. I smiled at the enthusiasm.
“Really? I thought you would need more time.”
“No, not even a second. If it’s with you, I’m ready now.”
I spun her to face me, cupping her jaw and pulling her in to kiss me. “I love you, Daze. I’ve loved you, only you, every day since I met you, and I hope you are serious right now.”
“Of course I’m serious. I want everything with you. I love you, too, Kye.”
“Forever this time, no years apart.”
“And no one getting in the way this time,” she said.
“Then I think we need to go talk to your dad, and make sure we’re done here so we can go home and get started on that,” I said with a grin. “And maybe make sure he doesn’t hate my guts enough to threaten you more.”
“He will,” she said. “I don’t know if it will ever stop, but we can stop being around him.”
We headed over to her dad, who was already scowling at me.
“You just tried to arrest him for killing someone when he didn’t do it and your side lackey did, so unless you are going to apologize or tell us we can leave, I don’t want to hear anything from you,” Daisy said.
“Kye,” her dad said, his face hard as he stared at us. “Don’t leave town. We will have plenty of questions to ask.”
“But?” Daisy asked.
“But for now, you can go. I have enough to sort out with Mark, so we can talk tomorrow.”
My eyebrows jumped up, but I said nothing as he walked away. “Did your dad just say that he didn’t want me to leave? Incredible. We are already making progress. Who would have thought it would only take me basically being framed for murder, only to find it was your golden hero of an ex-boyfriend for him to like me?”
“We really could have saved ourselves six years apart had we known this with Dean.”
I laughed, pulling her under my arm and heading back towards the crew and the garage.
“Time to go home. To our home, and our girl.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Daisy. Forever.”
She smiled, her eyes shining with tears. “I love you, too, Kye. Forever.”
EPILOGUEDAISY
I held my breath.
Every turn that he took was sharper than the last. I couldn’t even see the road, the rain and fog so heavy on parts of the mountain that I didn’t know how he would see the next turn coming.
I knew he’d done this before. I knew he said he knew the road, but he was driving up the side of a mountain with zero visibility as fast as he could. I didn’t know how I could be calm about this.
I sat with Bailey, watching the camera that was set up so that we could watch his car pass over the finish line.
