Daisy Jones & The Six - Taylor Jenkins Reid Page 0,36
me men don’t do that same thing. When they are standing there, threatening a woman, I doubt they count every wrong step they made to become the asshole they are. But they should.
My body was stick straight—I felt sort of shockingly sober—and I put my arms out in front of me, holding on to whatever space I could try to defend. Hank was staring right into my eyes. I don’t know if I was even breathing. And then Hank punched the wall and walked out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.
After he left, I triple-locked the door behind him. He yelled something in the hall but I couldn’t make it out. I just sat on the bed. He never came back.
Billy: I was walking out of my room to go meet Graham when I saw Hank Allen coming out of Daisy’s room muttering, “That fucking bitch.” But he seemed to be calming down so I was thinking I should let it go. Then I saw him stop and turn, like he was going to back into Daisy’s room. I could tell he was trouble right then. You can see it in somebody’s gait, you know? Hands balled up into fists and jaw tight and all that. I caught his eye and he saw me. We looked at each other for a moment. I shook my head, to say, That would be the wrong move. He kept looking at me. And then he looked down at the ground and walked out.
When he was gone, I knocked on Daisy’s door. I said, “It’s Billy.”
It took a moment but she opened the door. She was wearing a navy dress—that kind where the sleeves are off the shoulders. I knew people always talked about how blue Daisy’s eyes were but that day was the first time I really noticed them. They were so blue. You know what they looked like? They looked like the middle of the ocean. Not the shoreline, not that light blue. They looked like the dark blue of the middle of the ocean. Like deep water.
I said, “Are you okay?”
She looked sad, which I’d never really seen before. And she said, “Yeah, thank you.”
I said, “If you need to talk …” I wasn’t sure how I could really help but I figured I should offer all the same.
She said, “No, that’s all right.”
Daisy: I didn’t realize just how much of a wall Billy put up around himself when he was near me until that moment, when suddenly there was no wall. Like how you don’t register you’re hearing the hum of a car engine until it’s turned it off.
But I looked him in the eye then and I saw the real Billy.
I realized I’d been looking at this guarded, cold version of him the whole time up until then. I thought, It might be nice to know this Billy. But then it was over. Just one second of realness from him and then, poof, gone the way it came.
Graham: I was waiting for Billy when my phone rang.
Karen: I don’t know why it was that day that I decided to do it.
Graham: I said, “Hi.”
And Karen just said, “Hi.”
Karen: We were sort of quiet on the phone for a second. And then I said, “How come you’ve never made a move on me?”
I could hear him drinking a beer. I could hear him take a sip. He said, “I don’t take shots I know I’ll miss.”
It was out of my mouth before I’d decided to say it. I said, “I don’t think you’ll miss, Dunne.”
And then as soon as I said it, there was a dial tone.
Graham: I have never run anywhere faster than down that hall to her room.
Karen: Three seconds later—that’s not an exaggeration—there’s a knock on my door. I opened it and Graham was out of breath. A tiny run down the hall and he was out of breath.
Graham: I looked right at her. She was so gorgeous. Those thick eyebrows. I’m a sucker for a girl with thick eyebrows. I said, “What are you saying to me?”
Karen: I said, “Just go for it, Graham.”
Graham: I stepped right into her room, I shut the door behind me, and I grabbed that woman and kissed her good.
You don’t usually wake up in the morning and think, This is going to be one of the most exciting days of my life. But that day was. That day with Karen … that was one of them.