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“Yeah, well.” I shrug, heat rushing up my neck and into my face. “That’s how I dress, and I lost my job yesterday. I have to come up with the fucking rent money somehow, and…”
I clench my fists. Goddammit, why am I spilling the beans to a total stranger just because her lips and tits look divine in the golden afternoon light?
She’s not a heroine in the comic I’ve been drawing this past year. She’s a real girl, in this very real piss-scented park, and I should shut my mouth.
“I’m sorry.” She gives me a solemn nod. “Hey…” She licks her lips, starts again. “What’s your name?”
“Jethro.”
She nods, but her cheeks pale. “Jethro.”
“I know, it’s a weird name.” She pales more, and I frown. “You all right? Fuck, you’re dizzy, aren’t you?” I glance around for the paramedics that are stationed nearby. “Sit here and wait for me, I’ll be right back.”
“No, wait.” She grabs my arm, and the touch is searing my skin. “Look, I can’t offer you a job at a bar or anything like that.” She goes on quickly, before I have a chance to cut in and tell her I can work in anything and everything. “But if you think you’d be interested in a different kind of work… God, I’m just talking without asking you—”
“Asking me what?”
“If you even like books.”
“Books.” Huh. Do comics count?
“Not that you’re required to, of course,” she adds hastily. “You can hate them and sell them just fine, only it would be a soul-sucking job if you do.”
Her eyes have gold in them, and it glints in the sun, like her hair. She’s made of gold. “Work in a bookshop?”
“That’s right. I know a girl who left suddenly, and there’s a position to be filled.”
Soul-sucking or not, I need a job, and I could do worse than working at a bookshop. Besides, I don’t hate books. I’m not their biggest fan, but that’s not their fault.
“That sounds great,” I say, meaning it. “Where is that shop?”
“Wait, let me give you the card.” She fishes in her endlessly deep purse, and withdraws triumphantly a business card. “Here you go. Just give them a call. Say Candy sent you.”
“Candy.” Her name is Candy. It fits her perfectly. Candy sugar. I wish I could think of a line that doesn’t sound like a come on. “Hey, how about—?”
“It’s a great place. Nice people. You should give it a try.”
“I will, promise. Listen, Candy, about—”
“Going now.” She grabs the beers, and fuck, I want her to stay here, to go with me for a drink, to find out more about her.
“Will I see you again?” I call after her.
She turns and smiles at me. I could get addicted to her smiles, I realize, and fuck, that’s dangerous. I hardly know her.
“That’s up to you,” she says.
Then she turns around and hurries away and I’m left to ponder the fact that I met a girl who’s intrigued me and turned me on for the first time since I can remember, and I’m letting her go. I don’t even know her last name.
Fuck!
“Hey, where are you going?” my boss shouts at me as I go around the table and sprint after her, the business card clutched in my hand. “Come back here, you can’t leave the stall unattended! I’ll fire you.”
But I’m running through the crowd, trying to locate her blond head, my heart pounding. Too many people. I hate crowds. I hate noise. Where the hell did she go? She’s short but not that short to vanish completely.
Distracted, I crash into a huge guy with a shaved head and a sword tattooed on his forehead. He grabs my shoulder. “Goddamn retard.”
I elbow him in his considerable gut, cursing under my breath. Just what I need. No way can I catch up with Candy girl now.
