by Vicki James
Although you never asked to know this, I’m telling you anyway. I have more money than I know what to do with. My parents left me everything they owned, and then Gran did, too. The rock star life treats me well—more than well—even though I’d honestly do this gig for free. I have no family to share this wealth with. The truth is, you’re the only family I have left now, which means everything I have, I want to share with you.
A solicitor will be in touch within the next few days. I’d love for you to cooperate and let me sign that house over to you.
The house….
And Daisy’s Devon.
I know you love that place and everything you’ve built from it. I’m so proud of you for going out there, chasing your own dream, and making a life for yourself. Devon is a part of your heart and soul the way music is a part of mine. I can’t ask you to give up your passion, just like you’d never ask me to give up mine. So, I want you to be happy there. We don’t have to understand each other’s dreams to support them.
I never want you to have to worry about rent, or the lease, or if someone is going to come and take your dream away from your hands and sweep it out from under your feet. You’ve worked hard to make it a success, and that success deserves to be cemented with your name carved across it.
There are no conditions attached to this. It’s not in exchange for your love or a temporary gift you can only hold onto if you agree to keep me in your life. These properties are yours now, no matter what happens tomorrow. Quite honestly, you could run me over with your blue Scirocco tomorrow, and I’d still never regret doing this for you.
There are not many guarantees I can offer you in life, but I can offer to make your dream a safe one. One that will last you a lifetime…. if you want it to.
All I ask is that you take it. Take the house. Take the shop. Don’t say it’s too much. Don’t say you don’t deserve it because you, Daisy Piper, deserve the world.
Even if I’m not in it.
The last week has been the best of my life, and it’s all been thanks to you. Having your forgiveness is a gift you can and will never understand the value of. So, thank you.
And I love you.
I really fucking love you, Zee.
If ever you decide that you want a different adventure, you know all you have to do is call. I’ll fly you across the world in a heartbeat, no matter the time, the day, the month, or the year.
You’ll always be my Daisy girl.
And I’ll always be your superstar for the taking.
See you around, Zee. Be happy.
You know I live to see that smile staring back at me again soon.
Danny x
The lump in my throat was painful to swallow, and I looked up at Gina with tears in my eyes.
“Is he crazy?”
“Only about you.”
“I can’t take this. I can’t take a shop… and a house…”
“Two houses, actually.” Gina turned to me, her eyes narrowed as she rested her hands on her tummy, as casual as casual could be. “He’d already written the note when he made the decision at my house.”
“What decision?”
“He was broken, talking in riddles, but I figure it out in the end. Danny wants Florence’s house to be in your name, too. He said you’d been right—that it deserved to be loved and looked after by someone who knew the family history and how much Florence loved her garden and every plant or tree in it. It deserved to belong to someone who loves Hope Cove as much as she did.”
“Are you kidding me?” I cried, my eyes widening. I glanced down at the letter in my hand, and I shook it violently. “This is bad enough, but he wants to give me his grandma’s property, too?”
Gina frowned. “How is it bad?”
“I don’t know, but it is.”
She huffed out a laugh and shook her head. “I think it’s sweet.”
“Sweet? Gina, not two days ago, you hated the guy.”
“I didn’t hate him. I was disappointed in him. Disappointment is usually there because two people haven’t communicated properly, and when Danny explained everything to me, I decided to forgive him. It makes my heart feel lighter, and it makes him feel less shitty.”
“Forgiving him is fine, but you don’t have to become his personal cheerleader.”
“What if I want to? What if I agree with him and what he says about this making all your dreams that bit more secure? He doesn’t need these things, Dais, they’re in the way. He wouldn’t give them to you if he didn’t want to—if he wasn’t desperate to.”
I swallowed again and closed my eyes, dropping my chin to my chest and taking a breath. “I don’t like the way they feel.”
“How do they feel?”
“Like they’re a final gift goodbye in case I never see him again.”
“You can see him any time you like. It isn’t him who’s going to stop you… it’s you.”
“How the hell can I leave Hope Cove?”
“It’s easy.” She shrugged and looked back out at the ocean again. “You just put one foot in front of the other, and you keep going until you’re gone.”
“I don’t know any other life other than the one I’ve made for myself here.”
“None of us do, but I know one thing for sure, Dais. If I had a guy even half as in love with me as Danny is in love with you, I’d be out of here quicker than lightning.”
“No, you wouldn’t. This place is in your blood.”
“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “But there’s a big bad world out there beyond that horizon that we’ve spent the last twenty-five years looking at. As much as I love the view, wouldn’t it be great to sit on some different hills and look at what was in front of us. Imagine not knowing how the sky was going to look in spring, or what breed of bird was in front of you. Imagine going places like Australia, Japan, America, Germany, France, and Spain, and comparing their benches and beaches to our very own. Comparing how their sand feels between our toes compared to Hope Cove’s. I don’t want to die having only known one way of life like my parents did. I don’t want to assume I’m going to live forever to get the chance to see all those things, either.” She turned to me again, her smile genuine, and her love pure. “We never know when the helicopter is coming down, Dais. Don’t wait a day to get out there and live your life. It’s just too fucking short, no matter how long it lasts.”
Forty
My emotions were running too high to contact Danny that day or night in case I said something I didn’t mean or did something I would come to regret.
He wanted to gift me with things that equated to hundreds of thousands of pounds, and I didn’t know how to reject his offer. This wasn’t about my pride or feminism. This was about me not wanting to hurt him in return. My house and shop were one thing… but to take his grandmother’s home, too? What right did I, a Piper, have to own the heritage of a Silver? That held more value to it than just money and cheques filled with zeros.
Saturday drifted by, and Sunday arrived, not proving to be much brighter than the day before. I’d spent the evening cuddling the pillow Danny slept on, still able to smell his aftershave and the unique, masculine scent that belonged to nobody else but him.
I’d dreamt about us being together in sleep, only to wake and daydream about him as the hours ticked on by. Gina had insisted that she was going to work The Cove Festival that day. At first, I’d protested, but that hadn’t lasted long. She was having none of it.
As much as I didn’t want to miss it, I also knew that there was no way I could strap on a smile and represent my business while I was in this state. It may have been the biggest event of the year for Hope Cove, but it wasn’t the biggest event of the year for me. That had happened a week earlier when the love of my life had returned to flip my life upside down again.
Now he was gone, I had no desire to watch couples walking together, hand in hand, or to see people dressed up as pirates, exactly how they’d dressed the year before. And the year before that, too. Selfishly, I needed a goddamn
minute—and by minute, I meant a day. Maybe two. Maybe three—so I spent Sunday in bed, and while Netflix held my attention for a short while, in the end, I turned to YouTube again, just to see him in action.
This time I wasn’t looking at him with fake hate in my eyes or trying to convince myself a monster stared back at me. The only thing I saw in every music video, every interview, and every stage performance now was the man who loved me enough to give me security. The man who wanted me to go with him, wherever in the world that adventure took us. The man I should have been proud of back then, instead of seeing only myself and my own problems.
Hours and hours passed by of me crying into my phone or laughing at some of his interview answers. I was familiar with the faces that surrounded him now: Quirky Halo and too cool for school yet dorky Theo. Easy going Archer was always in the background, no doubt happy to be there and just get off the stage so he could be with Saffron again. Then there was Fletch, smiling away, living his dream. Jules sometimes made an appearance in the video footage of the band entering or leaving nightclubs, the cameras of the paparazzi flashing all around them.
I watched footage of fans chasing their tour buses down the streets, and, yeah, I stumbled upon some things that had my stomach turning over with jealousy, like the videos of Danny leaving a club with a girl trailing behind him wearing his jacket over her shoulders. I tried to rationalise that those girls could have been friends, but even I knew I was lying to myself. Danny never looked happy in those times, though, and I couldn’t miss the slight scowl he wore when the camera flash went off around him, or the way his jaw was set tight, and his shoulders were tense.
On the screen, he looked like a superstar—too perfect to have come from a village like Hope Cove, and too good for the likes of little old me. He was a poster boy for the young, handsome, rock star life… yet he loved me. Me.
When my bum cheeks started going numb from sitting around all day, I threw on my grey jogging pants and my white ‘I Love Devon’ T-shirt before I made my way downstairs. The stereo stared at me from the corner of the counter while I made coffee, and I didn’t think about it too much when I turned it over onto the radio and waited for music to fill my house for the first time since Danny had been in my kitchen, making breakfast.
I recognised the song instantly. It was the same song that had played when Danny drove his dad’s sporty little number, and he asked me to dance all those years ago.
Somewhere in My Heart, Aztec Camera.
My smile erupted, the memories of it no longer hurting or haunting.
I danced around the kitchen, unable to stop myself. I danced like a fake-smiling eighties pop star, tapping my feet and clicking my fingers. It felt like the first time I was hearing music, and I never wanted the song to end. The lyrics flooded my veins, making me jump around with my eyes closed before the guitar riff kicked in, and I imagined Danny performing this on stage. I imagined those strong arms, with muscles tensed and veins popping as the crowd cheered for more… and the possibility of me being on the side-lines, knowing that as much as that crowd wanted him, it would be my body he’d be playing later that night when we went to bed.
The lyrics poured through the speakers, and the singer sang about how the silver splits the blue. They told me that the closest thing to Heaven was rock ‘n’ roll, and how love would see me through. They sang that, somewhere in my heart, there was a will to be set free, and the only thing I needed to do was be true.
True.
What the hell did I want?
Danny. “I want Danny,” I said aloud.
When the song finished, I came to an abrupt stop, panting with strands of hair covering my face. My lips were parted, my heart pounding wildly as a chill ran over my skin.
It was the chill of change, and I couldn’t escape it. Every lie I’d ever told myself and every fear I’d ever let control my life crumbled like ash, drifting away with a gust of wind that didn’t exist.
I really wanted Danny, and the urgency of that want made me feel ten feet tall, as though I could just push off of the floor and burst through the roof before I flew myself to wherever he was, like a superhero who had only just discovered they could fly.
I could fly! I could if I just believed that I was capable of holding that kind of power.
The radio began to play another song that did nothing for me, and I immediately wanted to listen to Aztec Camera again to keep this feeling of invincibility alive. Moving, I ran through the corridor and swung myself around the bannister to charge upstairs for my phone, when a knock on the door stopped me in my tracks.
That knock was heavy and demanding, and it made me stare at the door for a heartbeat too long before I ran back down the stairs and opened it to reveal Julia Speed standing there with a bright, white smile on her face.
She wore tight, light blue jean shorts, a white vest, and a bright red cropped blazer that matched her red lipstick. She was beyond beautiful, standing opposite me who hadn’t even washed that day.
“Jules? What are you… what are you doing here? I thought you’d gone.”
“Corey wanted to see the pirates at the festival.” She gestured over her shoulder towards the beach, and even though I was at my home, I could hear the celebrations of the day filling the sky around us. “That’s quite an interesting thing they have going on down there.”
“I know. It’s so weird.” I frowned and shook my head. “I’m sorry, did you need something?”
“Yeah, to make sure you’re okay.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. I looked for you today. Then someone told me you weren’t going to the festival, even though it’s the biggest day of the year around here for you guys. So, I thought… you know… I’d like to see if you’re all right for myself.”
“Sure. I-I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because Danny left yesterday, and you’re obviously still madly in love with him.”
Her words hit me in the chest.
“Aren’t you, Daisy?”
“Insanely so,” I admitted, no longer capable of lying to her or myself.
She smiled, full of knowledge and sympathy. This woman had so much grace and style, it was impossible not to love her, and even after only a few meetings now, I understood how she’d been the one to capture the attention of the notorious Rhett Ryan.
“Yeah, I’m in love with him.” I shuffled on my feet and curled my arms around the waist of my ratty, old T-shirt after brushing the hair back from my face. “And he’s gone. So, no, I guess I’m not quite as okay as I made out, but it is what it is, right?”
“And what is it?” She raised a brow.
“Danny’s famous and I’m not.”
She took a careful step forward. “Fame is just a job. It’s no different to you working at the shop. It’s a part of Danny’s occupation. That fame doesn’t mean he’s incapable of giving you a good life—a life you could never imagine or allow for yourself normally because you’re clearly not that selfish. It just means that he needs someone like me to help him stay safe. If you needed me to do the same for you, I hope you know that I would… without hesitation.”
I studied her brown eyes which were full of sincerity. “Why are you so nice to me?”
“You’re a good person, and Danny is besotted with you.” She laughed. “He’s a different guy when you’re around. I’ve seen sides of him this week that I never could have imagined would exist. Happy sides, mature sides… in love sides. You’re good for him. I’ve enjoyed watching him look more alive than he has in the last few years I’ve known him. What’s good for him is good for the band.”
Glancing down at my bare feet, I took a moment to rock on my heels and blow out a breath.
That chill of change rolled up my neck again, making every hair on my body rise in preparation.
“You have my number still, right?” she asked. I nodded in response before I looked up again. “Use it.” She smiled before she reached up to squeeze my arm and offered me another s
mile. “You’ve got a gorgeous home here in Hope Cove, Daisy. I can understand why you’re reluctant to leave, but take it from me… there’s so much more out there for you to discover, and nothing beats discovering it with someone you love.”
With a parting wink, Julia turned on her heels and made her way back to the car I hadn’t even noticed at the end of the pathway. The window went down on the passenger side to reveal Rhett looking as handsome as ever, with his hair a shaggy mess and his Ray Ban-style aviator sunglasses covering his eyes.
“See your sweet arse around, Daisy,” he cried out to me. “I hope!”
Huffing out a laugh, I waved weakly, suddenly completely embarrassed by the way I was dressed and the state of my hair and unwashed face.
They soon drove off, leaving me to watch another car disappearing up the road, and I couldn’t understand why I felt so sad to say goodbye to people I didn’t even really know. People I really wished I could spend more time with.
Forty-One
I made it to the late hours of the night, and I drifted through the first Twilight movie, but New Moon proved too much for my mind. The scene where Edward leaves Bella without much warning struck too close to home, reminding me of times I no longer wished to remember.
They were gone now. I had new memories that deserved my attention, and I still wore the bruises of those delicious memories on my skin. If I pressed on one enough, the beauty of Danny’s brutal touch brought my skin to life with a fresh wave of goosebumps.
Closing my laptop, I pushed it away from me on the bed and stared down at my phone. My finger hovered over Danny’s name before I hit the call button and brought it to my ear.
The ringing seemed to last a lifetime—he could have been doing anything, I supposed. Playing a gig, busy in a recording studio, or he could have been sleeping—and when the generic voicemail told me to leave a message after the beep, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do or say.
“Hey, Danny,” I said, picking at an invisible piece of thread on my duvet. “I thought you’d like to know that Edward just left Bella in New Moon. I know how much you hated those movies, so you’ll take loads of pleasure in blaming them for my sombre mood. Really, though, I’m blaming you. I’m sad because you’re gone. I’m sad because I’m scared of change, and I have a feeling that I’m going to have to make some soon because I’ve come to realise something while you’ve been gone. There’s no villain in our story, is there? There never has been. We’ve no one else to blame for those lost years but ourselves.”