Page 48 of A Game So Reckless

It’s bizarre that I’m here with him at all.

Best to get this over with as quickly as possible. I walk quickly through the aisles until I find the feminine hygiene stuff. I snag a package of pads from one of the lower shelves in front of me, then rise up on my toes to grab tampons from higher up. But Darragh’s hand is already there, above my head, grasping the box before I can get to it. If I could have even gotten to it in the first place. There’s a very good chance I wouldn’t have been able to reach it.

“Give it,” I say, but Darragh ignores me, striding purposefully away from me to the cash. I hustle to keep up with his long, denim-clad legs. He tosses the tampons down on the black conveyer belt, sets down the peach, and I add the pads.

For someone who seemed so concerned about getting out on time a second ago, the cashier takes ages to scan the items. Her scanner keeps missing the barcodes because her big blue eyes are glued to Darragh behind me. There’s a bright pink flush in her cheeks, and every time she makes some attempt at small talk, I’m 99% sure she’s only interested in Darragh’s responses. Even though he doesn’t respond at all. Just stands there like some looming fucking gargoyle.

“Here,” I say, pulling my wallet out when the cashier finally gets the three items tallied up. I grab a credit card, but Darragh plucks it out of my hand before I can tap it on the machine.

“Put this shit away,” he says. He reaches into his own back pocket and produces a wallet. Light shines strangely on his forearm, which I only notice now is wrapped in plastic wrap.New ink?

I’m so distracted by trying to figure out which of the tattoos on Darragh’s arm are new that I’m too slow to stop him for paying for the order.

“Hey!” I exclaim. “Excuse me,” I say, turning my attention to the cashier as she puts the items in a small plastic bag. “Could you please refund the card he just used and use mine instead?”

“Your card? You mean this one?” Crap, Darragh still has it. Darragh holds up my credit card between his index finger and middle fingers, like it’s a playing card. Then, he tucks it behind his ear. And leaves it there.

“Um. A refund?” the cashier asks. “I’d have to get a manager…”

“Don’t bother,” Darragh says blithely. “We’re going.”

He sweeps the bag of items into his hand and walks away from the desk, leaving the cashier to stare at his back in his wake.

I guess I’d better follow him. I wouldn’t put it past him to drive away without me, leaving me stranded without either tampons or my credit card, just to make some kind of twisted point.

“Hey!” I call as I lunge out the doors after him. “I’m talking to you!”

“So talk,” Darragh says, taking out his keys and unlocking his car. My card glints behind his ear.

“Are you some kind of klepto?”

“Klepto?” Darragh pauses to look at me, then raises the bag in the air between us. “Pretty sure you saw me pay for this.”

“I mean my credit card! You can’t just keep it, you know. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you also stole that ribbon from my bathing suit.”

“I haven’t stolen shit since I was living on the streets in Dublin.”

Living on the streets? Darragh’s been in Canada for as long as I’ve been aware of the major players in the dangerous games of the underworld we live in.

Which would have to mean…

“You were homeless?” I ask, my voice cracking strangely. “As a child?”

His face twists into a mockery of a smile.

“I was never a child.” He opens the car door for me. “And like I said, I don’t steal. I do, however, have no problem taking what I’m owed. By force, if necessary. As it so often is.”

“So, what, I owe you a ribbon from my bathing suit?”

“No, pet.” His smile stretches wider. Haunted and terrible. “You owe me your entire fucking life.”

I gear up for a fiery response to that, but he silences my retort before it even takes form by pulling my credit card out from behind his ear and sliding it ever so gently between my bra strap and my skin. My breath stutters in my throat. Something raw and unnameable fractures at the back of his heavy gaze.

Then, without another word, he goes to the driver’s side and gets in.

Shaken and unsure, I follow.

The drive back feels like it goes much quicker than the drive to the grocery store. Maybe because I now know that Darragh really did mean to keep his word about taking me shopping.

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