Chapter Seven
Deal
Daisy
I opened my eyes and saw daisies.
Then I realized I was hungover.
On this realization, and the others that bounded in after
it, in a tizzy, I pushed the covers down and saw I was in my dress from last
night.
I touched my naked earlobe, felt my necklace gone, and
looked back to the daisies to see my jewelry sitting at the base of the vase.
Then I turned, saw the other side of the bed was empty,
stared at the fluffed pillows I hadn’t slept on but grabbed one of them and
pulled it to me to take a whiff.
It still smelled of Marcus, but this morning, only faintly.
He hadn’t slept like I assumed he slept the night before,
holding me.
He’d taken off.
I dropped to my back and closed my eyes in despair.
Wonderful.
I’d had a date the night before with the classiest man I’d
ever met, and I got drunk, passed out in his car, and he’d had to put me to
bed.
At least Marcus Sloan proved another way he was all class.
He might have made sure I was comfortable, but he didn’t give himself a show by
taking my clothes off.
He also didn’t stick around.
My hands balled into fists, my nails digging into the palms.
Because I was me, in the back of my mind, I knew if I was
stupid enough to take a shot at the something special that was a man like
Marcus Sloan, I’d screw it up with him and there I did it. The first date. I
got shitfaced and I remembered laughing too much, being way too nosy asking too
many questions, and doing that staring at him like every word he spoke dropped
a bar of gold in my lap.
If drunken memory served, every time I laughed or touched
his thigh, arm, or hand, he looked at me the same way.
I still passed out in his car, just like white trash.
And now he was gone.
“Ugh,” I mumbled, the dull headache and subtle queasy
feeling making it easier for me (just a touch) not to scream at my stupidity,
find a way to kick my own ass (even mentally), or burst into tears.
Instead, since I was Daisy and from the moment I came out
bawling I had no choice, I shoved the covers aside and got on with it.
I pushed myself out of bed, pulled my dress off on the way
to the bathroom, and did my morning bathroom routine, this time adding the
complicated procedure of getting all my makeup off.
My hair still rocked it since I rocked doing my hair, so I
left it as is.
I went back into my room, tugged on a pair of baby-pink,
drawstring, fleece shorts (that had diamanté sprinkled along the curves of the
seams of the pockets) and a skintight white tank top that had emblazoned all
across the front in hot-pink and glittery diamond rhinestones Nothing a
Little Sparkle Won’t Fix.
My mantra.
Though, that morning, post-fucking up my date with Marcus
Sloan, I knew all the sparkle in the world wouldn’t fix the feeling I had
sitting in the pit of my belly that had nothing to do with being hungover.
I moved to my door in order to get water (for the aspirin I
needed) and coffee (because every true red-white-and-blue American drank
coffee), and find alternate ways to avoid the pain of a heart I refused to
acknowledge I’d broken my damned self by acting like the white trash everyone
thought I was.
I opened my door and stopped dead.
It was October, dead-on fall, and the sun hadn’t yet hit the
sky like only sun in Denver could, washing the base of a glorious mountain
range in bright.
But the rising sun was doing its best lighting a room where
every surface was covered with a spray of daisies. Some of them were pretty
white ones with little yellow buttons in the middle. Others were white with
green buttons. Some, a mixture of both. And others were pink. Or orange
surrounding the black button blazing out to a startling yellow. Others were
red. Then there were those that were coral. There were also those with color
combinations.
On a routine basis, I carefully clipped their ends, added
fresh water with food, all in an effort to keep them alive as long as I could.
Over the weeks, I’d had to throw some away.
But they were of a quality that most of them were still
going strong.
And right then, in the midst of them, lying on his stomach
on my couch, one long arm having fallen off the side, my throw having slid down
to his waist, the delineation of the muscles of his tanned back on show, his
head turned from me resting on a toss pillow, his thick dark hair disheveled,
lay Marcus.
He hadn’t left the drunken, stripping floozy who’d passed
out in his Mercedes in her bed and taken off.
Like a gentleman, when she wasn’t in the throes of a trauma,
he’d slept on the couch.
I looked at him, his long body stretched out amongst the
daisies, asleep, but having stayed close so he could make sure I was safe, safe
from anything, even nightmares, and I made a noise in the back of my throat I
couldn’t control.
When I did, I watched his body twitch then he came up on his
forearms and his sleepy blue eyes turned my way.
He looked ready to move further but he caught himself when
he saw me.
I stared into his eyes, knowing I probably made noise
getting up, doing my thing in the bathroom, getting dressed.
But it was my quiet sob that had woken him.
Marcus Sloan.
God, he killed me.
I leaned my shoulder against the doorjamb, drawing in breath
through my nose, controlling the tears with some effort, taking more time to
swallow them back.
After another breath, watching him watching me unmoving, I
spoke.
“You know what got me through?”
“Baby,” he whispered but still didn’t move. He just lay
there on his stomach, up on his forearms, his head turned to me, his eyes glued
to me, just like he knew that’s what I needed him to do.
Just that. Stay on my couch and let me say what I needed to
say.
“Thought I was nothing,” I shared softly.
He pushed up, the muscles in his biceps bulging, threw off
the blanket, and turned to sit on his ass.
He hadn’t taken off his trousers.
That couldn’t be a comfortable way to sleep.
But a gentleman in a lady’s home got as comfortable as he
could get, but unless he was invited to do it, he didn’t take off his trousers.
Lord.
Marcus Sloan.
“Proved it to me, that guy,” I told him. “Raping me. The
world had been givin’ me signs since I was born. But
he proved it to me.”
“I need you to come here,” Marcus requested gently.
I ignored him and kept going.
“Told myself that. Was certain of it, at first. The thing
was, if I was nothing, why was someone sending me daisies?”
That cut it for him.
He started to push up.
Quickly, I asked, “Please. Don’t. Please let me finish.”
He settled, gaze locked to me, and he showed me with his
expression that he didn’t like it but he kept his place.
For me.
“So pretty,” I whispered. “So bright and happy. They were
everywhere. I wanted to think dark thoughts. I wanted to cut myself down. I
just couldn’t keep it up. And it wasn’t Miss Annamae this time who helped me
see what it was important to see.”
“Darling—”
I’d beat them away but they came right back and I knew it
when the bead of cold wet slid down my cheek.
“It was you,” I finished.
“Daisy, I need to come to you.”
No he didn’t.
I needed to go to him.
And that was what I did, scared—no, terrified.
But slowly, one foot in front of the other, I did it, and he
watched me every step of the way.
And when I got just a little bit close, he bent way forward.
His long arms coming right out, his fingers grasped me at my hips and pulled me
into his lap.
Then he kissed me.
It was soft and it was sweet.
But it was more.
The tip of his tongue touched my lips and I instantly let
him inside. He swept in, his arms around me closing tighter. He twisted at his
waist, leaned into me, and I felt my back hit the couch, the warmth of his
broad chest pressing to mine, his hand diving in my curls and closing around my
scalp.
I had my arms around his shoulders, one hand curved tight
around the back of his neck, and I kissed him back trying to come even a little
bit close to giving him back all he’d given me.
Daisies.
Lobster.
Laughter.
Patience.
Understanding.
Everything.
I pressed my breasts into his chest.
He groaned, then growled into my mouth, but I felt it in my coochie, and he took the kiss deeper. One of his arms
curving down, his hand gliding down my side, his trajectory I knew to my ass.
But before he got there, that arm locked tight around my
waist, his lips slid from mine to my neck and he kissed me there.
Then he held me that way, his warm breath coming fast
against my neck, all the other warmth of his hard body pressed to me.
I didn’t get it.
So I called, “Marcus?”
“Taking this slow,” he answered a question I didn’t exactly
ask and he sounded like it was the last thing he wanted to do, not just saying
it, doing what he said.
That was sweet. I was sure I needed it.
Still.
“You coulda maybe taken second
base,” I shared.
His head came up, his twinkling eyes caught mine, and he was
smiling.
“Maybe next time.”
“Look forward to that,” I mumbled.
“Now I’m going to make you breakfast.”
I frowned and asked, “Whose apartment is this?”
“Yours,” he answered, still smiling.
“So rules are, I have a drama, the morning after, you can
make me breakfast. I don’t have a drama, which, honey bunches of oats, I’m hopin’ to be drama-free for a good long while, I make
breakfast. Comprende?”
I knew what I was saying.
But more, he knew it.
And he liked it.
A whole lot.
“Deal,” he replied, eyes still twinkling.
“Do you like pancakes?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
I squinted at him. “Got a load of your six-pack, sugar.”
And I had. His chest and stomach were better than his back.
Well, not really, it was just that I didn’t mind losing the sight of his back
if I had his chest and abs to look at. Or his shoulders. Or his face.
“Daisy.”
On my name, he sounded like he was laughing.
I stopped thinking about his chest (and other things) and
focused on him.
Yep.
Laughing.
Pull yourself together, girl!