Page 41 of Stealing Sunshine

Fuck it. “Fine. But I’m throwing you under the bus if I get in trouble for leaving early.”

“Bring it on. I’ve never been scared of your mom.”

“What’s that like?”

Her laugh is soft. “For what it’s worth, I hope this plan of yours works. Your mom is unbearable.”

I stand and reach for my phone, the app still open from earlier. Surprise ripples through me when it isn’t a picture of Vic on the screen but one of Daisy. It’s a close-up selfie from . . . mycouch? My breath is caught in my throat as I stare at her flawless skin and bright eyes. Her smile is wide and honest, and the dimple in her right cheek threatens to make me weak in the knees.

I’ve never been into dimples until Daisy.

Poppy’s laugh startles me, drawing my attention from the picture.

“Fake,” she says, rolling the word around on her tongue like it’s something foreign. “Right.”

13

DAISY

I’m applyingthe final layer of yellow polish to my toenails when Bryce gets home. My older sister, Giana, is rambling about one of the players on the Vancouver Warriors hockey team who won’t stop ruffling her hair every time she asks for him to pose for a photo, but I’ve given up listening. She loves men, but they’re also one of the only topics she’ll call me just to complain about.

I screw the top of the nail polish bottle tight and set it on my nightstand before leaning forward to try and sneak a look at Bryce walking down the hall. The longer I wait for her to pass the door, my back hunched over and toes spread to avoid messing up the polish, the louder my sister gets until I can’t ignore her any longer.

“Hello? Sorry I’m so boring. You could have just hung up instead of ignoring me.”

“What?”

I lean back and bring my eyes back to the screen, giving up on seeing Bryce. Giana’s scowling at me, her dark brows scrunched together and green eyes sharp behind her long lashes.

“I wasn’t ignoring you, Gi.”

She scoffs loudly. “Yes, you were.”

“Okay, I was a little bit.”

“First, Johnny doesn’t pick up the phone, and now, you don’t even pay attention to me when I’m ranting about a total bugger of a goalie.”

“This is what you get for moving away,” I poke.

She jams a finger into the screen and hisses, “Don’t start with me, Daisy. You know how I feel about Cherry Peak.”

“Small town with small dreams, Gi. Yes, I know.”

It’s the reason she left the moment she graduated high school. We all saw it coming, but it still sucked. Giana has always had big plans for her life, and while some people get lucky finding success in Cherry Peak, she didn’t want to risk it. Vancouver was somewhere she always wanted to go despite the skyrocketing housing and gas prices.

She attended university there and worked incredibly hard to nail a job as the social media coordinator for the Vancouver Warriors NHL team.

We’re proud of her, but the distance sucks. Our family is very close, and not having her nearby weighs on all of us. Especially our moms.

“Don’t say it like that,” Giana pleads, eyes softening.

“I didn’t say it like anything. You’re happy, and that makes me happy.”

I flash her a supportive smile and relax into the pillows at my back. They’re pretty flat and uncomfortable, but on my list of things to purchase, pillows aren’t anywhere close to the top. Until I start working again, I’m going to have to be pretty frugal. Just like when I was in university, I’m ready to live off ramen and no-name cereal.

“Are you going to tell me why you were so distracted just now, or do I have to dig?” Gi asks.

I’m not ashamed of the way I’m keeping an ear out for Bryce. She still hasn’t walked by, and I’m a few minutes away from going to see why.

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