Page 135 of Stealing Sunshine

“The being served breakfast part or the being with me part?”

“You know the answer to that already. Although the breakfast is nice too.”

She sweeps her knuckles across the hair tickling my forehead, a serene warmth lighting her eyes.

Eating breakfast in bed in the early morning with someone you love is such a mundane thing, but it means more to me than most others do. It’s a step in the right direction. A look into the future I hope to have with Daisy.

The wordsI love yoububble up my throat, and I’m one heartbeat away from telling her how I feel. It’s a risk, but if I keep it inside any longer, I’m going to burst, and she’ll learn about my feelings from the doctor after I’m left with a heart-sized hole in my chest.

I steel my spine and open my mouth?—

Someone starts pounding on my front door, making it rattle on the hinges loud enough for me to hear it all the way in my bedroom.

“Who is that?” Daisy gasps, hopping off me.

She rushes to my dresser and starts riffling through the first and then second drawers. I don’t have a chance to tease her about looking through my panties before she’s whipping a shirt and shorts at me. They’re tiny fucking things that Poppy forced me to buy over a year ago, but I put them on without complaint.

“No clue,” I reply tightly. “But stay here while I go look.”

“As if. Who are you, Captain America? If you’re getting hit with a baseball bat, I want to be hit too,” she says, and suddenly, I wish she hadn’t gotten dressed already this morning.

I scroll my eyes up and down her body and would have smiled at how weird she looks with all-black clothes on if I wasn’t so annoyed with whoever it is threatening to plow through my door.

“Fine, Daisy.”

She doesn’t wait for me before leaving the room, so I fumble out of bed and jog to catch her in the hall.

I knew I should have spanked her last night.

The knocking gives for a second, but the silence doesn’t last for long. Johnny’s voice blows right through the door, and I freeze, feeling Daisy’s attention shift to me.

“Open up, Bryce!”

“Were you expecting him this morning?” I ask, quietly enough her brother won’t be able to hear.

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Great,” I mutter.

I slide past her and unlock the deadbolt before opening up the door. Johnny Mitchell doesn’t wait for an invitation inside. He just storms right past me.

“Sure, come inside,” I tell him, no hint of a joke to be found in my voice.

He’s clearly pissed off about something, but when he doesn’t take his boots off before disappearing into the living room the way he always does, something sours in my gut.

“What’s wrong, J?” Daisy asks, quick to chase after him.

I trail behind and linger beneath the archway. Johnny faces his sister with raging eyes the same shade as hers. “Why haven’t you checked your phone this morning?”

“I was busy.”

He spins to face me, and his anger swells. “And you?”

“Not like it’s your business, Jonathan, but I was with Daisy. Now, knock it down a few pegs when you’re speaking to her.”

“Oh, you’re takin’ this whole thing really far. You can cut it out now that I know the truth,” he snaps.

That sour feeling grows in intensity, turning to queasiness. Daisy isn’t able to hide her emotions from me, and as she starts piecing together what he’s saying, her face pales beneath flaming red cheeks.

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