“You don't have to be touching the candle for it to work,” he grumbles. “We have a spellbound agreement. That's enough.”
“So, whatever I tell you to do, you'll do?”
“If it pertains to our agreement.” His eyes shift over to me. “Why? Would you like me to repeat what I did for you last night?”
He did not just go there! A distracting throb starts between my legs, and I shift in my seat. No way am I going to let him have the satisfaction of thinking he's undone me. Not when the undoing has been so fretfully one-sided. The glow of a Mobil station is my salvation.
“No. I want you to pump my gas for me.” I pull up to a pump and get out. “Fill ‘er up, Damien. I'm going inside for a cup of coffee. Do you want anything?”
He gives me a withering stare and unfolds himself from his seat.
“Or don't you eat… snacks.” I have no idea if shades live on blood or also eat like humans do.
He rounds the car to the pump and flips open the tank. “For your information, I do occasionally eatsnacks, as well as other things, but nothing you might obtain in there appeals to my palate.” He tips his head toward the building.
I shrug. “Suit yourself.” As I head inside, I think about how comfortable I've become with Damien. Our exchange tonight seems almost normal. I was frightened of him before but now he’s pumping my gas. Do I think of him as a friend? No. A lover? Maybe. I’m not sure how to classify our relationship after last night, honestly, but I do know his fangs don't seem quite as long or sharp at the moment. Could it be that Damien, the shade, is more man than monster?
16
The Monster Maketh the Man
ELOISE
Inside the gas station, I pour a cup of coffee, add some hazelnut creamer, and grab a roll of chocolate donuts from the rack, then carry it all up to the counter. “This and pump four.”
The man behind the cash register is painfully thin, with the rough, yellowing skin of a person who has spent his youth chain-smoking in full sun without a hat or sunscreen. The oval name tag on his chest reads Hank. I notice there’s a tip jar and plan to put something in it once he gives me my change. Hank hasn't had an easy life.
“That'll be $59.84,” he says.
I curse at the high gas prices and hand him a hundred from my wallet. I've had to become comfortable paying for everything in cash since I left Tony. He closed all our credit cards immediately, and the only bank account I have left is the same one I had before we were married. But I don't dare deposit the cash I've siphoned off him. Those transactions would havebeen a red flag during discovery, and if his lawyers found out, he'd have his thumb on my money before I could say bankruptcy. Which means I’m stuck carrying cash everywhere.
Hank takes the hundred and holds it up to the light, his eyes shifting from me to the bill. Then he clicks a few keys on the cash register, and the door pops open. He puts the hundred in the empty slot next to the twenties, then counts out sixteen cents into my hand. I wait patiently for the other forty dollars. He stares at me, then pushes the drawer closed and hands me a receipt.
“Thank you. Come again.” His voice holds an edge of finality, his eyes issuing a challenge.
“You owe me forty dollars. I gave you a hundred.”
“No, ma'am, you did not. You gave me three twenties. Check your receipt.”
I look down at the paper in my hand. The faint, almost unreadable ink says I gave him $60. Not today, Satan. “I watched you place the hundred I gave you in the last bin of that drawer,” I say disbelievingly. I lean over the counter and point at the register. “Open it, and you'll see it's in there.”
“Can't open it unless you buy something.” He chuckles dismissively.
“I just bought something!” My mouth drops open, and I look around the store for any witnesses to this crime against me, but we’re alone. Flabbergasted, I slide my phone from my pocket. “I'm calling the police.”
He leans his elbows on the counter and rests his chin on his fist. “Sure you are, sweetheart. I've got to be here all night anyway. You, on the other hand, are going to have a long wait ahead of you for a chance to explain to a police officer that I gave you the wrong change. Last timesomeone called the cops in this town, it took them three hours to arrive.”
I huff and search the corners of the ceiling, pointing at the black bubble that must be a security camera. “I hope you don't like this job, buddy, because one look at the security video, and you are going to be fired.”
He flashes a patronizing grin. “It hasn't worked in years. It's your word against mine, and let's face facts, I don't see anyone having a whole lot of sympathy for a blondie like you in a cashmere sweater who pays for her gas with hundred-dollar bills.” He squints at me. “I may not know your story, but I know you don't want the cops nosing around in it.”
I glare at him, my thumb poised over the call button.Fuck!I don’t have time for this. And if what he says is true and there are no cameras, there’s no evidence I've given him a hundred. Worse, I really need the other forty. I may be wearing cashmere, but the amount of money I have stored in the drawer in my bedroom is in no way as flashy.
Tears well in my eyes. “Please, Hank, I need that money. You don't understand?—”
“Sure you do, honey.” He turns back to his magazine, ignoring me.
Rage heats my blood. Even as thin as he is, he’s bigger than me. It’s not like I can physically make him give me the cash. But he’s also not watching me anymore. In fact, he’s doing his best to ignore me.Hmm. I calculate how long it would take him to get to me through the little locked gate that leads behind the counter, then I take justice into my own hands.
