by Ashton Johns
“Daisy, oh no,” I replied, shaking my head. “She’s just a…friend.”
Dominique chuckled, flashing beautiful, pure white teeth. “Okay, whatever you say.”
“No really, she is.” I looked across the salon through the mirror and watched as Daisy messed with her cell phone.
“She’s still beautiful,” Dominique said and started working the cream into my hair, combing it through with her fingers.
I looked in the mirror again and saw Daisy was watching. Catching my eye, she smiled shyly and pushed her glasses up her nose before reaching for a magazine. Dominique was right; she was beautiful, but she was also out of reach, off limits and too good for me. That meant I should stop looking at her, because being around a pretty woman for the first time in years meant that my dick was twitching against the zip of my pants. Yep, if I looked away and concentrated on Dominique, who while beautiful herself was also probably twenty years older than me, Kade junior would go back to sleep. The problem was, Kade junior wasn’t on board with that train of thought, and almost two hours later when Dominique had finished with me, he was as hard as hell. That was kind of a surprise, because when I’d been that shallow jock in college, I probably would never have looked twice at a sweet little thing like Daisy, no matter how beautiful she was. Life on the street had shown me many things, one of those being that true beauty was so much more than big tits and pouty lips.
Fifteen
Daisy Ingles
Kade played it cool with his hair at first. He tried to shrug off how totally amazing it looked, but when I asked him what he really thought, the beam on his face told me that it had been one of the best things to ever happen to him. It was a real stroke of luck that Dominique’s was a happy memory for him, but I was so happy that it was.
“Every time I turn my head, there’s this insane scent of cedar wood and lime. And my head feels so much lighter since she cut it,” he blabbered on in the car. “I’m glad she persuaded me not to leave it longer.”
Dominique had indeed done a brilliant job, cutting the rest of Kade’s dark hair short at the sides, leaving it longer on top to fall into his eyes in a disheveled, just got out of bed look. He looked amazing and I couldn’t stop myself from stealing glances at him. He took my breath away. As for the ‘couple of days of stubble’ she’d left him with, I couldn’t help but think what that would feel like against my skin. Those thoughts were making me a little hot and breathless, and Kade was the star of those visions.
Kade’s own enthusiasm lasted right up until we were back at the animal shelter. “What if my main guy doesn’t recognize me?”
“Of course, he will. Your scent is just a small part of who you are. Dogs have this instinct, kind of like magic, where they can see through to your core. At the shelter, we call it the ‘The Good People Radar’. A dog’s initial reaction helps us judge whether the person will connect with the animal they are trying to adopt.”
Before he was reunited with Brody, I took him on a bit of a tour of the facility, and I was proud to show him what we did with people’s generous donations. It was truly amazing. There were so many dogs who had been dumped by so-called animal lovers it wasn’t true. The city pound was overrun, and we liked to work with them. After all, if we didn’t do something, most of the dogs the warden picked up would be destroyed. Subconsciously, people were shallow, and they viewed dogs in the city pound as feral, dirty animals, whereas ours were seen as rescue pets. In essence, they were one and the same. When the pound’s capacity was at bursting level, we’d take some dogs in as our success rate for re-homing was better, simply because people had huge misconceptions about the types of dogs that came from the pound as opposed to a shelter.
When I stopped at our ‘wall of wonder’, I watched as he stood and gazed at the hundreds of photos. Each was of a dog with a name we’d given them and the team member who had been involved with the dog’s primary care. It was like I was seeing it for the first time, too. Not only were there so many photos, but there were dozens and dozens with me in them.
“You love what you do here, don’t ya?” he said very simply.
“I do.”
“It’s obvious. This place is lucky to have you, Daisy. Although I’d question the person who let that thing in.” He laughed, pointing at a picture. “Is that a horse? It looks like you’re trying to hug a damn horse.”
“That was Tiny. The dog warden found him on the beach. Apparently, he was holding an ice cream truck hostage. Kids were screaming and parents were wailing like the National Guard needed to come in and deal with some monster on the beach. He gave the warden no trouble, although he was lured into the back of his vehicle with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s rocky road. There was no room for him at the pound, so they swung by here and we took him.” I laughed at the memory. That was a good day—the kind when you know you’re doing something good and worthwhile.
“Anyway, as soon as the truck door opened, he launched out the back and bowled me over. He was licking my face with a tongue so big it was like a facecloth. One of the last things I saw, before my glasses became so fogged with slobber and bits of marshmallow, was a nametag on his collar. It said ‘Tiny’. That’s what happens—people buy them as pets, not understanding that the dogs are going to grow and, in some cases, grow really, really big, so they just dump them.”
“Well that dog had the ‘good people radar’,” Kade said, and when I turned to respond to him, he was no longer looking at the wall, but was transfixed, looking at me.
Feeling a little flustered, I nearly forgot why we were there. “Let’s go and get Brody!”
As he wasn’t a resident at the shelter, he was being treated to some TLC in the office, and when I pushed through the door, his head popped up from under a desk and he barked in recognition.
“Hey, boy, look who’s here.” I stepped aside and revealed Kade who was definitely nervous stood behind me.
Brody paused for a few seconds, titled his head to one side and then barked again.
“Well, look at you,” Kade crooned.
Brody had been treated to a good scrub and coat trim, and he looked great. As soon as he heard Kade’s voice, he was up and moving. The crazy dog didn’t scoot round at floor level, though. He jumped up and launched from desk to desk like he was a contestant on Ninja Warrior. Paperwork, pen pots and pamphlets rained down around us.
“Aw, shit! Brody, settle down,” Kade told him, but it was only half-hearted. He was relieved that his best friend still knew him after they’d both been through the beauty ringer, and their reunion hit me in the same spot it always did when we managed to reunite a dog with their owner.
I drove Kade and Brody back to the motel—Brody had to sit on Kade’s knee, so that was fun—and watched as they both strutted their stuff across the parking lot. They had a spring in their step that was good to see. If only all the homeless people out there could have been shown some compassion and made to feel clean and human. Wasn’t that what those more fortunate should have been doing?
As much as I hated how Kade had been pulled into Meredith’s master plan, at the moment, he was benefiting from it.
I agreed to pick him up again the following day at the same sort of time, and before he left the car, there was an awkward silence that neither of us could fill. I couldn’t get it out of my head as I drove home. Even though it was awkward, it felt good, and I was happy to do anything to take my mind off what I was about to do.
Mom and Pop were sitting in front of the TV watching Dollar Dilemma. It wasn’t a show I was a fan of, but then again, I’d seen what went on behind the cameras. The main host and the girl who operated the big game board despised each other one day and then screwed like animals the next. The poor production assistant who had to try to keep them on an even keel just for filming had one hell of a job. Then there were the contestants—the network went out of their way to find the dumbest people possible, mainly because the questions the creative team came up with were beyond stupid. It was just i
rritating all round. Mom was screaming the answers at the TV and Pop was screaming at her because she was getting too excited over some stupid game show.
My mom looked tired today. Her next check-up and meds review were due, and you could tell by the worry lines on her face. It was really sad that I could run a monthly calendar based on her wrinkles. My pop was a great guy; we both had the same heart and soul, but I knew he agonized with not being able to ease my mom’s suffering and the dent his pride had taken by having to move in with me. It didn’t matter how many times I told him I was okay with it and that I wouldn’t have it any other way, I could still see that he felt like he’d failed.
“Here she is.” My mom smiled as soon as she saw me. It was a genuine smile. She was always pleased to see me, and she loved to hear tales from the TV network office.
I only hoped she liked the one she was about to hear. There was no easy way to approach it, so I decided to just blurt it out.
“I’m going to be working on one of the TV shows. I’ll be away for a few months on location.”
“Oh my! Did you hear that? Our Daisy is going to be on location.” I knew my mom would get a kick out of it.
“I’m right next to her, Heather. Of course, I heard it.” Pop was more reserved. He hated that I was working there at all. He knew my heart lay at the animal shelter.
“Tell me all about it.” Mom’s enthusiasm was off the charts. She didn’t have much excitement in her life and was happy to live vicariously through me.
“It’s a new show. A sort of matchmaking, reality documentary thing set in an exclusive luxury mansion.”
Pop wasn’t asking any questions and that worried me.
“When do you start?” she asked, her pupils fighting to shine brightly through her tiredness. Mom’s body had been through a lot, and although she grabbed forty winks when her body needed it, she much preferred to be up and talking to me when I was home.
“Some time over the next week or two. It’s going to be like a vacation for us all,” I told them. “You get some space and I get to do something other than sitting behind my desk.”
“You hear that, Robert? No more desk sitting for our girl. She’s going on location!”
My dad wasn’t impressed, but I suspected it was more to do with his failure complex than what I was going to do. As he got up and wandered to my kitchen, I followed. Whatever he had to say could be said without my mom hearing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“I hate that you’re taking a job elsewhere to get a break from me and your mom.”
I knew he genuinely believed that. “I’m not. It’s an opportunity and I couldn’t turn it down.”
I watched as he regarded my face for the briefest hint that I was lying to him. When he’d scrutinized me enough, he pulled me in for a hug. “I hate that we’ve taken over your life,” he whispered, kissing my head.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. You guys are my world,” I mumbled back, tightening my grip around his middle in an effort to ward off the emotion he always managed to bring out in me.
“Can I hear the jug?” we both heard mom shout, breaking our moment.
Pop dropped the hug and reached for the kettle, sniffing. “Pot of earl gray coming up, Heather.”
I went back into the living room to sit and watch the rest of Dollar Dilemma, doing my best to tune out the visuals of the hosts humping like rabbits in their shared dressing room. I refused to acknowledge the fact I’d been more than a little bit economical with the truth about my new job. At some point, I was going to have to man up and tell them I was going to be in front of the camera instead of behind the scenes.
For now, though, that could wait. Mom’s next checkup was only days away. I’d do it after that, when we knew for sure everything was still going well with her new kidney.
Who was I kidding? It had nothing to do with being sure Mom was okay. I was dragging it out as long as possible until I could face the predicament that I’d gotten myself into.
Sixteen
Kade Sutton
As a homeless person, you have two basic personas foisted upon you. The most obvious one is invisibility. People will absolutely treat you as if you are not there. It sounds like the easiest one to choose, but some people struggle with it and they handle that by doing the classic ‘fake out’. They’ll spot you; a tiny bit of conscience will prick at them and at the last minute they will fake looking across the road for someone or something. Or, they’ll start to fake dig around in their purses for something that they don’t need, but urgently have to locate it, and that urgency miraculously disappears when they get past you.
The second one, which the majority of people feel at home with, is disdain. Some vile people, who dare to call themselves humans, find it easier to throw shade and scorn at someone who dares to be less fortunate than they are.
Anyone showing something different causes that moment of quandary within us street dwellers, where we may, for just a moment, get our hopes up about being treated better than something they’ve just stepped in.
Since my makeover, the difference in how people treated me was the biggest issue I had. The miserable old cow on the front desk at the Double Days greeted me like a long-lost friend. There was no haranguing or screeching about ‘my type’, and I was sure if I had asked her for a hug, she would have caved and given it to me. There was only a small spark of something in her eyes that indicated she’d seen me somewhere else before.
“And if you could look this way, Kade,” the photographer requested, and I did as he asked.
“And if you could give me just a couple of normal face poses, no smiling?” I granted him his wish and was rewarded with, “Perfect. Those are perfect.”
Daisy had collected Brody and I during the morning and whisked us away to a photo studio where we were to start putting together some PR shots for the network’s promo plan. The photographer had already received some directions via email.
“Why is it just me? No props or other people?” I shouted at the guy after changing clothes for the fourth time.
“The screen behind you is a blank so we can superimpose you over some appropriate scenarios,” he told me, furiously flipping through the shots he’d already taken on a laptop. That explained why I’d been pictured in a very sharp business suit, some casual sports gear, a boating outfit, and now I was climbing into a tuxedo.
It was all part of the ruse.
“While you get yourself into that monkey suit, I’m going to take a few snaps of your dog.”
The guy didn’t wait for my answer. I guessed that time was money and as I wrestled myself into a shirt with cufflinks and then a goddamn cummerbund and bowtie, he got on with it.
I watched from behind a useless clothes shade that gave me about as much privacy as a hand towel, as Daisy coaxed Brody into some sensible shots. Only when he started to misbehave did she get involved. That little dude knew what he was doing and before long, she was rolling around on the floor with him having a ball. There was no direction from the photographer, just the constant clicking of a camera shutter.
She was a beautiful girl who had no idea just how appealing she was.
“Why the hell are you playing around with that mutt?” I heard from the side entrance of the studio, closely followed by two sets of clicking heels.
“I… uh… Brody was struggling with his shots, so I got involved to keep him on track,” she told Meredith and the plastic fantastic who was glaring at Daisy so badly she could have been boring holes into her head. As I suspected, they hadn’t spotted me yet.
“Where is he? Don’t tell me you’ve lost him already.”
“I’m here, Ms. Hennessey,” I said, making her jump. Neither she nor the girl had seen me approach from behind them, and the looks on both of their faces were priceless.
“My, my, my.” Meredith crowed. “I do believe I may actually pull this one off.”
Her choice of words was not great. I sincerely hoped she was talk
ing about the show and not me.
I moved into position in front of the blank canvas after helping Daisy off the covered screen floor and stopping to give Brody a scratch on his head. I heard the photographer get into position quickly and start taking shots before I was ready, and I knew he was taking some candid shots of me with Brody.
“Enough with the monkey suit. I want some different shots now. I trust you’ve done all the ones on my list?” Meredith asked the photographer, who nodded. “Kade, there is some swimwear in a bag on the back of the screen. Go and put it on. Now!”
Meredith used no pleasantries at all, and when I didn’t move on command, the assistant with her looked up at me in shock, wondering how long I was going to defy her. My mind told me there was much worse to come and that putting on some surf shorts was not a real issue. Right now, it was a case of picking which battles to fight, and I knew this wasn’t it.
Meredith and the girl continued to ignore Daisy, who had been relegated to dog sitter, and wandered to the photographer to check out the rest of the shots from the session. I took off the tuxedo and left it in a heap on the floor. My patience was being put to the test, and I thought wasting even a few minutes hanging up some damn rental suit was a risk I couldn’t afford to take.
Opening the bag to seek out the swimwear, I was shocked to discover a small pair of Speedos I was less than happy about. I knew I could pull the look off, but that didn’t make me want to do it.
“Come on, Sutton,” she jeered. “Let me see the goods.”
I pulled the Speedos into place, snapping the elastic to indicate I was nearly done, and walked around the shade.
“No. Good God, fucking no. Daisy, explain this,” she shouted, screaming in Daisy’s direction but pointing at my crotch.
I looked down and then up, then down and over at Daisy, then down and finally up, shrugging my shoulders at the photographer in confusion.