Page 6 of Claimed By the Don

BENNY

Isee the corner store, just like it used to be. Gino and I rode our bikes there practically every day in summer to get ice cream bars or big slushies. When my dad took over the business we moved out of the neighborhood, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had one of their frozen Cokes. I park across the street and head that way.

I’ve heard people say they feel like they’ve been struck by lightning when something shocks them. I always figured that was an exaggeration. Until I catch sight of her. I stand stock still in the middle of the street like my brain got blitzed by sudden voltage.

Last time I saw Daisy Cooper, she had a sunburn on her shoulders that was starting to peel and she was chewing cinnamon gum. She’d had on a pink tank top, her long wavy hair swept in a ponytail, big dark eyes faraway that last night. The next day she’d skipped town to move out west and didn’t return my calls.

Six years later, I’m getting honked at and flipped off by drivers as I stand in the middle of a busy street, my entire body arrested atthe sight of her. The third person that honks lets out a stream of profanity questioning my intelligence. I turn toward the person and when they recognize me, they go silent.

“Shit,” I hear him mutter, “Sorry, man.” He tucks himself back into the driver seat and rolls up the window. It’s the effect I have on people who know the weight behind the Falconari name and organization.

I ignore him and get my limbs back online so I can eat up the distance between my hazardous spot in traffic and the place where Daisy stands just outside the doorway of Santino’s talking to the owner.

I approach her like she’s a figment of my imagination, like the two beers I had were something stronger, something that could give me hallucinations. Mrs. Santino straightens up from where she was leaning on her broom.

I don’t greet the woman or ask about her grown kids. I don’t compliment how the place hasn’t changed.

I just say, “Daisy?”

Up close, I know it’s her, but something feels off. Her hair is shorter, darker. The sexy cropped tank top and freckled shoulders are long gone, replaced by a white tee and cut offs. I remember those long, tanned thighs wrapped around me, and breathe in too sharply at the bone-deep memory.

Daisy turns to look at me, startled, her eyes locking on mine. She looks flustered.

She doesn’t answer me, doesn’t say my name. It hits me how much I want to hear her say my name again.

I haven’t been pining over her for half a decade or anything stupid. I just feel like one of those assholes on TV that talks about the first breath of free air after years in prison. It’s impossible that I haven’t gotten a deep breath since she ran off, but damned if I don’t feel that way. She’s playing with the straw of her half-empty frozen Coke.

“I was just gonna get one of those,” I remark and then feel stupid for saying it instead of asking how she’s been.

She blinks at me in the doorway like she can’t decide what she should do. Suddenly, she holds out her cup to me. I dip my head, capture the straw between my lips and take a drink, eyes meeting hers.

“Just like old times,” I say. That startles her back to awareness.

Daisy looks at the cup in her hand like she can’t understand it. Her shoulders go up, just a fraction, enough I know she tensed up. Her eyes dart to either side of me, looking for an exit.

“How have you been?” I ask, not because I want to talk about that, but because it seems like the obvious thing to say right now. It’s better than,why didn’t you answer my texts, calls, and emails for a year?

“Good. Busy,” she falters. “How about you? I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

“I was over at Gino’s for a cookout. They just had a baby, him and Molly,” I tell her. Gino and Molly used to double date with us back in the day. I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking—that could be us. If things had been different, it could be Daisy and me sitting on the patio talking to aunts and cousins who can’t wait to get a look at our new baby. I let the words hang there, resist the PR impulse to back track in some way.

“That’s great,” she says, half-heartedly.

“How long you back in town?” I ask since she’s not offering information.

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I didn’t change my number. If you want to give me a call, I could give you the ten-cent tour of everything that’s changed since you left.”

“That’s nice of you but I’m going to be pretty booked up. I’m here to help my mom.”

“Oh, that’s right. The accident. She doin’ okay?

“Not really or I wouldn’t be here,” she says a little sarcastically. Warmth floods my chest. That’s the Daisy I know, with a mouth on her and no time to suffer fools.

“Easy, tiger,” I say, half a grin stealing onto my face as I say it.

I watch her step forward, weight on the balls of her feet like I taught her so long ago. Girl is ready to square up because I teased her. I don’t laugh because it’ll piss her off, but I barely keep from it.

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