Page 25

Declan
Wrong,
This is wrong.
All of it.
I’m a criminal. I steal cars.
For her dad.
She’s too young.
I’m too much of an asshole.
She’s too honest.
All I do is lie. To get what I want. To avoid trouble. To start it. Just for the hell of it.
She’s too innocent.
And I’m guilty as sin on about a hundred different levels.
But fuck if any of that matters to me right now.
Right now, it’s all I can do to keep from stripping her naked and fucking her on the check-out conveyor belt.
And she’d let me too.
No one else has touched her before. I suspected as much but I knew it for a fucking fact the second I slipped my hand into her coveralls.
The way she held her breath while my fingertips skimmed the swell of her breast.
The way her cheeks flushed pink when my knuckles grazed her rock-hard nipple.
The muddled look on her face—half relief, half disappointment—when I pulled the kitten out of her coveralls.
I went to high school with the cashier. Her name is Connie. She was a few years ahead of me and makes small talk while she scans my cartful of shit.
“She’s cute,” she says. For a second, I think she’s talking about Tess but then I catch the look she’s giving the kitten.
“Thanks.” I don’t want to talk to her. I throw a glance at Tess. She’s waiting by the front entrance, studying the bank of prize machines harried mothers use to bribe and distract their kids. Instead of closing up her coveralls, she’s stripped them off to the waist, tying the arms around her waist. She’s wearing a ribbed white tank top. The kind guys wear. She’s not wearing a bra and I can’t stop staring at her.
“Does she have a name?”
“No,” I say without looking at her.
“Something that cute should have a name.”
Jesus. Is she flirting with me? “How’s Jake and the kids?” I say, finally looking at her. Jake is her husband. They got married when he knocked her up their senior year. That’s how it works around here. You fuck around enough, you end up putting a baby in some girl you barely know and five minutes later you’re married and working some shit job while she keeps popping them out and nags you into a heart attack by the time you’re fifty.
No, thanks.
“They’re fine.” She flushes and stops talking.
When my total flashes on the screen, I reach into my pocket and pull out a wad of cash. Connie’s eyes go wide while I peel off a few bills and toss them on the counter. A few seconds later the drawer pops open and coins rattle down the shoot to roll around in the bottom of the dispenser. Scooping them up, I tuck the cat tighter into the crook of my arm. “Keep the rest,” I tell her, walking way, cart in tow.
“Here,” I say, handing the kitten to Tess when I’m close enough. As soon as the transfer is made the little furball lets out a yowl of protest. Dropping a few quarters into a random machine, I give the crank a few turns while Tess fights the kitten as it tries to claw its way up her shirt.