“I had to make sure your fashion taste could be trusted,” she teased him while dragging a few dresses for herself back toward the fitting area at the latest boutique.
This was the fourth store. Or was it the fifth? Jimmy was undeniably sloshed, but he was having a fantastic time. “I don’t have bad fashion taste,” he protested with a drunken giggle. “I’m just freakin’ poor as hell!”
“I know, I’ve seen your apartment,” Rowena said with a tiny snicker, gesturing for him to sit down on some funky shaped ottomans that were arranged together in front of the fitting rooms. “We need to get you out of there, like immediately.”
“Can’t afford it,” Jimmy sighed as he plopped down on the inviting cushions. “Sort of not really working, you know?”
“Ugh, just ask Roddy for money,” Rowena groaned, stepping into the fitting room. She continued to talk, calling out, “You’ve got bills to pay, right? And you can’t survive on an exclusively protein diet, sweetie!”
Jimmy’s face blushed furiously. “I don’t want him to be, like, my sugar daddy? I need a job, Rowena. This arrangement we have isn’t gonna last forever.”
Rowena came flouncing out of the fitting room wearing a slinky golden dress with an open back that showed off the full graceful length of her spine. She gave a few spins, checking herself in every adjacent mirror, glancing over her shoulder back at Jimmy.
“You’re definitely not giving yourself enough credit, sweetie pie,” she cooed, “but if you’re so worried about it, why don’t you just ask Roddy for a job then? He owns a bunch of clubs, a restaurant. He could totally get you something legit.”
“I mean, I guess I could,” Jimmy said, rolling over on his stomach and stretching across the plush ottomans. He peered up at Rowena, his eyes again wandering to the mangled collection of scars dancing up and down her back.
“What is it?” Rowena asked, quirking a brow when she felt Jimmy staring at her.
“Can I ask you...” Jimmy rubbed his face, a little too intoxicated to find a polite way to pose his question. “Uh...”
“The scars?” Rowena replied, her bubbly charm not fizzling for a second.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Jimmy said, instantly ashamed for asking. “It’s none of my business, I’m an asshole—”
“No! It’s okay,” Rowena said with a light laugh. “They’re from Boris.”
“Boris Legrand, your father?” Jimmy tried not to look absolutely horrified, but he had zero control over his face. “I am so freakin’ sorry... I... I didn’t know.”
“They’re just scars,” Rowena said with a sad smile. “I was so little, honestly, I don’t remember how I got most of them. Or maybe I just blocked it all out, who the fuck knows. It’s no big secret that Boris used to abuse the fuck out of us. Especially Roddy. God. Boris really hated him.”
Jimmy began to connect the dots even in his drunken state, asking softly, “Is that why Cold... uh, doesn’t...”
“Doesn’t take off his clothes?” Rowena replied bluntly. “Yeah, that’s why. He’s very funny about his scars. See, me, I love showing them off. I love knowing what I survived. But Roddy...” She bit her lip as if hesitating how much she should share. “Well...”
“It’s okay,” Jimmy said quickly. “I get it. I mean, I don’t, but I do? I’m just... I can’t believe someone, anyone, would do that to their own kids.”
“You know, I’ve actually had a lot of time to think about it,” Rowena said, lips curling into a contemplative pout. “I used to think that maybe Boris did the things he did to us because he never got over Suzanne dying. Maybe that’s why he was so cruel, especially to Roddy, since he blamed him for losing her.
“I had thought, oh, that’s why he was horrible to my mother, drove her to drink herself into a fuckin’ oblivion, because she wasn’t Suzanne. And so, that’s why he hurt me; since her leaving couldn’t possibly be his fault, it was obviously mine. He had to put the blame on someone else. Anyone else but himself. But there was no excuse for all of the horrible shit he did. Me and Roddy sure as fuck didn’t deserve it. So. Turns out Boris was just a fuckin’ monster. That’s all.”
“Was?” Jimmy echoed quietly.
“Ugh, I keep forgetting you live under a rock,” Rowena snorted. “Yeah, sweetie. Very much ‘was.’ He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Uh huh,” Rowena said, adjusting the straps of the dress and returning to scrutinize her reflection. “Roddy killed him.”
Jimmy thought he was going to be sick, his hand clasping over his mouth, gasping in horror. “Wait, are you serious? He killed him? Wait, is this like secret mob stuff I’m not supposed to know about, oh, fuck—”
“Pffffft! No, please,” Rowena giggled at how flustered Jimmy was. “Roddy served time for it. Two years for voluntary manslaughter.”
“That’s it?” Jimmy was in shock and suddenly angry. Cold had killed his own father and had gotten a damn slap on the wrist, whereas David, who was innocent, had received a life sentence. It made him absolutely furious with their justice system, and it also left him feeling conflicted about his growing affection for Cold.
It wasn’t up to Jimmy to decide if a man like Boris Legrand deserved to die for his crimes, though it was clear that he was not a good person. He had known about Cold’s reputation, but he had never directly acknowledged that the man he was currently sleeping with was a murderer.
There was a tiny voice protesting in the back of Jimmy’s mind that at least it had been a horrible guy who the world was better off without and not some innocent person. He was surprised at himself for how quick he switched to defending what Cold had done.
