Deals with Daisy // LN4

27 ~ Trying Something New

Daisy's POV

Being in the house alone was lonely. It felt like it reiterated what Lando had said when he arrived the first time. That it was a house and not a home and now it was even worse because it was an empty house. I filled my time with work, almost relentlessly between calls for different clients - not all of them mine as I negotiated different contracts and interest levels. While Jack was settled at Man City, Jude was fielding interest for a return to the premier league which wasn't totally unexpected but was a little difficult. Between that and trying to help out Mason as he betrayed me and looked to leave Chelsea... I was busy.

On top of all that there was also Lando. So I found the one benefit of not having anyone around was that I didn't have to monitor my work hours. I was up until three am each night and awake around seven am each morning as I covered NA time zones for Lando's deals and European times for the footballers.

As a result - I had almost completely officially delegated the rest of my clients to Christine and Tegan. Officially I handed each of them an NFL player to their rosters which was a difficult decision but everything else was surprisingly time consuming. I wanted the Nike deal done by Baku so that I could present it to Lando there to be signed in Miami and get the first real step of our collaboration set in stone.

The other thing that helped pass the days was talking with Lando. He checked in everyday and along with Lucy there was always someone checking in on me. After Lucy, Lando had very quickly worked his way back into my life with frustrating ease just by existing. Well, existing and blatantly asking me about being friends that day in the MTC before blowing up at me. While I wasn't pleased with him taking out his frustrations on me, that also seemed to prove it further. He felt comfortable enough to explode and I felt comfortable enough to not take it personally. I couldn't help but smile on the inside when he asked me about being his friend - the simple question was so reminiscent of when he first asked me in the playground I couldn't help but soften up almost entirely.

Working and therapy. That was how I spent the week away from Lando. I successfully managed to stay away from not only any drugs while all by myself but also managed to not drink any alcohol. I hadn't ever really thought about alcohol also being an issue for me - it didn't put me at rock bottom the same way that drugs had and they weren't a threat to my career either. However, Lando's lingering glances as I packed drinks away on the evenings we spent together were enough to let me know that it wasn't really normal and while he was avoiding bringing it up... I couldn't help but be tempted to try and be better. How much I drank was actually a rather superb feat of human endurance but I didn't want it to be a concern to Lando, I wanted him to focus on the work in front of him and to take me seriously as his agent. I didn't want his primary thoughts to be as a friend which meant doing what I could to decrease those concern levels.

That was also part of my reasoning for not telling him about the breakup. I didn't want his concern. I also still didn't want it to be true. It's why I didn't move anything out of the house and it's why every time my phone pinged, I picked it up to check for Luke's name in case he messaged. I knew he was struggling right now and while I should be thanking him for the out, I couldn't believe it was true until he was out of rehab and telling me so. I didn't want to give up on him, on us. However... I also knew that I was a crap girlfriend. I worked so hard that I wouldn't call him back for days at a time when I was busy and I honestly didn't know why he didn't break up with me sooner. We both did things to push each other away. But when I had quit the drugs two years ago, he hadn't argued it with me. Despite planning to stay in the party scene, he voluntarily gave it up as well. I never asked him to, he just had.

Not talking to him while he was in rehab was making me a little insane though. I respected that he did it this way to stop his father from getting to him. If my dad was absent then Luke's was the exact opposite but in all the worst ways. I didn't like that Luke didn't work but when I'd met his dad I'd understood it immediately. The man was a walking definition of overbearing and unable to be pleased. Every time that Luke had showed an interest in working, doing something that he was good at - his dad had intervened and either berated his choices so bad that Luke had agreed to give it up or had directly sabotaged them.