Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(30)

“That’s not nice,” Marcus rumbled, not appearing real thrilled at my story.

I shrugged, looked back to my martini, took in a deep breath and whispered my finish.

“Only man a’ hers I missed when he was gone.”

“That’s all you have that’s good?” he asked, not sounding real thrilled at that possibility.

I drew in another breath, and as I let it out, I looked back at Marcus and shared the real good stuff.

“For a spell, my momma worked as a daily girl for a lady named Miss Annamae. When I call her a lady, I mean she was a lady. A fine Southern woman who lived in a graceful mansion her beloved but sadly departed husband left to her after he died. A mansion he’d grown up in. So had his daddy and so on for a long while. He didn’t rock her world with this. She grew up in one herself, just a different one from a different fine Southern family.”

“You liked her,” Marcus noted, still watching me closely.

“She liked me,” I replied.

“I’m not thinking that’s a good response,” he muttered like he wasn’t talking to me.

I let the stem of my glass go, turned more fully to him too, and reached out, putting my hand to his thigh.

When I did, I realized Marcus Sloan did not only take care of his grooming, he took care of other things too. The muscle beneath the fine material was solid.

My.

I tore my thoughts from what my hand was encountering, somehow found the strength to leave it right where it was, and told him, “She liked me. And she was kind to me. She gave me a tin of cookies she baked herself every Christmas my momma worked for her. And on my thirteenth birthday, she gave me an add-a-pearl necklace.”

“That’s very sweet,” Marcus murmured.

I nodded. “It was.”

“Did she add more pearls after your thirteenth?” he asked.

“She died three days after my birthday.”

“Christ,” he bit out low.

“And I hocked it for a bus ticket out of there when I was nineteen after I caught my boyfriend in the act, sleepin’ with my best friend who was my best friend only to get to my boyfriend. I went direct home and told my momma all about it. I barely got the story out before she slapped me across the face and told me to get over it. Life was shit and then you died so no purpose wastin’ it bitchin’ about men bein’ *s when there wasn’t a being with a penis who wasn’t all *. And furthermore, I was a fool for havin’ any friends. Women were backstabbers and man-stealers. They talked behind your back more than they said anything to your face but when they said somethin’ straight to your face, if it was sweet, you could guarantee it was a lie.”

“This isn’t something good, Daisy,” he informed me, not looking happy.

“It’s all I got, Marcus,” I told him but I gave his thigh a quick squeeze. “And it sounds bad. But Miss Annamae knew. She might not have known exactly what was gonna cut it but she knew somethin’ would. And she knew I was a good girl. She knew I listened to her and she knew all the things she taught me I’d taken in. So she knew I’d need that necklace one day. Now, I think she mighta hoped that I’d wear it at my wedding to a wonderful man who’d help me fill my house with lots of babies. But I reckon she didn’t hold a lot of hope for that and knew I’d need it for what I needed it for and she’d be happy I had it when I needed it and that it was her who gave it to me.”

He kept hold of my gaze for a moment after I quit talking then he looked down at his drink and twisted it side to side in his fingers.

He looked reflective.

And upset.

And I didn’t like that.

“Honey bunches of oats,” I whispered.

His gaze came right back to mine.

And doing so, he made my heart warm right up in a way I knew sure as certain it would never again be cold.

Not ever.

Not ever again.

Not as long as Marcus was with me.

“It don’t sound good but it was,” I told him, real quiet, moved by his look that I felt in my heart. “I lost her but even though she’d been gone for years, she was there for me in that moment when I needed her most. It wasn’t good for me there. And even with what happened to me in that parking lot, since I left that place, it’s never again been that bad. That’s how bad it was. She wanted me to have the means to escape when I’d had enough. It was the most precious gift anyone ever gave me. The time she gave it by handin’ me that box. And the time I hocked it and bought myself freedom.”

“There’s no more good?” he asked.

“Smithie,” I told him.

“Other than him.”

“LaTeesha,” I went on.

“Daisy, you understand me.”

I shook my head and gave his thigh a squeeze. “Sugar, you aren’t gettin’ it. I had her for a short while. But I had her. Do you know where I’d be if I didn’t?”

“No. Where would you be?”

“Back there in a place where every day was hell. I’d probably have a man who drank or gambled or shot up or beat me or all those. Or I’d have a string of ’em, none of ’em treatin’ me right. A job that I hated workin’, doin’ it with people who thought they were better than me. My momma alternately hittin’ me up for money or gettin’ in my face, bein’ ugly. Miss Annamae taught me to keep my head held high, darlin’, and I was strugglin’ with that.” I leaned into him. “Really struggling. They would have beaten me. She gave me the way out when without her doin’ that I’d have no way out, and here I am, in a fancy restaurant in a great town with a handsome man. It’d make her happy. Real happy, baby.”