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  Daisy

  “So, why are we taking a boat to Michigan?” I asked, afraid of the answer. Cold air flowed around us as we found ourselves, yet again, in a marina.

  “It’s unfortunately the fastest way to Marquette from here,” Adam replied.

  “Marquette the college town in Wisconsin?”

  “Nah, the city in Michigan.”

  “Oh, God, the Upper Peninsu?”

  “Yup.”

  A vaguely incoherent slush of high-pitched sylbles escaped my mouth.

  “What?” Adam asked. “What’s wrong with the Upper Peninsu?”

  “Popur nicknames for the U.P. are ‘hell on earth’ and ‘east Wisconsin.’”

  “Pfftttt okay, duly noted. And who came up-”

  “Michiganders.”

  “Michiganders?”

  “People from Michigan,” I eborated.

  “I always thought they were called ‘Michiginians.’”

  I smiled. “No, that’s what you called guinea pigs from Michigan.”

  “Oh, well that’s adorable… Wait, no, no you’re pulling my leg.”

  We locked eyes, unblinking, for about ten seconds before I smiled. “You got me.”

  “I knew it.”

  “It’s what you call a guinea fowl from Michigan.”

  Adam groaned. “You’re ridiculous. Do all midwesterners make terrible puns like that?”

  “Only tall blonde ones with daddy issues.”

  “Noted, noted,” Adam said, not repressing his goofy smile. “Ridiculous Rapunzel girl.”

  “Is that what I am? I thought I was a yuki-onna?”

  “You contain multitudes,” Adam said, bemused.

  “Don’t we all?” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Yeah. I guess we do. Good point,” he said, while looking at me with… Were those… No, they couldn’t be… But were they… Bedroom eyes?

  No, no, that would be absurd.

  We stood at the docks, my car behind us and the sky overhead sparkling with light breaking through the clouds. The air was cool but not cold, and I wore an emerald green turtleneck sweater-dress and bck leggings with bck pumps, plus a white scarf and golden stud earrings. I’d put on my makeup that morning and whispered my mantra to myself over and over again, Better Than Perfect, Better Than Perfect, Better Than Perfect, while I’d painted my lips and contoured my cheekbones. I looked, if I do say so myself, dead sexy in an almost sultry way, especially with my hair parted steeply to the right and tumbling down in a Veronica Lake style fall over my shoulder. The warm buzz of euphoria it gave me definitely helped after st night.

  Adam had seen me. And he accepted me. But that didn’t mean anyone else would. Sure as hell didn’t mean I accepted me, either. I was broken, and the world would only pity me for it. I needed to be more. I wanted to be more. Maybe now that the mask fit me properly, if I wore it long enough it would just stay in pce? Maybe I could act my way into being someone else, well and truly? I needed to. I definitely couldn’t go back to being who I’d been before. And while it had been a relief when Adam hadn’t flinched after finding out the truth about me… He shouldn’t have had to see it in the first pce. He sure didn’t want to. Nobody did.

  Still, it had been a nice surprise when Adam… Saw me, well and truly, and hadn’t treated me too differently. A little differently, but it wasn’t the cloying condescension or apoplectic faux-betrayal I normally got. It was nice, being taken care of for a change.

  I looked over at Adam. He was dressed more casually than he’d been before: a red fnnel button-down hung over a bck and silver FLOW band t-shirt, while a pair of skinny jeans hugged his ass in an absolutely delicious manner. He also had a golden stud of his own put in his nostril, and it made him look so fucking slutty like Holy Mother of God. He looked like a guy who would shove his hand up my skirt and finger-bang me at work-function. He looked like a guy who’d hog-tie me and make me come through impact-py alone. He looked like a guy who’d chase me through a foggy forest and rail me against an ancient tree while the blood from my ruptured hymen made flowers blossom in the dirt beneath our feet.

  It was somewhere amidst all these mental images that I felt my nipples stiffen, and I sat on my hands atop the roof of my car while we waited for the ferry to approach the docks.

  Whoaaaaa boy, I was thirsty for this guy. He’d been a perfect gentleman, especially given the circumstances, but that actually turned me on even more. Made me want to poke at the boundaries, see what I could do to get him to unleash his inner freak.

  It was a bad idea, though. I mean, yeah, he wasn’t transphobic, and yeah, I felt an easy chemistry with him, but it didn’t mean anything. We’d just met and there was so much we didn’t know about each other. What would happen when he got sick of my autistic bullshit? What would happen when he got tired of being hunted by my terrible father? What would happen when a normal girl (or guy, or enby) came his way and he decided he wanted more than a cheap facsimile like me?

  It was inevitable. People got sick of me and they left. My mom. My brothers. My teammates. My high school girlfriend, Eloise, after she’d been forced to listen to me ramble about old movies one too many times. My college girlfriend, Vivienne, after she’d seen me staring at a shirtless guy at the gym for a few minutes too many. My former best friend, Tim, when I’d had the audacity to tell him that maybe the reason he wasn’t getting id anymore was because those podcasts he quoted incessantly had poisoned his brain (ugh, and he used to be so sweet, too). I wasn’t worth the fuss. I wasn’t worth sticking around for.

  I could at least enjoy the ride while I was on it. For now, Adam was at my side. For now, we could be… Friends? I guess. Traveling companions? For sure. More than that?

  Probably not. It remained to be seen, but… Probably not.

  Adam took a sip from his to-go cup of coffee. A brown bag with breakfast burritos sat on the hood between us, mine already mostly devoured. I decided to finish mine off, reaching into the bag… At the exact same time Adam reached in as well.

  Our hands met.

  A shudder of panic went through me, and I nearly recoiled, but… But he pulled out first. “Sorry,” Adam said. “I’m guessing you didn’t like that?”

  “I… It just took me by surprise.”

  “So it’s an expectation thing? You need to know in advance before someone else touches you?” he asked… Which was more than most people had ever bothered with. Huh.

  “That’s the long and short of it, yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll try to remember that.”

  “I mean, you don’t have to-”

  “I want to,” he shrugged.

  I blinked. “You… You want to?”

  “I said I wanted to take care of you, right? Best way to do that is if I let you teach me how,” he said, and he smiled, and oh God dimples! No! My Kryptonite!!! He was fucking adorable and earnest and weirdly bashful and it… Dammit!!!!

  “Thank you,” I said. “Really, though, I try to keep my mask on most of the time. If I slip up, you should be pointing it out to me.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  I flinched. “It… Well, because it’s a part of me I don’t really like, so I don’t want anyone encouraging me.”

  “You don’t want to be encouraged to rex?”

  I flinched again. That was a good point, but…

  “I just,” he continued, “Look, if I’m full of shit, please tell me. But from what I understand, people like you need time with the mask off to recharge your batteries, so to speak.”

  “That’s… That’s right, yeah. But I’m happier with it on. I don’t like who I am without it.”

  “It’s all just you, though. Right?”

  Reluctantly, I nodded. “I’d prefer it if this was the real me, though. She’s… She’s a lot cooler than who I am without it.”

  “Well, if it helps at all, I like all of it.”

  My cheeks heated, and my heart went ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, and blissful snow chilled the burning pit of my shame. The shame fought back, however, burning hot and acrid, and I shook my head. “Well, I don’t.”

  He looked me in the eyes. I forced myself not to look away. “Well then we can agree to disagree.”

  I looked at the dock below our feet. He didn’t mean that. There was no way in hell he meant that. Nobody really liked me when I was… It just wasn’t possible. It wasn’t.

  He grunted. There it was: now he was frustrated with me. Of course he was. He was a sweet boy, I could tell, and he didn’t want to let it show, but still-

  “Look, I’m not gonna tell you how you should feel, about yourself or anyone else,” Adam said, “But I’m not gonna keep quiet with what I think of you. Alright?”

  Huh? “Uh, sure. Yeah, that’s fair,” I said.

  “And that goes both ways. If we’re gonna keep traveling together, then we need to be clear about what we want, where the boundaries are, what we are to each other.”

  “And what are we to each other, then?” I said, genuinely confused about what he was insinuating.

  “For now… How about friends?”

  A tinge of disappointment registered as a bitter note on my tongue. Still, this was one of those things that felt like it was for the best. Best not to get my hopes up. Best not to get any wires crossed. “Friends.”

  “Cool,” Adam smiled, and fucking shit with the dimples again he looked like some kind of emo alt boy Prince Charming fucking dammit I was doomed! Doomed, I say! Forsaken! Damned! Promised to the Lake of Fire! I-

  He snapped his fingers. “Where’d you go, girly?”

  “Hm?”

  “Your eyes went away. Where did you go?”

  “Just… Got a little lost in my head I guess,” I said, shuffling my feet nervously.

  “Well, I can hardly judge on that one,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, and for some reason my brain conjured an image of shaving it for him. Was that a thing for me? Apparently that was a thing for me. “Still, try not to get stuck in there. There’s people who care about you out here.”

  “Like who?” I said, tilting my head.

  “Like… Like me, Daisy,” he said… Bnkly? I think it was bnkly.

  “Oh. Right. That makes sense,” I said, attempting to giggle again as I pyed with my hair. He winced again at the sound.

  Ugh.

  The boat finally docked and dropped anchor. It was surprisingly big for a ke ferry: I didn’t know that boat-passage across the ke and into Michigan was that in demand, especially at this time of year. How odd.

  It was a triple-decker yacht, painted white and silver with some crimson flourishes. The name ‘Bette Davis’ Magnificent Rack’ was inscribed onto the left-hand side near the bow, and the dulcet baritone of Frank Sinatra emanated from the top deck. Lots of people up there wearing some surprisingly ornate, old-timey outfits, by the look of it.

  Huh.

  “This is different,” Adam said.

  “Yeah, I’ll say.”

  “No, I mean it’s a completely different boat then the one that was supposed to come get us. We were supposed to get picked up by ‘Crke Gable’s Delicious Arms.’”

  “I mean I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to that,” I smirked.

  “I wouldn’t either, but you see my point,” Adam said.

  “Yeah. Did you get an email from Rose or-”

  “Hold on, lemme check,” Adam said as he thumbed through his emails. “Okay, not from Rose or anyone at VDAC, but I did get one from the travel agency itself.”

  “Travel agencies are still a thing?”

  “Yeah, mostly companies using them to handle business trip stuff. Contract work. It’s cheaper than paying someone to do it in house… I think.”

  “Alright. So what does this one say?”

  “That our boat has been changed, but this one has the capacity for us and is going to the same destination.”

  “And that’s… This boat?”

  “Yeah. And it’s… Oh, boy.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s a murder mystery cruise.”

  “What?!”

  He handed me the phone. “See for yourself.”

  It did in fact confirm what he’d just said. “It’s a murder mystery cruise… That sts three hours? For a ride on Lake Superior in early Spring-”

  “It is not Spring,” Adam groaned.

  “Late Winter is basically Spring.”

  “Daisy, I’ll believe most things you tell me, but I am not falling for your yuki-onna/valkyrie/winter fae propaganda. It’s fucking cold!”

  “God, your pouty-face is cute,” I ughed. And then immediately cringed. Why did I-

  “Eh, mine’s okay. My friend Crispin, though, his pouty-face is super sexy.”

  I snort-ughed, which, surprisingly, Adam did not cringe at. Huh. “And that is very much something I wanna hear more about, but we should probably deal with the situation at hand. How do you wanna handle this?”

  “Well, everything checks out with email. We may as well board.”

  I raised a well-sculpted eyebrow (God, that had been a weeks-long process when I’d first started- my brows used to be THICC). “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Just… Seems a little suspicious. What with the whole thing with my dad.”

  “You think he’s doing this? How would that even work? You said he was an antiques dealer, not a mafioso-”

  “Again with the mafia talk- I’m beginning to think you’re a little racist, Mr. Kurosawa,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him.

  Adam rolled his eyes and chuckled. “You caught me. But seriously: it feels like a stretch that he managed to commandeer a boat and dress it up like this in less than three days.”

  “That… Okay, that’s a bit much, even for him, I’ll grant you.”

  “If you’re really concerned, though, we can always just drive.”

  “No, no it’s fine, you’re on a schedule and I don’t wanna dey you,” I said. “Let’s just get on the boat. It’s a three hour voyage. How bad could it be?”

  ***

  Honestly, it wasn’t that bad!

  The party was in full swing by the time we got the car aboard, crooners singing out of the speakers while people went around dressed in dapper suits and gorgeous gowns, holding flutes of champagne and dancing old-timey dances.

  The captain, a broad-shouldered and barrel-chested butch woman with short white hair and cd in a blue overcoat and a white sailor’s hat, her nametag reading Captain Hepburn, welcomed us aboard and told us that there were costumes avaible on the first deck if we wanted to join the party.

  Adam and I looked at each for a moment, then simultaneously shrugged. Because why not? How else were we gonna kill three hours.

  We went onto the bottom deck and parsed through wracks of costumes as the docks faded from view behind us and we furthered out onto the wavy waters of Lake Superior. Screens partitioned off changing areas while we searched. God, these vintage dresses were all so pretty. I had no idea how I was supposed to pick one. And it felt nice, getting to dress up for a party the way a girl did. Guys took no time to get ready. They barely pnned or prepared for parties at all. And don’t get me wrong, a kegstand with a bunch of half-naked jocks can be lots of fun, but there was something different, something warm and tingly, about getting to do it like this.

  Finally, I found it. A burgundy, midi-length cocktail dress with long sleeves and poofy shoulders and a pencil-style skirt. Looser than a modern pencil skirt, of course, but still slender and designed to accent my girlish figure. Honestly, with how much weight I’d lost, it was nice getting to drape long, flowy dresses over my willowy frame (my stupid, ugly broad shoulders notwithstanding, of course). I definitely wouldn’t mind having a bit more of a figure, a bit more curve in my hip and a bit more bobble in my boob, but I didn’t wanna overdo it either. Plus…

  Plus there was a part of me that kinda missed being in better shape. I hated being big and bulky and muscled and had no desire to go back to that kind of huge gym-bro bod, but testosterone-blockers had absolutely nuked my physique and I legit struggled to open jars now. Maybe some non-cardio exercise wouldn’t kill me… Just no strength training. I missed being able to lift things, but I was sick and tired of having to be strong all the time.

  I shrugged and stepped into the changing area, dress in hand. My pumps, fortunately, worked perfectly with the dress, so no need to change anything there. I took off my green sweater dress and carefully folded it, then slipped into the cocktail dress with its ticklishly soft fabric and gold buttons running up the front. I gave myself a twirl as I looked into the mirror, the skirt going spinny and conjuring a bright smile on my face. I completed the look with a rope of costume pearls, a long bck ribbon around my waist like a belt, white gloves, bck stockings, and a dies’ winter hat out of the 1930s. The color matched my dress, and an artificial flower was worked around it and accented it like a bow. My golden mane spilled out from under the hat, and while part of me wanted to tie it back to complete the look… Nah, I looked hot as fuck already. No need to complicate it.

  Better Than Perfect indeed, I thought as I touched up my red lipstick in the mirror.

  I stepped out of the changing area to find Adam already dressed, trading his sexy emo guy look for a dapper tuxedo that hugged his tight body in all the right pces. Damn! His shoulders were broader than I realized. Maybe even a little broader than mine.

  That was… That was certainly intriguing.

  “You look good,” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  “What about me? How do I look?”

  “How honest do you want me to be?”

  “As honest as you can be,” I said. Oh God, how bad did I look?

  “You look absolutely gorgeous,” Adam said, walking up to me.

  I squeaked, and was sure I turned bright red. “You’re… You’re fttering me.”

  “No, just being honest. Like you asked me to,” Adam said. “And you look gorgeous. Like Jean Harlow.”

  “Hey, watch it. This is my real hair color,” I said. “Besides, I’m not nearly that-”

  “You know what I mean,” Adam replied, taking another step closer. “And stop trying to insult yourself when I give you a compliment. Believe me when I say you’re gorgeous, yeah?”

  I resisted the urge to bite my lower lip, succeeding only through the desire not to get lipstick on my teeth. “Why Mr. Kurosawa, if you’re not careful I might think that you’re flirting with me.”

  He smirked, and his face looked both beautiful and punchable. “Trust me, sweetheart, when I decide to flirt with you, you’ll know it.”

  “Noting the… Noting the future tense there.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a man of my word.”

  I gulped. This felt like the part where I should fiddle with his tie or stroke his cheek or go in right for the kiss. Instead, however, I babbled autistically for fifteen seconds before I reassembled my mask. Better Than Perfect, come on, you can do this.

  Adam offered me his hand. “Come on. Let’s see if we can get to the party before the whole ‘murder mystery’ thing starts up.”

  I brought in a deep breath through my nose, held it in my chest, and then let it out through my mouth. Then I nodded, and I took his hand in mine as we ascended the metal stairs to the top dock.

  Oldies pyed loud and proud on the speakers, the costumes were immacute, there were free drinks everywhere… It was honestly a fun time. Adam brought me out onto the dance floor and spun me. My hair whirled around me, and my skirt spun again, and I squealed with delight.

  “Now, I’m no Fred Astaire, but I did learn how to dance in drama club,” Adam said.

  “You did drama club?”

  “Fall and winter, yeah. Spring was for baseball.”

  “How well-rounded. I was either pying hockey or training for hockey all year,” I said as I let Adam lead me into a waltz. Back and forth, side to side, back and forth, side to side.

  Bliss flowed from his hands and up my arms before settling in the rest of me. It was like a fresh snowfall, like catching snowfkes on my tongue, like…

  Like skating.

  I felt like I was skating when I danced with him.

  God, this was wonderful. He was wonderful. And he… He accepted me, at least somewhat. And he’d given the implication that he would in fact flirt with me at some point soon. Maybe… Maybe I could flirt back? I’d still never been with a man, and Adam… Well, we certainly had chemistry, and common interests, and the ability to spend a ton of time together without going crazy. That had to be something, right? Perhaps… Perhaps after we got to Boston, and I was situated and taken care of, this was something I could… That we could talk about. This was all a bit whirlwind, but that wasn’t a bad thing per se. If anything, it was romantic. We just had to survive this trip first, one leg at a time. And Adam was right, the likelihood that my father had sent this boat for us and staged a murder mystery party as cover was low…

  Which was when something caught my attention over Adam’s shoulder. Standing at the other end of the deck, pouring champagne into a flute, was one of my father’s security guards. The big white guy with the shaggy brown hair was gussied up for the party. I couldn’t see his counterpart anywhere, but-

  “Good heavens!” a female voice ruptured across the party. The music cut out, and Adam and I stopped dancing and looked over towards the other end of the dance floor to find a woman standing over a man who’d fallen to the floor. “There’s been a murder!”

  And the man on the floor, the shorter southeast Asian man pying the murder victim… Was my father’s other security guard.