kai parker • villains of circumstance ✔️

CHAPTER SIXTY TWO

"Very optimistic." Kai says, not taking his eyes off the map as he continued to scan it. He reached into his pocket and took out his notepad that he was writing things in last night. "But I'm not looking for a way out. Something else."

She waited for him to go on, but he never did. "What?" Daisy questioned.

Kai finally looked at her, shrugging innocently. "Nothing."

She took a quick deep breath. "You're being especially annoying today." Daisy crossed her arms.

Kai smiled cheekily, gently grabbing her arm and pulling her in for a quick peck on the lips. When he pulled away, he started walking in the other direction down the road, presumably to his cousin's house.

Daisy lingered in the same spot, taken aback. For a half second, the kiss was nice. And in the other half, lay panic. Panic over how casual it was. Just a quick kiss. A quick kiss a couple who'd been together for decades would share. A quick kiss that was very out of character for two people who'd only been casually hooking up for the past few months.

They had agreed on a friend's with benefits sort of thing. It was ridiculous to pretend that neither of them had needs or wants, and it wasn't like anyone was here to judge them over it. But a quick kiss was not a friends with benefits kind of thing.

Kai hoped that if he played it off as an intentional thing, that Daisy wouldn't catch onto the panic that ran through his body as he walked away. He wanted to slam his head into a tree. That might've been the stupidest thing he'd ever done. And he'd done a lot of stupid things. He'd just gotten her back and now he was gonna scare her off again.

Daisy chose to not make it awkward, and act like it was a totally normal thing that just happened— considering that was clearly what Kai thought. She took a quick breath and began to follow him down the middle of the road, as he glanced up and back down to his journal.

"Is that your diary?" Daisy asks, trying to make conversation as she reaches for the book in his hand.

Once again, Kai pulls it out of her reach. "No. It's where I write down my thoughts." He smiles at her sarcastically.

"That's literally what a diary is." Daisy says, reaching for it again. Kai steps out of the way and holds the book up high, where she couldn't reach it. She looks at him with a half smile, her eyes narrowed as he towered over her.

"Not a diary." He responds.

Daisy scoffs, giving up as she definitely wasn't going to be able to grab it as long as he held it up out of her reach. "Aw," she frowns dramatically, "Do you write about me in it?" She questions, knowing she was egging him on.

Kai let's out a deep sigh, opening up a random page in the book and reading it aloud as they walked together. "3 teaspoons of liquid sage, 2 basil leaves, a half cup of lemon zest. Mix, and then lace it with Praecipitatio, Consecraverant ad Instaurationem Pulchritudo, and Luceat." Kai read. "Note- this made you piss six times in the same thirty minutes. Don't drink this again. But if you do add more citrus to it or something because it tastes like shit too." Kai turned to Daisy with a satisfied smile. Daisy narrowed her eyes at him. "All the time." He answers her previous question.

Daisy refocused her attention to the neighborhood they walked through. Old, stone houses lined both sides of the streets with each of their individual personalities poking through. Some houses weren't kept us as nice, overthrown with vines and unmaintained landscaping. Some had fraternity flags hanging on the porch. Some had been completely redone, and the purpose of living in an old house was defeated, as it looked just as bland and lifeless as a new house— just more expensive.