by Vicki James
I moved without instruction, taking a step back… then another… and another and another until I saw Danny’s shoulders rise, hold, and fall, as though he was setting free the weight he’d been holding onto for too long.
He looked over his shoulder, a brow raised. “For what it’s worth… I want you to know it’s okay. I hate me, too.”
Danny turned back to the sea, and I took off, not letting his words linger.
I ran because I had to.
Because there was danger in those eyes of his, and in that stirring of my fixed-up heart, too.
It scared me how a man like Danny could be the absolute worst of me, and how this stupid little body of mine could still cry out for more.
I wasn’t going to let it go through any of that again. Danny would be gone tomorrow, and this night would be nothing but a memory. A wine-induced, drunken mistake, memory.
Things like that had no place in sweet, little Devon, or in my boring, ordinary life.
The next morning, I woke on the sofa, with an arm hanging off the edge and the bright sunlight pouring in through the window of my living room. My head was playing its own concert I didn’t want to listen to, and the groan that escaped my throat hurt as I rolled off the couch and landed on all fours with a thud.
A bang at the door had me wincing, and I contemplated dropping down onto my stomach and just lying there for hours until all noise and pain disappeared from my life.
Unfortunately for me, Gina’s voice pushed through the front door’s letterbox a second later.
“Daisy Grace Piper, if you don’t open this door within the next thirty seconds, I’m getting the key from under the flowerpot and letting myself in! This is your warning to put clothes on.”
“Lord,” I whispered to the ceiling, “Make her go away. Make it all go away.”
“And don’t you be praying for any divine intervention, either. Not even Lucifer could move me right now, so open up.”
It took me longer than it should have done to get to the door. My body was sluggish, and the rosé wine was lingering in my head… and my stomach. In my panic last night, I’d finished off the bottle once I’d returned home, and then I’d stared at a wall until sleep had taken me at some early hour of the morning.
I was hungover, I was pissed off, and I was tired.
With a twist of the key, though, the door was pushed open, and Gina was standing before me with her blue hair highlighted by the glorious sunshine. My eyes scrunched shut, but I was able to peek one open as I ruffled my own hair with one hand and waited for the abuse.
“Oh, good Satan below, this is worse than I thought,” she blew out in a breath, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide as they took me in from head to toe and back again. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”
“Who?” I croaked.
“Danny.”
The mention of his name had me dropping my hand and staring at Gina as my breathing picked up pace. The memory of his face was imprinted on the back of my eyelids, and all night long, I’d drifted from dream to nightmare and back again, each one featuring Danny bloody Silver and that stupid, shouldn’t-be-sexy cigarette.
Gina stepped over the threshold, closed the door, and guided me into the kitchen. I was with her, but I wasn’t, moving on auto and doing what she told me to do as she made two cups of coffee and slid one onto the two-seater breakfast table by the kitchen window. A small pot of daisies sat in the centre, and I focused on them as Gina’s concerned stare burned holes into my head.
“You look like you did five years ago,” she said, and when I glanced up, she was eyeing me over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a slow, steady sip.
I curled my hand around my own mug and sat there in the chair, limp and lifeless. “I had too much wine last night.”
“You and I both know this is more than a hangover.” Lowering her cup, she held it in both hands and leaned forward. “Jackson saw you at the beach talking to Danny.”
My brows rose. If I hadn’t been awake before, I sure was now.
Gina smirked. “You think I was just going to accept that text you sent me and leave it at that? You should know me better by now.”
“What did you do?”
“I slipped Jackson a twenty to ride his bike past your place every half hour. Told him it would work on his fitness, earn him a few coins, and keep me from shouting.”
“G, seriously? That’s some kind of child abuse.”
“Please. Say that to me when I send him down the mines. Not when I ask him to do me a favour. And you people wonder why kids today are so off-the-rails. Child abuse, my arse. They’re all soft little shit bags who need to learn to put some effort into their lives.” She rolled her eyes. “And stop trying to change the subject. What the hell were you doing at the beach with him?”
My fingers danced along my mug. “Telling him he shouldn’t have come here.”
“That’s it?”
“I may have told him to go fuck himself, too.”
Gina’s laugh caught me off guard, and when I saw her genuine amusement, a small smile played on my lips. “Damn, Daisy. Good for you.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Yeah, I’m pissed! I don’t want you within ten feet of that wannabe guitar hero, but am I mad that you told him to go fuck himself? Hell, no. I only wish I'd seen it and had my phone on record.”
“It really wasn’t that spectacular. In fact, I think he found it amusing rather than abusive.”
“The arrogant rock star has been born, then?”
My eyes widened, and my smile pressed into a thin line. “Oh, he’s the full package.”
“Stirred up some old feelings, didn’t he?” she asked softly, and for once, there was no judgement in her voice—only concern. I’d have rather she hated and scolded me than offer this. Kindness was my weakness.
Staring straight into her eyes, I winced. “Why does heartbreak have so much love attached to it still?”
“I don’t know, honey. I really don't. I’ve never had what you and Danny used to have. But you gotta concentrate on the used to part of what I just said because that love doesn’t live in Hope Cove anymore, Daisy. Those feelings that have been stirred up are for a boy who no longer exists.”
“I know.” I dropped my head and took my first sip of coffee to stall for time. All of my thoughts were jumping over themselves, battling it out as I tried to think of something to let Gina—and more importantly, myself—know that this was a temporary migraine and not a life-changing tumour I had to learn to live with. “None of it matters, anyway, G.”
“No?”
When I looked up, I shook my head. “He’s nobody left here to come back for now. It’ll be the last time I ever have to stand in front of him. Even though it hurts, it’s finally over. Danny will have already gone back to his life, and now I’d like to go back to mine.”
Six
I was late opening the shop that morning, and even though I could have left it closed, the work would keep my hands busy and my mind on anything other than the night before. With the chalkboard positioned outside, declaring us open, I slipped behind the white-framed glass door and turned the sign there around, too. My thoughts were threatening to be too loud, so I’d slipped a little Hans Zimmer on in the background, listening to a mixture of his film scores as I busied myself by dusting down shelves and stock, replenishing the baskets with wax melts, lip balms, and bath bombs along the way.
The weather was glorious that day, and we were heading into the heavier parts of the season, so I expected to be busy. My shop sat on a slight hill, meaning I could watch as cyclists tore down the road, and groups of kids skipped towards the beaches with their buckets and spades. The locals would often wave if the door was open, but when it was closed like this to keep the cool air from the fans effective, they walked on by without much thought.
It was strange to sit behind the till and see people I’d known my whole life going about their routines and trying to imagine some people d
idn’t have any set order to their days. When my mind began to drift to Danny and the chaos of his life, I shook my head, blew out a breath, and opened up my accounting book to get lost in the figures I’d have to show Gina at the end of the month.
The door burst open in a flurry, the bell above it rattling wildly as a group of four young girls came bounding into the shop with high-pitched squeals and ear-piercing screams.
“Girls, girls, girls!” I called out, laughing at them as they rushed towards my counter.
I recognised the first one to reach me. Her name was Sienna Lloyd, and she was the daughter of Ivan Lloyd who owned the caravan park a half a mile away. The busiest one in our village. Sienna had long-flowing blonde hair, and she always wore a ribbon in it somehow. Today’s was wrapped around a long ponytail, and her big, brown eyes were wild as she looked up at me, panting her thirteen-year-old heart out.
“Oh my God, Daisy!”
“You okay?” I asked, a half-smile in place and a brow raised. “Have you had too much sugar with breakfast?”
“Uh… no!” She slammed her hands down on the countertop, and my other brow jumped up too. “I need, like, a book or something.”
“And a pen! Four pens!” the girl behind her called out. I think her name was Jo.
“Like, Sharpies, if you have them,” another girl I didn’t recognise chipped in.
“Okay…” I pulled my chin back and came back to Sienna. “I may have something for you.” Moving out from the counter, I listened as the girls squealed together and bounced on their toes, every other word that left their mouths being ‘like’ or ‘duh’. Oh, to be young again.
Bending down under the shelves full of aromatherapy candles, I pulled out a large sliding drawer and dug through some stock I hadn’t displayed yet.
“Hurry up, Daisy,” Sienna called to me.
“Going as fast as I can, Sienna.” My smile was forced as I pulled out two large hard-backed notepads that were covered in decorative stones. “These any good for you?”
“I don’t care. I’ll take, like, anything.”
I frowned. “What’s going on? You guys have a school project you’re late on or something?”
“Uh… no,” she said, sounding very American. I was about to warn her about the effects of watching too much Glee when she reached for one of the pads and started turning it over in her hands. “We just have to get over to Beechfield Park quickly before he leaves.”
“Before who leaves?”
“Danny Silver!” Her eyes lit up, and the mention of his name had the other girls squealing and bouncing around in the background again, while my face fell, and my stomach turned over. “Can you believe he’s back? Oh my God, Daisy, I have his posters, like, all over my bedroom.”
“All over,” said Jo.
“So do we,” the other two cried.
“We need Sharpies. Do you have any? I’m going to ask him to sign my arm,” Sienna declared, cutting me off from my thoughts—the thoughts of Danny having stuck around and not gone back to his old life the way I needed him to.
I blinked at her several times, searching her excited face and watching as her smile turned into a frown of confusion.
“Daisy?”
“Pens,” I croaked. “Gotcha.”
Quickly clearing my throat, I spun around to walk into the back room. I pushed through my seashell string curtain, and once away from them, I found a stack of Sharpies of my own I hadn’t even opened yet. When I caught sight of my fingers, I realised my hand was shaking.
Hans Zimmer’s score seemed to reach its peak, making everything around me feel like I was standing in the middle of a blockbuster film, and my time had finally come.
This was the part where my whole world came crashing down around me, and I had no idea how to get out of this in one piece.
“Beechfield Park?”
“That’s what they said,” I told Gina after the girls had left the shop. I pressed my phone to my ear, and I chewed on my thumbnail.
“Okay, I’ll get Jackson to ride out.”
“We can’t keep using Jax.”
“If I’ve got to feed the kid and keep him alive, he can do me the odd favour here and there.”
She hung up not long after, and I slipped my phone back into my handbag and eyed the door. What if he came here? What if he challenged me, stepped over the threshold and told me he hated me for telling him he wasn’t welcome in Hope Cove?
The bell above the door rang out again, and I held my breath until Ben pushed through it with a smile on his face. I didn’t think about my next move—I rushed to him like he was a long-lost lover, and I curled my hands around his neck and buried my face in the curve of his shoulder before the door had even closed behind him.
“Damn,” he grunted, holding me tight. “Now that’s a warm welcome.”
I wanted to tell him to shut up and just hold me. I wanted to say that it wasn’t a welcome, it was a cry for help. But I couldn’t let him know that my weird outburst of affection had been brought on by my rotten ex, so I simply held him and had no response.
Ben must have sensed my mood because he didn’t say anything else. He rested his cheek against my head and held me until I was ready to pull back and look at him.
When I did, his amber eyes searched mine. “Sorry,” I offered.
“This have anything to do with the return of the rock star?” he asked with a raised brow. “The whole village is talking about him. There’s a stream of kids running over to the park as we speak.”
“There are?” I groaned, falling back on flat feet and peeling myself away from Ben.
“Yeah, he’s like the Pied Piper of Pubescents or some shit.”
I laughed at that, if only weakly, and I ran my hands through my long brown hair. “Well, I doubt he’ll be around for long. They may as well get the Danny Silver experience before he drifts off again.”
Ben opened his mouth to say something and obviously thought better of it as he smacked his lips together and smiled.
“What?” I raised a brow.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “You just look a little…”
“If you say tired, I’m ending this thing with us right here, right now.”
Ben’s smile grew.
“What now?” I groaned again.
“That’s just the first time you’ve referred to us as a thing… of any kind.”
“Don’t turn girly on me, Ben.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He laughed before glancing outside to see another rush of girls tearing past the shop, screaming their cries for Danny’s band. When Ben turned back to me, he gestured to the outdoors. “Why don’t you shut up shop for an hour and let me take you for a walk? I have a feeling half the village is heading away from here anyway.”
“Sure.” I nodded, thinking it sounded like the best idea Ben had ever had.
“Maybe I can take you to the pub for a glass of wine, too.”
“I only swore against drinking an hour ago. Let’s take today one disaster at a time, huh?”
“Whatever my thing wants.”
Seven
Ben and I walked side by side, heading in the opposite direction of Beechfield Park, and out towards Ivan Lloyd’s caravan park, where the pedestrian walkways allowed you to head through the fields that tourists rarely ventured. The sun beat down on my bare shoulders, making my already sun-kissed skin warm. I was wearing a cream, floral day dress with thick straps, and a knee-length finish. It was slightly tight around my breasts, and I could see Ben side-eyeing the material there when he thought I wasn’t looking. It felt nice to be adored by a decent man… rather than being told I’d lost too much weight, or that I looked different now. Which I had and I did, but still…
Arsehole.
When forty minutes had passed, and we were approaching the Harbour & Hope pub on the beachfront again, Ben turned my way but looked over my head pensively.
“Do you think,” he started, dropping his eyes down to mine, “there w
ill ever come a day when you want to hold my hand?”
“You are going girly on me. I’m pretty sure I’m meant to be the one doing the whole ‘where are we?’ talk.”
“But you’re not.” He smirked. “And you’re you, Daisy. You never will. So, I have a proposal for you.”
“A proposal?” My face paled.
“Not that kind… Jesus.” He laughed. “Calm yourself.”
My hand flew up to my chest without thought, and I blew out a breath. “Goddammit, Ben.”
“Although, it’s nice to know where you’re at with that.”
“You know I can’t marry a guy who wants to take me to Sandros every Friday night.”
Ben tilted his head. “Which is why I think you and I should take a break.”
My smile faded, and I looked up at him in confusion. Another rejection. Another man saying I wasn’t good enough. Another man turning me away when the going got tough.
Ben grabbed my arms, holding me in place as he bent at the knee and made eye contact. “I like you a hell of a lot Daisy Piper—you know that, too—but I’m not the kind of guy to keep waiting around for a woman to look at me like I mean something, either.”
“Ben, of course you mean something.”
“I know that, but I think you need some time.”
“What I need is you.”
“Need and want are two very different things, and there are several types of need. You need me as a friend. You need a strong pair of arms to run into when you’re all confused in your head. You need a smile to walk through the shop door and make you feel a little lighter. But what you don’t need, Dais, is me. I could be anyone.” Ben laughed softly, his face offering me nothing but sincerity and warmth. The exact opposite of my encounter with Danny the night before.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Plus, I’m not getting any younger over here,” he raised a brow. “These years of ours are too precious to waste on pretending.”
I willed myself to protest and beg him to see things differently, but the truth was that everything Ben had said was right. The love I felt for him wasn’t the kind that set my soul on fire. When we had sex, it was amazing, and he satisfied me, but my head and heart were empty throughout. Ben’s touch kept me going back for more—not his soul.
