Authors: Sherrod Story
He gave them 10 extremely strong pain killers in pill form to see them through the rest of her period as well as five tranquilizers for bedtime. “If you think she’s going to throw them up crush them into powder and disguise them in some ice cream. Cold things usually help medicine stay down. I’ve also left you each one for tonight!” he laughed.
“Has she been dieting lately?”
Cleo looked surprised, but she nodded. “Yes, she did Oprah a few weeks ago
and she has a movie coming up.”
“How
about vitamins? She take any?”
“No. Feef don’t like
a lotta pills,” Netty laughed.
“I only ask because I’ve seen this a lot in the past few years among thin women. They look great, and they think they’re eating well, but they’re often missing key nutrients, which makes the, well. It makes the giving up that
much harder, if that makes sense.” He got several understanding nods. “It’s gonna sound too easy, but a multivitamin might help.” Then he shook Daney’s hand and went on his way. “Call me if you need anything else.”
“Thanks for coming,” Netty told Daney,
setting the kettle on to boil.
He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. Cleo and Netty looked at each oth
er over his tousled black head.
“Are you all r
ight?” Cleo asked, hesitantly.
He didn’t reply immediately. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. That was scary. Not being able to help her. Does she have fibroids? Fred mentioned it on the way
in.”
“I don’t know, but she’s due for her yearly,” Cleo said. “I’ll ma
ke sure it gets taken care of.”
“Besides, you did help her,” Netty told him over her shoulder as she prepared them a spiced chai tea with mi
lk. “Dr. Neill was super nice.”
“We’ve known
each other since we were kids.”
“We’re lucky he could come on
such short notice,” Cleo said.
“He actually works not too far from here. I caught him just as he was
about to go home for the day.”
“Have you eaten?” Netty asked.
He hadn’t but he hesitated, not knowing if he was really welcome.
“Please join us for dinner.” She cuffed his shoul
der. “We missed you, you know.”
He grinned. “
I missed you too. How’s Flora?”
While they filled him in on the baby’s latest antics, they shared a simple meal of cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries Netty baked in the oven. Daney caught them up on what he’d been doing, and they told him of their latest escapades over
Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches.
“And Fiona? How has she been?”
At first no one said anything, then Cleo began to recount a funny story involving Flora, and when Daney laughed Netty contributed another. Soon they were nattering on as though he’d never left.
A little before nine he said he had to leave
. “I’m just goin’ in and say goodbye.”
“Sure,” Netty said, shaking her head when he was gone. “That fucking Tino has a lot to
answer for,” she said quietly.
Cleo agreed. “I don’t think I coulda
forgave him the way Fiona did.”
Remembering the sadness she’d seen on Daney’s handsome face just now, the days and nights she’d pretended not to see Fiona crying, Netty couldn’t see herself being that
generous either. “Not at all.”
Fiona had been up for about 20 minutes when he came in
and quietly approached the bed.
“Thank you for bringing the doctor, pretty,” she said, her oddly formal speech couldn’t prevent the pet name from slipping out. She lowered her eyes then raised them and
smiled bravely. “How are you?”
He reached out to caress the side of her face with a warm familiar palm, and Fiona nearly cho
ked trying to hold back a cry.
His hand fell back
to his side. “I’ve missed you.”
The intensity of his words, what she saw in his
clear green eyes made her bite her lip against the sobs rising in her chest.
But then he seemed to get a hold of himself. Whatever
she’d glimpsed vanished. He rose, and she feasted her eyes on his tall, rangy figure in jeans and plain, but elegant grey cashmere.
“Feel better,” he said gruffly. “Call if you need me,” he told her, and
was gone.
Fiona’s nails scored red welts in her palms to keep the words
‘I need you,’ behind her teeth.
******
“How is she?” Buck asked when he got home.
“Don’t start.”
“I just asked how she was, Dane.”
The tone of his brother’s voice brought Daney’s eyes up. Green eyes a shade darker than his own
rested seriously on his face.
“She was pretty bad for a while there. Freddy gave her some kind of injection that put her asleep for a few hours, and she woke up a lot better. He left her painkillers and a few t
ranqs. She’ll be fine.”
“That’s it?”
“Basically.”
“Did you guys talk?”
“A little. She was up when I went in to say goodbye.”
“She was groggy from the meds?”
“No, she was a bit weak, but otherwise okay, why?”
“I’m trying to figure out why you didn’t
say anything to her.”
“Anything like what?” He snapped, giving his brother a look that warned him to back off. “What would you suggest, Buck? Something like, why’d you fuck that other guy when you knew I was coming over? How could you betray me and play me for a fucking fool in fron
t of the entire goddamn world?”
Fiona hadn’t really, but for a while it had felt that way. He’d collected more faux sympathy and offers of poor Daney pity sex than was even reasonable. He thought it was even more unreasonable that he hadn’t taken any of the nitwits up on their offers, while Fiona was happily fucking her producer like 40 going north. His lips curled as he recognized one of her
signature phrases in his mind.
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Know what?” he snarled.
Buck withstood the evil t
one with a younger brother’s fearlessness and pressed on. “She told you it wasn’t what it looked like. You yourself wondered since she wasn’t naked with the guy, only sleeping with him.”
“I’m over this,” Dane
said flatly.
Buck sighed. “No, you’re not.”
“Buck. Leave, me, the fuck, alone. I’m not kidding. You’re makin’ me wanna punch your fuckin’ face in.”
Buck paused and cleared his throat at the look his brother was giving him, but it was because of that look that he continued. “You look pained even when you’re snarling. You’re like a cornered wolf too stubborn to back out of a trap. You fuckin’ love this girl, and what? Your feelings are hurt? You wanna hurt her for daring to hurt you? What is it? ‘Cause she’s moving on without you. You’re the one who’s stuck, and you don’t have to be ‘cause I think she’ll take you back. You’re just too m
uch of a fuckin’ pussy to try.”
Dane’s mean gaze dropped from his brother’s. “She won’t take me back.”
Buck remembered some of the looks Fiona had given his brother in his presence. How she catered to him and kissed and touched and teased until Dane was nearly crazy from wanting her. “Yes, she would. You’re just gonna have to hope this other guy hasn’t got under her skin, and she’s let go of you completely.”
******
“You okay?”
Natty.
“Hey, boo. Netty called you?”
“Yeah, but I got the message way late, and then no one was answering your phone
or Cleo’s. On the message Netty asked me if I knew a doctor out there who’d prescribe pills fast. She said you were pretty sick. That the doctor had to come? I offered to call my aunt at Northwestern, but a few minutes ago Cleo told me you had things handled by then. What happened?”
“Oh, I’m fine, baby. Don’t worry. Just had a spell. Doctor came though, gave me a sh
ot and some pills, all better.”
“You
sound like you’ve been crying.”
She laughed softly. She had been crying indeed. Daney had just left a little while ago. “I feel better hearing from you,” she said truth
fully.
“I can be on the next plane out
there. Bring you home?”
“Not just yet. I’m gonna chill for a minute, regroup, then I go
tta have this perfume meeting.”
“That’s a big move
. Creating your own fragrance.”
“Ye
s, it is, but I’m gonna do it.”
“You’ll be a hit. Wha
tchu gon’ call it? That’s key.”
“I know, and I have no idea.”
“I think you should call it Fiona.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Because it should symbolize you. Who you are, a woman other women wanna be, down to earth, sexy, successful, dangerously talented, intelligent. That sort of thing. The first one’s usually the signature scent, right?”
Wow.
“Yes. Wow. That’s a good idea.”
“
You sure you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure. I’ll come out.”
“I’ll be home in a few day
s.”
“I miss you.”
“You miss having someone to bully.”
“Bull shit. I got plentya muh’fuckas to bully.” People flew in from out of town to work with him on a moment’s notice when he said he had time. “I miss you,
” he said again, lower, sadder.
Daney had said the same thing. Fiona le
t her shoulders relax. “I miss you too, baby. I’m gonna have stored up a lot of missin’ you by the time I get home.”
“I’m not touching you
for a month until you recover.”
“Nu-uh.
Then it’ll be my period again.”
“We’ll see,” he said righteously. “And what does that mean? You had a spell. Has this shit hap
pened before?”
She smiled, not really listening. They’d see the truth when sh
e got him alone in a few days.
“Fiona!”
“Hmmm?”
“I asked has this happened befor
e?”
“Not this bad in a while.”
“What about last month? I never saw you acting sick.”
Beca
use I hid from you the days it was hurting
.
“I’m a little tired, babe. I’ma go to sleep. Good ni-ight,” she sang, drawing
the word out on a breathy rasp.
He inhaled audibly, and she laughed
, knowing he was feeling it where it counted. “Good night.”
As much as she enjoyed Natty when they were together, as soon as she hung up the phone her
mind refocused on Daney and how he’d looked tonight. His looks were only part of why she felt what she did, but she’d missed him so bad she couldn’t help but replay every little detail. He’d looked so good tonight her fingers had itched to touch him. To feel the softness of his thick, black hair, enjoy the rasp of his evening beard against her palm.
He’d said he had missed her, but she doubted he knew what that meant.
The pain of his absence still had the power to steal her breath, to make her stutter in the studio, courting Natty’s fury ‘cause he seemed to know when the emotion was running thick in her veins and thoughts of her former lover were top of mind.
Daney couldn’t fathom, or at least Fiona would never have believed he could, that she often turned to talk to him when he wasn’t there. That tears would well out of nowhere when she saw
or heard something that reminded her of him or of their time together.
And though she’d stared hungrily the last time she’d seen
him, soaking him in like a paper towel, it wasn’t his beauty that had floored her. It was him. His scent, the sound of his voice, the fact that he’d dropped everything to come help her without thinking twice.
Even when he was acting
reserved that innate sexiness clung to him like confetti on damp skin. She’d felt the heat from his body when he sat beside her and touched her face. She shifted restlessly, half wishing she had said yes to Natty’s offer to fly out here. But she wasn’t quite selfish enough to take him away from his music to assuage feelings for another man.
She wanted Daney. It was that simple, and that scary. After all this time, after she’d taken up with another man and thought she was satisfied, her body,
her spirit still craved Daney.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Someone knocked.
“Come in.”
“You don’t sound too good,” Cleo said.
“I don’t feel too good.”
“Belly?”
“Not so much anymore. That doctor’s got good drugs,” she laughed. It’s Daney. After all this fuckin’ time. It’s once again, Daney
. “Where Boomer keep his weed?”