Chapter Three #3
me do that,” I shot back.
He studied me a second then looked beyond me.
Again, he changed and he did it taking another step away
from me, his face closing off so much, the cynicism and sly didn’t even come
back.
He gave me nothing.
“I see,” he murmured.
I shouldn’t ask.
I really shouldn’t ask.
I asked.
“You see what?”
“You know who I am.”
“Yeah. You’re Marcus Sloan.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean and I believe you
understand that.”
I did, right then.
And what I understood made me laugh.
It just poured out of me.
And I guessed I really needed to laugh because I did it so
hard, I bent over with it, wrapping my arms around my belly.
When I got myself together, still giggling, I straightened,
lifted a hand to my eye and swept it across the wet under it, hoping my
hilarity didn’t mess up my makeup seeing as I’d had to wring miracles to
conceal the fading bruises that morning.
“That’s funny,” I told him unnecessarily.
He didn’t find anything funny. He still looked closed off
but also there was a hint of transfixed that I didn’t get.
“Your laugh sounds like bells,” he whispered.
I immediately stopped giggling.
He visibly pulled himself together and kept talking.
“Even so, I’m not certain what was funny.”
“You,” I shared.
“Me?” he asked.
“You, thinkin’ I’d have a problem
with you bein’ Marcus Sloan,” I expanded.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nope.” I shrugged. “Don’t care either. Though, that’s to
say ‘nope’ don’t mean that I don’t know. I just don’t really know. I
still don’t care. And that’s not why I don’t wanna
have dinner with you.”
“I’m still not understanding.”
“Honey bunch, I’m a stripper.”
“Yes. And?”
I shut up.
Dear God, he thought I thought I was better than him.
No.
He thought I thought I had reason to think
I was better than him.
“I don’t judge,” I said quietly. “Life’s life and a person’s
gotta do what they feel they gotta
do to get along in it.”
“This is correct.”
“So I don’t care what you do or who you are.”
“And this delights me.”
My heart started racing because it did. It delighted
him.
And I knew this because his eyes were again twinkling.
“Men are assholes,” I shared.
“Some of them are, yes,” he somewhat agreed.
“Not met many who aren’t. My count, all my life, that number
equals two.”
Those twinkling eyes stopped twinkling in order to flash.
“Just two?”
“Yup. Two,” I confirmed.
“Although I find that knowledge upsetting, I’ll share I’d
like to make that three,” he told me something I already (mostly) got.
“Listen, Marcus, this,” I gestured between us with my hand
and this time he didn’t watch it, he didn’t tear his gaze from my own “it’s
sweet, honey. Real sweet. Thanks for it. For the daisies. All that’s real nice.
But a woman lives the life I’ve lived and finds herself raped in a parking lot,
she makes certain decisions. And those decisions don’t include dinner with a
hot guy who wears a suit real well, has a superior set of lips, and opens the
door for her. She goes about her business her own damned self and that’s that.
I got me a good job. I got me a Porsche. I’m in the market to find me a house I
like where I can garden and set the table like a good Southern woman should.
What I don’t got and don’t want is a man.”
“Would you allow me to try to change your mind about that?”
I shook my head and his eyes moved then, watching my hair
shake with it.
They came back to mine when I answered, “Nope.”
“Would you allow me to not allow you to not let me attempt
to change your mind about that?”
That was convoluted for certain, but I still got him.
And what else I got was that I could probably repeat my
“nope,” but I knew he was going to find a way to try anyway.
He was just not going to succeed.
So I shrugged again and said, “Knock yourself out, darlin’.”
His lips curled up again and I wished they hadn’t because a
normal curl was fine. A smile rocked my world.
The way they were right then set my coochie
to tingling.
Seriously.
And my coochie hadn’t tingled for months,
not to mention no way in hell I thought it ever would again after my
time on the asphalt out back.
“Dinner tomorrow,” he said.
“No,” I replied.
Slowly, his head tilted to the side and that hit my coochie too.
Damn.
“Thank you for speaking with me, Daisy.”
He was ending this.
But he was absolutely not ending this.
Crap.
“Not a problem.”
“Would you like me to escort you to your car or back to your
friend?” he asked.
“Been gettin’ around mostly okay
on my own, honey bunch. So thanks. I’m good.”
“Would you…like me to escort you to your car…or back to your
friend?” he repeated, his words firmer, he took his time saying them and I got
his message.
“I see this is gonna be
interesting,” I muttered.
“Agreed,” he did not mutter.
We stared at each other.
This went on awhile.
Marcus ended it.
“You shouldn’t have laughed.”
“Pardon?”
“I might have let you be, but you laughed.”
Oh Lord.
I didn’t feel that in my coochie.
But I felt it.
Oh yeah, I felt it.
“Marcus—”
He cut me off. “To your friend. But I’ll leave a man, and
when you’re ready, he’ll be outside the dressing room and he’ll escort you to
your car.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“I know you think that. But you’re wrong.”
We did more staring until I sighed and mumbled, “Right.”
I moved to the door.
He opened it for me.
He followed me down the stairs and at the bottom he put his
hand again to my back as he escorted me to Chardonnay.
When we got to the dressing room, Ashlynn was there, too.
He left me there with only a murmured, “Ladies.”
But he gave me a look that was a promise.
Hell.
He closed the door behind him.
“Okay, he totally scares me but I’d be on my back in about a
second and my dreams of med school that I’ve had since I was twelve I’d
totally blow off if that guy wanted to make me his moll, and I don’t give one
crap what that says about me,” Chardonnay breathed the second the door latched.
“He just plain scares me,” Ashlynn said, staring at me.
I ignored her and looked to Chardonnay.
“Girl, go rinse out that G-string and give it to me. I gotta get home. I got some glue gunning to do.”
Chardonnay shook herself out of it, grinned at me, waggled
her eyebrows, and then sashayed to the bathroom.
I took in a deep breath.
And then I let it go.
And I let it go sliding Marcus Sloan’s card in the back
pocket of my jeans.