Текст книги "Slow Twitch"
Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 22 страниц)
Fuck my relatives for leaving her in this dump. I had painted her exterior, weeded and planted enough to start a damn hippie commune garden, fixed her steps and porch, painted every room in the interior – the kitchen three fucking times because yellow is a little bitch and it never look a thing like the damn little sample once I got it up on the wall – retiled the kitchen and bathroom floors, and was starting in on the basement, which was a dump. And she had to go down there every day to do her laundry. And mine, since I didn’t know how to use a washing machine, and I didn’t want to break hers.
At least my Aunt Helene was a goddamn saint and could cook like you wouldn’t believe.
It kept me from my natural inclination, which was to bitch about my shitty lot in life and whine about all of the work I did. There was no need for my usual little hissy fits. Aunt Helene really thought I was a godsend, which was about as ironic as shit can get. I mean, I was sent to her for having such an assload of coke in the house that even my dipshit drug-tolerant mother freaked.
Anyway, we got along perfectly. She was really happy and liked having me there. That was a nice change from the way things usually went when I was living with someone.
Work at the diner was a little less clear-cut. I had to mentally rewind a little bit, to where the real scariness began. The Erikson siblings weren’t bullshitting about their mom.
Rosalie Erikson clocked in at maybe 5’2” and 110 pounds. She had long black hair and big doe eyes and looked in no way like she could be the mother of a kid old enough to be in high school, with her little curvy/pert figure that absolutely answered the question of where Cadence got that body from. The three Eriksons I met were actually only three of four. The last was baby Sullivan, always on Rosalie’s hip. It made her angry to have to come into work and expose Sullie to hot oil and death metal and idiot workers (her words, more or less). So anytime she busted in, this woman, who might usually be just your average scary bitch, was a raging, blood-thirsty creature of the underworld. Accessorized with the world’s cutest little kid.
My one and only saving grace was Sullie’s decision that I was cool enough to hang with, and I have to thank whatever deity is up there for that little piece of good luck. The first day Rosalie came in there was fire shooting out of her eyes. It was directed at Brian, the half-witted burger flipper. She came in the double doors, her hair flying around from the anti-fly blower at the door. Everything went silent except for the screaming from the stereo.
Waitresses made themselves scarce, cooks were suddenly totally intrigued by the bubbling oils and vats of relish, and big ol’ Sir Erikson himself came almost into the kitchen, caught sight of his woman on a mission, and high-tailed it back to the safety of his office.
“I need to speak to you,” Rosalie hissed, pointing a finger at Brian. Sullie toddled over to the sink.
“Hi.” He looked at me with huge, brown baby eyes.
“Hey, little man.” I smiled at him.
“Water,” he said clearly and pointed at the sprayer that gets the crusted-on shit off of pans and utensils.
“Yeah.” I crouched down next to him. “Smart, kid. You want to spray it?”
“Yes.” He gave me a long, quiet look.
I didn’t know a lot about kids and how to determine how old they might be. Sullie was little enough that his mom carried him on her hip. He drank a bottle sometimes. He could walk and say a few things. He looked like a baby to me. Anyway, he was no dummy.
I got a crate for him, pulled the water thing down, lined up some metal containers for him to squirt, and he went to town, giggling and screeching while his mother made some noise of her own.
I came in late, but what I heard was bad enough.
“…then I hear you say the word ‘ punta’ about me behind my back, you little prick? You think you’re so hot, you say that word to my face! After my family gives you a good job, a good salary, hires your brother, that’s what I have to hear my innocent children repeat that they heard? What do you have to say for yourself? Don’t cry now, you little shit. I’m the one who should be crying! All the good I do for you, and that’s what you think is appropriate?”
It was fascinating. He really was crying. Poor douche bag. It was probably one of those passing remarks he made when he was pissed. Oh well, that shit did not fly here, and we got warned all the time. You did not talk about the owners or their kids unless you wanted your ass spanked in front of the whole kitchen.
Brian was apologizing, and Rosalie was accepting as if it were beneath her to even consider doing it. Then it was over, and she realized Sullie wasn’t at her feet.
The look of terror on her face made me fear for my life a little. I was the one with the kid. Maybe she didn’t want him mucking in the sink. I waved a little, and she saw me and raced over.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, sweeping Sullie up. He was still laughing and kissed her.
“Water!” he told her.
“I see that, Sullie boy.” She smiled at him. Holy shit, she was gorgeous when she smiled. Was this woman really the demon who had Brian pulling his ball cap low over his eyes so we couldn’t see the residual tears?
“Thanks, Saxon.” She pursed her lips and looked me up and down, assessing my worth. “Listen, we’re going to be short a waiter on Saturday. I hate to throw you in on such a busy shift, but the kids say you’re smart and hard-working. And you’re pretty cute. You’ll get plenty of tips. Cadence will set you up with your gear before you leave tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled at me, regally, then gave Brian a final glare before she headed to the back office to see Tony.
So she thought I was cute? I grinned. Moms usually loved me. I was cougar bait, and I knew it. My smile was gone pretty fast when I thought about meeting up with Cadence. That wasn’t exactly something I was looking forward to.
Cadence had presented a semi-unique problem in the few weeks I’d been confined in diner hell. So she was beautiful. Big deal. I’d slept with girls just as pretty, if not prettier, more times than I could count. I’d been with smarter, more athletic, more stylish, sweeter, more dangerous, bitchier; you name the type or subtype and I’d been with her.
So what was it about Cadence that had me all shook up?
At first I thought that my recent infatuation run was just something I was going to get through and get over. Because I had been a little crazy about Brenna. But that was different. Brenna had been pretty much instantly unattainable, and somewhere in my subconscious, I had always known that she was in love with Jake. That didn’t mean she wasn’t attracted to me too. But I knew attraction; it fizzled. Once Brenna had some concentrated one-on-one time, she’d realized that I was basically an asshole and had gone running back to Jake. Where she always belonged in the first place.
I kind of wish I hadn’t screwed things up with Jake, because I had some serious shit to ask him. Like what it felt like when he saw Brenna, when he hung out with her, and when he couldn’t be around her. I wanted to ask him what he felt when he thought they might not be together anymore.
Because Jake had fallen in love with Brenna.
Not that I was close to love! Good Lord, I wasn’t a total and complete masochistic moron. This was just more than lust. Less than love. More than like.
I had no fucking idea what it was.
Which was doubly pathetic when you considered the fact that we had never had one real conversation, never exchanged one word that was better than barely civil, never touched, and never hung out. I knew I sounded like a wanker when I explained it, but it was what I felt. Whether I like it or not. And I really, really didn’t like it.
So I felt like a pretty intense fool when I found myself getting excited about the prospect of working with her. And maybe being a waiter wouldn’t suck too much.
I could sense when she finally came to see me, later that night. She walked up to the sink where I was still spraying chunks of chili sauce off metal spoons.
“Hey, Crackhead.” She popped one hip against the gleaming, damp side of the sink and crossed her arms tight over her chest. “Mom told me I have to show you the ropes tonight so you don’t screw up tomorrow.” Her voice told me with no doubt that the whole idea pissed her off royally. “You need to come with me. Will can finish your dishes.” She snapped at Will and he ran over all eager, as if she hadn’t just called him over like a dog.
She set everything up like she owned the place…oh, wait, she did. When she was satisfied with the dishwasher stuff, she led me to the basement.
“What do we need down here?” I stuck my hands in my pockets and followed her down the steep staircase.
“You’re not going to be a back-dweller anymore.” Her black ponytail swished as she took the stairs two at a time. “You need a uniform. And, obviously, you need your skates.”
I stopped suddenly, knowing damn well what she had said, but willing myself to imagine that her voice was full of humor. Haha. Big joke.
She glared back up at me, her eyes slits. “What the hell are you waiting for? I still have a shitload of cleaning to do. Stop stalling, Crackhead.” Then she muttered to herself in what sounded like Spanish. And I only know that because I’m fairly multilingual when you only count obscenities.
“I can’t do that.” I popped my hands up and shook my head, ready to stand my ass right in front of those shitty, sweltering sinks for another long jump of shifts. “Be on roller skates,” I clarified, barely able to say the words.
Roller skates?
She couldn’t be serious. I had put a lot of my pride into the shitter when I took this piece of shit job, but I wasn’t about to be a buffoon on skates for the entire world to take shots at. I had some small shred of self-respect left, and I wanted to keep it intact.
“If you need me to, I’ll show you how to skate. Jesus, don’t they have roller skating down on the farm? I mean, they have cocaine.” Her green eyes crackled.
What did I like about her so much? It wasn’t just that she was pretty or smart or sure of herself. It was like I was fascinated by her. I wanted to know more about her. And it was definitely beyond my control. Because if I could have turned it off, I would have in a second. Who would want to deal with this constant ridicule and never-ending shitty mood? I could talk myself out of obsessing over her with logic so firm it would have convinced anyone but a total idiot.
Call me a total idiot.
“Yeah, we have hard drugs and skating rinks.” My voice was more pissed off than I wanted to let on. “I canskate. Like if you held a gun to my head and said I had to skate or get my brains blown out, then technically, yes I can skate.” I glared back at her.
She stomped back up the stairs, until she was just one below me, and she jabbed her finger at my chest. “Well there is a gun at your head, asshole. It’s called ‘keeping this restaurant from tanking.’ Every weekend we don’t meet out mortgage goal, my mother and father get this much closer to bankruptcy.” She held her finger and thumb and inch apart. “And if we go down, your family’s precious cash cow is gone. Is that a scary enough gun, rich boy?”
And I wanted to shake her up, even though what she just told me made me realize that part of her crappy personality was probably due to the strain of knowing her parents’ investment could take a nosedive depending on the whims of its teenage workforce. But sympathy had never been my strong suit, and my lack of caring didn’t fail me this time either.
“Did it ever occur to you, Cadence, that my family has more money than Oprah could fucking dream of? This restaurant is so meaningless it took them almost a week to remember that we had it so they could send me here to rot. If this place goes down, yourfamily is the only one on a sinking ship.” I kept my voice even and cold, not letting her see how riled up I was.
She kept her chin jutted up and out, but I saw her bottom lip wobble and she blinked fast. Then she was down the stairs, lost in the maze of shelves and boxes that clogged the basement floor.
I made her cry.
And I pretty immediately felt like a huge, gaping asshole.
I ran down the rest of the stairs calling her name, hoping that she would punch me in the face or kick me in the balls when I found her. Otherwise, I wasn’t really sure how to handle the situation.
I wove in and out of boxes listening to the wet, choking sounds that were spilling out of her throat. When I found her, she was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up, her arms resting on them, her forehead against her arms. She was a tight little ball of misery, and even though I knew I hadn’t made the misery, I had unleashed it just by being myself.
Typical.
“Do you want to take a swing?” I asked the little huddled ball of Cadence. “I deserve it. C’mon. Hit me.”
“You’re not worth it, Crackhead,” she croaked, not looking up. Then she hiccupped.
I knelt down in front of her, my hands reaching out but not actually touching her. I was fairly sure she would be pissed to have me touch her. “What I said is true. But I was a jerkoff for saying it.”
She looked up then, her eyes red and puffy and said exactly what I would have predicted she would say. “Fuck you, Saxon.”
I thought when she started using my name instead of just calling me ‘Crackhead’, it would be a good thing, but I had been overly optimistic.
“What I said…” I began, but she didn’t even look up at me. “What I said, I said to get a reaction out of you, okay?”
Now she looked up. Her mascara was ringed under her eyes in black half moons and her lips looked pale and dry. “But it’s true. Don’t feel like you told me something I didn’t already know. Good God, Saxon, I’m not a moron. This place,” she looked around wearily, “was my parents’ dream. Their stupid, stupid dream. And we’re stuck here. Pammy and Jimmy and even Sullie. And me.”
“You’re what? A junior? College will be here in no time,” I said, grasping for straws.
Her eyes were so green they looked like sea glass; cold, angry sea glass.
“Have you been listening, half-wit?” she snapped. “They hardly make the mortgage every month. Where the hell are they going to pull money for college? I’ll be lucky if I get enough time away from this shithole to get to community college classes.” Little wispy pieces of her hair were stuck all over her forehead and cheeks. She looked really young suddenly.
“Don’t give up on it yet.” I knelt right next to her. “Teach me how to skate. I promise you, I’ll bring business in.”
She snorted. “How?”
“Because I’m so fucking fine,” I said, and felt so good when she smiled a tiny, insignificant smile that it made my chest ache a little. “And I’m fast as hell. And if I put a fraction of my rotten brain to it, I’ll be the best waiter your parents have ever seen.”
“It’s a shit job,” she said quietly.
I reached out and made a move to put my hand to her face, but I was watching to see if she was going to flinch or give me that deserved right jab. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. I pushed her hair out of her eyes and cupped my hand under her pointy little chin. Her skin was unbelievably soft and warm. She nestled her face on my palm for a minute.
“I’ve had shittier.” It broke the spell.
She pulled away from my hand, and I could still feel the residual heat from her cheek on the skin of my palm and up along my thumb.
“Alright.” She nodded. “I guess we should do it, then.”
She got up and pressed her fingers hard under her still-watering eyes, wiping away the leftover mascara. She went through some boxes and fished out a few white t-shirts and black pants, then pulled over three pairs of skates, black with red wheels.
They were the old-fashioned, four-wheeled kind. I had skated on them before, but way back when I was a kid. Even roller blades and hockey skates were about five years in my past.
“You need to try them on,” she said. “Everyone likes a different fit. And it’s not as easy as matching shoe size.”
I put them all on and watched her while I laced up. Some of the enormous wall she had put up was slowly crumbling down.
I wanted to see her smile.
I wanted to see her naked.
I looked at her and grinned, and I got my first wish. She obviously had no idea what perverted things I was thinking.
“I think these are the pair.” I moved my ankles back and forth, hoping I chose a good size. I unlaced them and stuffed my feet back in my sneakers. “Mind if I go around the parking lot a few times before I become your private clown tomorrow?”
She nodded, bit her lip cutely, and tossed me that unbelievably sexy smile. We walked up the stairs, our hands just barely brushing.
By the time we were upstairs, the restaurant was fairly deserted. It was late on a Friday night, and everyone had somewhere to be. Except one juvenile delinquent and the kids of two harried restaurant owners. Pamela and Jimmy leaned against the Jetta, waiting patiently. When I sat to put my skates on, Jimmy laughed.
“Oh, man, that sucks. Did my mom make you?” He was almost shaky with lanky excitement.
“Kind of.” I tied the laces tight, stood up, and moved forward awkwardly. Pamela ended her phone conversation and hooted.
“Now try it with a tray of food and drinks,” she taunted good-naturedly.
I clomped around the parking lot a little, once in a while glancing down at the unforgiving cement that would be my unquestioned fate if I couldn’t keep on my feet.
Or wheels. Whatever.
I started to go faster, and as soon as I got a sense of my balance, I was racing and it felt good. Soccer season seemed like it had been a hundred years ago, and I hadn’t been on a dirt bike in months. This was as close to flying as I’d come, at least physically, in a long time.
Jimmy and Pamela cheered and encouraged me to do stupid shit in a way that’s probably the copyright of idiot teenagers. I closed in on a cement barricade, put my feet together, and propelled myself over it. Even Cadence cheered at that one.
“More! More!” Jimmy chanted.
The bright white parking lot lights flooded the cement circle with dizzying blue-white brilliance, and the hot air leftover from the long summer day sizzled off the blacktop and was pushed away by the cool air of the late night. It was just me and the Eriksons and the moths, hanging out in the lonely, nearly empty parking lot of their parents’ place.
I skated fast and hard toward a planter that was at least three feet high and jumped it with the worried screams of Pamela and Cadence and the crowing encouragement of Jimmy in my ears. I sailed over, landed fine, but couldn’t stop my own momentum, and wound up slamming into the side of the building.
“Stop!” Cadence laughed. “Stop! You’re going to break your leg, and then who will I force to work with me tomorrow?”
I rubbed my shoulder and shook my head. “You’re a cold-hearted snake, Cadence,” I said and unlaced the skates. I put then in the little booth that was no man’s land, the skater’s hovel, the little piece of random turf between the interior of the restaurant and the screeching cars and chaos of the customers outside. I slid inside Pamela’s car, stuffing my feet into my shoes as I went.
Cadence didn’t plaster herself to her door on this particular night. She didn’t curl into my lap like I would have liked either, but it was nice that she was giving me the benefit of some of her company. She put her hand down on the portion of the seat that was technically between us, but if you were a calculating bastard like myself, you would have noticed that her fingertips were just a quarter of an inch closer to my side than to hers.
I tilted my body toward the middle, and she leaned over too. We made a strange double pyramid, inches from touching at the crowns of our heads and growing apart slightly with every inch downward, then closer again at our legs and feet. When she looked up at me, there was something in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was friendship. Hell, I would take that happily this time around.
I abandoned any hope of getting her into my bed. I abandoned any hope of seducing her in other ways. For once, I knew that I could do with her what I’d never quite had the guts to do with Brenna.
I could fall for her more than just a little and pull her into falling for me. And if it all worked without a hitch, we would fall right into each other’s arms and mean something.
At that point, in Pamela’s backseat, it was just a promise of things that might come and nothing more. But I was willing to bank on that promise. When Pamela pulled up at Aunt Helene’s house, I swear I saw a glint of regret in Cadence’s eyes. Whether or not we were going to admit it, we were pulling together.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I slammed my door and looked back in through the open window.
Cadence pulled at her hair, smoothing it over and over in her hands, then nodded. “Tomorrow. Saxon,” she added.
Thatwas the way I had imagined my name sounding on her lips.
I gave a short wave and walked up the stairs to the food I knew would be warming for me in the oven. God bless my fucking saint of an aunt.
The next morning, I put new shelving in Aunt Helene’s linen closet. Whoever had done it the first time must have been on meth. I should have known, considering the number of tweakers I’d been around in my short career as a dealer.
It was strangely comforting to go through the motions; cut the shelf, cover it in the smelly flower paper Aunt Helene gave me, measure the brackets out, drill the holes, set the shelves up, fold the linens back onto them.
The house was starting to look a hell of a lot better. It had been my idea to paint the mismatched chairs in the dining room one color. Okay, technically it was Cassidy Adams’s idea. She was the dipshit host of some Home and Garden Television show Aunt Helene loved, and I watched it with her. It seemed weird to me to love something like Home and Garden TV when you lived in a craphole. It was like watching the Food Network and eating Chef Boyardee. So when Aunt Helene saw something she liked, I got my shit together and we did it.
Like the dining room chairs. Then the painting on the walls. Then the molding, all set up in fancy rectangles with corners that took me a few hellish hours to get right. Then the chandelier that I almost electrocuted myself putting up. We found an old piece-of-shit buffet thing that I stripped and refinished and put new wallpaper inserts in where the doors were recessed (another Cassidy Adams idea). When I was done hanging up pictures of her parents that I had scanned, enlarged, and framed, Aunt Helene cried.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, panicked. I put the drill on the table and put my arms around her. She was so small, it was like holding a rag doll. Not that I’d held many in my life. “Do you hate it? The resolution is kind of shitty, but I thought they looked pretty good.”
“No.” She shook her head hard. “How can you think I hate it? I love…I love…” She flapped her arms up and down, like she had no words for what she loved.
“Well, you just tell me what you like and we’ll do it, okay?” I kissed her forehead.
She patted my back, then squeezed the skin at my hips and kissed my cheeks.
Living with Aunt Helene had changed a lot of what I thought were truths about me and life. For example, I had always thought of myself as a lazy fuck with no motivation. A few weeks ago, if someone had told me that I would tackle a few dozen home improvement projects in addition to having a full time job this summer, I would have laughed my ass off.
I never imagined that it would feel so good to have someone leave me a plate of pork chops and cabbage in the oven. I never thought I’d start getting to bed at a normal time and waking up in the morning ready to do something other than snort a line of coke and jerk around.
And, most of all, I never imagined that it would all feel so fucking good. That I would actually prefer a life of mundane, blue-collar work in a falling-down house with an ancient aunt and a group of crazy coworkers to my privileged existence as a lonely pampered fucking prince in a cold-ass mansion.
I got ready for work while Aunt Helene fried up some more of her incredible cookies. When I was ready, she handed me a wax paper bag, splotchy with delicious, buttery oil, and I kissed her cheek and headed out to Pamela’s car.
“Cookies, compliments of Aunt Helene.” I tossed the bag to Jimmy who cheered, stuffed his face, and passed the cookies around.
Cadence sat stiffly in her seat, pressing down on the pleats of her skirt.
“Hey.” She didn’t even glance at me.
“Hey,” I answered. “So, are you ready for a laugh fest?”
She smiled a tiny, tiny smile. “You have to try,” she said earnestly. “Today is going to be crazy. I…I tried to talk Mom into getting someone else to do it. I think you’re too new. But she said you were here to work. And she said she has a feeling about you.”
“Then listen to her,” Pamela interrupted.
Cadence and I both looked up, surprised. It was a tiny ass car, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like any of us imagined that anything we said was truly private. We were all always eavesdropping. We just had the good tact to not interfere where we weren’t wanted.
“She’s smart,” Pamela continued. “And she knows things. You know what I mean.”
Jimmy, Cadence, and Pamela all nodded, and I felt a little creeped out. What exactly had Rosalie said about me? Because, apparently, what she said was pretty much gospel. Before I had too much time to freak myself out, we were at the diner, piling out of the car. For a minute, we stood outside in the hot, promising Jersey sun, willing the work night to be over already. But we couldn’t kid ourselves. We had to go through with this, so we might as well not fuck around about it.
Pamela and Jimmy headed inside, where she was an indoor waitress and he was a fountain boy, one of the kids who filled drinks for the outside waiters and waitresses. It was too risky to come in and out of the restaurant on skates, so there was this little alcove right by the kitchen and soda fountain with a window. When you worked outside, you stuck your head through the window and sent your order tickets in and got drinks set up for you. Then you took the drinks out to the waiting cars and went back to pick up the food orders. Same as a regular waiting job. Except you were on skates.
“So, um, how do you want to split it?” Cadence asked. Three cars had just pulled up. “We can do, like assigned spaces or we can just switch off.”
“How do you like to do it?” I asked, adding enough sexual suggestion to my voice to give her the assurance that I meant more than I was saying.
She looked alarmed. “Stop it, Saxon,” she said firmly. “This is work, okay? I take it seriously. No more bullshit.” Before I could reply, she flicked a gaze at the cars. “You work all even numbered spots, I’ll work the odds. And we’ll take turns skating the circuit in case people pull in across the lot.”
“Okay.” The diner was designed in a huge circle, so you could potentially have two cars parked on opposite sides of the circle and not notice one at all. And since customers at any eatery are ninety percent tools, it usually worked out exactly that way, according to Cadence.
I skated to my first car. Two older guys.
“Can’t we pick our server?” one griped.
They were livery-speckled old fucks who finally had the money to drive the car the guys who used to beat them up in high school drove. And they were leering at Cadence in a way that made me pretty hot. I didn’t have once fucking fraction of an ounce of guilt because they were old as fuck. I was ready to beat their ancient grandpa asses.
“Strip club’s down the road,” I sneered. “You want to eat or not?”
They muttered about the shitty service, but gave me the order anyway. I skated back to the booth. Cadence was there, her orders under the silver bell she was ringing.
“Here.” She handed me a miniature photo-copied menu. “It’s for trainees. I forgot to give you one.”
“I already know it,” I tossed it onto the counter, “but thanks.”
“You know the whole menu? Prices and all?” She leaned against the low red counter. Her legs were so long and tan, I couldn’t help but think about getting wrapped in them. I had to lean over her to put my ticket down, and I could smell the sweet smell of her hair. I put a hand on her waist, as if I were steadying myself.
“You okay?” She grabbed my forearm.
I made my best wussy/worried face. “Yeah. Just getting my bearings.”
Her green eyes narrowed a little. “I watched you skate to the booth backwards.”
“Yeah, well, it comes and goes,” I said offhandedly.
She shook her head, then bent over a list of drinks, some scratched out. “Write your drink orders here for Jimmy,” she murmured. “He gets ten percent of our tips.”
“The car I just took wanted you.” I flicked my thumb their way. “Some old geezers.”
She peeked out of the window. Thank God this little booth was air conditioned. It had to be almost a hundred degrees outside.
“In the blue convertible?” She leaned over to see better, and I saw the edge of her little cheerleader bottoms under her skirt.
I shook obscene thoughts out of my head and tried to focus on work. “Yeah.”
She sighed. “Damn it. They tipped me a twenty last week.”
“Doesn’t it feel a little whorish?” Alright, I was being a prick, but I was kind of hoping she’d ask why I hadn’t given her the customers, and then I was hoping she would be thankful that I was protecting her honor.
“I didn’t fuck them,” she said, her eyes suddenly that angry girl bright that’s just no good.
“I didn’t say that.” I sat on the counter and watched her lean over and add her tickets up, slashing numbers on the paper with neat, precise jabs of fury.
“You implied it,” she growled through her clamped teeth. “It’s money, Saxon. If they like the way I look and the way I smile, and that makes them leave me more, then good. Good for me.”
“Fine,” I snorted. “I’ll pass the next old perverts along.”
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get your share,” she seethed. “Though, I bet when it’s some old woman drooling over you, it won’t be whorish, right? It will just be making tips.” She tossed her black hair over her shoulder and shook her head. “Un-fucking-believable.”
