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  Daisy

  In spite of the unadulterated terror about being pursued by my psychotic father, I was learning something about myself: namely, that I really liked being bridal carried. The beautiful young man, who add an odd air of familiarity about him (I had no idea why), was stronger than he looked given he was able to carry my giant ass and run at a full clip through the sea of horrorcore clowns pre-gaming for the concert that was set to be pyed ter today. We made it all the way to the packed parking lot before he set me down in front of a bck sedan (presumably his car) and started rifling through his pockets.

  And coming up with a dearth of car keys.

  “Shit!” he screamed.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I just remembered I don’t have my keys.”

  “Well where are they!?”

  “Some clowns stole them! They beat me up and took all my shit!”

  “Are you seri…,” I started, then looked back and realized that made a lot of sense, and also expined why he looked like he’d been mugged (because he had in fact been mugged). “Uh- look, thank you for the help, but you look like you’ve got your own problems. Maybe just-”

  “You’re fleeing those mafia-looking guys, right? They saw us together, there’s no way they think I’m not helping you.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Can’t stomach women in danger,” he said.

  I wanted to groan, but given my current situation that seemed ill-advised. And besides, it… He… He just thought I was some girl, not a freak or a faggot. I passed, to a complete stranger, even if my father had recognized me on the spot. Can’t deny that it felt pretty good. “Fair enough- let’s just get out of here before they catch up.”

  “Cool- how fast can you run?”

  “We don’t need to,” I smiled, grabbing his hand and pulling him a few feet deeper into the parking lot. I clicked my car keys, and my pink VW bug chirped to life. I hopped into the driver’s seat, then said, “You coming?”

  He took one more look back, and saw my father and his goons running towards us screaming bloody murder. “Yup!” he said, hopping into the car with me.

  My bags in the back seat and trunk, I twisted my key in the ignition and pulled back, then raced out of the parking lot and towards distant freedom. My worthless dad screeched behind us, pointing at us driving away and probably bellowing something to the effect of ‘after that car.’

  “That was insane,” the beautiful, disheveled man who’d saved me (swoon) said as he caught his breath.

  “No, unfortunately for my dad, that was completely normal.”

  “That was your dad?!”

  “Yup.”

  “The fuck!?”

  “He’s a prick, what can I say? Basically always has been.”

  “Why is he-”

  “He’s trying to drag me back home. By force,” I said.

  “Why?!” he asked as we banked right at a red light and shot as fast as was legal towards town square.

  Best not to show my hand on this one. This man came off as gentlemanly and upstanding and sweet, but if he found out the woman he’d gotten his ‘knight in shining armor’ complex on for was trans, that sweetness was liable to turn sour very quickly. A half-truth would suffice. Enough to give him some necessary context without involving him any further. I didn’t know this guy (despite the warm feeling in my gut that said I somehow did), and I didn’t want him getting mixed up in my insane bullshit.

  “He found my OnlyFans,” I said. “And he wants to punish me for it.”

  “Gross,” the beautiful man said.

  “Which part?”

  “The part where he wants to punish you for making an honest living. What did you think I meant?” he said, looking and sounding genuinely confused.

  “Uh… Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m Daisy, by the way. Daisy DeMille.”

  “DeMille? Like the director?”

  “Yeah, actually. No retion, though,” I said.

  “Cool, cool. Uh, my name is Adam Kurosawa.”

  “Kurosawa? Like-”

  “No retion to the famous director either,” he said with a nervous ugh, running his hands through his shaggy bck hair.

  “Duly noted,” I said. Shit, what was I supposed to do now? Was this the part where I giggled? Yeah, yeah, that sounded right.

  So I giggled.

  “What was that?” Adam said, head moving about, looking startled.

  Shame and dysphoria pricked me like a dart. Evidently, I did not have a cute ugh.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Uh, look, should I drop you off somewhere?”

  “Yeah, my hotel, I guess,” Adam groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “God, this is a disaster. I’m gonna have to find some way to contact my boss and tell her about this, but… Fuck, I didn’t just screw the pooch, I ran it over with a bulldozer.”

  “In what regard?”

  “I was meeting a client here and in my effort to get the music to stop so he could fish properly, he wound up leaving while clowns beat and robbed me.”

  I blinked, town square coming into view. “You’re having a rough day, aren’t you?”

  “Rough month, frankly,” Adam sighed. “But considering you’re fleeing your own family right now, I guess I shouldn’t compin too much.”

  “I mean, hey, misery loves company,” I said. He certainly looked miserable, slumped in his seat, haggard and exhausted. He was going through it, and I’d added an extra yer of complication. I needed to make it up to him. Before I hit the road and started my new life, I needed to return the favor he’d done me in helping me escape. It was the right thing to do. “How can I help? Besides getting you to your hotel, I mean?”

  Adam ughed bitterly, then said, “Uh, if you can get me back into my room and in contact with my supervisor back in Boston, that would go a long way.”

  “Do you know her phone number?”

  “No, but I can call the office, see if they can patch me through.”

  “Here,” I said, fishing my phone out of my purse (both also pink) and handing it to him.

  He typed away before putting the phone to his ear. After a few moments of waiting, he said, “Hi, Matt. Yes, this is Mr. Kurosawa. Could you patch me through to Mrs. Duggan?”

  Another beat passed as I stopped at a four-way intersection. My eyes darted about, looking for any sign of my dad following us. I needed to get out of Duluth as soon as possible, but not until my debt to this kindly stranger was fully paid.

  “Right, she’s off today, isn’t she? Still only working three days a week while she recovers. Of course. Okay, what about Mrs. Diaz?”

  Beat.

  Green light.

  I pulled forward, eyes scanning the road and flickering past the mirror to make sure I hadn’t dropped my affect. This guy thought I was some damsel in distress, and maybe that was a little insulting, but still, it was a useful narrative right now. And to sell it, I needed to meet my own standards. Better Than Perfect. Let’s fucking go.

  “Right, right, it is her wedding anniversary today, isn’t it? Makes sense she left the office early,” Adam grumbled, his pretty face twisting with frustration. “What about Crispin? Is Mr. Winfield in the office? Please tell me Cris is in.”

  Another beat. In the mirror, a silver muscle car with red fmes painted onto the side pricked my eyeline. Dad’s gaudy, God-awful hotrod was easy to spot, which was the only good thing about it. I took a sharp left turn onto a backroad, incurring the ire of a half-dozen honking cars as I cut them off and started to make my way back to anonymity.

  “Son of a fucking whore!” Adam grunted. Then, after a moment, he said into the phone, “No, not you, Matt. No, Matt, don’t start crying, I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean… No, I didn’t mean that about Crispin, either. He’s my best friend, I would never call his mother a whore. Yes, I know his mother is dead- how is that relevant?! Matt!”

  In spite of the tension, in spite of everything, I genuinely struggled not to ugh right there and then. I failed within a few seconds down the seldom-traveled road that led into a residential neighborhood of Frank Lloyd Wright style houses.

  “Could you please take a message for me, then, Matthew?” Adam sighed, rubbing his eye furiously. “Yes, whichever of them you can reach first, that is fine. Yes, I’m sorry for making you cry. Okay? Okay. Cool. Have them reach me at the hotel. Thank you. Drink some water, bud.”

  Adam hung up, stared out the window, and groaned from deep in his belly.

  “Matt seems… Interesting,” I offered, fending off the snickers.

  “He’s a sad, wet twink who never stops crying,” Adam said. “He’s also the CEO’s nephew. Oh, and he’s sixteen. He’s a high school dropout who needed a job.”

  “Ahhh. Point taken. What, uh, what company do you work for, exactly?”

  “Van Der Ahe Consolidated. They’re… It’s complicated, like super fucking convoluted, but the short version is we’re a venture capitalist co-op based out of Boston. I’ve been on the road for the past month closing deals with new clients,” Adam said. “I’m supposed to be back in Boston in a little over a month after finishing up the road trip back home, but right now things are… Well, you’ve got eyes and ears.”

  “Indeed I do,” I said gently. “It’s funny, I’m actually heading to Boston myself.”

  “Oh shit, really?”

  “Yeah. I have an operation scheduled for early April. My dad… Definitely doesn’t want me to get it.”

  “Jesus Christ, what fucking creep,” Adam said.

  “Yes,” I sighed, my affect dropping for a split second before I managed to secure my mask back in pce. “What hotel are you staying at?”

  “The Mapleton Inn.”

  “Cool. I know exactly where that is.”

  I turned right back onto the main road. My dad’s car was nowhere in sight. With a little luck, he’d stick to combing the residential neighborhood while I got us to the hotel.

  “I take it you’re local, then?” Adam asked.

  “Sorta? I’m from Minneapolis, but I’ve been living here since I finished college.”

  “You go to school here?”

  “No, I went to BU.”

  “Huh. Small world. So did I.”

  I blinked rapidly as Main Street came back into view. Was there a chance I actually did know this guy? “I graduated four years ago.”

  “One year ago for me,” Adam, giving me an appraising look. His eyes stopped at my waist, as if registering the sight of my curves for the first time. They weren’t amazing hips or anything, but with the lingering of his eyes, I’d say Mr. Kurosawa definitely appreciated them. “Guess we would have overpped. Narrowly, but… Yeah. Do we know each other? Did we meet at some point? You seem really familiar.”

  Panic coaguted inside my veins, nearly stopping my heart. This guy could not recognize me. There was no way. It would complicate everything if he did. My whole pn was to disappear, so someone knowing the old me would only make that a million times harder. “No, I don’t think so. Besides, I think I’d remember a pretty boy like you.”

  He grimaced.

  I mentally face-palmed. Why did I say that? God fucking dammit-

  “I’ll take pretty, but I’d prefer man over boy at this point in my life,” Adam said.

  My lips pursed, then I said, “Pretty man it is.”

  He cracked a smile, which… Goddamn. The contrast between his usual misery and that look of rakish enthusiasm was something. The dimples and the pearly-whites certainly helped, as did the sight of him brushing back his beautiful hair and revealing his full face. Pretty was an understatement- this guy was fucking gorgeous! Hot arousal snaked up my spine and wrapped around my heart, and my minds’ eye began conjuring images of what kind of body was hiding underneath that disheveled suit…

  … No, no, don’t get carried away. You just met this guy, and you’re not gonna see him again after today.

  “Thank you. You’re awfully pretty yourself,” he said, breaking eye contact and… Holy shit, he was blushing. Blushing!

  I squealed a little bit, in spite of myself. Embarrassment exploded through my mind as I registered what had slipped out from behind my mask, but given the even wider smile Adam wore at the sight of that, it faded quickly.

  Mapleton Inn resided off of a roundabout two blocks away from Main Street. It was a charming, three-story brick building where I’d had sex a few times, but otherwise it didn’t really stick out overmuch amidst the rest of Duluth.

  “Thanks for the ride. I can probably take it from here, though,” Adam said.

  “Nah,” I said. My debt was not paid. To let this go now would be unjust, and that simply didn’t sit right with me. “I said I’d help you get back into your room. I’m a woman of my word.”

  We let the valet take my car, then walked inside the inn together. The lobby was as cozy as I remembered it being, all hardwood floors and richly red Persian carpets with a firepce crackling in the corner. A family sat around it, drinking cocoa and coffee while pying cards together. A foreign sense of warm fuzzies rendered inside me, nostalgia for something I’d never known: a normal family that cared about each other.

  I shoved it aside like I’d used to do with my attraction to men. Something like that wasn’t in the cards for a girl like me. Not with the way the world was nowadays.

  We approached the front desk, and I locked my arm around Adam’s waist and pulled him close. My mask clicked into pce as I started batting my eyeshes and cooing over the beautiful man at my side. I pitched my voice up extra high and used my free hand to twirl my fingers through my hair.

  A woman around my age with olive skin and big brown eyes and amazing makeup stood behind the desk. She was gorgeous, with a perfect, heart-shaped face and a beautifully curvy figure, and I leaned against her desk with Adam on my arm. “Hiiiii!”

  “Uh, hello,” the woman said. Her name tag read ‘Beth-Anne,’ and she mustered up a customer-service smile.

  “Okay, so first of all, I just wanna say I love love love your makeup. You are so so so beautiful, girl, like holy crap!

  Beth-Anne blushed almost as red as Adam had in the car. “Oh! Uh, thank you. That’s very kind of you to say.”

  “What brand of skin toner do you use?”

  “Just a generic one. We actually sell it here in the hotel gift shop. I get it for free,” Beth-Anne said back to me, matching my million words per hour pace.

  “Well oh-em-gee I am gonna have to pick some up before I leave so I can be even half as gorgeous as you!”

  Beth-Anne cooed, her smile turning from fake to genuine. When you’d had to practice smiling in front of the mirror as much as I had, you learned to tell the difference. “Oh, stop. You’re beautiful.”

  “Aww, thank you,” I said, still twirling my hair. Then I nudged Adam in the ribs and said, “This one certainly seems to think so. Isn’t that right, pretty man?”

  To his credit, he only looked scared shitless for a few seconds before replying, “Absolutely. You’re a blonde fucking bombshell, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart. Oh, goodness, I like how that sounds on his tongue. “Oh, you.”

  The panic seemingly came back to him, the twitch in his eye something I’d trained myself to catch. It wasn’t universal, but from what I could tell it was a good sign I’d stepped on the line of (but not quite crossed over) a boundary. I filed that away for ter. For now, I had to keep up the act.

  I continued, “So anyway, this one and I were out for an evening on the town, but, silly thing that he is, he lost his wallet, and that had his roomkey in it! And I left mine back in our room because I didn’t think I’d need it. I know it’s probably not standard policy, but could you pretty pretty pretty please get us back into our room so we can start all this over?”

  Beth-Anne gave us an appraising, if knowing (I think?) look, then nodded. “Could I have your name and room number so I can look you up in our system?”

  “Adam Kurosawa. Room 316,” Adam said.

  A few keystrokes ter, Beth-Anne was nodding and programming a new keycard for us. “Enjoy your evening!” she called as we walked away.

  I waved and said, “We will! Thank you! You’re the bestest!”

  We got to the elevator, and the weight of the interaction started to register for me. Oh boy, that was a lot of pretending to be normal. And near as I could tell, there was no end in sight.

  “That was incredible,” Adam said.

  “Oh gosh, you think so?” I said. I didn’t let myself giggle again, considering how well-received it had been st time, but I did manage to keep my smile intact.

  “I have no idea how you pulled that off.”

  I shrugged. “Being a conventionally attractive white dy comes with certain perks.”

  “Ah, right. Of course.”

  “If it helps, it’s a very temporary superpower. The second you hit thirty, it vanishes.”

  “That seems like a stretch. I’ve met plenty of beautiful women over thirty. And over forty. And over fifty.”

  “Whoa, watch out, we got a milf-hunter on our hands,” I chuckled.

  “What can I say, I’m a man of culture,” he chuckled as well, his confidence slowly returning. Such an odd man: he was shy, nervous, almost coy one moment, then a nonstop barrage of flirty charm the next.

  We left the elevator and walked the hall to his room, Adam opening it up for me and guiding me inside. This was good: my debt would soon be paid, and then I could get on the road, and yeah, it would have been nice to spend a bit more time with the beautiful, dorky young man who’d barely blinked twice when I’d fallen into his arms and begged to be saved, but his life would be much simpler if I wasn’t in it.

  I only had to make sure he got squared away first.

  The room had two beds, almost inexplicably, along with the usual television and minifridge and bathroom setup. His bags were strewn across the floor, a ptop sitting on the clear-gss desk in the far corner alongside a few notebooks. A corded ndline phone resided on the nightstand between beds, nearly anachronistic but serving its purpose for a change.

  “Where are you off to next, anyway?” I asked, pacing around the room absentmindedly while Adam went straight for his ptop to type out an email.

  “Two Harbors. Meeting my client tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Then straight off to Grand Marais that night.”

  “Aggressive schedule, huh?” I said, tapping my fingers against my skirt as I paced.

  “Lotta work to be done. And it’s… It’s really important, you know? Especially in times like these,” Adam said, hitting send. He closed the ptop shut, then slumped his shoulders and tilted his head upwards to the ceiling. “I… I never really believed in what I was doing before I started working for Mrs. Duggan. You know, I was a kid, I didn’t take anything that seriously. And maybe I still don’t. But I believe in what we’re doing. And I like working there. I like working for her, even if she’s crazy. Plus I work with my best friend, so that’s a plus.”

  “That Crispin guy?” I said, my pacing leading me to standing right behind him.

  “Yeah, he’s cool. Easy to talk to. Fun to get stoned with. I actually… I’m roommates with his youngest sister, Lavender.”

  “Roommates, eh?” I said, leaning over him and aiming my face straight down towards his. My mane fell in a golden curtain, mixing in with his shadow-colored hair as our eyes locked together. “You must be eager to get back to her.”

  “It’s… It’s not like that.”

  “Do you want it to be like that?”

  “Her brother would kill me,” he whispered. “And besides, she loves someone else.”

  I wasn’t sure what, specifically, my face did when he said that, but it definitely did something. I felt it shift, but I had no idea into what shape. “I see.”

  “I guess I’m a little homesick, though. First time I’d ever felt like I belonged somewhere, and now I’m out on the road all alone.”

  “Right,” I whispered. “Well… You’ll get home. I promise. Sorry if… Sorry I caused you to make a detour.”

  “Like I said, I’m happy to help.”

  “Because you can’t stomach women in danger?”

  “What can I say? A man sees a princess in a tower, he wants to bust her out.”

  “So I’m a princess, am I?”

  “You have a bit of a Rapunzel thing going on, I won’t lie,” Adam said, reaching up and running his fingers through my hair.

  My face burned, probably an angry red shade from how flustered his words made me. My euphoria and lust inebriated my mind as the adrenaline from the great escape began to sputter out. I pulled away, looking at the floor and keeping a lid on my squeals.

  Adam, for his part, spun around in his chair and just kept looking at me. That was… That was a hungry expression, a lust of his own beginning to cloud over his eyes.

  I’d never actually been with a guy before. I’d figured out I like them at basically the same time I figured out I like girls (specifically when watching His Girl Friday at age twelve and not being able to stop myself from gawking over both Rosalind Russel and Cary Grant), but I kept it locked up in my inside the furthest reach of my brain. Certain things… Certain things hadn’t been allowed to me growing up. I’d been fortunate enough to be able to start exploring those things, the clothes and the makeup and all the cute girly stuff, but men had yet to be one of them. Barely leaving my houseboat for the past four years except for therapy and electrolysis and the occasional hair appointment definitely hadn’t helped on that front, but still.

  I was curious.

  This was a bad idea, though. I didn’t know this guy, and circumstances had forced us together, and we both had other pces we needed to go. Plus, I still had a certain abomination between my legs that, if he saw, he might get dangerous.

  Better to py it safe.

  “So, is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked, looking away from him and…

  And out the window.

  Into the parking lot.

  Where my dad’s car was.

  Fuck.

  I screamed. It popped out of me before I could stop it, and I started stepping back and breathing haggardly as I processed the sight of the silver hotrod looming in the parking lot.

  “What is it?” Adam said, racing over to me. He reached for my shoulder, but when I shimmied away, he pulled back and held his palms ft.

  I pointed out the window, where my father and his entourage were getting out of the car and walking towards the hotel.

  “Shit,” Adam said, pulling the window blinds shut. “Should we call the cops-”

  “No!” I yelped. I gathered myself, trying with all my might to hold my mask in pce. “Sorry, just… Just trust me, that’s not a good idea. I really don’t wanna get the cops involved- like, I really, really don’t.”

  Adam sat on his bed, still holding up his hands. “Okay. Fair enough. No cops. What can I do to help?”

  “You’ve already done enough- I just need to sneak out of here somehow, and-”

  “Well don’t go right now,” Adam said. “If they’re coming in, they’re probably gonna rent some rooms, then camp out in the lobby waiting for you to come down. They’ll find you right away.”

  “Right, right,” I said, resuming my pacing, my fists bunching and unbunching.

  “Just… Please sit down?”

  “What?”

  “Daisy. Please.” He gestured to the other mattress.

  I gathered a slow breath, then sat down.

  “There’s something about you,” Adam said, “This feeling I can’t shake. I don’t know how to describe it, but… I want to help you. You’re clearly in a bad spot, and getting you out of it is the right thing to do.”

  There was no way he recognized me. It was impossible. Yes, we’d overpped in school, but unless he was an avid follower of the hockey team then how would he have any idea? Was it possible he was simply a Good Samaritan?

  “Let’s just think about this, okay?” Adam said. “You’re going to Boston, and need to be there by early April. I’m in the same boat. Maybe… Maybe we can help each other.”

  “Even while my psychotic dad is chasing us?”

  “I mean, he’s not in the mob or anything is he?” Adam chuckled.

  “Not to my knowledge, no,” I said, fiddling with a strand of my hair and continually avoiding eye contact. “He’s just a businessman.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Antiques,” I said. “But he’s… I dunno, he’s always been an asshole. Then my mom left and he got worse. My younger brothers aren’t much better.”

  “Okay. Then… I have an idea. Have you ever seen that old movie, It Happened One Night?”

  “Only ten times,” I said.

  “Woman of culture. You love to see it,” Adam smiled, and… Ugh, I hated how easy it felt to him. Surely there was going to be a catch here. There had to be. “Anyway, we could do it like that. Help each other get to Boston. You need someone to watch your back. I need… Well, to be blunt, I need a ride, and some company would be nice.”

  “Like Cudette Colbert and Crk Gable?” I said, nervously meeting his kindly gaze.

  “Exactly like Cudette Colbert and Crk Gable,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at me.

  I finger-gunned him back. “It’s… It’s tempting. So, what, I come with you on your business trip, you help keep me out of trouble?”

  “Basically, yeah.”

  “So how do we deal with the problem at hand? My dad being here right now, I mean?”

  “We leave in the night. They’ll have to get tired eventually. We slip down to your car and just take off.”

  “That… That could work,” I said. I looked out the window again, noting that sunset had only barely begun. “We’ve got some time to kill, though.”

  “Good point. What should we do until then?”

  “Uh… I dunno. I guess we could watch a movie?”

  Adam tossed me the remote for the television, then id back on his bed. “Works for me. You pick.”

  I smiled again, and this time, I didn’t have to force it.

  I id back on my own mattress, and looked for something for us to watch.

  This was temporary. And there would be a catch at some point. The other proverbial shoe wouldn’t remain suspended midair forever. If we could find a way to ditch my dad and get him back on track for his business trip before we reached Boston, that would make things a million times better.

  For now, though… For now, this felt okay.