He hadn’t slept like I assumed he slept the night before,holding me.
He’d taken off.
I dropped to my back and closed my eyes in despair.
Wonderful.
I’d had a date the night before with the classiest man I’dever met, and I got drunk, passed out in his car, and he’d had to put me tobed.
At least Marcus Sloan proved another way he was all class.He might have made sure I was comfortable, but he didn’t give himself a show bytaking my clothes off.
He also didn’t stick around.
My hands balled into fists, my nails digging into the palms.
Because I was me, in the back of my mind, I knew if I wasstupid enough to take a shot at the something special that was a man likeMarcus Sloan, I’d screw it up with him and there I did it.The first date.Igot shitfaced and I remembered laughing too much, being way too nosy asking toomany questions, and doing that staring at him like every word he spoke droppeda bar of gold in my lap.
If drunken memory served, every time I laughed or touchedhis thigh, arm, or hand, he looked at me the same way.
I still passed out in his car, just like white trash.
And now he was gone.
“Ugh,” I mumbled, the dull headache and subtle queasyfeeling making it easier for me (just a touch) not to scream at my stupidity,find a way to kick my own ass (even mentally), or burst into tears.
Instead, since I was Daisy and from the moment I came outbawling I had no choice, I shoved the covers aside and got on with it.
I pushed myself out of bed, pulled my dress off on the wayto the bathroom, and did my morning bathroom routine, this time adding thecomplicated procedure of getting all my makeup off.
My hair still rocked it since I rocked doing my hair, so Ileft it as is.
I went back into my room, tugged on a pair of baby-pink,drawstring, fleece shorts (that had diamanté sprinkled along the curves of theseams of the pockets) and a skintight white tank top that had emblazoned allacross the front in hot-pink and glittery diamond rhinestonesNothing aLittle Sparkle Won’t Fix.
My mantra.
Though, that morning, post-fucking up my date with MarcusSloan, I knew all the sparkle in the world wouldn’t fix the feeling I hadsitting in the pit of my belly that had nothing to do with being hungover.
I moved to my door in order to get water (for the aspirin Ineeded) and coffee (because every true red-white-and-blue American drankcoffee), and find alternate ways to avoid the pain of a heart I refused toacknowledge I’d broken my damned self by acting like the white trash everyonethought I was.
I opened my door and stopped dead.
It was October, dead-on fall, and the sun hadn’t yet hit thesky like only sun in Denver could, washing the base of a glorious mountainrange in bright.
But the rising sun was doing its best lighting a room whereevery surface was covered with a spray of daisies.Some of them were prettywhite ones with little yellow buttons in the middle.Others were white withgreen buttons.Some, a mixture of both.And others were pink.Or orangesurrounding the black button blazing out to a startling yellow.Others werered.Then there were those that were coral.There were also those with colorcombinations.
On a routine basis, I carefully clipped their ends, addedfresh water with food, all in an effort to keep them alive as long as I could.
Over the weeks, I’d had to throw some away.
But they were of a quality that most of them were stillgoing strong.
And right then, in the midst of them, lying on his stomachon my couch, one long arm having fallen off the side, my throw having slid downto his waist, the delineation of the muscles of his tanned back on show, hishead turned from me resting on a toss pillow, his thick dark hair disheveled,lay Marcus.
He hadn’t left the drunken, stripping floozy who’d passedout in his Mercedes in her bed and taken off.
Like a gentleman, when she wasn’t in the throes of a trauma,he’d slept on the couch.
I looked at him, his long body stretched out amongst thedaisies, asleep, but having stayed close so he could make sure I was safe, safefrom anything, even nightmares, and I made a noise in the back of my throat Icouldn’t control.
