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.
Chapter Four
Steel Magnolias
Daisy
“These are fine. These are fine times about seven thousand. I need these.”
“You’ve got seven thousand pairs of shoes, Tod. You don’t need anything.”
“Stevie, love of my life, are you not seeing these?”
“I’m seeing them.”
“Then have you gone temporarily insane?”
“I’m thinking he has,” a girl said.
“I’m thinking if he doesn’t let you buy them, I’ll get them and you can borrow them from me,” another girl said.
“Sold!” the first (obviously gay) guy cried.
“Let’s go,” the first girl said. “Las Delicias has been there for years but I’m not taking any chances seeing as I need a beef burrito, STAT.”
“Box ’em up and let’s move, I’m hungry too,” the second (also gay, seeing as he was the love of the other one’s life) guy stated.
I sat with my back to them in chairs in the Nordstrom shoe department, listening to them go, and I didn’t turn around to look at them. Not because I didn’t want them to see my face. The bruises were fading good now so my conceal job was kickass.
But I did sit there thinking I needed a gay posse.
Especially if they went shoe shopping with you.
I also needed a girl posse.
But even though all the strippers were real nice, that wasn’t my thing. I’d never managed to pull one of those together, even in the days when I’d put the effort in to try.
And since I didn’t, I quit trying.
In my line of work, especially at Smithie’s where he took care of the girls in a way they didn’t feel the need to be catty, I might have been able to manage it.
The thing was, I was the headliner. The red velvet rope out front was for me.
I suspected Britney Spears was probably friendly with her dancers.
But they didn’t go shoe shopping together.
And I didn’t want to turn around in Nordstrom of all places (where some dreams came true, even if they did this to the tune of a credit card machine) to see what I was missing.