22. Penn
Chapter 22
Penn
"Please pretty please can we stop in that store?" Daisy parks her hands in front of her chest, prayer style, blinking up at me with big lashes and a hopeful expression.
I finish loading up the back of my truck with all the things Daisy will need to clean up the walls in her bathroom and get them ready to re-tile. Daisy's pointing at one of those fancy home décor stores, the kind where the room is artfully decorated with coffee table books nobody will read, and big glass bowls holding decorative balls.
I look down at Daisy's hopeful face. "I would've said yes without the theatrics."
She smirks, dropping her hands. "I would've gone no matter what you said." She spins on her heel and stomps across the pavement, hopping up onto the sidewalk. She pivots, taking me by surprise, and I have to wipe the look of adoration off my face. I'm not successful though. Daisy catches it, I know she does.
She pops her hip, hand resting on the curve. "Are you coming, or what?"
I trudge after her, not at all excited about this store. But for Daisy? Anything.
We step into the space and I'm immediately hit with a sugary smell, something tropical and fruity. I don't like it. I want Daisy's spicy plum. I will most definitely be turning on the child lock on the windows for the drive home. I want to be high on Daisy's scent.
Daisy steps further into the store, examining something that looks like an oversized cast iron Jacks game piece.
"Add that to the list of things in this store that are unnecessary to own." I spy the price tag hanging off it. "And overpriced."
"Can I help you?" A woman pops out from what feels like nowhere, but is actually from behind a fiddle leaf fig. She's frowning. Come to think of it, her offer to help us wasn't all that friendly either.
"No, thank you," Daisy answers, using her sweet voice. "Just browsing."
"Let me know if you change your mind," she says, not sounding any friendlier. "I know everything there is to know about this store. Because it's mine. I chose every overpriced and unnecessary item in here." Then she turns on her heel and walks away, nose tipped up slightly.
I lean down to Daisy. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think she might have heard me."
"You think?" Daisy asks sarcastically. She sends me a look, but I see the way her cheeks shake with the effort to contain her laughter. Probably for the shop owner's sake, because Daisy is a genuinely nice person.
I follow along dutifully behind Daisy, keeping my mouth shut about all the knickknacks. At one point, we come upon a candle burning in a dark blue jar, and Daisy shoots me a warning glare, as if she can read my thoughts.
"I promise not to blow it out," I say, "but can we agree that it smells awful?"
Daisy sighs. "It's not my favorite," she says diplomatically.
Three quarters of the way through the store, Daisy discovers a vase. "I have to own this," she says, picking it up.
The woman appears once more, and at this point I'm fairly certain she's an apparition.
"Let me take that for you," she says in a forceful tone, reaching for the vase.
"I'd really like to look at it a little more, please," Daisy says, nice because she wouldn't be anything else.
The woman stops, hands retracting, but she gives us both a dirty look. "I'll be at the register when you're ready to pay for it." She stomps away. Again.
"She's going to have knee problems later in life if she keeps stomping everywhere."
"Peter," Daisy admonishes.
I look at her lips and the way they formed the name I've adopted that does not belong to me, and decide I'm ready to erase it from her vocabulary. I want to watch those pretty lips form my real name, and I want her to mean it for me.
Think of all the ways I could make her say my name.
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. I will not go there. Thou shalt not lust after another man's fiancée, even if you hate said man.
Commandment number one, for me and by me. I don't have any other Commandments yet, but that seems like a good one to start with, given the circumstance.
"I'm going to buy it," Daisy says, rotating the vase as she completes a leisurely perusal.
"Cool," I respond, taking a step to follow her to the register. But then something unforeseen happens. The rug under Daisy's foot bunches, creating a lip that catches the toe of her shoe. Daisy wobbles, the vase sways, and the rug slides. Daisy's arms shoot out to steady herself, losing grip on the vase. It hits the ground, a harsh shattering sound filling the air. I rush forward, catching Daisy before she can suffer the same fate as the vase. She wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her face to my chest, body rigid, as if bracing for impact.
"Oh," she breathes, in this shocked but somehow tender voice. She's in my arms, and I'm bent on one knee to keep her upright. Brown eyes blink up at me as she peels off me, rosebud mouth in the perfect surprised 'o', a blush spreading over her cheeks. Everything I've been missing for years comes crashing down on me. This is how I always should have been holding Daisy. She never should have had the chance to be someone else's girl. Anybody else's wife.
If a heart can break, can it also cry?
A few seconds pass as she recalibrates, then her arms untangle from around my neck.
"Thank you," she says, breathless. "I don't know what happened."
"You dropped the vase," the owner says, sneering at Daisy.
I've already given this woman more leeway than I would normally give a person acting this rude, simply because she's a lady, but I'm done. She's fucking with Daisy, and that's unacceptable.
"What happened"—I kick at the bunched up rug—"Is that you chose this rug all by yourself but you didn't think to put something under it to make it non-slip."
She gapes at me. A sticker on a large broken piece of the vase declares the cost, so I pull out my wallet and count out what's necessary to cover it, plus a rough calculation of tax.
"Here," I say, striding over and tossing the money on the counter. "Just to let you know, my friend picked the only pretty thing in this whole store." I hold out a hand for Daisy, and she takes it. "You should be more careful how you treat customers." A gentle tug and Daisy and I are backtracking through the store, clearing the front door and making our way to my truck. Slim Jim's face is at the window, nose pressed to the glass as he watches us.
Daisy waits until we're both in the truck before she turns to me, but she's beaming, the kind of smile where rays of sun might actually be streaming from her lips.
"I don't know if anybody has ever stood up for me like that." She shakes her head, astonished. "Only this one time in 5 th grade, when Matty French snapped my bra strap and..."
She doesn't have to say it. I remember it like it was yesterday. The way that little asshole snuck up behind Daisy, tugging on her bra strap in front of everyone at lunch, just because he wanted them to know she had started wearing a bra. Daisy, red-faced and on the verge of tears, got up from her seat prepared to run from the lunchroom. I knew she would never stand up for herself, she had a lot more to lose in terms of privileges at home and disappointing her parents. But me? I had nothing to lose. I walked straight up to that smug little shit, reared back, and punched him in the nose. Blood flowed like a fountain, and I got a one week suspension. Anything for you I mouthed at Daisy as the teacher on lunch duty pushed me from the lunchroom with his hand on my neck.
"Can you believe he did that?" Daisy smiles fondly at the memory. "Penn wouldn't stand for anybody mistreating me."
And I still won't.
"Doesn't surprise me," I say, clearing my throat into the shoulder of my shirt.
Daisy exhales audibly. "What a bitch," she says, looking at me to gauge my reaction.
"You can call her whatever you want to call her. It's just me and you in this truck, Sunshine. No upkeep of images here."
Daisy relaxes against the seat. "I love to hear that. It gets exhausting."
Why do I get the feeling there's something she's not telling me? Something more to her sentence, a deeper meaning?
I start to drive as Daisy reaches out, pushing down on the button to lower the window. She does it again, and when it doesn't work, she presses it a third time before turning to me. Outrage tugs at her eyes, mouth agape.
"Did you turn on child lock on the window?"
Dammit. I was really hoping she wasn't going to try and roll down the window, and then my surreptitious use of the child-lock function would go unnoticed. But, no.
"Yes, but—" I check to see if she's mad. Her arms are crossed, and her body is facing me, her knee bent and propped on the seat at a ninety degree angle. She looks less than happy to have been thwarted, but there's a playful curiosity in the lift of her cheekbones. "I like the way you smell," I admit.
She blinks in surprise. "You like the way I smell?"
We roll to a stop at a red light, and I'm able to turn my full attention to her. Her pulse flutters in her neck, and I bet I could feel the thrumming under my tongue, her scent invading my senses.
"I don't know what it is, Daisy. Plum, I think, but I know there's vanilla in there and something spicy." Only a fool would make this known. It's me. I'm the fool.
Daisy's eyes glimmer with satisfaction, and my body exhales. "It's my perfume," she says, a coy smile playing on her lips.
"It's...intoxicating."
She stills, her eyes remain fixed on mine. Attraction races through the cab of my truck, thick and hot and heady.
She's engaged .
In my peripheral vision I see the car in front of me start to move for the light that has turned green. A self-deprecating laugh wrenches from my throat. "It probably wasn't my most brilliant idea."
"For you to hotbox yourself with my scent?"
"Hotbox?"
"Hotboxing is when you?—"
"I know what hotboxing is," I interrupt, laughing. "I guess I didn't think of it that way. But it's accurate."
The light turns green, and I start to drive. "So," Daisy says after a minute. "Are you high?"
I should say no. Or at least say not yet .
But I don't.
My knuckles scrape my jawline, and I say, "Sunshine, I might as well be a kite."