by Vicki James
Mum glanced at Gina, who was out of shot of the screen. Her perfect brows were furrowed, while Dad looked on, oblivious to everything.
“Daisy,” Mum said, looking back at me. “What’s going on? Gina is acting very strangely. Why do you need to call us like this? Couldn’t you just come around and knock on our door?”
“I would… but I’m in Paris.”
Mum’s face fell while Dad’s eyes widened. “Paris?” Mum said, her voice barely a whisper. The panic flashed across her face. “This isn’t like you. Why would you do this?”
“Because I knew you’d stop me if I came to you first.”
“Only because—”
I held up my hand in warning. “Before you start to freak out, I’m more than okay. I have a wonderful, trustworthy friend here with me, and she’s brought me to see Danny.”
“Your Danny?”
“My Danny.” I smiled.
Dad’s face softened while Mum looked grief-stricken. Her fingers rose to worry the delicate gold necklace around her neck.
“Are you two… back together?” she asked.
“I think we might be.” I pressed my lips together, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks. “But I can’t be with him unless I’m ready to step out of Hope Cove a little bit. I am ready to step away, Mum. I love my home, but I also love Danny, and I need to combine the two because I don’t think I’ll ever be happy without one of them.”
“After all the pain he caused?”
“We were young kids. He did what he needed to do. Now I’m doing the same. I hope you’ll understand. I made mistakes, too.”
“I can’t say I’m not worried,” she said, only for Dad to reach over and bring her hand from her necklace to squeeze her fingers in his palm. A look passed through them—one I would never understand—before Dad turned back to me.
“You go and have fun, sweetheart,” he said, in an unusual display of confidence and affection that was usually saved for no one but Mum. “You’re young. You should be doing all the things we never did.” His eyes drifted over the phone, and I saw him seeking Gina out. Mum did the same, both of them nodding before they looked back at me.
I narrowed my eyes and leaned in closer, seeing the way Mum swallowed and Dad’s jaw was tight.
“Dad?”
“Hmm?”
“Did Gina tell you to say that?”
“No. Of course not.” It was a lie, and an obvious one at that, but I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head.
“Hmm.” I laughed softly. “I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.”
Gina had promised me she wouldn’t go over there and lay down the law, and she’d clearly failed to keep that promise, but if the end result was Mum and Dad granting me permission to finally go out and seek some fun, then I was going to take it—not that I needed anybody’s permission but my own now. I was, and always had been, the biggest roadblock to my own happiness.
Forty-Three
Halo found me hiding away with my back pressed against a wall. He strode over, dressed in casual grey jeans and a loose, black T-shirt, his eyes scanning my attire for the performance.
I was in tight black jeans, black heels, and a white vest that gave a sneak peek of my boobs, thanks to my push-up bra. Julia had helped me curl my hair, and I’d borrowed her red lipstick, too. I felt like a modern-day version of Sandy from Grease about to reveal a grand makeover, only without the sultry pout and cigarette in hand.
“Whoosh, wildcat. You’re looking fine,” Halo said, reaching for my arm and grabbing my elbow. “Ready?”
“No,” I said, my breathing picking up pace. “I feel faint. Should I feel faint?”
“That’s the adrenaline. You don’t think you’re gonna puke or anything do you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Halo wrinkled his nose and leaned in closer, his eyes searching mine. “Nah. Your eyes are fine. You’re just shitting yourself, that’s all.”
“That’s all? How the hell do you guys do this for a living?”
“It’s soundcheck.” He frowned.
“Exactly. There’s not even a crowd, and I’m scared.”
Halo blew the air out of his cheeks. “I didn’t know you were a yellow belly.”
“I’m serious, Halo. Help me.”
“Okay. Stay with me. You with me? Good.” He brought his fingers to his eyes, demanding my focus on them. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Don’t think about the after. Think about the now. Think about how you’re going to feel during it. When you think about the after before anything has even happened, you’re essentially tripping over your own damn feet to get there.”
“What?” I wrinkled my nose back at him.
“You need to enjoy the experience, Daisy. Do you know how many people would give up a limb to sing in an arena like this?”
“That means nothing if I’m not one of them.”
“Become one of them because if you pull this off, Danny is going to blow in his trousers before he can even get to you.” Halo’s eyes trailed down me again. “You wouldn’t even have to sing, and he’d still blo—”
“Okay, okay, Halo, thank you for that.” I batted his hand, only for him to wink and gesture down the hall.
“Come on, wildcat. Let’s get this show on the road.”
I dug my heels in one final time. “Halo?”
“Yeah?”
“If I choke, will you cover me?”
A slow smile crept on his face. “I’ll cover you even if you don’t.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you been practising the song enough? You definitely know the lyrics, the timing, and everything else?”
I nodded, licking my lips. “This was one of Danny’s favourites when we were together. I already knew it pretty well, but I’ve done everything you said since we tried it out over the phone on Monday night.”
“You’ve got a banging voice, Daisy. Almost as banging as your body.”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes, but Halo just laughed.
“Come on already. Quit stalling. Let’s go and make Danny’s dreams come true.”
With a breath for strength, I followed where Halo went. Julia was waiting in the wings, her excitement obvious. It was good that one of us was looking forward to this, I supposed. As much as I wanted to live for the moment, as Halo had been hinting for me to do, I couldn’t deny that I wanted this over, too. Then the nerves would be gone, and Danny’s arms would be around me.
Jules replaced Halo by my side when he walked ahead, out onto the stage. There was a walkway that jutted out from the stage and into the middle of the standing floor space. It looked like a giant T. Archer was on the raised platform at the back, already beating his drum pedal and his drumsticks down in idle movements while he waited for Halo’s return. The three guitarists, however, were on the walkway, taking centre stage, sauntering back and forth with their guitars in place, in no rush to go anywhere fast.
Everyone but Danny knew what was going on, and the eyes of the ones in the know kept seeking me out before they’d look away with a little smirk on their faces. Everyone loves to be in on the secrets when they’re not the ones being lied to. It gives them a sense of power.
They’d been rehearsing all day, after Julia, Billie—yeah, even she was in on it—and Halo convinced Danny to include a classic track. One which happened to be Ocean Colour Scene’s, You’ve Got It Bad.
It had been one of his favourite songs to practice in his parents’ garage, and it had been a song I could never forget him singing at the top of his lungs while driving around Devon together. He always leaned over to me during the chorus, singing about how bad I had it for him.
Now it was my turn to sing it back.
Peeking out from the curtain made the nerves ball together in a tight knot until I had to rub my stomach to try and rid myself of it.
“Can you see him?” Julia asked from a small gap in her mouth, not looking at me as she stood on the side of the stage, watchin
g over their rehearsals.
He looked more handsome than ever. His hair was a shaggy mess, and he wore blue jeans and a baggy white T-shirt that hung low on his chest, revealing licks of his dark tattoos and the defined muscles there. “I definitely see him.”
“He’s clueless.”
“Oh, God, Jules, what am I doing?”
“The right thing. Now, get ready.”
Halo walked over to the microphone, his hand curling around it as it rested in the mic stand at just the right height. The five of them talked idly among each other, but it was mainly Halo and the others going about their business, while Danny strummed silent notes over his strings with his scowl in place.
“Yo, dipshit!” Halo called out to him, but Danny was in his own headspace, which meant that Fletch had to walk over and punch him in the shoulder to get his attention. Danny rocked forward, blinked wildly, and looked up at Halo.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“We need you here with us, not back there in England, sucking your girlfriend off.”
“Fuck you. I’ve been ready for twenty minutes. Are you ready?”
Halo laughed, bouncing on his toes. “Am I ever.” With a glance over his shoulder, he made it out as though he was looking at Jules and offering her a nod, but we both knew it was for me.
The intro to the song roared to life, the energy of it electric, making it feel like my veins were hooked up to a current, and it was running through me at an unstoppable rate. Danny played the guitar effortlessly, but you could see his face light up as soon as the beat kicked in, and each musician fell in sync. Archer was alive on the drums, his arms and knees flailing around before it dropped into the first verse.
Halo’s voice matched that of the lead singer of Ocean Colour Scene. He mimicked the rise and fall of his tones with ease like a vocal chameleon, giving it his everything as he stood there with his hand wrapped around the mic.
The first verse passed by too quickly, and I was certain I was going to shake my head at Julia and run in the opposite direction… but I’d come this far, and one glance from her when Halo hit the chorus, I knew what I had to do.
Danny’s head was down, focused on his guitar with his back to Halo as he walked down the centre of the protruding stage, no doubt imagining himself there later that night with twenty thousand people surrounding him.
Halo glanced over at me, and it was my cue to go.
Blowing my nerves out in one long exhale, I walked on shaky feet and went to him as coolly and as calmly as I could… which wasn’t very cool or calm at all. I could feel my nerves in my kneecaps as they bounced up and down uncontrollably. Halo’s eyes lit up, and I cast a glance at Danny, who still had his back to me. As soon as I reached the mic, Halo fiddled with the stand without much effort, and the mic dropped down to my level in less than a second before he secured it in place.
Then, I started to sing.
My mouth opened, and the words to the second verse poured free. I got two lines of lyrics out before Danny woke from whatever daze he’d been in, and he spun around, his head snapping up to mine, and his body freezing as he took me in.
That, right there, was a connection, and it made my body sing, and my smile break free.
I loved him.
We lost the lead guitarist to his own surprise, but the other two carried on. Archer held the beat of the tune behind me until we hit the verse and my stupid grin broke free at the sight of Danny standing there, gobsmacked.
His face had paled, a ghost he never thought he’d see staring back at him, singing loud and proud with ruby red lips, and wearing heels designed to kill. It was hard to sing perfectly with my smile so wide, but I gave it my best shot until I was following the beat of the song by tapping my hand on my thigh and my foot on the floor.
When the instrumental bit hit—the part which was meant to be Danny’s guitar solo masterpiece—I pulled away from the microphone and raised a brow, my challenging smirk holding his pale face in question until slowly, and ever so surely, his brought his hands back to the guitar, and his fingers began to move of their own accord.
Danny’s eyes never broke away from mine.
He barely blinked, just licked his lips and stared.
But he somehow played that damn solo and put one foot in front of the other until he was walking towards me, his pace slow at first until he was making gigantic strides he couldn’t contain.
He’d been inside of me a hundred times before, and we’d kissed in all the ways you could be kissed, but never once had I seen such feral hunger in his eyes when he came to a stop only a few feet in front of me.
When it was my cue, I sang again, pouring my voice out as though the stadium was already packed with those twenty thousand fans, and this was my only shot to make them stand up and listen.
Eventually, after the longest four minutes of my life, the song drifted out until only the instruments were playing, leaving Archer to perform a drum solo that somehow seemed to set an empty arena on fire. The song ended abruptly on a final note from each of them, leaving the last note to ring out around us in an echo, and everyone to fall quiet.
Danny stared as though it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on me.
It took a minute before he swallowed and began to lift the guitar strap off his shoulders, and he carefully handed it to Theo without looking away from me.
His eyes eventually trailed down my body, pausing at my shoes before he let them roam up again and he found my eyes.
“Surprise,” I said quietly, bringing my arms up to soft jazz hands.
“Fucking hell, Zee.” With a breath, he pushed forward, pressed his hands to my cheeks and crashed his lips against mine with the force of a man who’d been starved of a kiss for a century, the pinch of it making my stomach flutter.
I loved the way it stung to love him, and I didn’t give a damn who saw me rise on my toes and hold his hands in place as I kissed him right back with just as much fight, begging him not to let me go as much as I refused to let him leave me again. We could do this. We really could.
For the first time in my life, I’d gone out there and soared.
Forty-Four
The dressing room door slammed shut behind us, but I paid it no mind.
I was too busy losing myself in Danny. In squeezing my thighs around his waist. In the way my ankles crossed, resting over his arse, and the way my arms held on tightly around his neck as I ran small circles in the back of his hair while he kissed me.
This kiss had become my anchor as he’d carried me off the stage to the cries and catcalls of his musical brothers. I’d held onto Danny, not needing anything else but his tongue massaging greedily against mine.
I’d done it.
I’d really done it.
The look on his face had made every nervous flutter worthwhile.
My back came up against a wall, a grunt escaping me as the air got knocked out of my lungs. Danny’s teeth bit down on my bottom lip, and he dragged it out slowly, forcing me to open my eyes and look into those damn pools of green again. They were sparkling with hunger and greed, but also love—a love I’d had no idea still existed in such animal form until he’d stumbled back in my life and turned it on its head in so little time.
Not that there’d been much to flip. I could admit now that my resistance had always been a pretence—a weak wall made from Play-Doh promises to keep him out and hate him forever because he’d dared to dream and put himself first.
What a villain.
I’d been entitled—somewhat of a narcissist, filled with a need to see life through the way I wanted it to go. The signs of his unhappiness had been there, and I’d chosen to bury my head in the sand of Hope Cove and hope for the best.
That wasn’t the way love worked. You can’t pretend to love someone but ignore it when they speak, no matter how subtle their messages. I saw that now. I saw it, and I wanted to do better.
For him, and for me. For us.
Danny released my lip, an
d his eyes drifted over my face, taking me in slowly as he rocked his hips back and forth, letting me know exactly how happy he was to see me.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he breathed. “You sounded sensational out there, Daisy.”
I ran a hand through the thickness of his hair. “Am I allowed to admit that it felt good?”
“It felt good because you are good.”
“I feel like I could take on the world.”
“Let’s fucking do it.”
“Together…”
“Hell, yes.”
“Right after you’ve made love to me,” I whispered with a smile designed to disarm him. “Here, in this room. I don’t want to waste another minute on not doing all the best things there are to do with you.”
“I think this could be the greatest moment of my life.”
With a small laugh, I kissed him again, and the two of us became a beautiful mess of broken promises, replaced with new ones. Youthful kisses, replaced with experience and a determination to see this through. When Danny lifted me over to the sofa, and he slipped inside me after stripping us both naked, I dug my nails into his back and allowed myself to feel him everywhere. He owned me, pulling out slowly only to slam into me even harder than the time before. Soon, my head was banging against the arm of the couch, but I didn’t care about any of the pain. I was too busy floating in another headspace where the only thing that registered was the orgasm that was building, and Danny’s seductive, masculine cries of my name.
Daisy…
Daisy…
Daisy…
He made a simple, delicate flower sound like a thing of legends.
