I stared at it.

“Have fun, Toots, but I want you to use some a’ that to get yourself a phone. Get a decent one with a good plan. They give you problems with the contract because of your credit history, you get Lorie to call me, and I’ll sort it out. Yeah?”

My head tilted back slowly, and I stared at him.

Okay, so there was a lot of money there because phones cost as much as some cars these days (slight exaggeration).

However.

“I can’t take this,” I said.

His brows shot together. “Why not?”

“It’s hundreds of dollars.”

“So?”

“It’s hundreds of dollars.”

“Yeah,” Buck said slowly, then repeated, “So?”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Yeah,” Buck said again, leaning slightly into me. “So?”

“I—”

He cut me off. “Babe, shut your trap and go have fun.”

“I—”

“They’re waitin’, Toots, and I got shit to do.”

“Buck—”

“Clara, go…have…fun.”

He was losing patience, I could tell.

“Do you carry that much money on you all the time?” I asked.

“No,” he answered. “I carry that much money on me when my girl’s goin’ shoppin’ and she needs some cake to have fun.”

Oh my.

Yes, I very much liked it when he was nice.

“I’ll pay you back,” I whispered, my fingers curling around the money.

“Don’t piss me off,” he replied, and this time, my chin listed back.

“What?”

He took in a deep, impatient breath.

Upon letting it go, he explained.

“I don’t got time for this shit, but I’ll make things clear considerin’ I didn’t before, though I thought I did,” he said as preamble.

When he didn’t continue, I nodded to indicate I’d heard and digested his preamble.

So he continued.

“I took you on. You’re in my house, you’re in my bed, and eventually you’re at my shop. Tonight, you’re meetin’ my kids. This all means you’re in my life. I let somethin’ in my life, I take care of it. Down the line, you get on your feet, you wanna do somethin’ nice for me in return, knock yourself out. But right now, the somethin’ nice for me you could do is get your ass in the SUV with Lorie, Driver and the girls so I can get on the road and take care of business. Now, are you gonna stop bein’ stupid and go have some fun or do we gotta talk about this for the next hour?”

I wanted to talk about it for the next hour, starting with a wee bit more discussion about taking so much money without paying it back and ending with him calling me stupid.

Considering his impatience, I decided to pick the part that might take the least time.

“It isn’t nice, calling someone stupid,” I noted quietly.

His expression changed to soft and sweet and warm, and his voice did the same thing when he replied, “I didn’t say you were stupid, baby. I said you were bein’ stupid. I know you’re not stupid. But you are gorgeous, so you don’t gotta worry that you look all right. And you gotta learn to let people who wanna do nice shit for you, do it.”

Okay then.

“Right. Now I’m going to go have some fun,” I told him.

“Right,” he murmured, his lips twitching, and he lifted a hand to curl it around the back of my neck as he bent his head and touched his mouth to mine.

His hand went from my neck to my wrist, he pulled me out of the bathroom, let me go but propelled me with fingers at the small of my back through the bedroom, out the door, onto the landing, and down the stairs to the kitchen where the girls and Driver were waiting to take me out to have fun.

I pinned a smile to my face when I saw them and hoped the day would be fun.

But I feared it would be torture.

And with things like this, I was almost always right.

9

Professor Higgins

I was right.

The day was torture.

It was torture for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, we went to Scottsdale Fashion Square, an old haunt of mine I hadn’t been to in ages.

This was because I had no money to spend.

This was also because I’d applied, interviewed and been turned down for so many jobs in shops there that I avoided it like the plague.

Secondly, Buck had given me hundreds of dollars, but I didn’t feel comfortable spending them. I would buy a cell because he told me to, but I wanted to do that just with Lorie in case they gave me grief over the contract. And I didn’t know how to get Lorie away from Minnie and Pinky.

Thirdly, Minnie didn’t like me, and she made no bones about it.

Minnie was petite, had large breasts, abundant hips and hard, assessing eyes.

Minnie was one of the MC’s member’s old lady. His name was Gash.

I could see Minnie with a man named Gash. A man named Gash seemed perfect for Minnie.

The other woman was named Pinky and she was tall, lean and had fake breasts that were pert, round and perfect, and I knew this because, in the tight tank top she was wearing, it was hard to miss. She had shining, straight black hair, was the woman of a man called Cruise and she was quiet.

Then again, with Lorie gabbing a mile a minute and Minnie throwing attitude, making it clear she wasn’t big on me being there and further didn’t like Fashion Square too much, Pinky kind of faded into the background.

And lastly, it was torture because I was out in public.

I tried to avoid this too.

People still recognized me. It came rarer, but it happened, and that day was no different. But this time, they were recognizing me with a shiner and therefore staring.

It was never comfortable and that day it was worse because I was with Minnie who made it clear she didn’t want to be with me.

Therefore, I retreated, became silent and tried to be invisible.

Also, as the slog through the stores wore on with no one really into shopping, I gave up on the cell. I’d ask Driver to take me to some phone store some other day. I hardly needed a phone when most of my time was spent at Buck’s house. He had a landline there. I’d need one when I entered the real world for good, whenever that would be, so now, I decided, it was not a priority.

We were in Victoria’s Secret.

I’d separated from the girls, and as I was noticing was usual, Pinky went her own way. Lorie and Minnie were inspecting black lace sets of underwear complete with garter belts when I accidentally wandered close, but I did this silently and they didn’t know I was there.

Therefore, I heard Minnie hiss, “… shit don’t stink.”

To this, Lorie said, “I think she’s sweet.”

And this was when I knew they were talking about me.

Before I could escape or make my presence known so they didn’t feel badly about talking about me, Minnie carried on.

“She thinks she’s better than us, fancy-ass shoes, fancy-ass top, lookin’ down her nose. Jesus, makes me sick. Her, lettin’ that asshole play her for years, thinkin’ she’s better than us. What the fuck is that all about?”