by Vicki James
My hands froze in the basket. “Why would you want those?”
Jules stepped closer, her eyes knowing and her smile soft and sincere. “Because I’ve made it my job to make sure the boys don’t forget their roots while they’re out on the road, and sometimes I need visual aids to drill the point into their small, alcohol-fuelled brains.”
“They’re grown men. Surely they can look after themselves.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately for me, rock stars are the last breed of men to grow up, and they need all the help they can get.”
“Is Danny in trouble often?”
“He happens to be one of my better clients… most of the time.”
I didn’t like the sound of the ‘most of the time’ she added to the end of that statement. “Then can’t you ask him for the pictures yourself?”
“I could, sure, but you and I both know that just because he’s one of the good ones, it doesn’t make him any less stubborn.” She hitched Corey up on her hip again, barely huffing out a breath from the weight of him. I guess that explained the toned arms. “It’s fine if you don’t want to help me. I understand that you don’t owe me anything, but if you don’t ask sometimes, you’ll never know, right?”
I started to unravel the bracelets, needing to get lost in a task. “I can… I mean… I could try to find something, but I’m not making any promises.”
“Trying would be perfect.”
“How long are you here for?” I glanced up to see her bouncing Corey now, who was getting a little fractious at our boring conversation.
“We leave when Danny leaves.”
“Is he under some kind of supervision?” I joked.
“Yes,” she answered flatly.
“Oh.” I was scowling again, desperate for this to be over, yet desperate to ask more questions.
“You want to know why, don’t you?”
“Maybe a little,” I confessed, cringing.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s natural to be inquisitive… or so all the parenting books tell me.” Jules gestured to the counter as though she wanted to sit Corey on top of it. “May I? Corey is heavier than he looks?”
“Sure.” I nodded and moved the basket out of the way for her to perch his nappy-padded bottom on the edge, her arm still around his body to hold him.
“Danny’s band were supposed to be heading to America this week for two nights in Las Vegas. When Danny got the call about his grandma’s sudden death, he ran away.”
“Ran away?”
“Yeah. He literally took off, and we couldn’t find him for four days. The gigs had to be cancelled. He’s cost the band a lot of money, upset a lot more fans, and the worst part is that he doesn’t seem sorry for it.”
“I thought you said he was the better behaved of your clients.”
“Oh, he is.” She smiled. “I live with Rhett Ryan. Everyone is a saint compared to him, so I’m well equipped to handle outbursts like Danny’s. And, I can’t say I blame him for taking off. The guy has lost everyone he loves in the last few years.”
“And gained everything he wanted in the process.”
“Has he?”
“You tell me,” I fired back, even if it was quiet. “I don’t know him anymore. He’s not a part of my life. He hasn’t been for a lot of years now.”
“Do you follow his music? Or the band?” Jules asked, and I could see the inquisition in her eyes.
I shook my head. “No. When he left, I stopped listening to music.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened. “All of it?”
“Anything with words or lyrics, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it was what took him away from me, and I was angry,” I found myself admitting to a stranger.
Her responding smile was filled with sympathy I didn’t want or need, so I pulled the basket off the counter and dropped it by my feet so I could ring up the cost of the bunny on the till.
“Sorry,” I offered, punching the numbers in. “I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, so let’s pretend that never got said. I’ll let you buy this bunny and be on your way.” I ran a hand over my forehead and blew out a breath.
“Danny’s favourite thing about you is your voice.”
My eyes snapped up to Jules, and I stared at her. “W-what?”
“His favourite thing is your voice, followed closely by the way you look when you sleep. He says he’s never seen someone so at peace with their eyes closed, and when he used to struggle to fall asleep on tour, he’d picture you in his bed, and he’d hold that image in his mind until he drifted off.”
I swallowed hard, and my heart began to pitter-patter too quickly again.
“I didn’t mean to say that, either,” she whispered with a smile. “So, let’s pretend that never got said.” Reaching around into her back pocket, she pulled out a twenty-pound note and a card with a number scrawled on it. “I hope that’s enough for the bunny. Corey loves it already, I can tell. And there’s my number if you come across any pictures. Or if you… I don’t know… want to talk to someone about things you don’t think you can talk to anyone else about.”
“I, erm…”
“You take care, Daisy,” she said before she scooped Corey back up onto her hip, and the two of them walked out of my shop without saying another word. Corey jiggled his new bunny in my direction, and his smile lit up his gorgeous face before he disappeared down the road with his mum.
I looked down at the twenty and her card, and I dragged both of them into my hand before I slid one into the till, and the other into the pocket of my dress.
In case of emergencies. Nothing more.
Seventeen
All day, I expected to see Danny again.
I wasn’t sure why—maybe I thought he was planning on spending his remaining days convincing me that he wasn’t the arsehole I’d painted him to be—but when I made my way home from the shop that Monday afternoon, I hadn’t seen or heard from him. There hadn’t even been a whisper of his name from the locals or tourists that passed through, buying their gifts or sharing their usual gossip. His presence had caused a fuss at first, sure, but news died quickly around here with only so many of us to create the hysteria.
Hysteria was exhausting.
As was dealing with emotions left unattended for years.
By the time I made it back to my humble home and walked into the kitchen, I was antsy. The quietness and solitude around me didn’t drown out the noise in my head. I ate dinner alone at my small kitchen table. I wandered upstairs to dress into black leggings and an oversized pale pink T-shirt adorned with more adoration of Devon on the front of it, and I threw my hair up into a ponytail before I jogged back downstairs and just… looked around.
“I could watch Netflix,” I muttered to myself before chewing on my thumb in thought. “Or I could paint a wall. Reshuffle some furniture around? Maybe organise that drawer in the kitchen with all the crap stuffed into it?”
Apart from painting a wall, which I decided was a bad idea because I didn’t have that much energy, I tried each of those things. The couch was shuffled down against the long wall a little farther. I moved some of the fake plants in my living room to try and make the whole thing feel a tad more Feng Shui. None of that made me focus enough to stop asking myself never-ending questions in my mind, though. Not even Alexander Dreymon’s portrayal of Uhtred, son of Uhtred on Netflix could stop Danny from taunting me with his smirk or his voice, so I’d switched The Last Kingdom off mid-battle scene and ventured into the kitchen again to open a bottle of something cold.
Alcohol wasn’t a recommended coping mechanism, but right then, it was all I had.
By the time the sun had set, it was late at night, and I had my feet tucked under my bum, with a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other.
I’d still not heard from Danny, and I couldn’t understand why that fact was bothering me.
He’d shown me everything he
needed to show me—said everything he needed to say, so why did I expect him to waste more time by knocking on my door or visiting the shop?
You don’t expect him to bother you. You want him to.
“Oh, go screw yourself, Daisy Piper,” I muttered.
I slammed my book shut and dropped it to the arm of the chair in frustration, draining my glass of blissful rosé before I stood up and walked back into the kitchen. I slid the empty glass onto the kitchen counter and pulled out the rest of the bottle. Somewhere between twisting off the cap and pouring, I caught sight of the old CD player sitting in the corner, a slight coating of dust laying over it, like the tortured instrument its owner refused to play, or even polish and dust.
My eyes lingered on it for a few seconds too long, unable to remember what I’d last listened to anything on it before I found myself sliding over and turning it on.
The moment my finger hit the power button, a little crackling happened, and then lyrics poured free through the barely-used speakers.
Karen Carpenter’s voice slipped out like caramel floating through the air, singing about her Superstar to taunt me.
“Diane, do you know where Zee got that voice from?” Danny asked my mum. The three of us were sitting at the breakfast bar of my home, along with my dad, who had his nose buried in a newspaper. Danny was on his second bowl of Coco Pops after staying the night, and his mouth was turning the cereal over as he waved his spoon around idly and stared up at Mum. “It blows my mind that she’s nineteen now, and she doesn’t ever use this natural talent she has.”
“It baffles me, too, Daniel,” Mum said.
“She certainly doesn’t get that voice from Diane, let me tell you that,” Dad muttered under his breath.
Mum rolled her eyes, casting a quick glance at Dad before she dropped her mug of coffee back on the table and started to peel the crust off her toast. “Thank you for that, Malcolm,” she said sarcastically. “I wish I could argue with him, but he’s right. Daisy’s voice doesn’t come from either me or her father, although her Grandma Elsie did always love singing for the church choir.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember that,” Dad chipped in, his eyes still scanning the news. “One of her better qualities.”
“What are you saying about my mother?”
“There’s plenty I could say. You wouldn’t like much of it, though.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Mum asked, eyeing him. “Like… work? The church? Or, I don’t know? A lonely ship in the middle of the Antarctic?”
Danny and I laughed together, and I caught his sly wink when I glanced at him. Even after so many years together, he never failed to make me blush. I couldn’t believe that I had been the one to capture Daniel Silver. Compared to the other girls in our small High School, I’d been quiet and uninteresting, not taking part in any of the clubs or being particularly athletic, yet it was me who had caught his eye.
Me!
I was drifting off into a daydream, remembering the first time he’d jogged up to me in the school halls, with his backpack bouncing behind him, and his floppy hair falling forward until he brushed it out of his eyes. With one dazzling smile and a, “Hey, Daisy. I know this might seem random, but are you free on Friday after school?” I’d become his.
“Isn’t that right, Daisy?” Mum said, forcing me to blink back at her.
“Erm… sorry?”
“I was just telling Danny how we had to bribe you to sing in the church for the village’s May Day celebrations when you were eight. You told your dad and me that you’d only do it if we bought you a kitten.”
“That’s right, and I’m still waiting,” I reminded her.
“You’ll be waiting a long time. You know I have cat allergies,” Dad chipped in.
“You want a cat?” Danny asked, his brows raised as he shovelled more Coco Pops into his mouth.
There were very few things he didn’t know about me, so when he looked at me the way he currently was doing, I loved to roll around in his surprise for a few seconds.
“I didn’t care if it was a cat or a dog, a rabbit or one of those guinea pig things. I just wanted some company.”
“Why?”
“Being an only child can be lonely. You know that as much as I do.”
Danny’s eyes searched mine, and I saw a twinkling of something there before he looked down into his bowl of cereal, only to look back up at me with a smug smile on his face. “Well, if we ever get a place of our own, I’ll make you a deal.”
“What deal?” I grinned back at him.
“If you sing Superstar for me every morning, I’ll buy you a kitten.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Zee. Your voice is my weakness, remember?”
That day had been an oasis in the desert that had become our relationship at nineteen. As his love for music took over, the good and bad days flipped back and forth. Sometimes I felt like nothing had changed, and others, I already knew I was losing him.
For the first time in five years, I stood there in my kitchen, and I sang along with Karen Carpenter. When the song tailed off, I sent the track back to the beginning, and I sang it from the start again, and even though it hurt at first, it got easier and easier to let go with every passing minute.
The pain is always the sharpest when you first hit those old wounds, but over time, that pain becomes manageable, and the absence of its sting finally sets you free and makes you think you can take on new wounds, too.
That’s what a traitor the mind is, especially when alcohol controls it.
Eventually, the wine ran dry, but I was still antsy as the old memories flooded back, and I was unable to turn off the tap. Before I realised what I was doing, I’d pulled an old box full of memories out from the back of my wardrobe, and I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, flicking through polaroid pictures of Danny and I growing up together.
Six years.
Six years of memories.
Him and me on the beach together with our friends, the bonfire behind us burning bright as Danny’s lips crashed against my cheek, and I cheesy-grinned into the camera I was holding out at arm’s length.
Danny sprawled on the bonnet of his car, wearing nothing but shorts that hung off his waist, showing off his abs and that V I loved the most.
Me, caught spinning around in a dress he loved to see me wearing, and his arm stretched out to try and catch me as he took the picture.
Together in the pub drinking our first legal drink together with beer foam on our top lips.
The two of us holding hands and walking towards the park—a picture Gina had taken, perhaps? Or maybe Danny’s old best friend from school, Brodie.
I looked at each and every one, feeling that deep-rooted ache weigh down on my heart.
It’s okay to still hate me. Just hate me for the right reasons.
I ran a finger over a picture of him sleeping in my bed. Dark hair and tanned skin resting against white sheets. Long, perfect lashes any woman would kill for pressing against his skin in his slumber. Those muscles in his arms, even then, making me want to reach through into the memory and trail my palms over the softness of them. I’d turned him into a monster in my mind to survive but I’d always known I’d need these reminders and that, really, he’d always been a saint to me.
Pictures of him and I rolling around in bed together littered my floor, and my eyes raked over them all until I saw one sticking out from beneath another, and I reached over to pull it out.
Danny and I were sitting on the roof of an old B&B we used to go to, with the ocean in front of us, and the greenery of Hope Cove behind. The sun had been setting in the picture, acting like a halo above us as I leaned into him with my head on his shoulder and my hand pressed against his chest, while he reached out and took the picture.
Right there, I’d been the girl who had everything. The one who naively thought I’d spend the rest of my life with the boy beside her. I grieved for that girl. For her foolishness. For the things she didn’t k
now she was about to endure. For the loss of herself and her innocence.
Something about that picture held my attention.
We’d fooled around on that roof when the world had been falling asleep around us. We’d stayed there until midnight before Danny said he needed to walk me home and make sure he kept his promise to Mum and Dad to always keep me safe.
With a glance at my watch, I saw that it was midnight now… and I suddenly had somewhere I wanted to be. Somewhere I hadn’t let myself think of for five long and lonely years.
Eighteen
Tugging on the rusty metal handrails of the fire exit’s steps, I tested their strength with what little I had of my own.
“Okay, old friends. Don’t let me down.”
Rosemary Ford was almost as old as Hope Cove itself—or so it seemed to us youths at the time—and she’d run this out of date, quaint little bed and breakfast for as long as the rest of the village’s population had been alive. Although lovely, Rosemary was also almost deaf, and Danny and I had taken full advantage of it when growing up after Danny had dared me to climb up there one night. Twenty minutes had gone by before I’d agreed. That’s how things always worked with us. Danny would have these grand ideas on how to live life to the fullest, while I would always be the voice of reason in the background, begging him to stay safe and think things through. He’d always tried to push me forward, and I’d always tried to pull him back.
I’d never been here without him.
The metal groaned beneath the weight of me, and I had to steady myself as I ascended, taking each step as carefully as I could. It didn’t take me long to reach the top, and when I did, I let out a sigh of relief and glanced back down at the street below me.
“See.” I smiled to myself. “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Gripping the straps of the rucksack, I spun around and almost fell right back off when I saw Danny lying there with his hands behind his head, and his feet crossed at the ankle.
He looked as though he was sleeping.