by Vicki James
It wasn’t fair to him to play him along like this.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me on the day I finally called us a thing…” I said, aiming for humour. Despite my smile, my voice broke, and tears prickled my eyes. I was so bad at goodbyes even when the goodbyes weren’t even a goodbye at all.
“Right?” He huffed. “I’m a royal bastard for that. I know how much the thing-thing meant to you.”
Laughing without humour, I dipped my head and shook it. Ben let me go and tucked his hands away in his pockets, and when I looked up at him, I was crying. I hated to admit it, but these tears felt like some kind of happy tears, too. Relief tears, maybe?
I’d never wanted to break his heart.
Ben was giving me a gift I hadn’t even known I’d needed.
“See.” He smiled. “You know this is what’s good for you.”
“I’ve never been particularly good at knowing that but thank you.”
“First time I’ve ever been thanked for breaking up with a girl.”
“We were only a thing.” I smirked, wiping a stray tear away.
“Right.” He laughed. “I’m going to miss kissing you, though,” he said, and my heart betrayed me by thinking of all the ways I missed kissing Danny. The heart wanted what it wanted, and I was having a hard time retraining mine to know what was good for it and what was bound to make it irreparable. “But feel free to call me for some benefits any time you like… once you’ve figured shit out, I mean.”
“What? I don’t get a goodbye kiss?”
“Whatever my thing wants.” His hands cupped my cheeks, and I allowed myself to close my eyes in the middle of Hope Cove and let him kiss me—something I hadn’t allowed too much before.
His warm lips met mine, and I stood there limply, basking in his safety and accepting his kiss before he pulled back. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling, and so was I.
“You’re the hottest woman in Devon, Daisy Piper. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I was about to respond with a compliment of my own when something caught my eye over Ben’s shoulder.
Danny was standing there, rigid, not a few metres away, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the night before, with his arms hanging by his side, his hair wild, and his lips parted. He stared at me, unblinking, and I swallowed at the sight, feeling that temperamental heart of mine begin to stutter and race.
I had no idea what he wanted, but he wasn’t getting it that easily. I looked back up at Ben and tried to hide what I’d seen, no longer sure if Danny was a figment of my imagination or a reality. What I was sure of was that I didn’t need Ben to get caught in the middle of anything… if there was going to be anything here. I had to get him away.
“Parting drink in the Harbour & Hope?” I suggested. “My treat.”
“I thought you’d sworn off wine for life?”
“I swear off a lot of things. What can I say? I’m weak. You grab us a table. I’ve just got to call Gina and warn her that the shop is shut before someone tattles on me.”
Ben gave me a nod and let me go, walking away until he was pushing through the door of the pub with no idea that one of the world’s most sought after rock stars was only a few feet away…
Staring at me like he hated me.
Staring like he had something to say.
Seeing him in the daylight was harder than I thought it would be. His skin was tanned, and the sun wasn’t afraid to highlight all the freckles on his face or the way the muscles had grown in his forearms, which were on display, thanks to his rolled-up sleeves.
I folded my arms over my chest and raised a brow at him. “You got something to say, or are you just going to stand there staring all day?”
Danny didn’t blink. “Is that your boyfriend?”
“Yep,” I lied.
He took a step closer, his expression giving nothing away. “How long have you been together?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“But you’ll tell me anyway… unless you’re lying.”
My teeth ground together. I jutted my chin out in defiance. “We’ve been together a while.”
“A while, huh? Then how come he doesn’t kiss you the way you like to be kissed?”
“My preferences have changed over the last five years. I’m not the girl you once knew.”
Danny drew closer. By step six, I was glancing down at his feet in warning, and he came to a lazy stop. “You can change what you tolerate, Daisy, but you can’t change the things that get you off, and that kiss…” he gestured to the door Ben had disappeared through, “did nothing for you.”
The embarrassment I felt at having been read so clearly made my stomach roll, and becoming the girl who did, in fact, throw a punch, had never sounded so appealing. Instead, I decided to hit Danny where it might have hurt.
I was the one to take a step closer to him, my face tense as I stared him down. His eyes fell to the way my arms were pushing my breasts up, and I thought I saw that old look of hunger in Danny’s eyes before his jaw tensed—the muscles there twitching when he looked back up at me.
“You want to know why it didn’t, Danny? Because I saw you there before the kiss happened, and even the sight of you turns me sick now.” I glanced down at his body, taking in every inch slowly before I curled my lips in fake disgust. “You have no idea what gets me off anymore, but in case you wanted a little bit of information to take away with you before you finally get your rotten arse out of Hope Cove, here you go: Ben is ten times the man you could ever dream to be, and that alone is enough to make me fall at his feet and spend a lifetime there, because for him, I’m good enough.”
“I didn’t have you down as a liar.”
“I learnt that particular skill from a guy who spent six years lying to my face about loving me.”
Danny’s face dropped, his hands balling into fists by his thighs. His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth to speak when a commotion pulled our attention to the pub, where a woman wearing tight blue jeans, a fitted blazer, and white trainers was chasing a toddler out of the door. With her short black hair perfectly in place and a smile on her ruby red lips, she rushed after the baby as he giggled and tried to outrun what I hoped was his mother.
“Corey Ryan, you little monkey, get yourself back here!” the woman cried.
The toddler slammed into me with a thud, his arms wrapping around my bare leg, causing me to stumble to the side before I managed to turn around enough to steady myself. The boy chuckled wildly, throwing his head back and trying to hide between my legs, his head desperate to disappear under my dress, until the lady came to my side and peeled him away. He kicked out, resisting her embrace as she brought him up flush against her body with one arm wrapped around him, while her free hand bopped the end of his nose with her thumb.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a rush, her apology obviously for me, even as she looked at her boy. “Listen, kiddo. I know you think you can behave like that because your daddy is a rock star, but you can’t. You have to behave in these places, otherwise people will figure out what a feral child you are.”
Your daddy is a rock star…
I glanced at Danny, who was looking at nobody but me with a creased brow and a tight jaw.
Danny was a… father? This beautiful, little boy with wild black hair and innocent, chocolate brown eyes was his son. The stunningly beautiful woman beside me was Danny’s… what? Girlfriend? Wife? Mother of his child?
I felt sick.
The sight of all three of them made me step back into the road, pretty sure that my face had quickly drained of any colour it once held.
“Oh, my,” the woman said when she caught sight of me, her smile growing, displaying a perfect row of bright, white teeth. She glanced at Danny for only a second before she focused on me again, and her smile faded a little. “You must be Daisy?”
“I… I have to go.” It was all I could say as my mouth went dry. I rubbed my lips together
to try to gain some natural movement, my eyes drifting to little Corey who was rubbing his eye with his balled up, chunky fist. I saw his mother in him so clearly, but I couldn’t place Danny there.
The door to the pub swung open again, and one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen in my life stepped out with an almost-finished beer in his hand. He wore ripped black jeans, a grey T-shirt, and tattoos ran up and down his arms.
“All I wanted was a pint! I haven’t had a drink in forever. Couldn’t you give me that, Corey?” The man walked over to the woman, who was still staring at me in wonder, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder as he glared at the little boy and held his drink up to him. “That’s all your dad wanted. One drink. You steal my woman. You steal my sleep. You steal my freedom. Now you want to deny me a beer! We’ve talked about this, son. I’m going to be a pain in your arse when it’s time for you to spend your adult life wiping mine. Don’t say Daddy didn’t warn ya.”
He drained his drink, gasping and wiping the back of his hand over his mouth before he dropped the glass to an outdoor table behind him, and he turned to face me.
“Woah, who’s the stunner?” He grinned, full of cheek and charm that made my cheeks blush. The woman next to him jabbed her elbow into his ribs in warning. “What the hell, Jules?”
Jules… the name suited her. She looked like she was made of precious gems.
Her smile was tight as she leaned into the guy’s side and whispered something in his ear. His eyes widened, and his lips parted when he turned to face me again.
“Oh… crap.”
“Crap!” Corey repeated.
“Ah, shit…” the guy groaned.
“Sha...iiiit!” Corey went on.
“For the love of God, Rhett, stop talking,” Jules cried, covering her son’s ears and flashing a warning at the guy called Rhett.
I was lost, staring between the three of them as they looked at me like they knew me. It was then that I turned to Danny.
Jules wasn’t with him. Danny wasn’t Corey’s father. But still, the emotions that had stirred in me had hurt, and that hurt lingered.
Like the memories.
Like the love I couldn’t get rid of.
“I have to go,” I said, too strung out from everything. Life. Florence’s death. Danny’s return. The humiliation I felt from last night. Ben calling things off. The humiliation I now felt at having strangers staring at me like they knew who I was. Had Danny told them how pathetic I’d been back then? How I’d begged him to stay or take me with him?
“Daisy,” Danny said, his voice somewhat pained as he dared to take another step closer.
“Don’t!” I warned him. “Don’t you dare take another step closer, and don’t you dare speak another word.”
“But—"
“Go, Danny. Just… go.”
Dipping my head to hide my blush, I walked past Jules, Rhett, and Corey, and I made my way inside the pub to where Ben was waiting for me with a large glass of wine at the bar.
As soon as I got to him, I reached for it and poured it down my neck, only stopping when the burn hurt and the taste of it hit me enough to make me gag, leaving barely an inch of the stuff in the glass when I lowered it back to the bar.
I licked my lips and ran a thumb over the corners of my mouth. Ben stared and raised his brows.
“Crazy day, huh?” he asked.
“We need tighter restrictions on the tourists we allow around here.”
“Ah, you saw him, too, then?”
“Who?” I frowned, hoping he hadn’t seen me talking to Danny and knew I’d lied to his face about phoning Gina.
Ben glanced towards the door I’d burst through only moments ago before he looked back at me and his face lit up. “Rhett fucking Ryan was just in here, Daisy.”
“Never heard of him. Wait…” I, too, looked at the door, as if Rhett was about to walk back through and explain who he was. “You know that guy? The dude with the shaggy hair and the ripped jeans.”
“You don’t?”
“Do I look like I do?”
“Daisy, I know you live under a rock, but everyone knows that guy. That’s Rhett Ryan. The lead singer of Youth Gone Wild. One of the most famous men in the world right now.”
I stared at him blankly.
“You don’t know who Youth Gone Wild are, do you?”
My bottom lip pushed out, and I shook my head. “Should I?”
Ben dropped his elbow to the bar, closed his eyes, and he slammed his forehead into his palm. “I do not get laid enough for this.”
Eight
“Watch this.”
Ben held his phone out and leaned back, allowing me a closer look at the YouTube clip he was desperate for me to watch. I eyed him with suspicion before I leaned over the table we were sitting at in Harbour & Hope, and the music blared to life on the screen.
Fucking music. Everyone spoke about how it saved them, leaving me to think I was the only one who had ever been destroyed by it.
Laser lights shone out across a faceless crowd of phone cameras and girlish screams.
“How’s everyone doing tonight, O2 Arena?” a guy shouted from the front of the stage, and as the camera zoomed in on that charming smirk and those mischievous eyes, I recognised him instantly.
That was Rhett Ryan.
“We are Youth Gone Wild, and we’re here tonight to play some fuckin’ good songs and have a fuckin’ good time. Are you with us?”
The video played on, showing short twenty-second clips of him covering a few songs at different stadiums across the world. At one point, I thought I recognised one of the tracks they were covering from my childhood. I was pretty sure Dad used to like listening to it while working on his car in the garage.
“I know this song,” I said, still eyeing the screen as I pointed to it. “My dad used to like them. Mutley or dogs or something or other.”
Ben’s groan was low and lacking in patience. “Mötley Crüe, Daisy.”
“That’s what I said.”
Ben grumbled something and urged me to focus, and when I did, I saw the blonde-haired drummer who was, in all ways, just as attractive as the lead singer. Even though I wasn’t a fan of this kind of stuff for obvious reasons, when the clip finished, I turned to Ben.
“Okay, so they’re a pretty big deal, huh?”
Ben’s eyes were wide. “The second video of seventy thousand screaming fans in Wembley Stadium give that away?”
I slumped back into the bench seat we were sharing, feeling somewhat confused and defeated as I looked up at him. I wanted to ask Ben why he thought the likes of Rhett Ryan were hanging around in Hope Cove, but it was a stupid question because we both knew the answer, and that answer would lead to talk of Danny.
Danny…
Where he’d once been warm, he now looked cold. As though he’d just woken up from a bad dream and couldn’t shake the cloud of uncertainty away from his life. The old part of me that still wasn’t fixed quite right wanted to go to him and take care of that uncertainty. I wanted to rub a soft thumb over his confused lines and make them disappear with nothing more than my touch.
The other part of me wanted to stick a pin in his narrowed eyes and give him something to really cry about.
A woman scorned never claimed to have a perfect heart or good morals.
“Mind if I say something I probably shouldn’t?” Ben asked, interrupting my reverie.
“You’ve never asked permission before.”
He slumped down on the seat, copying my pose. The two of us looked like the perfect couple in love who were staring adoringly into each other’s eyes. He took my limp hand and curled lazy fingers around it.
“You’re never going to be happy unless you get out of your head. Living in the clouds and ignoring stuff doesn’t make it go away. It just means that when it comes back, it sucks even more because you can’t pretend anymore.”
“Oh, Ben, don’t start with this. I promise, I’m—”
“You’re not
fine.” He leaned even closer, his voice dropping when he spoke again. “You’re a patched-up doll, Dais, fixed together with thin stitches and a shaky hand. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who and what caused that, but you’ve got to step out of denial now. Take out those shitty stitches and fix yourself up with stronger glue. Otherwise, you’re going to be half-living for the rest of forever, and that sounds like a crappy existence to me.”
“Are you telling me that I’m damaged?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Fuck.” I winced. “You’re a real dick. You know that?” I lied. Ben wasn’t a dick. Ben was a good man who deserved better—someone who could give him everything he wanted that I never could.
He laughed and tugged on my limp hand, pulling me closer. Our heads were only inches apart as we stared into each other’s eyes.
“Someone’s got to say it,” he whispered.
I searched his pools of amber, knowing that Ben was exactly the kind of guy who could make me happy if I let him. Handsome, warm, charming, reliable… he was all the things a woman searched for to light up her world, but he just didn’t do it for me, no matter how many new chances I gave the two of us, or how many times I tried to force myself to love him.
“You’re still a dick,” I forced out through a genuine smile.
“A dick who has made your legs tremble a few times.”
“Please. I faked it all.”
“You can’t fake that type of pleasure, Daisy.”
“You’d be surprised what I can fake.”
Ben’s body shook as silent laughter tore through him. I was about to add another insult when I heard a commotion before the doors to Harbour & Hope flew open and in walked two bodies looking like they didn’t belong there.
“No, no, no. No, you don’t,” Rhett said, walking backwards with his hands pressed against a man’s chest. His face was twisted, and his dark hair had fallen forward like there’d been a struggle. “Fuck. You’re a strong kid.”
