Page 48 of Dizzy

I rub my chest.

It can’t be, right? Fay-Lee’s almost a kid herself. Eighteen years old. Fuck. When I was eighteen—well—Sharon and I were hitched, and I’d enlisted.

Eighteen seems younger now, though. And to be honest, Sharon and I had no business settling down when we did. I knocked her up senior year. The pill failed. We lost the baby four months in, but at that point, I’d already proposed, and my folks had helped us make an offer on a house.

Besides, what eighteen-year-old wants a ready-made family? And Fay-Lee’s a wild child, everything ahead of her. She’s only passing through. Or tryin’ to.

I‘m sure as soon as she scrapes together enough cash, she’s gone. The thought kicks up my adrenaline. She’ll look guilty as hell, and as clever as she is, she ain’t gonna outsmart Heavy Ruth for long.

I don’t think for a minute she had anything to with what Chaos was doin’. She ain’t the type. She don’t wanna run game, she wants to play one.

Long and short of it is, I don’t have no business messin’ around with her. It’s obvious she’s runnin’ from something. A charge? An ex?

Don’t matter. I’d happily kill any man who tries to take her away from me.

Jesus. I’ve lost my mind.

There’s a rustle from the dressing room, and she steps out, pink circles dotting her cheeks. I straighten.

She’s wearing a swingy, pale-blue dress that hits above her knees. She shoots me a shy smile and twirls.

I cough to clear my throat. “Ain’t your legs gonna be cold?”

“I’ll wear leggings underneath. Do you like it?”

“It’s fine.” The fabric clings to her tits. She still ain’t wearin’ a bra. Maybe she’s embarrassed to grab ‘em with the boys around. I should give her my card and take them out to the truck after this so she can get what she needs.

Parker huffs and rolls his eyes. “We gonna be here all day?”

We are now. “Go try on the next one. The pink.”

“This one’s seventy-five dollars. It’s not on sale.”

Is that a lot of money for a dress? Or is that a deal? “Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

How much is a dress supposed to cost? Don’t matter. I laid down a grand for leather saddlebags last week. She can have what she wants.

She waits a second, I guess to see if I change my mind. I don’t. She shrugs and heads back in. I turn to Parker.

“What crawled up your ass, boy?”

He smashes his lips together and glares off into the distance as if I ain’t talking. He picked up that from his mother.

“You got a problem, spit it out.”

“Maybe I don’t like wasting the day, standing around.”

Carson’s gawping up at us now, game forgotten.

“You got somewhere you need to be, boy?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“People can wait around for your shit, but you can’t stand around for someone else?” I don’t get this. I bring women around. Not often, but it happens. Parker never acts like this.

---