Daisy Haites: The Great Undoing: Book 4 (Magnolia Parks Universe)
Daisy Haites: Chapter 17

Here’s the thing about my brother: You can’t not like him.1 You can try, but you’ll bend eventually. He’s beyond charismatic, he could be killing you and politely ask you to hand him his other gun and you’d probably do it.

And it’s not just women — it’s men, too.

He’s just the sort of person you just want to be around, whose approval you want.

He has a certain gravitas to him that everyone falls to.

Tonight’s the dinner… The dinner Tiller has tried to get out of for the last three days in a row and maybe if I were a better girlfriend I would let him miss it, but I won’t let him miss tonight because I can’t patch the hole in the side of the ship, but I’m fairly sure I can put out the fire in the boiler room.

I invite Jack for reinforcements on both ends.2

“Where are we going?” Jack asks, fixing his shoelace.

Tiller helps me slip into my coat as my brother and I have a Mexican standoff with our eyes about the restaurant we’re going to.

I say “The Ledbury” at the same time my brother says “Bar 61.”

We stare at one another and then wordlessly on the tacit count of three, we scissors-paper-rock it.

Julian: rock; Me: paper.

Jack rolls his eyes, checks his watch.3

Julian: rock; Me: scissors.

“Don’t mind them—” Jack tells Tiller. “This is how they decide where to go on vacations too.”

Julian: paper; Me: scissors.

I give him a smug smile.

My brother sighs. “The Ledbury it is.”

I knew Jules was going to lay it on thick tonight for Tiller. Knew it, could feel it before he began — Julian needs to be loved by everyone,4 even my NCA agent boyfriend.

We walk into The Ledbury and we’re greeted by the maitre’d5 and taken to the table Julian and I always sit at.

Tiller watches on in fascination at how people move around my brother.

People part in front of him like Moses’ sea, and Julian doesn’t bat an eye. He’s used to it, doesn’t even notice it anymore — and to his defence, he’s too busy kissing babies.

It’s genuine, too. He clasps the hands and shoulders of the people he’s passing by, including several of the staff, remembering all of their names, even asking one waiter how his dad’s doing.

Once we’re seated, Julian grins up at the waitress. “Zoe, right?” She nods, flushing at him remembering her. Jack and I trade looks.

“A bottle of your best red, a bottle of your best white and all the starters that aren’t fishy.” Big grin.

Julian looks over at Jack and snaps his finger.

“Where are we at with Waterhouse?”

“It’s going okay,” Jack says, sounding unsure.

“Okay?” Jules’ eyes pinch at my best friend. “Don’t you even think about going back to that fucking Hot John — whatever his name is—”

Hot Dom.

Jack looks at me despondently. “For fuck’s sake, Dais—”

“What?” I blink, innocently. “I tell him everything! Like a therapist, almost.”

Jack flares over at me. “Why don’t you just see a therapist?”

“Well—” I frown, glancing between them all. “I did that last year — see one, I mean.” I look at Tiller for back-up and he nods. “But she kept saying things I didn’t love.”

“Did she?” My brother frowns, defensively. “Like what?”

“Oh just shit like… that I use sex almost medicinally—”

Julian pulls a face. “Hate that—”

“And as a coping mechanism.”

He pulls a face. “Hate that too.”

“That I have issues with women because of our mother—”

“I’ll say!” Jack scoffs the way only a best friend could but Tiller’s nodding away too.

Julian lets out a low whistle then reaches over and covertly squeezes my arm like he’s sorry for me, like it’s his fault that he stole all our mother’s affection, and then he nods his chin at Tiller.

“You close with your family?”

Tiller nods. “Yep.”

“Big family?”

Tiller shrugs. “Two brothers, Mom and Dad.”

Jules gestures towards him. “American, obviously—”6 Tills nods. “Where?”

“Nantucket.”

I glance over at Jack, making a tight face — the conversation is hardly riveting. Tiller’s all walled up.

“Tiller loves surfing—” I tell my brother as I hold my boyfriend’s arm, internally trying7 to coax him out. Jules nods over at him. “Yeah, you look like you would — I caught some monsters at Playa Encuentro—”

My boyfriend’s eyes pinch. “Bit of a drive from where you were holed up…”

Julian folds his arms over his chest, unimpressed. “Not like I had much else to do.”

I take a breath, smile between them nervously.

“So—” Julian pours Tiller more wine. “How’d you get into what you do?”

My heart twists a little. I was hoping the job thing wouldn’t come up — stupid of me, really. Of course it would. A vain thought, but a girl can dream…

A detective at the NCA sitting down with a crime boss for dinner at The Ledbury? It’s practically a fucking NATO summit.

“My dad.” Tiller nods, carefully. “You?” he adds, playfully.

Jules snorts. “My dad.”

Tiller pulls at some bread. Plays with it, doesn’t eat it. “Is being a gang lord what you always wanted to do?”

“Not a gang lord.” Julian rolls his eyes.8 “And no—” He cracks a smile. “Not even close, man. I wanted to be an MMA fighter or a fullback for the Harlequins.”

Tills sits back in his chair, a little thrown, a confused smile on his face.

“He’s very good—” Jack nods his head in my brother’s direction.

Julian gives Jack a measured look. “You were very good,” my brother reminds him.

“You play?” Tiller asks Jack, brows up.

I kick Jack under the table proudly. “Giles was offered to play for the Saracens out of high school.”

Jack could have been anything in the world he wanted to be. A rugby player, a model, the surgeon general, a professional heartbreaker.

“Why didn’t you?” Tiller asks.

Jack grimaces a little. “Didn’t want to go through life as a gay rugby player…”

“You couldn’t have just been a rugby player?” Tiller asks.

Jack shrugs. “You tell me.”

Tills thinks on this, looks sad for my friend, and then nods his chin over at my brother. “So if they offered you a place, would you have taken it?”

“They did9 — and no.” My brother shakes his head, and I see a twinge of sadness flash across his face.

Everyone else would have missed it, but not me, because I get it. Jonah would have caught it, so would have Christian.

No matter how you slice it, no matter good our lives are, laced with so many benefits and perks, none of us had a choice.

“I’ve gotta ask, man—” Tiller eyes my brother, flicking me a glance too. “How do you do it?”

Julian cocks a little smile. “Are you being a little meta, Tiller, or are you looking for a literal how-to?”

Tills sniffs a laugh. “The first one.”

Julian licks his bottom lip, thinking. “Did you see Green Street Hooligans?”

Tills nods.

“Oceans 11? The Italian Job? Fast — whatever, there’s too many now. Didn’t you watch those and think, fuck, that looks like fun?” Julian gives Tiller a look and points to him. “And don’t lie. Everyone did. Of course they did, it’s a fucking blast—”

“But you’re doing the wrong thing,” Tiller reminds him.

My brother shrugs. “According to who?”

Tiller looks over at me like he can’t believe it, like it’s obvious.

He stares over at Jules. “The law.”

Julian swats his hand dismissively. “I don’t ascribe to your laws.”

“Yeah, bro,” Tiller snorts. “I fucking know.”

Julian shakes his head, passionately. “I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen, or who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up—”10 I take a deep breath through my nose. Jack and I trade looks. He’s doing the Jack Dawson speech. He always does the Jack Dawson speech when he wants to deflect. People think it’s so charming that someone like Julian would know a Leonardo DiCaprio monologue by heart, and maybe it is. Or maybe it’s because I went through a real macabre phase during the tween break-up with Rome and we watched the movie every second night.

Julian shrugs his shoulders innocently. “Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge11 and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people—”

Tiller’s face pinches, confused. “We’re not—?”

I shake my head. “He’s quoting Titanic.”

Julian does another lighthearted shrug, picking up his wine glass and taking a sip, complete with an ‘ahh’ as he swallows. “I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what ha—”

“Alright.” I toss a bread roll at his head.

Julian chuckles, and in my peripherals I can see that it’s worked.

Quoting that fucking movie has buttered Tiller right up. I can see it in his eyes, he — reluctantly — is replaceing my brother completely delightful.12

“Here’s the thing, right—” My brother reaches out and smacks my boyfriend in the arm. “We’re all going to die one day. I’m just trying to have fun before I do.”

“You know what.” I shake my head at him. “I actually don’t believe that.”

“Why?” Julian nods, loving an argument.

“Because you believe in God—”

Tiller sits back. This surprises him.

“So?” Julian quips, not understanding my confusion.

“So if you believe in God, then it matters how you live. It’s not just about fun on earth, it can’t be. You have to be good so you can get into Heaven.”

“Ah!” My brother grins, eyes like live-wires. “Daisyface, if you think any of us getting into Heaven is predicated on something we have or have not done, you’ve misunderstood that entire book.” He gives me a look. “Detrimentally so,” he tacks on at the end.

Tiller blinks, sitting back in his chair. “You think you’re saved?”

“Nah, I doubt it—” Julian shrugs and lets out a small laugh as he takes another big gulp of wine. “Probably a bit loved, though.”

1 It’s always been this way.

2 Julian adores him, Tiller loves him.

3 He’s used to our shit.

4 My teachers, the postman, the old lady at the bakery, the old man at the corner store.

5 Who hugs my brother, and I’d like to re-reference footnote number 103.

6 I love Tiller’s accent.

7 And failing.

8 Him and Jonah have never liked that term, but I don’t think they’ve ever offered an alternative.

9 He was insanely talented at it.

10 Oh, piss it.

11 Tiller flicks me a look, no longer tracking.

12 Everyone does.