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How does a girl cope when her twin flame is the definitive bad boy? (18+ Erotica)
Chapter 11 | Chapter 12: Daisy’s Dilemma
Kevin eyed the sky as he strode out of the A&E department with Daisy. There was a peach coloured sheen to the dark underbelly of the clouds. “Looks like the rain has cleared up,” he said.
Daisy only nodded in reply, and he looked back down to see her shivering intensely. He quickly took off his khaki coloured bomber jacket and placed it across her slim shoulders to ward off the cold. She almost disappeared under its size.
“You all right now?” he asked her. She nodded again, snuggling into the residual warmth left by his own body heat. The kind act had surprised her, which in turn had surprised him. What did she expect? He’d let her freeze? Her teeth were almost chattering, and if it weren’t for her troubled expression, it would be almost comical.
He lightly put an arm around her to direct her towards where he had parked his vehicle. He pointed to a dark green Land Rover Defender a few feet away from them in the hospital’s car park. “That’s mine, over there. Tough as old boots, but don’t expect a comfy ride.”
Daisy still said nothing. She had barely said two words to him outside of commenting on his height. She’s in shock, too, he thought suddenly, and gave her a quick, searching glance. She looked small, defenceless, afraid. His heart went out to her and he felt guilty for having poked fun at her just moments before with Stephen. “You know what I think you need?”
Daisy looked up at him. “What?”
Hallelujah, Kevin said to himself, she speaks. “A hot cup of something, before we get on over to Sally’s. What do you say?”
He caught the thin sliver of a smile trying to snake its way past the corner of her lips, and it felt like a small victory. “Yeah,” she responded. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
Seeing the thankful look that crossed her face, it occurred to him that she might not have had breakfast, either. “Hey, have you eaten?”
“No.”
“You must be famished, then. I’ll shout you breakfast. Then we’ll grab a few things for your friend. What do you say?”
Daisy nodded gratefully, but said nothing more, and they walked to his trusty old Land Rover in silence.
In the hospital elevator, Stephen held up the tray with the warmed breakfast boxes. “Thanks for letting us use your staff microwave on these, Tony.”
“Think nothing of it.”
The lift stopped at the second floor, and with a metallic sounding ping, the doors slid open. “It was good of you nevertheless,” Stephen remarked, stepping out into the corridor.
“Well it’s the least I could do.” Tony coughed, as though trying to get his words out. “Maude told me before she signed off... I’m mortified to be honest that I didn’t recognise Miss. McMasters straight off. I can’t tell you how bad I feel now for grabbing at her the way I did.”
Stephen held a hand up to the man’s chest, and stopped his exit through the open doors. Obstructed, the metal doors shuffled back and forth in their slots, pinging indignantly.
“You shouldn’t grab any lady like that, no matter who she is.”
The edges of Tony’s neck flushed a dark red, and he lifted his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “You’re right about that an’ all, more than right. I’ve no excuse for it.”
“Well, we’ve all made our apologies, so best leave it at that, eh?”
They resumed their walk. “It’s just I was wondering if you could give my apologies to the young miss? She don’t know me personally... but she’s done a lot for the people here abouts.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.”
“She even brought that travelling fair here to raise money for the charity she’s set up for kids with special needs... My youngest daughter is one of them. It’s the doctor bills, you see, I-” The man fell silent, clearly embarrassed. “Treatments cost money,” he said at last.
Stephen’s tone was full of understanding. “I appreciate it was hard to share that with me. I’ll tell her.”
The man bit his top lip. “I can’t help feeling some guilt over this.”
“How so? About last night? No real harm done.”
“No, I’m talking about her brother.”
Stephen stopped him again. “What do you mean?”
“Before I came on my shift last night, the wife said she would call Miss. McMasters. Our youngest has complications, and our doctor isn’t helping. She wondered if the miss could put a good word in for us with Dr. Merryweather. He’s near retired now, but still the best. All she wanted was a phone number, but when I called my wife she told me that Miss. McMasters came over herself with the good doctor to see to my daughter.”
The man’s emotions visibly glistened in his eyes, as he concluded, “She must have left her own brother at home to come to the aid of a stranger. And then this happens.”
As Stephen listened, his mind was trying to put the pieces of last night’s puzzle into place. There were huge gaps in his understanding, but of one thing he was certain - it had been a strange night of coincidences. He felt in his gut, however, that all these tiny coincidences were somehow linked, the dots joining together to reveal a picture he couldn’t quite see. Like doing a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, his mind was sifting through what little facts he knew.
“I wouldn’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. Trust me on that.”
“I appreciate you saying that, sir.” Tony pointed at a white door with the number 11 painted in large numerals some ways in the distance. He looked at the paper in his hand. “There you are, it’s room number eleven you be wanting. I’ll leave you two alone. My shift’s nearly over, so the best of luck. If I don’t see you again-”
“Thanks, and the name’s Stephen by the way. People only call my father sir.”
Without needing to say another word, Stephen put out his hand, and Tony took it in a respectful handshake. Then he turned the way he had come, his footsteps creaking faintly away on the linoleum to leave Stephen to walk up to the door on his own.
What had happened last night to bring them all here?
He faced up to the numbered door. He knocked. He waited. No response.
He knocked again, rapping harder this time.
No response again.
After a few seconds to think, he turned the door handle, and pushed the door inwards. It glided open noiselessly, and he peered in trying not to feel like an interloper.
Sally was peacefully asleep in an armchair, her head resting on the bed beside her brother, holding his hand.
Stephen stepped into the room. The door fell silently back. He stood watching them, as the daylight brightened momentarily through the blinds, to pull the last strands of the peachy hazed shadows away.
The Dundee All Tea & No Sympathy Inn was only a street away from the hospital’s emergency wing, and it did just what it said on the tin. It served tea, while it expected you to dish out the sympathy. Kevin prided himself on being a good listener when the need arose, and so he found himself listening to Daisy silently stirring her tea now, because her silence spoke volumes to him.
There was clearly something on her mind, other than the obvious, he thought. She looked troubled, but there was also fear churned up in the mix of her worries. She looked like a frightened child caught red-handed with her fingers in the cookie jar.
“You’ll stir a hole into that cup.”
She put the spoon down self-consciously. “Sorry.”
“The food will be a while yet. Do you want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“About what’s bothering you.”
“My best friend’s brother is in the hospital.”
“And?”
“And? And what? Isn’t that enough?”
“There’s something else.”
Daisy puffed out her cheeks in annoyance, and Kevin was glad to see the first real spark of life she had shown him so far. “Is this how you treat everyone you don’t know?” she asked, affronted.
“Offer them free tea and sympathy you mean? Only if they’re lucky. And breakfast? Only if they’re very lucky.”
Daisy smiled at his last remark, and stuck out her tongue. “Comedian aren’t you?”
“I try.”
“You are, very trying indeed.”
Kevin outwardly groaned. “Now that is an old one!”
Daisy scrunched her nose up at him in agreement. “It is isn’t it?” They laughed, and it seemed to clear the air.
“Now, isn’t that better?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah, thanks.”
“So, you want to tell me about it?”
“About what?”
Kevin persevered with the patience of a saint. “About what’s got you so frightened. What have you done you think is so bad?”
“And have you hate on me like everyone else?”
“I promise I won’t judge.”
She picked up the spoon again. “Really? What makes you think you’re any different from everyone else?”
He reached out to stop her from stirring her tea again. She didn’t pull away from his hand.
He said, “Why don’t you try me? What have you got to lose?”
Stephen watched as streaks of sunlight from the window placed highlights in Sally’s hair. The sound of her breathing was soft, regulated, and at that moment was the most calming sound in the world to him.
The breathing apparatus was a jarring interloper, though, and it reminded him why they were here. He walked over to the bed, and his stomach tensed as he took stock of the boy’s condition. Iain was still, and looked defenceless under the mess of wires he lay under. Seeing him like this made him want to catch the person responsible more than ever. To mete out some justice. Put whoever did this in a hospital bed of their own.
His mind was still humming with interlocking thoughts, trying to come up with an answer that made some sort of sense to him. Something he could reach out and hold. Something he understood. But his mind seemed to join up distant dots to a picture that became clear for a second, only to haze out in the next. Link upon link, forming patterns on a map drawn in the dark. It seemed to reach all the way to Afghanistan, to the horrors he witnessed, bringing him to Scotland, and to Sally.
If he had never gone into recruitment, met Kevin, shared a tour in Afghanistan, come to Scotland, would he have ever met Sally? Become a part of her life so quickly?
He stared down at Iain. And destroyed it just as quickly.
As if she had heard him, Sally lifted her head and blinked, trying to work out her surroundings. She locked eyes with him in a sleepy daze, looking unsure, giving the impression she thought she had dreamt him there.
He didn’t feel like an apparition, however. He felt more like a tightly coiled metal spring, standing uselessly over Iain’s bed, poised to strike. If he moved, he thought he was likely to punch a hole through something, but he managed to temper his movements and show her the tray. “I brought you breakfast. Courtesy of Kevin.”
“How did you get here?”
“I made a new friend. Remember Tony from reception?”
She stretched, and yawned. Looked around her. Was she searching for someone?
“Was there anyone else in here when you came in?”
Stephen assumed she meant a nurse. “No. What have they told you about him? How’s the little monkey doing?”
“I’m waiting for our family doctor to arrive.”
He averted her stare to focus on Iain. “Do you think he can hear us?”
“I don’t know. That’s the worse of it. I don’t know if they’ve sedated him, or if he’s-” Without finishing her sentence, she got to her feet and walked over to him.
She stood close. His body braced hers, as he brought his hand down on her own and gave it a squeeze. But he didn’t look at her. She continued in a low voice, “The doctor that brought me up here said he was just under observation, but I’m waiting on our family doctor to tell me what’s really facing us. I was going to come down and get you as soon as I knew what was going on.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said. “You should eat something.”
“I know, I will.” With her free hand she took the tray from him, sniffing at the boxes. Glancing sideways, he saw a sudden expression of hunger etch itself across her tired face. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what? You know there’s no need.”
“I know. Just, well, just. OK?” They fell silent, holding hands, staying like that for a while.
“Is Daisy your real name?”
She stared out of the tea shop window. “It’s Davina. Daisy was my favourite flower as a kid. Used to play that love me, love me not game a lot. The name just stuck.”
“That’s not liking a flower. That’s pulling it apart.”
“Story of my life,” she sighed, rather eloquently she thought, but his face said different.
“Is that what you do to things you like, then? Pull them apart?”
“Are you psycho- diagnosing me?”
“That’s psychoanalysing, and no,” he said. Then a moment later, “I prefer Davina.”
“So what? You expect me to do somersaults?”
Kevin looked around the small tea shop, with its lace covered tables for two, and dollied cake stands. “It’d be a bit like a bull in a china shop if you did.”
“Great. Thanks for that. Go easy on the compliments, you’re likely to give me a big head.”
He gave her a charming smile. “Not at all, I think you have a lovely head.”
“Now you’re just making me fun of me.” Two minutes with this guy and he was already pushing her buttons. She stared at him, as though trying to work him out, gave up begrudgingly, and continued to stare out of the window. The Friday morning traffic was in full swing. Suddenly she wished she was out in it.
“Are you going to tell me what’s worrying you?”
“I told you I pull things apart. Story of my life.” Sally would never, ever forgive her for this, she thought. Fuck it, if I have to tell someone, why not this joker?
She began to tell all, with the absolute certainty that she had lost her only friend. “Not to make a long story of it, everyone thinks I saved Iain’s life finding him when I did, but the fact is it’s all my fault. When Sally finds out she really will never forgive me, and now she has Stephen she won’t want to anyway.”
Kevin couldn’t hide his astonishment. “You telling me you’re responsible for the missing babysitter?”
“Missing babysitter? What are you on about? She never showed up.”
“You mean you went and left a vulnerable boy home alone?”
Daisy was surprised to find she was more than a little upset by tone of his voice. She simply nodded, not knowing how to respond.
He said, “I think you better tell me all about it, from the beginning.”
“Look, you have to believe I love Sally and Iain. They are like family to me, we grew up together.”
“And then Stephen came along,” he said, sitting back in his chair slowly, accurately reading the timbre of her voice.
“Ever since Sally met your friend, she hasn’t been the same. How can you be so sure of someone you only just met in a matter of minutes?” She remembered how Sally and Stephen had been together, and felt a pang of envy for the girl who could be so sure of her boyfriend whatever he did.
But the first time she laid eyes on Stephen she had recognised the type. The fuck them and leave them bastards she had met all her life. All she had wanted to do was protect Sally from that. Now she simply felt gutted, remembering how she had handled herself in the men’s room. He must love her very much.
How could she have got it so wrong?
“Do you regret ever meeting me?” he asked in a tight voice. His eyes were dark. His hand, rough, warm and comforting, still held hers.
“I guess I did. Not now though. A man who brings a girl breakfast can’t be all bad.”
“Cold and soggy bacon? You’re very easy to please.”
“It’s the thought that counts. Right?”
When he didn’t reply to this, she stared at him. It looked to her as though he was debating something inside his head. “I sent Daisy with Kevin to get you a few things,” he replied after a moment. “A book or something for Iain to read.”
“You remembered...” she said. It called to mind how her brother had immediately taken to Stephen, showing him his treasure trove of books. They were his most prized possessions, and you were honoured if he shared them with you.
“That he’s a bookworm like his sister? Not easy to forget.”
Sally squeezed his hand in response, “I’ll read to him. I’m sure he’ll hear it.” With the whole world turning around portable computing, last Christmas Sally had bought her brother the latest model smartphone and tablet thinking they would be what a computer-savvy nine year old boy would want, but he had shunned the gadgets for physical books, treating them as if they were almost alive.
To Sally it felt like Iain purported human qualities to his books, acting as though he sensed the energy of the trees pulped to make them - and it would be sacrilege to ignore that sacrifice. His favourites were the vintage Choose Your Own Adventure paperback children books they had found one time rummaging around their local chapel’s charity sale. Her brother had been fascinated with their interactivity, of the choices given to the reader, choosing which way the story went and ultimately ended, and going back to read it again, with different stories and different endings.
Stephen had spent an entire evening patiently reading and re-reading one of those adventures to Iain until they found a happy ending. If only interactive books read like life, she thought, where you could go back and choose another adventure, but how real was that?
She looked up at his face, closed off from emotion. Quietly, she said, “He missed you when you left.”
“I missed him. I missed you both.”
Daisy looked away from his stare and said uncomfortably, “I hid her phone.”
Kevin was incredulous. “You hid her phone... forcing her to leave it at home?”
“It was for her own good.”
“Her own good?”
“Is there an echo in here? Will you stop repeating everything I say?” She sat very upright, staring before her, her eyes wide so that she might stop her tears. Not that it helped; they tumbled silently down her cheeks and she wiped them away with a finger.
His look was grim. “I can’t help it. When I thought you were hiding something, this was definitely not it.”
“Will you please just listen, while I try to explain? You said you would. And that you wouldn’t judge. You don’t know how bad I feel right now.”
“Go ahead.”
“After what we planned with Stephen, Sally was... I can’t describe how upset she was. I felt guilty, and I just felt if she went out, she would forget him, get on with her life, you know?” She looked at him, as if expecting him to cut in. She wiped her eyes. There was a lot of make-up, and a lot to smear.
“Go on,” was all he said.
“I wanted her to have an uninterrupted evening of fun. She deserved it for God’s sake! She was the one that organised the fair in the first place. I pestered her, telling her to let me get a babysitter for the night. I wanted to handle everything, show her I cared. To do one good thing for her, and I couldn’t even get that right.”
“And so you hid her phone?”
“I knew if she took her phone she would be calling the house up every five minutes, and yeah, so I hid her phone.”
Kevin was still struggling with the logic, but he kept silent and let it pass.
“Then she gets a call on the home phone, I’ve switched her phone off you see, about someone needing old doc Merryweather, so she goes out.”
“You did actually get a babysitter did you?”
“What do you take me for? Of course I did, the daughter of Sally’s nearest neighbour. I told Sally I would wait until the babysitter arrived, and for her to go on ahead with Merryweather. We planned to meet at the fair.”
“Let me guess the rest. The babysitter never showed up, you got tired of waiting, and you just left him alone thinking that was an OK thing to do? You never thought of checking up after the sitter?”
She began to squirm under the interrogation. “Sally had already put Iain to bed. He never usually gets up after that. I got bored waiting.”
Kevin listened intently as Daisy spoke. It was a childish voice. She was complaining, the way a child would complain about something that isn’t fair, or when someone had been mean to them. Said over and over again, but in a hopeless voice, as if the wrong done could never be righted. However rather than be irritated by her, Kevin found himself strangely feeling sorry for her.
“You never thought to tell Sally you left her brother on his own?”
“I thought the babysitter might arrive late, so I left the door off the latch. Don’t look at me like that! It’s a small town, everyone leaves their doors open.”
“Possibly, when they are in.” He looked at her, but he didn’t see her tears, or her crumpled looks. He saw something else. He marvelled at how she seemed to exist in her own world. It reminded him too much of his late wife.
“You hate me don’t you?”
“No I don’t hate you...” He took a deep breath, “But don’t expect any false sympathy from me, either. It looks to me like you haven’t been turned over one knee and spanked enough in your sheltered life.”
Daisy’s pretty little chin dropped. “What?! How dare you-”
“You’ve been so irresponsible, acting twenty-odd going on thirteen. Didn’t you think the police would need to know this? A boy’s life is at stake, your best friend’s brother.”
She raised her hands to her head. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“Then it’s about time you acted like it.” He slapped some money down on the table, and grabbing her hand pulled her unceremoniously up from the table. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” she asked, clutching at his jacket from behind her chair.
“To do the right thing. It’s about time you learnt what that is,” he said, making for the door and dragging her with him.
End of Chapter 12 | Read Chapter 13
Yours in love,
