Page 16 of The Devil's Scars

She and Linda rolled their eyes at the cluelessness of men.

“You tie them to the crib so the baby doesn’t bash their head against the bars,” Bianca explained.

“Makes sense,” Ice said. “Shock-absorbers for impact. Like on a car.”

“Exactly.” Bianca nodded. “There are some cute ones with the bed sheets.”

“Well, we need sheets,” Jinx said. “So we’ll just head over there. Thanks for –”

“Is the baby a boy or a girl?” Linda interrupted.

“A girl,” Jinx said.

“You ever bought anything for a girl before?” Linda asked him, skeptical and suspicious.

Jinx shrugged, grinned a bit. Yeah, he’d bought things for girls before: drinks, and handcuffs, and sexy panties, and ribbed condoms. None of which were standard fare in IKEA.

“Uh. Not a baby girl,” he told her. “Why?”

She huffed. “Because you don’t know what you’re doing.”

The men gazed down at her, thinking that her sass was awesome. Her mother looked embarrassed and petrified, though.

“Linda,” she chided. “Don’t insult the nice men.” The big, tattooed, scary, criminal, nice men.

“We’re not insulted,” Kansas said. “Linda’s bang-on, actually. We don’t know what we’re doing. We could use some help here, if you want to give it.”

“Yes!” Linda sounded exasperated. “Of course I do. I know what girls like.”

“Then lead on, honey,” Kansas said to her. “We need a set of sheets.”

“Uh, no,” Bianca said, getting into the spirit of the thing now. “You need several sets of sheets.”

“We do?” Jinx asked her.

“You do. Babies go through sheets like crazy. They spit up on them, they drool on them, they… well. Their diapers can sometimes get a bit too full.”

“Urgh,” Kansas said, shuddering at the words ‘full diaper’. “OK, we get it. So, maybe four sets?”

“Five,” Linda said decisively. “Plus two sets of bumpers.”

“How old are you, sweetie?” Jinx said.

She blinked. “Almost six.”

“You are darn smart, you know that?”

“I know that.” She stopped in front of the shelves of bed sheets. “I’m best in my class at math and reading.”

“I believe it,” Kansas said. “So… which sheets?”

Linda took her job seriously, they were highly amused to see. After debating the merits of zebras versus giraffes, with Kansas an enthusiastic participant and a strong proponent for the giraffes because “long legs are awesome, honey”, they had all they needed. Or they thought they did.

After thanking Linda and her mother, and dropping them off in the bathroom section of the store, the men headed for the check-out area. Their path led them straight through the toy section.

Jinx paused. “Guys?”

“Yeah?” Kansas said.

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