He’s giving me faintly concerned looks as I hug Daisy for a long time, checking to see if I’m okay. I nod at him and hug Daisy back. She smells clean and fresh and as wholesome as ever; and I feel a little better knowing that through all of this, Daisy has remained as innocent and as lovely a person as she ever was. I’m glad, and I mean it.
“It’s good to see you,” I tell her softly.
She pulls away, tears brimming in her big eyes. “I was so worried about you. But Nick said we sent Daniel, and Daniel’s the best there is, so . . .”
“Daniel is the best there is,” I agree and swat Daniel when I see him begin to make a lascivious face out of the corner of my eye.
“Come upstairs,” Daisy tells me, so excited she’s practically bouncing like a puppy. “Nick’s making dinner.”
“Oh shit,” Daniel says with a grin. “Now this, I’ve got to see.”
We head up the main stairs of the apartment building. Daisy says that the elevator’s busted at the moment. Apparently Nick was trying to fix the wiring, got pissed when it shocked him, and took a sledgehammer to it in retaliation. Daisy looks a little disgruntled at the situation, and I see Daniel smothering a laugh behind her. “He’s not very good at being domestic,” she tells me, her cheeks glowing.
“And you’re letting him make dinner?” I ask, trying not to giggle, myself. It feels so good to have Daniel behind me, his hand on my back to let me know that he’s here, and Daisy chattering away in front of me. The stain Rio left on me is falling away like it never existed.
“He insists that he wants to help out,” Daisy says with a helpless shrug. “It’s so cute. One day, I came home from class and he was making Hamburger Helper. ‘I do not understand what it is helping the hamburger to do,’ he tells me. I lost it.” She giggles even now, thinking about it.
Daisy gives us a quick tour of the apartment building as we walk. There was water damage on the top floor, so most of those apartments are still being worked on. They’re redoing the tile on the bottom floor, and she and Nick are on the second floor, along with an apartment for her father if he ever wants to visit. He doesn’t leave his farm much, Daisy tells me, but the fact that he leaves it at all makes her happy.
“And there’s an apartment for you,” she says, pulling a key off of the key ring and holding it out to me.
“Me?” I’m surprised. “Why?”
“We lost the other apartment,” she says in an embarrassed voice. “By the time I got back, there was an eviction notice. All I could do was grab everything, and so we moved here.”
“Oh,” I say, and my voice is smaller than I’d like. Of course we lost our apartment. I’d been scraping by with scholarship funds before Daisy moved in to pay her share. But for some reason, I thought my apartment would always be there, waiting for me to come back to it when I was ready.
The fact that it’s not there kind of rattles me. The world went on while I was gone. Like I never existed. I think of Mike and Becca, and I swallow hard.
“You doing all right, sugar tits?” Daniel says in my ear, his breath warm as he leans in.
Daisy turns and gives us both a horrified look. “What did you call her?”
For some reason, I erupt into giggles. Maybe it’s Daisy’s aghast expression or the fact that Daniel’s so naughty to call me that in front of her, but I lose it. Hysterical, silly laughter bubbles up, and I have to hold my sides, I’m laughing so hard. Daniel chuckles and his fingers brush my cheek affectionately while Daisy looks at me like I’m crazed.
I finally get control and wipe tears from my eyes, still giggling. “It’s an inside joke,” I tell her since she looks ready to wag a shaming finger in Daniel’s face.
“I’m . . . going to go check on Nick and dinner,” she tells me and reaches out to wrap my fingers around the key she gave me. “Why don’t you check out your apartment? Take your time. We’ll keep dinner warm for you.” The look on her face is kind and sweet and so totally Daisy that I want to hug her all over again.
I don’t, but I think she’d understand why. “Thanks, Daisy.”
“We’re in 2A,” she tells me. “Come by when you’re ready.”
Then Daisy heads down the hall, and I’m alone with Daniel and my new apartment key. I stare down at the key for a moment, then look over at Daniel. “Sugar tits again, huh?” My lips twitch with laughter.
“Great conversation starter, ain’t it?” he drawls.
“I need a conversation starter of my own,” I mutter as I put the key in the door. “Like ‘sweet dick’ or ‘pork and beans.’”
“Do I get a vote?” he asks. “Because I’m partial to ‘big Johnson’ or ‘Goddamn-Daniel-Your-Dick’s-So-Huge’.”
I snort and push the door open, trying not to giggle again.
Then I grow silent as I stare at the new apartment.
Daisy’s thoughtful, I’ll give her that. The new apartment, despite a slightly different layout and a higher ceiling, is set up like my old one. She must have unpacked everything and put it down how it was, right down to my beat-up cookie jar on the counter and my B-Grade horror movie posters on the walls. There’s even the crappy futon that I had in place of a sofa, and my DVDs are lined up on their familiar shelf.
It’s like walking into a dream. “It’s my stuff. All of it.” Tears brim from my eyes as I walk inside.
“That was nice of Daisy,” Daniel says in a careful voice behind me. He sets our bags down on the futon and tucks his gun into his pants, then proceeds to go through the entire apartment, checking it out, while I stand, numb, in the doorway. It’s a process of ours, and one that I normally don’t mind—especially not after Rio—but it feels weird in this new place with my old stuff. “All clear,” he tells me a moment later and then moves past me to shut the door and lock it.
I step inside, still in a daze. There, on my coffee table, there’s my old picture of me and Mike from a friend’s wedding. I pick it up, staring at his face. I don’t feel anything for him, oddly enough. Maybe an irritated twinge that he moved right on to Becca, but there’s no love lost, no sadness.
Daniel’s arms move around my waist, and he peers over my shoulder. “Is it bad form if I say the guy looks like a lousy fuck?”