Page 41 of The Love Scam
At last, at last they were going to pick up his new phone! He’d check on his accounts to see if the snafu had been fixed and, worst case, would call Blake and beg for a wire, maybe thirty or forty grand to tide him over for the rest of the month. Then: shopping. Clothes, a new wallet, more clothes, and dinner with Delaney in the most expensive place in town, and he’d leave the waiter ahugetip, because he was a giver.
“You’ve been a good sport.” Delaney, amused as usual by his antics, was walking very close to him in the narrow alley. Which was just excellent. “And a big help.”
“‘Good’ might be overstating,” Lillith said, then squealed and hopped aside as he poked her. “I saidmight!”
“I’ve been a whiny bitch,” he corrected Delaney cheerfully, “and a most reluctant helper, and you know it. But I’ve learned to count my blessings, like every character at the end of every TV show ever. Could’ve been worse, you could have worked for the Red Cross. I’d have died of anemia by now.”
“That’s not how the Red Cross works.”
“I know, I was just kidding. I’ve donated before.”
Delaney stumbled on a loose flagstone—nope, she stumbled out of shock. He didn’t mind, because he got to put out an arm to steady her, and after that it was easy to hold her hand. Sort of a “just in case you trip again I can keep you safe” thing. Not that he was into that. Besides, he was using his other hand to hold Lillith’s hand. Because he was all about safety. “You’ve donated blood? Willingly?”
“You bet! I’m chock-full of O-positive goodness.”
“You liked it?” Her astonishment was a little ego-deflating, but at least she was too surprised to shake her hand free.
“What’s not to like? The finger stick is the worst of it and that takes, what? Half a second? Then you get to lie there for a few minutes and nurses fuss and say nice things to you and if you’re cold, you get a blanket, and then—cookies! And a sticker. That’s my favorite. Do you know how easy it is to talk to a woman you don’t know when you’re sporting a bright red ‘I donated blood today!’ sticker and have cookie breath?”
“Gross.” From Lillith.
“No idea.”
“Supereasy. It’s just so easy.”
“Yeah, shoulda known. Leave it to you to… nope. I won’t finish that, I’ll just let you have that one. Good for you.”
Cookies and blankets and stickers were reason enough, but Delaney’s delight was better than a hundred stickers. A thousand!
As they got farther into the street, it got more crowded, forcing them
(yay!)
to walk shoulder-to-shoulder. More people, too, and he had a minute to be glad, for a change, that he wasn’t carrying any cash, when Delaney reached back without looking and, spooky-quick, snatched at something. Rake looked andrealized she’d caught a kid in the middle of trying to lift her wallet.
“Terrible,” she said, looking down at the wide-eyed budding crime lord, and the weird thing was, she didn’t sound mad, or even irritated. She sounded almost… fond? “You should have come up on my blind side, especially at this time of the day—your shadow was here before you were. Stop that.” The latter because the kid was wriggling like an eel on a hook. A lovely gray-eyed hook with fingers like pincers.
“You okay?” Rake asked, stunned. She had captured a thief! With her bare hands! Without looking! Like it was no biggie! An everyday thing! “He didn’t hurt you?”
“Course not, how could he? He’s the size of a bag of dog chow.” She blew off Rake’s concern and kept her focus on the teeny thief. “Knock it off, kid, you’re going nowhere ’til we’re done.”
“Fermalo! Lasciami andare, bitch!”
“Yeah, yeah, tell me something I’ve never heard.” Far from being pissed, Delaney looked—well, it was hard to say. Her expression was a little strange. Not mad, but not happy. Not resigned, but not anxious.
Lillith, meanwhile, chose that moment to speak up. “Don’t be scared,” she told the wriggling child. “She’s nice.”
Delaney stepped to the side, bringing the boy with her, and Rake and Lillith followed. He watched her slide her fingers up under her shirt, deeply, deeply envied those fingers, then stared when she unzipped her hideous belly pack
(“Hot-pink, Delaney? Really?”
“Shut up, please.”
“I saw it the other night but was too polite to laugh and laugh and laugh at it.”
“Shutup.”)
and extracted a twenty-euro note, stuck it in her teeth, tore it, and handed half to the kid, who was so surprised, he stopped trying to flee. Zipped up the belly pack again, pulled down her shirt. Easy-peasy, and the whole thing took maybe three seconds.
