Page 27 of Rogue

“Did someone hold your hand and tell you not to give up on love?”

He glanced at her from the corners of his eyes. “No.”

At the very least, no matter what else was going on in her life, Dree would trip over her own feet trying to be helpful. She was a sucker like that, too.

So, she took her hand off her snotty nose and bleary eyes, wiped it carefully on her shirt a couple of times to make sure it was dry, and held Augustine’s hand. She looked straight into his dark, fathomless eyes. “Don’t give up on love. You’re a great guy. You rescued me from a mob of creepers, and now you’re sitting here and listening to me blather on about how I screwed up my life. There’s someone out there waiting for a guy like you.”

He didn’t look away, but there was something in the slight bow of his lips and creases at the corners of his eyes that looked wounded. He said, “I don’t think anyone is coming for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

He shrugged and broke their eye contact. “It’s just a feeling, but I’ve had it for a long time. But we’re talking about you.”

“I’m kind of done talking. I’ve reached the end of this stupid,stupidtale. I got conned, and now I’m broke. I probably should be a prostitute, but I don’t think I’m smart enough. Guys would be like, ‘I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a blow job today,’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay, sure!’ Because I’m just that dumb.”

“You’re not dumb.”

“I’m hoping I am. If I’m dumb, I can get smarter.”

“You’ve had some bad breaks.”

She huffed a laugh. “Ya think?”

Augustine tugged his wallet out of his hip pocket again. He grasped all the cash inside and laid it on the counter. “This will get you started.”

Dree glanced at the stack of green and yellow bills. There was even more there than he’d tried to pay her. “Just put that money back in your wallet. I haven’t done anything to earn it.”

“You don’t have to.”

She had been raised not to take charity. Others needed it more. “Yes, I do.”

“I don’t need it. You do.”

“I’ll be fine. I always land on my feet.” She had no idea how she was going to do that.

Augustine said, “It’s nothing but pieces of paper.”

She snorted. “That sounds like someone who’s always had plenty of it. When you haven’t had enough, you know money is precious. It determines what you can eat and how safe the place is where you sleep. You’re rich, aren’t you?”

“I’m comfortable,” he admitted.

“Yeah, that’s something a rich person would say.”

“I was going to pay you for last night. Let’s pretend you didn’t say no.”

He was a nice guy, but Dree was getting a little pissed at him. “I amnota prostitute.”

“As you said, Jesus hung out with prostitutes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Does that make you Jesus Christ?”

Augustine laughed out loud at that, looking up at the stained ceiling. “Now, there’s something no one who knows me has ever accused me of. Some people have called me the very Devil in disguise or an incubus, but no one has ever confused me with the Savior.”

“There are some lines I’m not going to cross, Augustine.”

Yet.

She was going to get more desperate, she knew. When the end of the month came, even beside the fact that she needed money to eat and pay rent and buy a sleeping bag or something, Mandi would need a thousand dollars to cover Victor’s therapy costs again. That was her usual shortfall unless something made it worse. Dree wasn’t sure how much Vic was improving with language skills, but when he went to daily therapy, he was a whole heck of a lot less violent. When Mandi had tried to stop his therapy once, he’d nearly beaten the crap out of her even though he had been only eight at the time.