Page 3 of Existential
TWO
Dagne
I can count nine times I’ve gotten this desperate, and yet the anxiety never goes away. Palms sweaty and wrapped around the strap of my tote bag, I head for the exit, feigning interest in a stand that displays sunglasses. The clerk shifts behind his plexi-glass enclosure and watches as I slip a purple-framed pair out of the holes and try them on.
Not bad. Might have considered buying them if I had a spare twenty dollars, too.
Hands hot and heavy, I slip the plastic arms back into the display holes, carefully aligning the bridge over the hook. The God-awful roar of motorbikes outside matches the incessant thump of my heart while I weigh my options.
Do I fake interest in another aisle to shake the clerk’s attention? Or would that be too obvious? Perhaps I’m best to do what he probably expects least: head straight for the door?
I thrust a hand in my pocket one last time, and shake out the few coins I have in my palm. One dollar, fifteen. No way is that enough to buy something and pass off as legitimate.
Damn it.
I hastily stuff the change back into my denim cut offs and beeline for the exit, sure that if I can make it as far as the sidewalk the heat will halve. All I have to do is get through these doors and I’m—
“Woah there, little lady!”
My breath hitches as the tall, broad biker raises both hands over his head, sidestepping me in my haste to get out the door.
“Sorry,” I manage to mumble as I narrowly avoid collecting the dark-haired accomplice who has his head down to put on … glasses?Odd.
You don’t often see bikers who wear glasses.
“Hey!” My heart rate triples at the less friendly cadence of the clerk who follows me out the door. “You gonna pay for that?”
A thick arm sweeps around my middle and spins me on my heel so that I’m neatly tucked into the side of the spectacled badass. “You at it again, baby?”
Baby?
“Sorry man, she does this all the time,” he continues. “Gets so excited to see me that she forgets she hasn’t paid yet. Ain’t that right?”
I hazard a glance at the guy’s strong jaw and perfectly defined lips as he smiles down at me, hand relaxing a little as though to test if I’ll bolt.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I—I forget.” Turning my attention to the clerk, I fake a hasty search of my bag, knowing damn well I have no money in there. “Shoot.”
“Forgot your purse again too, babe?”
“Yeah.” Thank God for shortsighted Harley riders.
“I got it. How much you owe?” His boot shifts forward, his body weight coaxing me back into the store as the clerk visibly relaxes.
Ten minutes later, I return to the sidewalk after upending the lifted items and racking up twenty-seven dollars and sixty-five cents worth of debt to a man that could easily demand for it back in ways I don’t want to offer.
“Why did you do that?” I say as I tear myself out of the biker’s magnetic hold.
“How many times you done it?” he asks as the big overbearing guy I walked into first leans against a streetlight to spark up a cigarette.
“A few.”
“Yeah?” His eyebrow quirks behind his glasses, somehow making him even more dashing despite the worn leather hanging over his shoulders. “You looked as nervous as a virgin.”
Fuck my telltale cheeks.
Asshole grins. “Really?”
“No,” I snap. “Not ‘really’. I just don’t like people talking about things so private to me.”