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“Oh, come on, guys. I wasn't that drunk.”
Owen laughs heartily, and Dani had no idea how much she truly missed him until now. Jamie shakes her head, grinning amusedly, and Hannah just rolls her eyes at her husband’s reaction.
“What?” Dani asks, confused, looking at Owen then at Hannah then at Jamie. Owen is still laughing, slapping his knee. “What did I do last night that was so funny?”
Owen wipes away a tear, his shoulders shaking at the memory. He tries to stop laughing but he can’t.
“Jamie?” Dani turns to her wife, who pulls out a huge blanket from one of the bags. There’s still that stupid grin on her face, and Dani wants to kiss it off. “Will at least you tell me what’s going on, please?”
Jamie opens her mouth to say something but Owen beats her to it. “Last night you asked Jamie if she’d still date you if you were--”
The end never comes. Owen bursts out laughing again.
Dani thinks she might as well send him back to Paris on the next plane. Alone. To see if he’d still be laughing then.
“If I were what?” Dani inquires, her hands on her waist, expectant. The frustration is evident in her voice, but she can’t bring herself to care. Not if they’re all, including her wife , pulling her leg.
They all look at her for seconds that feel like an eternity. Owen’s still laughing, Jamie’s grinning. Fuck, even Hannah can’t fight her smile anymore.
Finally, Jamie has mercy on her.
“You asked me if I still dated you if you were a worm.”
Dani frowns, taken aback. “If I was -- what, really?”
“You really don’t remember, love?” Hannah asks, setting down the picnic basket beside the blanket Jamie has spread out on the sand.
Owen looks like he got his shit together by now.
Oh, nevermind.
“Owen! It’s enough,” Hannah warns him.
“Sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together, to keep himself from laughing, and he looks silly.
A last minute-ticket to Paris can’t be that expensive, right?
“So, you don’t remember anything?” Hannah asks again.
Dani shakes her head. She still can’t quite believe what they’re saying. “Uh, no. The whole evening is nothing but a blur. I just know there were you all, tortilla chips, guacamole, and a lot of drinks.”
“Yeah, a couple too many, I reckon,” Jamie says, pulling off her shirt and revealing a stunning black bikini-top. Dani has never seen it before. She knew if she had. “It’s a wonder you aren’t more wasted after a night like this.”
The sight of Jamie in the soft glow of the afternoon sun makes Dani forget for a moment what they’re talking about. Her breath hitches, when Jamie steps out of her hot pants. She flashes Dani a wink and throws them carelessly into their swim bag.
It’s only then when Dani catches herself staring, and she shakes her head to get her thoughts in order. Now is not the time or place for daydreams.
Dani shrugs, glancing over to their friends. Owen is now in his baguette-patterned blue swim-trunks, and Hannah has chosen a dark red elegant swimsuit for the day.
“Well,” Dani says, turning back to her wife, “The hangover breakfast from this idiot over there seemed to do the trick.”
Jamie laughs a little, looking for something in the rucksack. “That, and the bottle of water I made you drink before bed.”
Dani smiles. “Yeah, thank you for that.”
“Poppins, where is the--"
“It’s in the small beach bag with your cigarettes and my sunglasses. In the right inside pocket.”
“Oh thanks, Poppins,” Jamie says, and finds the sunscreen just where Dani had told her. “Don’t know what I’d do without ya.”
Dani takes off her pastel blue sundress and her sandals, folds her clothes neatly and puts them on top of Jamie’s. “Hm, you’d probably still be looking for that sunscreen.”
She thinks a moment, then sets her clothes aside and folds Jamie’s too, before she puts hers back and closes the zipper. That’s better.
Jamie grins, kneeling behind Dani who’s made herself comfortable on the blanket. “You can count on it.”
She squeezes a generous amount of sunscreen into her palm, and puts it on her wife’s back, softly massaging it into the skin. Dani sighs happily. “You’re the best, you know that?”
Jamie slides the bikini straps down Dani’s shoulders with her little finger, careful not to get sunscreen onto the fabric. “You’re the best, too.”
Their lovely moment is soon interrupted by a frustrated grunt. Owen’s trying to forge the umbrella into the sand, but he can’t seem to get it in deep enough. Like that it’ll never stand without toppling over.
“I got it, I got it,” Owen grumbles, before anyone can ask if he needs a hand. Hannah laughs beside him, and Dani has missed her just as much as Owen. "If you insist," Hannah says.
Dani can’t help but smile, and she has to look away before her heart bursts at the seams.
Instead, she looks out on the ocean. The water is calm and it’s a thousand hues of blue mixed with golden specs of the sun.
It’s beautiful, and Dani’s happy.
Today’s a good day.
“At one point you asked the strangest questions,” is what Jamie says next, pulling Dani from her thoughts. “Last night, I mean.”
Dani’s lips twitch, and she applies cream to the rest of her body. “What did I ask?”
“Oh, all kinds of things,” Jamie teases, lifting up the hook of Dani’s bikini. She is, as always, making sure to put cream on every bit of skin Dani can’t reach.
(Side note: Dani turns crab red within ten minutes in the sun without protection. Jamie makes sure that doesn’t happen.)
“If we think cereal counts as soup,” Jamie says, and both giggle. “If animals could talk, which animal would be the rudest. Or how many chickens it takes to kill an elephant.”
“And,” Dani says with a nod, as if she’d remember, which she doesn’t, “if you’d still date me if I was a worm.”
Jamie chuckles softly. “Yeah.”
In the meantime, Owen appears to have succeeded in his umbrella mission. It happens to shade the blanket perfectly. He checks one last time if it stays in position, visibly proud of himself when it does.
Hannah opens the picnic basket and retrieves four paper cups, and some delicious elder-flower juice Jamie had made some weeks ago. A drink sounds like a good idea.
“So, would you?” Dani asks, and Jamie sits down in between her legs. Dani flicks open the cap of the sunscreen once more and returns the favour.
“I already told you, Dani,” she replies, reaching for the bottle Dani just put down in the sand. Jamie pushes her shades up into her hair with the back of her hand and applies some cream to her face. “We had a whole conversation about it that I’d rather not have again.”
“Oh, that bad?” comes Dani’s question, pressing a soft kiss to Jamie’s shoulder that lingers a little longer than it should.
Jamie makes a small sound, a sort of hum, and Dani isn’t sure if it’s a confirmation to what she’s been asking or if it’s something else entirely.
“You were bawlin’ your eyes out one moment,” Owen says, plopping down to his wife on the blanket, “and grinnin’ like a total dork the next. Then straight back to cryin’.”
“ Oh My God ,” Dani murmurs, dropping her forehead to Jamie’s back. “That sounds,” she exhales sharply, “an awful lot like me. I can’t believe I forgot about it.”
“Well, technically,” Hannah chimes in, handing everyone a cup with elder-flower juice, garnished with fresh mint, that grows in Clayton-Taylor's backyard, “you didn’t forget. The alcohol in your system blocked the neurotransmitter that is responsible for the creation of new memories, so you never ‘saved’ it, so to speak.”
Dani sniffs. “Sucks either way. Would love to know what the hell possessed me last night.” A pause. “Oh, no. Do you think there was something in my drink, Jamie?”
Jamie laughs at that. “We shared our drinks, remember? You always want to try mine and end up drinking half of it, so we agreed to--Oh, sorry. Of course you don’t--remember.”
“Remind me not to have as much to drink next time, please?”
“Noted.”
Dani’s stomach rumbles just about when Owen takes the home-made bread loaf (which he insisted on making early this morning), a cutting board and a bread knife out of the basket. “Anyone fancy a sandwich?”
Hannah shakes her head. “I’m good right now. Thank you, love. Still pretty stuffed from breakfast. But later, sure.”
“I’d love one,” Jamie says. “What toppings have we got?”
Owen thinks, pinching his eyebrow in concentration. “Cheese, cherry-tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, herb cream cheese, tuna, bell peppers, lettuce. Oh, and salmon and avocado.”
Jamie hums thoughtfully. “I think… I take mine with cream cheese, egg and tomato.”
“You got it,” Owen says, digging for Jamie’s preferred toppings in the cooler. “How about you, Dani?”
Dani chews on her cheek. “I would’ve gone for the same thing as Jamie, but avocado and salmon doesn’t sound too bad either.”
“Wanna share?” comes Jamie’s question. She turns her head, squinting her eyes when the sun blinds her a little. Dani smiles, and shoves Jamie’s sunglasses back down. “Yes, please.”
Owen nods, already on it. “Cream cheese, egg and tomato. Avocado and salmon. Comin’ right up.”
“Life’s good when your best friend is a chef,” Jamie muses, taking a sip of her cup.
Dani raises her eyebrows, her tone mocking. “Oh, and otherwise it isn’t?”
“Well, yes. But in some ways it’s better, don’t you think? We won’t have to cook in the next ten days. Or do the dishes.”
Dani places another kiss on Jamie’s skin. She smells of summer and the ocean. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Often am.”
Jamie gets up to put the sunscreen back where it belongs. She moves the bag under the shade of the umbrella, too.
“So, what was your answer, Jamie? To my worm-question.” Dani asks. “I want to hear all of it. I’m dying to know what it was that drunk-me upset this time.”
Jamie sits down next to Dani on the blanket, fighting hard not to laugh. “Well, all that I said was, ‘No, I wouldn’t date you if you were a worm.’”
“Rude,” Dani comments, but she grins anyway.
“That’s what drunk-you thought, too,” Hannah says. “Your eyes filled with tears and you looked at Jamie as if she betrayed you.”
Dani’s jaw drops.
“You also got so mad at Jamie,” Owen adds, handing Jamie and Dani half-half of their sandwiches. “If I didn’t know better I would’ve said you were about to divorce your wife.”
Dani glances over at Jamie, tilting her head. “Tell me that isn’t true.”
“It is,” Jamie insists. “You asked me, ‘How the hell can you say something like that, Jamie?’”
Hannah nods. “Mhm-mm. You sighed dramatically, finished your drink, and said, ‘Wow. Can’t believe I married a worm hating gardener.’”
Around a bite of her sandwich Jamie says, “You shook your head, looked at Owen and Hannah and said something along the lines of, ‘What have I gotten myself into, guys? A Worm Hating Gardener .’”
“Oh,” is all that Dani can say. “I’m so sorry.”
“’S all good, Poppins. Promise.” Jamie smiles, tucking a strand of hair behind Dani’s ear. “I’m not mad or anything.”
“Okay,” Dani whispers.
“Oh, and this,” Jamie holds up her sandwich, looking over at Owen, “is exquisite , mate. Did you specialize in the art of sandwich-making or what?”
“Why, thank you, Jamie,” Owen beams. “It’s the Chinook Salmon that makes all the difference. I got it from the local market. If you ever want to buy some, the name of the vendor was Zahid.”
Dani sighs, smiling despite herself. “If you carry on this way, I might know the whole worm story by the time we drive home. If I’m lucky.”
She takes a bite of her half of their shared salmon-avocado sandwich. Before she can say anything else, she understands what Jamie’s been talking about. “Okay, I take it back. I’d happily miss the whole story for this .”
“Oh, you see, the story is way too good to not tell it, no matter how brilliant my food is.” Owen winks at Dani, fixing himself a snack too.
“Anyway,” Hannah says, carrying on with the story. “You then asked Jamie if she treats all worms at work like that.”
“Like they’re not lovable, just because they’re worms and all squishy and slimy.” Owen fills in.
Dani chokes a little on her sandwich. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did,” they all say.
“It took a while for you to understand that I couldn’t date you because you’re a worm while I'm human,” Jamie says.
Dani nods. “I mean, it makes sense.”
“You were still sad so I told you, if that should ever be the case, I promise to take worm-you home, put you in a jar with lots of nourishing soil and leaves. You felt a little better and stopped cryin’. But you weren’t happy either.”
Dani takes another bite, this time from the sandwich Jamie put together. It’s just as delicious. “What happened next?”
“Well, you asked me if I were to be a worm too if I’d date you then. And I said, ‘Yeah, if I’d be lucky enough to find you. A garden is big if you’re 15 centimetres long.’”
Dani smiles shyly, blushing a little. “Aww, that’s cute.”
“It was the right thing to say, it turns out,” Owen says, putting the utensils back into the basket, “You had that shit eating grin on your face, you know. You got what you wanted: A worm wife.”
Dani snorts, “A worm wife? God, I love that for me.”
Hannah pours them all another cup of juice. “You also wanted to know if you would have a little worm family, if your paths should ever cross and you’d happen to fall in love.”
“And what did you say, Jamie?” Dani asks, glancing over at her wife.
“I said yes, of course. I’d love to have a family with you, always.”
Dani’s heart grows big in her chest, and she feels like she could cry. She didn’t know what to expect from Worm Story, but she definitely did not see this coming.
“You said I’d make such a great worm parent, and I said you would too.” Jamie smirks, and Dani is so in love with her. “That you’d be the best worm mom the garden has ever seen.”
Dani feels the tears welling up in her eyes, and she has to swallow hard to keep them at bay.
“That, however,” Owen continues, “made you so sentimental you cried again.”
Dani understands all too well why drunk her would tear up because of this. “Oh, no.”
“But Owen had a brilliant idea to cheer you up.” Jamie taps on a small, faint drawing of a worm on Dani’s forearm, she hadn’t noticed before. “See this? I have one too.”
“If we put our arms next to each other like this,” Jamie explains, holding hers next to Dani’s, “it looks like they’re holdin' hands. Owen made it for us.”
Dani’s eyes widen. “I see he’s not just a talented chef and baker, but he’s also artistically gifted. I’m impressed.”
“So all it took in the end was a little earthworm on your arm and one on mine, and everything was perfectly fine again.” Jamie says. “Well, until…”
“Until what?”
“Until you insisted on showing everyone in that bar, and by everyone I mean everyone , our ‘partner tattoo’--”
“And we were asked to leave,” Hannah says.
Dani cracks up, and almost drops her sandwich. “Oh, damn. Drunk-me is hilarious. Would’ve loved to see it."
“That’s not all. See how your drawing,” Hannah points to Dani’s arm, “is barely there in contrast to Jamie’s?”
“Yeah,” Dani says. “Why is that?”
“On our way home, you got all panicky all of a sudden,” Jamie explains. “And you tried to remove your ‘tattoo’ with disinfectant wipes. You rubbed so furiously that I thought your skin was comin' off.”
“No way?”
“I asked you what the fuck was going on, and you said, ‘My mum’s gonna kill me if she finds out I a got a tattoo.’ And you rambled about Karen always sayin' that you can’t ever get one without her permission, and how ‘tattoos are supposed to have a meaning, Danielle.’"
Dani’s jaw falls open. It’s been years, they haven’t talked in ages, yet her mother still has that power over her. Fuck that.
“First of all, it isn’t my first tattoo. Second of all, I got all of them without her permission and lastly – and that is the most important thing – it does have a meaning.”
She leans back to pull out a pen from her small beach bag and hands it to Owen with a smile. “If you could please touch it up, that'd be great. Wouldn’t want it to go away completely when we go for a swim later.”
Owen grins, taking off the cap. “Do you want me to add a tree and some flowers? Oh, I could even give worm-you a tattoo of a worm. Worm-ception, if you will.”
Dani grins.“That sounds perfect. Yes, to all three things.”
“Oh, and could I have a tiny green house, please? And a shovel and a wheelbarrow?” Jamie asks excitedly. It’s so adorable, Dani almost tears up. Again.
Owen taps next to him on the blanket, smiling, “Come on, you two. Let’s do this.”
Hannah makes room for them to sit next to Owen, and asks, “Who goes first?”