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“Jimmy,” I said with a nod. “I’m all set,” I added, hoping to speed things along. What I really needed was a customer to get in line behind me, but, of course, Fate was having too good of a time.
“You gonna ask your mama to try out some new recipes for you?” Jimmy said with a laugh as he nodded at the dog food.
I bit back the urge to lob some equally crude comment back at him since he was the son of my mother’s best friend, Edith. Not only would word get back to my mother, it would get back in such a way that only reinforced her theory that I’d been corrupted by city life. I pulled in a breath and said, “I’m in a bit of a hurry, if you don’t mind.”
“Whatcha gotta do? Plan your next heist?” he cackled as he grabbed his scanner and began ringing up the bags.
I stayed silent as he totaled the bill and read me the amount. I handed him the credit card Dallas had given to me to pay for the food. But just before he ran it through the scanner on the register, he paused and studied the card.
“Well, looks like we got ourselves a problem. This here card ain’t yours.”
“It’s Dallas’s,” I said. “The food is for his wildlife center.”
“So you say,” he said snidely. “How do I know you didn’t steal it?”
“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll use my card.” I dug my wallet out of my pocket and pulled out my debit card. I barely had enough left in my personal account to cover the cost of the food, but I knew Dallas would reimburse me. I handed it to Jimmy, but he ignored it and pinched Dallas’s card between his fingers.
“So you’re working at that reject zoo of his?” he asked. “Shoulda seen that one coming a mile away.”
Ignore him, Nolan.
Ignore him.
“Seen what?” I asked, shutting out that voice in my head.
“The way you were fawning all over him in school. Couldn’t stop staring at him. Guess you finally got what you wanted, huh? Wouldn’t have been hard nowadays, considering things. The fag and the freak,” he mused, his dull eyes shifting from the card to me.
I ground my jaw together and held out my card. “The food, Jimmy.”
“So how does it work? He bends you over so your ass looks like any girl’s and you get what…a good pounding? Or you in it for something else? Heard he’s still sitting pretty with all the cash he got after killing his folks. That’s called, what...” Jimmy mulled his words over before saying, “A mutually beneficial relationship?”
“Which part is it that riles you more?” I asked as I leaned across the counter and snatched Dallas’s card from Jimmy’s fingers. “The fact that even without his voice he’s still more man than you’ll ever be, or that it’s not your ass that’s getting pounded?”
Jimmy’s eyes blazed with fury, but just as he was about to reach for me, a man’s voice called, “Jimmy?”
We both turned to see a portly older man watching us from a doorway leading to a small office in the corner of the store near the registers. He was wearing a nametag like Jimmy’s, but I could see it had the title of Manager underneath the name.
“Problem here?” he asked as he stepped closer to the register.
“Um, no sir, Mr. Blaine. I was just checking this gentleman out.”
Thankfully, the manager hung around while Jimmy completed the transaction. I hurried out of the store, but not before I heard the manager’s raised voice behind me. A part of me wanted to stay behind to watch the guy chew Jimmy out, but the other part of me was eager to get back to the center.
Funny how it had become a sanctuary of sorts for me, too, in the past few weeks.
It had been a little over a week since Dallas and I had released the raccoons, and we’d been getting along better and had even started having lunch together in Dallas’s office every afternoon. I’d gotten to hear more and more about the different animals and their stories, but curiously, Dallas never talked about himself. But he did ask me a lot of questions, mostly about all the performances I’d given in different cities all over the world.
The work itself had gotten a little easier for me as my body had adjusted to the physical demands of the job. I’d been surprised when Dallas had asked me if I wanted to start helping him with other tasks that involved the wildlife. It was still just a lot of cleaning, but since I was now able to get my chores done with the domesticated animals by lunchtime, I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Dallas clean or repair various habitats. He’d let me interact with some of the wildlife that weren’t considered dangerous and that weren’t slated to be re-released, and I’d quickly grown as fond of them as I had of Jerry and the other animals I spent my mornings with.
