Only then did I hear the door close.
So only then did I feel it was safe to turn carefully, doing this to my belly so I didn’t rest any weight on my scrapes, and I looked through the dark.
There was a shadowed bouquet of daisies on my nightstand.
I stared at them and I did it focusing only on the darkened shapes of the blooms until my eyes closed and I fell asleep.
* * * *
And when I woke up hours later, those daisies were the first thing I saw.
* * * *
And as the days passed, every one, there came a huge bouquet of daisies.
I went to bed wandering through an apartment filling up with brightness.
And I went to bed with the scent of flowers in the room, the sight of shadowed petals the last thing I saw.
And that bright, hopeful, happy beauty was the first thing that hit me every morning.
Chapter Three
Snow White
Daisy
“What happened to your face?”
I looked to the kid standing beside me where I sat on the bench in Washington Park, a place I’d gone to escape my apartment, my thoughts, my life.
And those daisies.
Even I couldn’t feel like shit in a house filled with daisies.
I didn’t think of daisies.
I looked at a kid who was young, in his early teens, maybe even younger than that, Hispanic and already a very good-looking boy. He had another boy with him, black, gangly. I could see the other one would be tall and he wasn’t yet growing into what he’d become, but the promise of it was there. He was standing further away, shadowed by the shade of a tree, not bold enough to approach, so I turned my attention back to the one who’d gotten close.
“It’s not polite to ask a question like that, sugar,” I told him.
“I hope you fucked him up right back,” he said and I wished I was able to share that I had.
I looked closer at him.
“Fuck, you didn’t get the shot at fuckin’ him up,” the kid muttered, his face turning hard, and my attention grew sharper.
When it did, I noted he needed a shower. A haircut. A change of clothes.
Food.
And he saw things others wouldn’t see.
Primarily, whatever my face had told him that other kids his age would never have seen. Hell, even most adults wouldn’t have read it on me.
Damn, he was a runaway.
I cocked my head. “When’s the last time you had somethin’ to eat, boy? And by the way, kid your age shouldn’t say fuck. Comprende?”
His face got even harder before his eyes darted beyond me, his body grew tight, and his friend said urgently, “P, let’s go.”
He didn’t delay. They both took off and vanished quickly, even in an open park on a sunny day.
It was then the sun was blocked from hitting me and I turned my attention swiftly that way, bracing, preparing to launch myself from the bench and run if I had to.
I stayed still as I saw Marcus Sloan standing there in another impeccable suit, hands in his trouser pockets, eyes cast down to me.
“Daisy,” he murmured.
Please, God, let this not be happening.
My face was still a mess, as evidenced by that kid coming up and mentioning it to me.
And I was…
Well…
Me.
“Mr. Sloan.”
“Marcus,” he corrected me.
Okay, this was happening.
I lifted my chin a little and kept it there but said nothing.
He had sunglasses on, smoky ones that were handsome on him and probably cost a mint.
Headlining Smithie’s I could afford glasses like those (well not those, those were for a man, but the like for girls).
Years of scraping by, I’d made it.
Stripping.
Smithie was giving me paid leave. I was going back as soon as the bruising was out of my face and the scabs were gone from my body.
I was doing this because I had a Porsche to pay for, for one. And what did it matter what I did, for another. I got paid a load dancing around for schmucks with hard-ons. No reason not to keep doing it.
And yeah, not even after what had happened to me. I knew without a doubt that wasn’t why I’d had some asshole rape me. Assholes did that kind of shit to women no matter what she did for a living, mostly because they were assholes.
Still, even behind his shades, I knew Marcus Sloan was studying me.
I didn’t like it but Miss Annamae’s training kicked in and I said, “Thank you for the flowers.”
He inclined his head but said nothing.
“They’re real nice but you can stop sending them,” I told him.
He still said nothing.
Whatever.
I looked around our area of the park and back at him.
“You take a stroll through Wash Park often?” I asked.
He spoke then.
“I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight.”
I stared up at him, not wearing any sunglasses, so my expression was probably not hard to read. Even if I’d had them on, my mouth dropping open would have given me away.
I snapped it shut and straightened my back. This caused only a hint of pain as the tightness of the scabs reminded me they were there.
“Thank you, but you’ve made your point with the flowers. And you have nothing to worry about. I’m coming back to work and I’m not blaming anyone for what happened, except the asshole who did it to me.”
He nodded but even doing it, he said, “With that, I’m afraid it’s clear that I haven’t made my point with the flowers.”
What?
“What I’m trying to say, Mr. Sloan—” I began to explain.