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What? Seriously? “You’re judgin’ me?”
“No, no, I?—”
“Yeah, you are. I expected better of you. I thought you were an ally.”
“Wait,” she called after me as I turned to go.
I was getting mad. She had no fucking clue about the things I had to deal with. How every single law enforcement officer in our jurisdiction looked at me like they didn’t think I could perform the duties of my job because of what was or wasn’t between my legs.
“I gotta go,” I said.
I was angry she’d said it. And hurt. The little spot in the middle of my chest burned. I rubbed at it over my shirt, trying to make the burn recede, but I should’ve known better. It never did. And funny, I suddenly realized it was the same feeling I got when something my mama said, or something she didn’t say, hurt. It put the same uncomfortable pinch there.
“I need to check on Red, make sure he isn’t ruinin’ anybody’s life, or some kid ain’t shovin’ his head in a toilet.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and I heard her boots squeak on the tile floor when she stopped following me. “Really, Abey. Please forgive me.”
“Never mind.” I tried not to sound hurt. But I was. “Anyway, I gotta go.”
CHAPTER NINE
DEVO
Dammit. I shouldn’t have said that.
Abey was right. I had judged her. And I had no right to.
If I were being honest with myself, though, I guess I’d hoped she was out. If we dated, things would be so much easier if we both were. But we weren’t dating. We were barely friends. But she was also right that people around here tended to treat you differently if they knew you were gay. Most people were more accepting nowadays than they used to be, especially in the last few years, but still, if you were gay, you were “other.”
Maybe I didn’t know what she’d been through to get to where she was in a male-dominated job, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine just how hard it could’ve been. I felt like a heel for questioning her. Me, the super-woke lesbian who worked at an LGBTQ safe house.
Devo the devil strikes again.
My mom was the most supportive parent I’d ever heard of. My dad had been something else entirely, but his opinion had never really mattered to me. I guess I got lucky that way. But I couldn’t imagine having to live and work around people who thought your very identity was wrong, who disagreed with you even being in the field you loved working in.
While I thought about ways to apologize—I could show up at her apartment with cookies, but I didn’t even know if she liked cookies, or any baked goods, for that matter—I heard a noise in the back of the store. It sounded like someone ransacking boxes in the storeroom.
I tiptoed to the curtain Red had hung from the doorframe behind the register and listened. The stupid curtain had a picture printed on it of some big, brawny, bearded dude crouched down next to a beautiful elk with an antler rack the size of my truck and a bullet hole in its chest. The poor thing had blood coming out of its mouth.
Had an animal gotten into the back room? Did I leave the back door open when I came in this morning? If there was a raccoon or something back there, it’d make a big freaking mess, and then I’d get charged for the damage. Red had already cussed me up and down when he handed over his keys this morning. He had zero faith that I wouldn’t burn his business down in the matter of a week.
That was fine. I had even less faith in his ability to be supportive and kind to people at Ace’s House.
I grabbed the broom next to the door and aimed it out in front of me, then swiped the curtain aside and jumped into the back room. “Who’s there?”
Bent over what looked like a box of freeze-dried macaroni and cheese packets, a man dug through the box next to it, and it looked like I’d scared him nice and good as he straightened and stumbled backward.
He yelped. “Shit on my dick!”
He held his arms up in the air like I’d pointed a gun at him instead of a household cleaning implement. It then occurred to me that maybe I should’ve found an actual gun to use. God knew there were bound to be some in this patriarchal, Old Spice-smelling, man-fest store.
A laugh exploded out of me. “What did you just say?” The whole situation was hilarious. I mean, what was I even doing in this stupid place? “What’re you doin’ back here? Are you stealin’ from Red Graves?”
“Sorry,” he said, wincing and trying not to laugh. “It just came out. You really scared me.”
The burglar was at least a foot taller than me, with brown hair and a matching ’stache and beard. He looked like one of Red’s usual customers, probably an elk killer himself or maybe a hiker. We got a fair few of those in Wisper.
“No, I ain’t stealin’,” he said. “Well, okay, maybe that’s not the whole truth. Technically, I s’pose I am stealin’ since I don’t plan on payin’ for this shirt, but Red’s my uncle, so it doesn’t exactly count.” He stepped closer, tripping over another box on the floor. Its lid was nowhere to be found, and I saw at least two dozen photo albums in there probably filled with more dead animal pics.
