A Single Daffodil

Early Summer mornings were always the easiest to wake up to in South Beach. The dazzling sun peaked through the sheer curtains that swayed faintly beneath the ceiling fan. The sound of the slow, careless breeze rustled through the palm trees outside my windows and if you were to stay awfully still, held your breath, and listened very carefully, you could catch the subtle cries of the seagulls above--

“Wow, you’re the worst sleep kicker in the world.” Harry stirred in the spot next to me, stretching his arms above his head. “What were you trying to do? Play in the FIFA cup?”

“I’ll show you FIFA cup!” I exclaimed, shifting underneath my sheets to kick Harry’s legs with mine.

He immediately retaliated, grabbing my wrists as he tried to kick me back. Every time I tried to give him a swift kick in the shin, the sheets would ward off the blow by restricting.

“You’re not even remotely close to bending it like Beckham, Vita!” Harry laughed as I continued to try to kick him. “Whoa hey! Watch it! You’ll kick the ankle spanker!”

I immediately stopped thrashing underneath the sheets and stared at him. “The what!?”

Harry smirked. “The ankle spanker! Because, yeh know, it goes all the way down to-”

“Oh my God, quit. Quit now. Quit forever.” I moaned. “You’re vile!”

“You didn’t think I was vile last night.” He hummed. His hands travelled underneath the sheets and found my waist. He easily pulled me into him, and placed his tender lips on my jawline, leaving a trail of kisses down my neck.

Yes, Harry stayed the night. Again.

But this time it didn’t totally suck, and he wasn’t crazy off a mixture of cough syrup and alcohol either.

After we made up outside Jane’s Flower Shop last night, we did a lot of making out. In the rain. No, scratch that, in the thunderstorm. At some point, I couldn’t find anything romantic about the lightning that was threatening to strike us, so I reluctantly pulled away from our insane kissing session, and invited him to my place. After twenty minutes of shoving my bicycle into the backseat of his waiting Range Rover, stealing more kisses, and driving through 15 feet deep puddles, we finally arrived back at my house. We were completely soaked to the bone, and the collective sneezing and shivering between the two of us was so incredibly unromantic. After stripping off our wet shoes by the front door, I offered him Jayden’s old shorts and a basketball jersey while I put our clothes in the dryer.

And while that went down, we made out some more.

“What do you want to do today?” Harry leaned his head against his propped up hand as he looked down at me with a playful smile. He reached out for one of my blonde curls and started twirling it around his finger. I died a little inside.

“You don’t have to record today?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I have the day off.”

I grinned and curled up closer to him. “How strange, unusual, and delightfully ideal, because I have today off too!”

He chuckled and tugged lightly on my hair. “Okay, Dr. Seuss, what’s on the agenda then?”

I tapped my index finger against my bottom lip as I mulled over our options. Harry watched me, a look of amusement on his face. “I may or may not have a couple of ideas.” I finally said. “But first! We get coffee!”

It took a lot of convincing to get Harry out of bed, mostly because he considered my bed to be a huge, warm marshmallow that shouldn’t be left alone. Once I mentioned the word food, however, he was flying out of there a second beat later. While he changed back into his now dry skinny black jeans, loose black, t-shirt and white converse sneakers while I discarded my pajamas and changed into denim shorts, a white tank top and sandals. My hair was all kinds of frizzy and gross from the rain last night, so I threw it up into a messy bun. Harry’s hair, on the other hand, was still perfect. How he managed to make it look good after all the humidity and rain was a mystery to me.

“Alright, Styles, your car or mine?” I asked as I shut the front door to my house behind us.

Harry walked out to the driveway in front of me and pulled on his Ray Ban sunglasses as he surveyed the two parked cars. The minute he spotted my blue bicycle leaning against the garage door, I could see the light bulb appear above his head.

“No, Harry. Don’t even think about it.” I warned when he picked up my bicycle.

“Oh yeah, girl. Now we’re talkin’.” He smirked when he threw his leg over the bar and rolled the bicycle towards me. He patted the basket. “Your chariot awaits, me lady.”

“Don’t think for a second that your ‘oh let’s be all cute and ride a bicycle’ facade will work on me, Styles. That whole Notebook scenario won’t work on me. This is the 21st century!” I jingled my car keys as evidence. “It’s either my way or the highway!”



“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” I mumbled, clinging onto the handle bars for dear life. After we hit a small ditch on the road that led out of my neighborhood, I squealed and leaned back in fright. “Oh my God, this is how I die!”

Harry, on the other hand, laughed at my clearly petrified demeanor. When I turned to look at him for a split second, he was standing up on the two pedals, looking both left and right at traffic before pedaling across the road and onto the main Ocean Boulevard sidewalk. When I made more uneasy protests after hitting other bumps in the road, Harry laughed again. “You’re so adorable when you’re scared.”

“Why do you find so much pleasure in my tragedy!?” I asked cynically. I noticed Harry started to pedal faster when tourists on the boardwalk started recognizing him (and I guess, me too now) on the bike. My grip on the handlebars tightened even more --if that was possible -- and even started to enjoy the idea of saying my Hail Mary’s before I fell to my anticipated death.

“Just relax. I got you.” Harry’s voice was warm (and British, obviously, but I felt the need to point that out again because it was just so sexy) and much closer to my ear. I felt his chin rest on my left shoulder as we cruised down the boardwalk and straight past all the people who were now stopping and pulling their phones out. I couldn’t prevent the grin from forming on my lips when I could see Harry smiling in the corner of my eye. Instead of freaking out more about my imminent death, I leaned into his chest and enjoy the moment while it lasted.

Eventually, Harry and I decided to stop and eat breakfast at the Van Dyke Cafe. The cafe was a cute, wrap-around outdoorsy cafe, with canopies that dotted over the seating area. The decor was quite charming with its dark wood bar, hardwood floor and ruby red accents. When the staff saw us approaching, they immediately offered us the most discreet seating in the place, assuming they were aware of who Harry was. Even though the majority of the customers at the cafe were old, Cuban and clearly uninterested in who we were, it still felt very weird getting this kind of treatment. I was never treated like a celebrity when I was out on my own. Well, save for the crazy Heat die-hard fans, but even then, it was a very rare occurrence that people cared who I was related to.

Despite the googly eyes our cute little Latina waitress was giving Harry as she took our orders and handed us our drinks, I was in a really good mood. Maybe it was because the whole time I was with Harry, he would find any type of way of touching me while we spoke. He’d idly reach for my hand over the table and lace our fingers together, or “innocently” play footsie with me under the table. Or maybe it was because every time I said something, he would give me his full attention and watch me with eyes so full of light and delight, that I would find myself blushing every time I acknowledged it. And then when I would blush, he would tell me how adorable it was.

God, we were like that lovesick annoying couple that completely shut out the world when we were together.

And strangely enough, for the first time ever, I was totally okay with that.

By the time we finished our breakfast and paid the check (it took us an additional ten minutes to fight over who was paying. Harry, unfortunately, won that one.), it was only ten o’clock.

“What’s our next destination, then?” Harry inquired as he shaded his eyes once more with his Ray Bans. He threw his leg over the bike once more and looked at me expectantly. “Lebron James’s mansion? Dwayne Wade’s yacht?”

I snorted and walked over to the front of the bike. “I’ve got something better in mind.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry asked curiously as I hopped up onto the basket of my bicycle. It was less scary the second time around.

“There’s actually...someone I’d like you to meet.” I answered, nodding my chin straight ahead. “Make a left on Lincoln Road.”

I barked out a couple of more directions to Harry as he pedaled us across South Beach and into the neighborhood adjacent to Ocean Avenue. We cycled past the block lined with tall, proud palm trees and zoomed past the elder fast-paced walkers on the sidewalk. I could feel my heart racing with excitement when we turned onto Seashell Lane.

“Where are we?” Harry questioned the minute we pulled into the driveway of 113 Seashell Lane.

I grinned when I noticed only the screen door was separating us from the inside of the house. Even from the driveway, I could hear a Frank Sinatra melody coming from the living room. Grandpa Gene was home.

“Come on!” I pulled on Harry’s hand, led him across the stone path, and into Grandpa Gene’s front foyer.

The minute the screen door smacked shut behind us, Grandpa Gene called out from the sunroom.

“Who’s here?” His raspy, assertive voice shouted over the music.

“It’s me, Grandpa!” I shouted back, turning to look at Harry. He had a look of amusement on his face as he mouthed the word ‘Grandpa?’.

I nodded and ushered him to follow me into the house.

“Is that you, Vita?” Grandpa’s voice sounded less demanding, and more relieved when he called out the second time.

“Yes!” I said once I reached the doorway of the Sunroom. Harry, who was standing behind me, made a noise of astonishment as he stared into my Grandpa’s art studio. “I actually brought a friend with me, if you don’t mind.”

Grandpa Gene was sitting on a stool in front of his easel, with his back turned to the doorway. Upon hearing this, however, he stopped painting and turned around. He offered a smile. “Not at all.”

I smiled back and walked into the studio. Harry quickly followed suit, carefully stepping over the discarded pieces of painted paper. After giving Grandpa Gene a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, I introduced him to Harry.

“I would shake your hand, son, but my hands are covered in purple paint.” Grandpa Gene chuckled lightly. “And just call me Gene. None of that Grandpa crap.”

“Aw what’s wrong with the Grampz part?” I questioned jokingly. I tip-toed around a stack of old sketchbooks on the floor and fell onto the pillowed-covered sofa. Like clockwork, Robin the cat stirred from her sleep and stretched her paws out to me.

“Vita.” Grandpa Gene warned. He was already back to painting the canvas in front of him. I let out a giggle when I caught his typical eye roll. I knew he hated being called Grandpa Gene. He was just Gene.

“This room is spectacular.” Harry was standing a couple of feet away from me, with his arms crossed over his chest and his hands tucked beneath his biceps. I watched as he surveyed the room with a look of complete and utter awe twinkling in his eyes. I knew he’d have that reaction. The sunroom was amazing. There were at least a thousand filled canvases in here, some hanging and some leaning against the walls. Every canvas had a color story, a meaning, a piece of Grandpa’s brain. Essentially, if you’re walking into the sunroom, you’re walking into Grandpa Gene’s mind, body, and soul. It was the best room in the house.

“Isn’t it?” I agreed, leaning back into the sofa as I too, took in my surroundings. It never got old for me.

“I mean, really. I don’t...I can’t find the right words to describe just how incredible this place is.” Harry was speechless, turning in his spot as he continued to gaze at the painted canvases on the walls behind him.

Grandpa Gene let out another chuckle. “They’re just a couple of doodles.”

“‘Just a couple of doodles’!?” Harry and I questioned Grandpa Gene in unison.

“You see that!?” I addressed Harry while Grandpa Gene shook his head like the two of us were crazy. “Do you see what I put up with? He think these masterpieces are nothing but doodles. This guy is unbelievable, right?”

“You’re amazing, Mr. Spoelstra.” Harry finally joined me on the sofa beneath the tall windows. I could feel myself getting excited the second our knees touched. I got a little too excited over stupid things when it came to Harry. It was a little embarrassing. “Really. All of this artwork should be in a museum.”

“I don’t like museums.” Grandpa Gene hummed as he swirled the paintbrush in a cup of water. He picked it back up and dabbed it into the orange paint. “Museums are like graveyards for art. Tombs for inanimate things. Everything about museums puts me off. Like the dead sounds of tourists shuffling and employees yawning. It just sends me into a shrug of ennui.”

Harry watched my Grandpa with entire fascination. I knew that look all too well. When people met my Grandpa, they never understood him right away. It was a look he got all the time, not that he minded or anything. I think he quite liked being a hard egg to crack.

“How have you been, Grandpa?” I asked as I ran my hand along Robin’s back. She was now standing up on my lap, purring loudly and enjoying every minute of the attention she was getting from me. Soon enough, she hopped over me and headed over to Harry. Robin immediately jumped into Harry’s lap and curled into a huge ball of orange fur. Harry chuckled at Robin, immediately scratching the top of her head. She purred louder. “Have you been eating well? Did you remember to take your heart medication? Do you want me to do any dishes for you?”

“Really, Vita. You needn’t to worry about me!” Grandpa peered past his easel to give me a stern look. “I’m not as senile as you think, you know. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I’m sorry!” I admitted with a light laugh. “I just worry sometimes because you live here alone. You can’t blame me!”

“You remind me so much of Bridgette, it’s absurd.” Grandpa Gene momentarily stopped painting, letting his words drift in the air for a second, before going back to the canvas. “She always worried so much about me. And for no reason!”

My heart sank as I watched him remember his late wife in that very brief moment of fragility. Grandpa Gene missed my Grandma more than anything in this world.

“Who is Bridgette?” Harry asked curiously as he continued to scratch little Robin behind the ears.

“My Grandma.” I answered softly. “She died way before I was born. I never met her, but I’ve heard nothing but good things.”

“Well if she was anything like you, she must have been really lovely.” Harry responded with a sweet smile, bumping his elbow into mine with a wink.

My cheeks immediately flushed scarlet, and goosebumps started to prickle my skin with delight. I had to fight the urge to kiss Harry on the mouth, because that was all I wanted to do in this very moment. The idea was intoxicating.

“Do you want to hear about how I met Bridgette, Harry?” Grandpa Gene looked up from his half-moon glasses with a tiny smirk, but didn’t stop from swirling the paintbrush in the water again. “It’s a tale I think you’d enjoy.”

“Oh yeah, tell it! It’s my favorite story!” I exclaimed before turning to Harry. “He used to tell me this story all the time as a kid. It’s the most romantic thing you’ll ever here!”

“I would love to hear it.” Harry grinned.

Grandpa Gene pushed at the thin, square glasses that sat on the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat. “I joined the U.S Navy after I graduated high school, so it was right around the time when the 60s era begun. It was the height of the Vietnam War and there were over 12,000 of us sailors over there. Those were the toughest times of my life. The war changed me. I became angry, short-tempered, deceitful.
“Around 1965, the U.S army realized they didn’t have any need for the Navy anymore, so they turned us away...what was left of us, anyways. A lot of my friends, almost brothers, died in that war. I remember feeling so unhappy and alone after being apart of something so dreadful and appalling. I thought I would never be the same after going through all that. Anyways, they sent us away from Vietnam, but they didn’t send us home. They deployed our U.S Navy ship to the coast of France.”

“Saint Malo, France!” I piped up. I could feel myself getting antsy with excitement as I waited not-so-patiently for my Grandpa to get to the good parts.

My Grandpa grinned and nodded before he continued. “Saint Malo, France. All the guys were more than thrilled about no longer being in Vietnam. They were quite fond of the idea of staying off the coast of France for two months. But not me. I was sour about the whole thing. I was so sour, in fact, that I didn’t leave the ship for about a whole week. While all the other sailors went on shore and drank wine and beer amongst the other French men and women, I stayed on the boat, in my bunk, and sketched nightmares I was about the Vietnam war.
“By the seventh or eighth night of my anti-social ways, my bunkmates decided they had enough of my bitter attitude and forced me to go out with them and a couple of French women they met. I complained the whole way there, especially about being a dateless fifth wheel. Luckily for me, they already set up a blind date with a waitress they met at a cafe house called ‘Merce & The Muse’. I remember thinking how strange it was that it was in English, seeing as every other restaurant, shop and diner we passed by were all in French. I also remember when we walked into a medieval looking bar in the middle of town, the first thing I spotted was the most beautiful girl in the whole place. She had strawberry blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was the waitress from Merce & The Muse, and her name was Bridgette.
“Bridgette hated me. She thought I was rude and negative and called me every curse word in French you could think of. I didn’t mean to come off as gloomy or cynical, I just couldn’t remember how to be social or a gentleman to a lady. Bridgette didn’t give me a chance to explain how badly the Vietnam war affected me. She stormed off, and didn’t even let me walk her home. It was a disaster! But that didn’t mean I gave up.
“Even after such a horrendous first date, I felt different then I had the day before I met her. It was optimism. I hadn’t felt optimism since I was a kid, a kid before the war. When I went to bed that night, I remember thinking I had to find her again and explain. So the next day, I went on a search for the cafe she worked at. I spent all morning and afternoon, trying to converse with non-English speakers, asking if they knew where Merce & The Muse was. It was around 3pm when I finally stumbled upon the cafe in a quiet, cobbled-road alleyway. I asked the first waitress I found if Bridgette was working. Turns out, Bridgette was working, and was also the only english-speaking French person there. I found out later on that the Cafe was owned by her best friend’s mother, and Bridgette worked there part time over the summer.
“Well, after a lot of convincing and bribing, I managed to take Bridgette out on another date. It wasn’t nearly as good as I’d hope it would be, but it was a lot better than the first. After that, we were practically inseparable.”

Grandpa Gene stopped stroking his brush against the canvas and dropped it into the cup of blue and brownish water. “The U.S vessel was only going to be deployed to Saint Malo for the summer, so I was able to spend a whole summer with Bridgette. Our whole relationship was full of taking adventures around the town, climbing mountains, discovering secret hideaways. She’d often make picnic baskets for the two of us when we would spend a whole day hiking off the coast. She would also always let me draw her when we’d lay out in our favorite spots. There is one specific memory I often like to think about when I tell this story.”

Grandpa Gene got up suddenly from his easel and snapped his fingers, walking over to one of the piles of canvases leaning against the wall. He carefully thumbed through several of them, until he found the one he was looking for. He pulled out a thin, medium-sized canvas. He brought it over and handed it to me and Harry.

Harry and I shared a puzzled look before inspecting the colorful canvas in our hands. It was a painting of what appeared to be a morning sunrise over a secluded lake. The sky had an ombre effect; the rose bled into the orange, the orange seeped into the purple, the purple eventually blended into the powder blue sky. The lake, however, was a whole other store. While it reflected the beautiful colors of the sky, there were soft ripples along the surface, with a couple of lily pads speckled around what appeared to be an empty row-boat. Near the boat were tall, wide, Weeping Willows, with their curtains of drooping branches cascading down to the lake’s surface. You could see tiny ripples being made as the tip of the branches swept across water.

“Grandpa, this is beautiful!” I exclaimed, completely in awe of his artwork. Typically, Grandpa Gene liked to be cryptic with his work, and more often than not, very abstract. This painting, however, was like a photograph and very surreal. “You’ve never showed me this painting before.”

I looked over at Harry, to see that he was speechless. I watched his thumb carefully glide over the rough edges of the dry paint.

Grandpa Gene chuckled, walking back to his easel and sitting down. “That’s because I finished the painting last week. I’ve tried painting that location many times over the years, but I never quite got it right.”

“So this is actually a place?” Harry finally spoke up. “Where is it?”

“It was our secret hideaway.” Grandpa Gene answered. “We found it on one of our many hikes. Bridgette and I went there every day the minute she would get off work. We would sit in that boat for hours, just taking in each others’ presence. I fell in love with her in a span of two months. My love for her was intoxicating and a feeling I never thought I could have before. She, evidentially, helped me out of my post-war funk and really brought out the best in me.”

“So, what happened?” Harry asked, still staring at the painting in our hands. “Were you deployed back to the U.S?”

“Well, we were separated from each other for a whole year. We sent each other letters practically every week, but I couldn’t see her until the following summer, after I finished serving in the Navy. After months of writing letters to each other, I realized how mad I was about her. So I asked her to marry me in a letter during Christmas. A week later, I got a response from Bridgette, telling me she’d been waiting for me to ask her since I went back to the States and that she’d been saving up money to move to Florida the whole time. Three months later, we got married.”

“That’s amazing.” Harry grinned.

“Did you ever go back to Saint Malo?” I asked. “I bet your secret lake is still there!”
I saw Grandpa Gene’s expression drop, as if I offended him or something. Behind his square glasses, I swore I could see his eyes water up. Before I could inspect further, he blinked them away and cleared his throat. “I don’t think I could handle going back.”

“Your Bridgette seemed like a very charming woman, Mr. Spoelstra.” Harry smiled at Grandpa Gene. “It sounds like your love for her is eternal.”

“It is.” Grandpa smiled weakly in our direction before standing up once more. “Forgive me, but all this talking has got me feeling very tired all of a sudden. Would you mind if I went to take a nap?”

“Not at all!” I exclaimed, also standing up quickly. Harry followed suit a beat later. “We were actually on our way out. Did you need help with anything before we leave?”

Grandpa Gene smiled. “I’m only seventy-two years old, Vita. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

I smiled in return, knowing full well that would be his response. After telling Harry it was nice to meet him, he called for little Robin and walked into the hallway and towards his bedroom.

Once I heard Grandpa Gene’s bedroom door shut, I turned to Harry and sighed. “He gets tired easily nowadays.” I said in a whisper.

“What happened to your Grandma in the end? If you don’t mind me asking?” Harry asked. He reached out and placed a strand of my hair behind my left ear, earning me a quick skip of the heartbeat. I loved when he did that.

“She died about twenty years after my dad was born.” I replied sadly. “According to my dad, my Grandpa was never the same after her death. It was like a part of him died too, you know?”

“Wow.” Harry let out a low whistle. “He must have really loved her.”

“You have no idea.” I turned around to take in all of the sunroom, my eyes wandering over every canvas that littered the room. “I don’t think anyone does. Not even me or my dad.”