the art of loving ; lord tewksbury

thirty

""I wrote you something, you idiot. I wrote you a story."

Chapter Thirty

"Out of all places, why a rooftop?" Daisy asked. She was holding on to the rickety steps of a ladder which leaned against the exterior wall of Basilwether Hall. It was dark out, the only sources of light coming from the moonlight above and few lamps surrounding the perimeter of the building.

  Daisy focused her gaze on her hands, slowly making her way higher up the ladder which led to the rooftop. She focused her attention on her hands and tried to steady herself, hoping the ladder wouldn't wobble too much and tumble to the ground. Her shoes had long been discarded on the lawn below, which made it a little easier to climb, but the bottom of her dress kept getting in the way. She had to kick it aside before moving on to another step.

"Because rooftops are fun," Tewksbury answered. He had gone before her and was now waiting at the top, his hand extended so he could pull her up to where he stood. Daisy gladly took his hand and held onto him as he hoisted her over the edge of the roof. She landed on her feet and wiped her dusty hands on her gown before examining her surroundings.

"It's a quiet place," she deduced.

"Precisely why I brought you here," the boy said. "And it's private, too. A stark contrast from the chaos downstairs." He nudged her shoulder. "So, what do you wanna do?"

"Well, there's something I wanted to give you," Daisy answered. She reached under her dress for the journal she told Grant to grab for her when he had gone home to change. If there was one benefit of fancy gowns, it was that you could hide anything you wanted in it.

"Here," she handed Tewksbury the leather journal, the same one he had gifted her at the quarry. "Before you ask why I'm giving this back to you, it's because there is a special little something inside."

"What, did you kill a poor old spider and slip it in between the pages?" he joked, grinning cheekily at her.

Daisy rolled her eyes. "I wrote you something, you idiot. I wrote you a story. About us. About our time
together these past two weeks."

Tewksbury's grin dropped and he stared at her in surprise. "You wrote me a story?" he asked. "And you're letting me read it?"

"Yeah."

He didn't utter a word after, which worried Daisy. She knew she was overthinking his reaction, but what if he thought it was... lame? What if he thought it was weird that she wrote something for him, or that it wasn't as good as any gift he'd ever gotten her?

  "Read to me, Daisy," he said.

The request puzzled her. "You want me to read to you? Any part of my story?"

Tewksbury nodded. He motioned for her to sit down. When she did, he laid on the ground with his head in her lap.

"Way to make yourself comfortable," she quipped. She flipped her journal open to a random page, scanning the written words before she read them aloud.

"He took me to a strawberry farm, where we spent the morning plucking fruit and arguing over which one of us had the fuller basket. He claimed it was him, even though he cheated multiple times. I ended up winning our silly competition, but that was because I stole a bunch of his strawberries when his back was turned. It was the most fun I had had in years."