Deals with Daisy // LN4

73 ~ Unthinkable

Lando's POV

"So what happened last night?" are the first words from Val as she greets me right where the beach ends and the grass begins. It wasn't a surprise that she was there, I'd seen her get up from where she was relaxing by the pool to greet me where I was clearly making my way back up to the villa, but what was a surprise was the question she asked. It was so much of a surprise that I stopped in my task to frown at her, kind of confused and also not really in the mood to chat with her because as nice as she seemed, I was really focused on my need to talk to Daisy.

"What do you mean?" I ask her gruffly but stay in my spot, eyes glancing up at the room I had somehow managed to drag myself out of earlier this morning and seeing the curtains still pulled across the window.

"I'm assuming me getting kicked out of Max's bed twice, once by each of you isn't a coincidence..." she says with a soft smile and I've never felt my neck hurt as much as when I snap it towards her. I stopped using the t-shirt to wipe away the sweat on my forehead as I had long since taken it off and instead began to use it to shield my eyes from the sun as I squinted at her curiously, now glad that I had stopped to talk to her.

Both of us? Daisy had gone to Max as well?!

"She's awake?" I questioned dumbly because obviously, that meant she was awake. My eyes flick back up to the window in question, surprised that the curtain was still drawn if she was awake. She was normally like a plant - if there was daylight anywhere, at any time, then she wanted to see it and have it bleeding into her room. It's why her New York flat was almost totally open-plan with floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Well yeah... it's like midday Lando," Val explains with a nervous laugh from the look on my face and I nod absent-mindedly as I try to concentrate, knowing she's right. I'd hoped that I could have my workout and try to get my thoughts in order after they were scrambled so thoroughly last night before she woke up. I had planned to get her breakfast in bed... or maybe something less ambitious like coffee, and then try to stumble through an explanation on why my saying no last night wasn't a reflection on her or my lack of want for her but my want for something more. It was sooner than I'd planned to actually try and make this all a reality and so I wasn't prepared but I couldn't let her think anything else. Because it really wasn't a reflection of that. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah... she was just so tired last night I thought she would sleep in," I explain, now restarting my journey up to the villa with a new level of urgency as I realised I had once more fucked up.

I'm not entirely sure why I thought it was a good idea to leave her this morning in the first place but I'd barely slept last night. It was probably the worst night's sleep I've ever had next to her except for Silverstone. Fuck Silverstone... sometimes I really hated myself for being such a coward. Anyways, eventually I'd gotten up, tired of tossing and turning as my mind was tormenting me with memories of her skin against mine and while I knew it was my fault nothing happened... I was just trying to do the right thing, for both of us. I wanted to do it right and while it pleased me that I had managed to get her that worked up, that I'd proven to both of us she could want me like that... I wanted to make sure she was ready for more than that. I was determined that there was not going to be any more one-step-forward and two-steps-back kind of shit happening any more.

I was all in and I wanted to make sure that she was as well. I wanted to make sure that she knew what it meant to me so that we could do this right without any more miscommunication. Although apparently we were still cursed with a little more.

To this end I'd gotten up and fled down the stairs to Max's room, needing to talk to him about what happened. I realised last night that I really needed to refocus and actually get some sort of a plan together because yesterday had gone from 0-100 faster than my car and while it was good in some ways, I just wasn't sure that we'd been headed towards the right target.