Chapter Four

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.

Not just then, but my entire life.

I knew I wasn’t meant to have any kind of posse, as much as I’d always wanted it, and especially as much as it’d be good to have it right then after what had happened to me.

I just didn’t need it staring me in the face when I didn’t have it.

Instead, I looked down at the shoes I was trying on.

They cost twelve hundred dollars. They were class on a lollipop stick. Considering the serious hike in pay Smithie gave me a month ago, I could totally afford them (and could do that even before he jacked up my pay, but did it weirdly making me work less, but I didn’t quibble).

And they were so not me.

“What do you think?” the shoe saleslady said.

“You got anything in denim?” I asked.

“Uh…no,” she answered.

“Clear plastic, maybe with a daisy embedded in the platform?”

“Um…I don’t think so.”

“Slides with a seven-inch heel, three-inch platform, the whole thing bejeweled, maybe in pink?”

“Well…um, I think that’s a no too, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

I nodded.

I’d already learned Nordstrom shoe department didn’t do Daisy.

It still didn’t hurt to try.

I unbuckled the strappy sandal I had on and slid it off, murmuring, “That’s okay. But thanks.”

“Valentino does ‘Rockstud,’” she informed me.

I’d checked out the Rockstud.

It wasn’t all that bad.

But it didn’t say Daisy.

“Not my thing,” I shared, putting the sandal in the box, grabbing it, and handing it to her.

“Okay, well, if there’s anything else you see you’d like to try, I’m here.”

“Thanks, honey bunch, you’re sweet.”

I smiled at her.

She smiled at me and wandered away with the box.

I put on my shoes (black patent, platform sandal, one-inch rhinestone ankle strap, tube of rolled open red lipstick for a heel), got up, hitched up my purse on my shoulder, and glided to the makeup counter to while away more of my Saturday afternoon.

The shoe department might let me down in a variety of places.

But any makeup counter from Walgreens to Neiman’s worked for me.

And that afternoon, it so did.

* * * *

The doorbell rang right in the middle of Julia Roberts having a diabetic fit in a salon chair in Dolly Parton’s garage.

This did not make me happy.

Not Julia having a fit, of course, that never made me happy.

But I was right then not happy about my doorbell ringing during the best movie of all time.

I paused the movie, got up on my bare feet, and marched to the door in my hot-pink Juicy Couture tracksuit with the rhinestone, interlaced “JC” on the back with the crown on top surrounded with an oval of sparkles.

I looked through the peephole and I knew what I’d see because he’d told me he wasn’t going to give up.

But he was interrupting Steel Magnolias.

No one did that.

Not even a tall, dark, rich, hot guy gentleman who opened doors for me.

And right then, even if he was not in a suit but looked just as f-i-n-e, fine in a V-necked, dark-blue sweater that did things to his eyes that, if I wasn’t ticked about Steel Magnolias, would have done things to my coochie, and dark-wash jeans, he had to know that.

So I unlocked the deadbolt, slapped open the latch, and yanked open my own damned door.

“You’re interrupting Steel Magnolias,” I snapped tetchily to Marcus Sloan.

He burst out laughing.

He really shouldn’t have done that.

He really shouldn’t have laughed.

Really.

He was handsome, for sure, just as he was.

But laughter took years off his face.

Years.

I didn’t know how old he was. He looked in his mid-thirties (and I wasn’t going there seeing as he clearly had established his place in Denver at a young age which said something about him and what it said, to a girl like me, was all good).

But right then, he looked like the boy you hoped would neck with you (and you’d let him get to second base) after he took you to a movie.

Though, it was more.

The deep sumptuousness of his laughter felt like everything.

Every diamond in the world laid at your feet.

Every fur piled deep.

Every gold necklace a tangle of beauty twenty feet deep.

Still chuckling, he turned to the side and jerked his head toward my apartment, “Set it up.”

Without a choice, I shifted out of the way as a tall, blond man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and thin black tie walked in carrying a paper bag by the handles in one hand and balancing a baker’s box in the other.

Following him came a heavyset man dressed the exact same way. He’d lost most of his steel gray hair and was for some reason wearing sunglasses even though the sun had gone down, not to mention, he was indoors. He had two bottles of champagne pressed to his chest in one arm, two delicate champagne flutes dangling from the other with…

I narrowed my eyes at them…

Beautiful peacocks engraved in the glass.

Really beautiful peacocks.

Perfection.

Damn him to hell.

I turned my narrowed eyes to Marcus as he moved in, putting a hand to my waist, and this time he used it to guide me where he wanted me to go.

Right smack dab into the middle of my living-slash-dining room.

I let this happen mostly because I was beginning to smell something.

Something so good it forced all of your attention to it.

Which meant I saw the first guy opening lids on food containers, the aroma of what was inside beating back the scent of flowers and filling the room.

“Barolo Grill,” Marcus said and my suddenly food-dazed gaze drifted to him. “Prosciutto and melon. Lobster salad. Truffle risotto. And bombolonis for dessert. With Dom, of course.”

With Dom, of course.

Dom Pérignon and lobster salad in my two-bedroom, not-much-to-write-home-about, uninspired-floorplan-like-gazillions-of-complexes-all-over-the-you-nited-States-of-America, galley kitchen, living-slash-dining-room, only-thing-good-about-it-was-the-master-bath apartment that I’d rented before I started to make a mint off stripping.

“Are you loco?” I asked.

His lips curled up. “No, I’m hungry.” He turned his attention to his men. “That’s good and that’s all.”

They started to move out but stopped when Marcus told them to do it.

His hand slid to the small of my back. “Daisy, this is my man, Brady, and my driver, Ronald.”

In turn, first the blond, then the sunglassed man nodded to me.

“Pleased to meet you,” Brady said.

“Same,” Ronald grunted.

With nothing more, they both took off.

I watched the door close behind them and looked back at Marcus.

“You have a driver?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“So he can drive me where I need to go.”

I felt my eyes get squinty again.

He put pressure on my back and guided me to my not-much-to-write-home-about round dinette (that was so going to go when I got my fabulous new pad—there, I’d have a proper, Southern woman’s dining room table, meaning big, gleaming, and covered in fine china, even if I didn’t have any friends to sit at it) where they’d laid out the opened food cartons, baker’s box, champagne, and flutes.

“I have a variety of concerns,” he explained as we went. “Time is always in short supply. I can’t use it wisely if I have to concentrate on driving. While Ronald drives, I can do things I couldn’t if I was.”

He stopped us by the table and I asked, “And you have a man?”

“I have several,” he answered.

I gestured to the door with my hand. “So what’s that one for?”

“Extra eyes.”

“Extra eyes for what?”

He held my gaze steady. “For being certain, should someone think to do something stupid that I wouldn’t very much like, they won’t do that because they either saw Brady and got smart or Brady saw them and stopped them.”

“So with these concerns of yours, you’re constantly in danger,” I guessed.

“No. Not many would be foolish enough to attempt to put me in a dangerous situation. What I am is cautious.”

I nodded. “You sure strike fear in the hearts of the strippers, sugar. The ones who don’t want to sleep with you, that is. But just sayin’, they might wanna get laid by you, but you scare them too.”

He grinned at me. “No offense, honey, but I’m not sure I consider strippers a threat.”

“None taken, darlin’, but gotta know. Do you consider anyone a threat?”

“No.”

I tilted my head. “Is that smart?”

“I didn’t work to earn my reputation by being stupid.”

Hmm.

“You tryin’ to scare me?” I asked.

“Absolutely not.”

I held my breath at his tone and let him hold my gaze.

He did this until he wasn’t feeling it anymore and he shared that by asking quietly, “Do you have plates?”

“I do. What I don’t got is the desire to eat fancy shit in my house when I’m in the middle of the best movie of all time.”

“We can eat in front of the television.”

I offered an alternate scenario. “You can also call your boys, get your stuff, and mosey on down the road.”

“I’m quite certain you know that’s not going to happen.”

I stared at him.

Then I sighed.

After that, I got plates.

I had fancy shit piled on one and a flute of champagne Marcus poured me in my hand while aiming my ass at my couch when I declared, “I’m not startin’ it up again. I’m good to re-watch certain parts after it’s done, like when Clairee is in that locker room. But I’m in the groove, even if it was interrupted, and I’m not re-startin’ my groove.”

“I’ll catch up,” Marcus told me, settling himself in my armchair, which was the only thing in my place I liked.

Supple leather. Big brass buttons studded all up the front and curve of the arms.

I bought it even though it didn’t match my inexpensive twill couch and it cost a whack when I wasn’t making a whack. I was schlepping drinks and wings at Hooters and wasn’t doing too badly because my hooters put the “Hoot” in Hooters, but it didn’t touch what I made stripping.

And I bought it because it looked like it belonged in a castle.

I wasn’t looking at my chair.

I was looking at him.

“Pardon?”

He set his champagne on my side table.

“I’ll catch up,” he told me.

“What do you mean, you’ll catch up?”

“How far into it are you?” he asked.

“I haven’t gotten to the wedding yet.”

His eyes twinkled.

Lord.

“I don’t know what that means, honey,” he said quietly.

“It means, not far.”

“Then I’ll catch up.”

“You sayin’ you haven’t seen Steel Magnolias?”

He studied me even as he replied, “That’s what I’m saying.”

“How are you breathing on this earth, American, and haven’t seen Steel Magnolias?”

His eyes kept twinkling.

Lord.

“I’m not certain how to answer that.”

“It’s the best movie of all time,” I repeated my earlier declaration.

“We’ll see.”

We’ll see?

“You don’t get me, honey bunches of oats,” I began. “It. Is. The. Best. Movieofalltime.”

He smiled at me. It was warm. Lush. Intimate. A thing of pure beauty.

I ignored that smile hitting my coochie.

“Play the movie, Daisy,” he ordered.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I snapped.

“Darling, please start the movie.”

Crap.

That I felt in my coochie.

I glared at him, put down my champagne, snatched up the remote, and started the movie.

Needless to say, the food was great.

Also needless to say, the champagne was fabulous.

More needless to say, it didn’t suck that Marcus not only didn’t make me get up to get my bombolonis, he also didn’t make me get up to fill my champagne flute.

And lastly, needless to say, when M’Lynn lost her nut by Shelby’s casket and I lost my nut right along with her on my couch in my apartment no matter that I’d seen that scene one hundred and fifty times, I lost it again, a different way that time, when Marcus got up, nabbed my remote, and hit pause.

“What are you doing?” I screeched.

“We should not be watching this film.”

Uh-oh.

I looked at his face.

He was looking at the tears on mine and he was not a happy man.

“Do you have a comedy?” he asked.

“This is a comedy,” I informed him.

“You’re crying.”

“That’s Southern for comedy,” I educated.

“We just watched a young woman with a young child die, her mother standing there watching as she passed after her daughter was taken off life support. That is not a comedy, honey.”

At that, for some stupid reason, I let loose.

“She got married to the man she loved. She gave him a baby. She had a momma who loved her. A daddy who adored her. Brothers who annoyed her but also adored her. Friends who thought the world of her. Her hubby was a lawyer who gave her a big house where she could make spaghetti in a big kitchen, even if she did pass out and slip into a diabetic coma in that kitchen. She had it all. She didn’t have it for long but she at least had it. And she appreciated having it. She knew what it meant. And she knew how precious it was. And she left this world with that preciousness held deep in her heart. So she’s good to wait with God until their time comes to join her because she entered those pearly gates knowin’ she left the world having everything she needed.”

Marcus stood by me sitting on the couch, staring down at me, and I felt his look like he wasn’t standing removed and staring at me, but like he was close, holding me in his arms like he loved me, only me, had forever, and would forever and always.

“That might not say comedy,” I pushed out in a whisper, trying to get past his look. “But Ouiser and Clairee are about to rip the lid off, sugar. You just haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

“Do you have a momma who loves you?” he asked abruptly.

I pressed my lips together.

He watched.

Then he bit out, “Right.” His gaze went from my lips to my eyes. “A daddy?”

“Marcus—”

Just at me saying his name, he got me.

That’s why he interrupted me and went on.

“Brothers?”

I shook my head.

“Sisters?”

I bit my lip.

“Right,” he repeated softly.

“Can we watch the movie?” I whispered.

In response, immediately, he sat next to me. He also stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles, and put his arm around me, pulling me into his side.

As I was curled into the corner of the sofa, my legs under me, my plate gone, my champagne in my hand, I wasn’t able to do anything but teeter more fully into him so he had all my weight.

I tried to pull away.

I stopped when he announced, “You move, Daisy, this once, right now, watching this fucking movie, I won’t let you.”

Well, that was clear enough.

“Roger that,” I muttered.

“Settle,” he growled.

Oh boy.

I felt that in my coochie too.

I pressed my lips together again and did as told.

“Fuck,” he went back to muttering, lifted the remote, and started the movie again.

As I told him, within minutes, Ouiser and Clairee ripped the lid off.

Even so, Marcus didn’t let me go.

He kept hold of me.

And he didn’t stop.

Not for the whole rest of the movie.

* * * *

We stood in my open doorway.

Marcus was leaving.

I was marveling at the fact that at his texted command, Marcus’s men showed, cleared everything, even to the point of cleaning the flutes and putting the plates in the dishwasher (but even if they cleared everything, they put the extra bottle of Dom in the fridge and left the flutes). Then they took off leaving Marcus and me at the door.

I was also marveling at the fact that Marcus didn’t mind that I rewound to the locker room scene (and played it twice).

Since my mind was otherwise occupied, it came as a surprise when his hand fell light as it cupped my cheek.

My body jerked and my eyes darted up to his.

“Please don’t touch me.”

His hand dropped away but this time he didn’t move away.

He shifted closer. In my space. Not threatening. Not pushy. Just…there.

“Have you talked to someone?” he asked gently.

“I’m talkin’ to you now,” I pointed out.

“About what happened to you, honey.”

I looked to the side.

“Please, darling, look at me.”

I pressed my lips together, drew in breath through my nose, and looked up at him again.

“You need to talk to somebody,” he urged.

“I’m doin’ a-okay,” I shared.

“You have trouble with me touching you.”

“You find that surprising?” I asked a little sarcastically.

“No. My fear is that, if you don’t speak to someone about it, you won’t be able to get past it.”

I shook my head. “Had a lot of shit happen to me in my life, sugar. This is just another load a’ shit I gotta get around. And make no mistake, like all the others, I’ll get around this.”

His brows went up. “And it’s necessary for you to do it on your own?”

“All a girl’s got is herself.”

That’s when Marcus Sloan rocked my world.

He did this by declaring, “You’re entirely wrong.”

“I—” I began and I got that one letter out but it didn’t count because he talked right over me saying it.

“A woman like you should have had a momma who loved her. A daddy who adored her. Friends who thought the world of her. She should have grown up every day knowing that straight to her soul, never doubting it, not for a second.”

I felt my eyes narrow for no other reason than to beat back what his words were making me feel.

“You don’t know what kind of girl I am.”

“I know precisely the kind of woman you are, Daisy. And if you don’t understand it, then it’ll be up to me to show it to you.”

Oh Lord.

Time to try another tack.

“Marcus, I’m tellin’ you, you don’t got a pla—”

He put his hand up between us and shook his head, cutting me off saying an impatient, “No.”

I kept trying.

“The food was real good and it was sweet, you bein’ all…” I didn’t know how to express the gorgeousness of it so I used the universal, “whatever with me when M’Lynn lost it at Shelby’s funeral. And I’m not sayin’ I haven’t hit a rough patch. I know I have. I’m not in denial or nothin’. I’m workin’ through it, but doin’ that my way. What I’m sayin’ is, this is sweet and all, but you don’t have a place in that.”

“You’ve made that clear. I just don’t agree.”

Again, I was getting mad.

“Okay then, I’ll explain it this way. I’m not gettin’ used to some fine man showin’ me attention, bringin’ me fancy food and bein’ sweet only to hit that time when I get my gold bracelet and a good-bye.”

He stared down at me, something flitting through his eyes.

Then he murmured, “Ah.”

“Ah, what?” I snapped.

It was then he got closer. Still not threatening, but coming on strong.

I held my breath.

“It’s understandable, in a sense, that you’d say that. You don’t know me. But I’ll tell you and then I’ll show you that I am not a man who would come into a woman’s life, a woman who had what happened to you happen to her, with the intention of doing what I had to do to get what I wanted and then give her my good-bye.” He drew in breath and didn’t release my gaze when he finished, “Although understandable, it’s still insulting as all fuck.”

I blinked and felt my stomach twist painfully.

He shifted back.

“Goodnight, Daisy.”

And with that, he turned, walked down the hall, and disappeared.