“Because my mother left me when I was six.She wasn’t aloss.She left me with my father, who was a decent enough father, a good man,but a stupid one and very weak.We didn’t have much because he wasn’t capableof giving me much, but there were more reasons.We didn’t live in squalor.However, the little we had wasn’t much better.Then, when I was ten, he’dgotten himself under the weight of a debt he couldn’t repay since he made dickbut he also liked to play the ponies.They busted out his knees first.Thenthey took his thumbs.After that, they took his life.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“He had a daughter from another relationship, myhalf-sister.She grew up with her mother and she didn’t have much either.Thegood in my dad, he made sure my sister was in my life.As much as we could be,we were close.When Dad was killed, she was all I had left.And she had achoice.Take me on or let me go into the system.She took me on.She wastwenty.And she put a roof over my head, food on the table, and a lot of lovein my life.But the first two things she gave me, she did it stripping.”
Understanding dawned, I felt my body jolt and then I felt myface set.
Marcus didn’t miss it.
“Stop right now thinking what you’re thinking,” he clippedout.
“Hard not to, sugar,” I returned.
“She married a man twenty-five years older than her when Iwas sixteen.It was a love match.They haven’t slept a single night withouteach other since their wedding and they retired to Florida five years ago.Hewas definitely a good guy and definitely decent.But he didn’t have mucheither, though he did his best.They retired to a four-bedroom house with apool that’s in a development that has three top-notch golf courses because Iworked my ass off to make certain that would be the way they ended their yearstogether.”
I ignored all this, no matter how hard that kind ofbeautiful generosity was to ignore, and I did it in order to ask cuttingly,“You savin’ your sister in this fairytale of yours that you’recorrallin’ me into, Marcus?”
“No,” he answered immediately.
But he wasn’t done.
“I had a mother I barely remember, a trail of women myfather couldn’t keep, and a sister who loves me maybe more than the three kidsshe had with Doug because we toughed it out together.We had bad times.We hadlean times.We had everyone around us treating us like shit because theythought they knew who we were by what she did and how my father was.We hadinterfering teachers telling themselves they were doing the honorable thing bytrying to take me away from her.Most important in all that, we had a family.It was just the two of us but she loved me and I loved her and that was all weneeded.She gave me a great deal.And right now, what you need to know that shegave me is the understanding of exactly the kind of woman I would eventuallyclaim as mine.”
“And what kind is that?”
“One who’s beautiful.One who’s smart.One who’s kind.Onewho’s strong.One who doesn’t give a shit what people think about her.Onewho’d do what she could for anyone who asked no matter if it isn’t convenientor easy.One who knows what having nothing feels like so she knows what mattersand to appreciate it when she gets it.”
“And you think that’s me?”
“No.I know it’s you.”
“You’re sure,” I scoffed.
He looked around the kitchen and then back at me, lifting uphis hands at his sides, and sounding exasperated when he asked, “What do youthink I’m doing here?”
I knew what he was doing there.
Just, for his sake—primarily how much more awesome all thathe was telling me made him—no matter how damned stubborn he was being about it,I knew he shouldn’t be.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that in your life,” I saidwith feeling.“I get it and I’m not thrilled to learn that we got a lot incommon with the shit we actually got in common, sugar.But just to say, thatwoman is not me.”
One second, he was four feet away.
The next second he was in my space, both hands cupping mycheeks, his eyes all I could see.
“I’ve been waiting thirty-five years for you to come into mylife, Daisy,” he whispered fiercely.
And again I stopped breathing.
But Marcus didn’t stop talking.
“You can twist it into me wanting to save my sister from thelife she had to lead to take care of me.Into me wanting a piece of your ass.Into whatever the fuck you want to try to twist it into.But since I was a kid,I knew what kind of life I intended to lead and that was to be so far away fromthe life I grew up in with my dad, I wouldn’t even remember how that felt.AndI knew I’d do whatever I had to do to get it, without doubts, withoutindecision, without remorse.And last, baby, I knew the woman I’d have by myside when I got there.So twist it whatever way you want.I’ll find a way tountwist it because something else I know, when I find what I know without adoubt I want, without remorse, I’ll find a way to get it.”
I opened my mouth to speak but froze when his lips brushedmine and stayed there.
“Shut up,” he said even though I didn’t speak a word.“Bacon’s laying in its grease and the eggs aren’t going to make themselves.Sopour yourself a goddamned cup of coffee and relax.We’ll have breakfast andthen we’ll dance more of this dance later.Right now, I’m hungry.”
Marcus was hungry.
