Never Say Never (Haven Harbor #3)

Chapter 33

THIRTY-THREE

MY GOD, I SOUND LIKE A CHEESY FUCK

T ucker

3 months later

“That’s the last of it.” Holden wipes his hands on the front of his jeans after loading the last box into the moving truck. “I’m going to order pizza if you want to eat before you head to the new house.”

“Yes, please,” Daisy says. “As long as there’s no—“

“Pineapple,” Holden says, cutting her off. “I’ve got you, Dais. I know what you like.”

“I feel like I’m intruding on a private moment between you two,” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest and looking from my best friend to my girlfriend. “Is there something I should know?”

Holden tips his head back and laughs. “She’s all yours, bro. You won’t have to worry about the third wheel anymore.”

“Never, Holden,” Daisy says. “We have loved living with you. We’re going to miss you, you know.” Daisy wraps an arm around Holden, hugging him from the side. “Who else am I going to watch reruns of Gilmore Girls with?”

“Hopefully not this guy.” Holden gestures at me. “He wouldn’t appreciate Stars Hollow. He definitely wouldn’t get Lorelai’s quirky charm.”

I look at him like he’s speaking a foreign language. “Damn straight. I’ll be changing the channel fast.”

Holden scoffs. “Daisy is the boss. We all know who wears the pants in your relationship.”

“Daisy is not the boss of me.” I put my hand on her shoulder, and she knocks it off just as fast. I can practically feel her rolling her eyes at me. “Okay, fine, maybe she is,” I add. The truth is whatever she wants to watch is fine by me. All I care about is that Daisy and I are going to be living together. Officially. And I’m determined not to fuck up the good thing we having going on.

“Don’t worry, Holden. I’ll only watch it with you.” Daisy smiles at him. “We should make it a weekly thing.”

“It’s a date, Daisy,” he says, winking at me. The guy just loves getting under my skin.

“In that case, I’m coming,” I say.

Holden’s eyes snap to mine, and he presses his lips together. “Take it easy, man, it’s not that kind of show.”

Daisy cracks up beside me, elbowing me in my side. I shake my head at the pair of them. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Dais.”

She snorts. “Sorry, can’t help it. But don’t worry, the only person I will come for…” she kisses my cheek. “Is you.”

“Yeah, definitely not going to miss this ,” Holden deadpans.

Daisy and I had been house hunting in Reed Point for a few weeks when we found an older two-storey home not far from RPU. We’d spent the last three months bouncing back and forth between her condo and my house on Haven Harbor. It worked for us for a while. We were just happy to be together after spending three months apart while Daisy was in Italy—well, I guess technically it wasn’t quite that long, but it felt like a fucking eternity. But eventually we decided that we wanted some privacy.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect since the lease on Daisy and Briar’s condo was up and Briar was planning a temporary relocation to Vancouver to spend some time with her mom. As for Holden, he was more than happy to have our place to himself.

Daisy and I didn’t have to look for long. We put an offer on the first house our realtor took us too. Daisy took one look at the colonial revival with shutter windows and a large front porch and fell in love. The home is just shy of 2,000 square feet and is in need of a facelift, but Daisy has a Pinterest board of ideas. And here’s the thing about how much I love Daisy: I want to make every one of those dreams come true. Our plan is to slowly renovate every room, inch by square inch, until it feels like us.

Us.

I like the sound of that.

My god, I sound like a cheesy fuck. When I look at my life these days, I almost don’t recognize it. A lot has changed, but the one constant now is my love for Daisy, and the deep desire I feel to make her happy.

I’ve got an eagle eye at a thrift store now, and I’m starting to know my way around a discount travel website. And Daisy has free tickets to any Outlaws game she wants, and I know I’ll find her in the stands when football season starts up again next month. Until then, I plan on getting my fill of her in our new home.

Holden, Daisy and I head back into the Haven Harbor house for a beer. We’re still sitting around the kitchen table when Jake, Everly, Birdie and baby West stop by a little while later. Grayson and Sierra show up next with baby Sadie and before we know it, the kitchen is full of our friends who have all come over to see us off.

“Haven Harbor won’t be the same without you guys,” Grayson says, holding his beer bottle up into the air. “It’s going to be a lot fucking quieter with this guy gone. Nobody telling stupid jokes or bragging about what a big shot coach he is.”

“Uh-huh, and don’t forget about my incredible good looks. It’s a shame you won’t get to see them on the reg anymore.”

“Oh my god,” Daisy groans. “I apologize for my boyfriend’s insane ego.” Then she leans over and kisses me, because she knows it’s all true.

“He’s all yours now, Daisy. You sure you know what you’re doing?” Grayson asks.

“Hey, if you need a place to flee to when Tucker won’t stop talking about how pretty he is, just know that our door is always open.”

I shake my head. “What the fuck?”

“What? You’re a lot sometimes. It isn’t a secret.” Jake takes a pull from his beer.

“What these idiots are trying to say is that we’ll miss you both,” Sierra says with the cutest fucking baby in her arms. “But we’re happy for you and your new home and we all expect an invite to see it very soon.”

“We would love that, right, Tuck?” Daisy pats my chest, looking up at me with a heart-stopping smile.

My expression isn’t half as cheery as hers. “I guess so.”

We all clink our beer bottles together like we have so many times before. It feels like an end of an era. Haven Harbor has been my home for the last five years. I have loved it here, but I love the idea of making memories with Daisy in our own place even more.

“Let me take him,” Daisy says, reaching for West. The kid is a spitting image of Jake, with ice-blue eyes and dark-brown hair. I watch her snuggle him into her chest, inhaling his new baby scent. She looks good with a baby in her arms. She looks happy.

When she looks up at me, a smile spreads across her pretty face. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.” I shrug. “You’re fucking gorgeous, that’s all.”

The last thing I need is the guys giving me the gears about baby fever. I know it’s coming. They’re already all over me about when I’m going to ask Daisy to marry me. They say it’s inevitable so I shouldn’t fight it. That may be true, but these guys have never known when to stop. The last fucking thing I need is to listen to them talk about babies.

I yank a slice of pizza from the box, scarfing it down. The only thing keeping me here is the pizza so that when I take Daisy home —fuck, I just said home —we’re both full, and we can christen every inch of it.

I circle my arms around her waist from behind and place a kiss on her neck. “Are you ready to go?” Cradling the back of West’s tiny head, she turns to kiss me. “I love our friends, but I love the idea of getting you naked in our new house even more,” I whisper into her ear.

I swear I can see her pulse start to race in her neck. I tighten the hold I have around her body, catching the way her skin shivers when the hard lines of my body press against her soft ones. My mouth sucks on the smooth skin of her neck over her pulse that races the same way mine is.

“What are you whispering about with my son in your hands?” Jake glares at me, licking pizza sauce from his fingers. “You watch your dirty mouth around my little man, Collins.”

“First of all, your kid is like two months old and has no clue what I’m fu–dging talking about,” I shoot back, catching myself. “And second, it can’t be half as bad as the shit Grayson says to your sister while he’s—”

“Finish that sentence and I will rip every one of your limbs from your body.”

Grayson snorts then grabs Sierra’s ass and winks at Jake.

“Don’t look at me like that, Gray,” Jake shoots a pointed look at his brother-in-law. “I will end you. This shit never gets easier. I don’t want to ever know what you two do.”

“Jake.” Everly clutches his arm. “My God. We’ve talked about this. Sierra is a married adult. With a child. You need to get over it.”

“Never.”

“Is he always like this?” Daisy whispers in my ear.

“Always.”

An hour later, Daisy and I are standing in the empty living room of our new home. Just the two of us. It’s nothing near as fancy as what we both grew up in, which is fine by me. I won’t have to search for Daisy when I get home from work feeling desperate for her and needy.

I follow Daisy upstairs, my gaze glued to her ass in those damn tights she wears, I swear, just to fuck with me. It’s taking every ounce of my willpower not to maul her. When she reaches the second floor she turns right, and I follow her into the master bedroom.

“Our first home.” I wrap my arm around her waist and walk us toward the large bay window and the view of our yard. “How amazing would it be to put a pool right there?” I ask, pointing to the center of the yard.

“We could swim at night in the summers, just like old times.”

“Naked,” I add with a wink. “Lots of pool sex.”

“When can we start digging the hole, coach?”

“I’ll call someone tomorrow.” I rest my chin on the top of her head as my hands slide to her hips.

“Are you happy?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Do you even have to ask that?”

“I’m happy. More than I ever thought imaginable.” Her smile is soft. “You know I love you more than his house, right?”

“I do,” I murmur back.

With that, I turn her in my arms and drop to one knee. “Daisy—”

She gasps. Her hands fly to her mouth as her eyes fill with tears. “Tucker, are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” I slide my hand into my pocket and pull out a small square box. My heart is racing when I open it, revealing an Asscher-cut diamond in a simple white gold setting. Her eyes widen as I take the ring from the velvet pouch.

“Since you’ve been back in my life, I’ve never been happier. You’re good. You’re genuine. You’re mine, and I want you forever. I’ve always known it, Daisy. Even when we started the stupid pact and I kept telling myself it was just temporary, my heart knew you were my end game. I knew I was never going to be able to let you go.” Tears fill her eyes. “I’ve loved you all my life. We belong together. Marry me, Dais?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she cries, and the euphoria that floods my body makes me realize yet again that my heart is under her spell . “I will marry you.”

I slip the ring onto her finger with a smile, knowing that everyone within a five-mile radius will now know that Daisy belongs to me.

“I love you so damn much.” My lips are against her temple. Everything feels too good to be true, but I know that what we have is real. It always has been, and I will live the rest of my life making Daisy Carter happy. “We’re going to have a long and happy life, Dais. I know it.” I tip her chin up, my eyes searching hers. “I thought I had everything I needed, but I was wrong. I only need you. You and me and this house and our future. You are what I want most in this world.”

The truth is, it feels like I can’t breathe without Daisy by my side. She sees me for who I am: the good and the bad. She’s always been my home, and it blows my mind that I somehow managed to make her mine even though she was the one thing I was never supposed to have.

Tears well in her crystal-blue eyes before sliding down her cheeks as I pull her face down to me and kiss her.

She frames my face in her hands. Daisy is my past, present and future. That sounds perfect.

I want it to stay that way.

For the rest of my life.