Mason smacks my shoulder with his truck, impatient. I turn toward the door before my face can give away how hard my pulse just kicked.
Hollar Dollar is bright and loud and cheap, aisles stacked with sugar and plastic and more desperation. Mason clutches a bag of mini-Oreos like he earned them through hard labor. I keep checking windows, the door, the reflections in freezer glass. I hate myself for it, but I do it anyway. When you’ve been poor your whole life, you learn to watch for danger the way you watch for price tags.
By the time we’re back at the pawn shop, Lottie is waiting like she’s been counting seconds. She takes Mason and shifts him onto her hip with practiced ease.
“Brit,” she says quiet, “come in the back.”
She doesn’t ask. She never does when it matters.
The office is small and cluttered. Old receipts. A couple of guns locked in a cabinet behind her desk. A half-finished cup of coffee that smells burned. Mason gets set into a playpen with his snacks and toys, and Lottie shuts the door halfway like a shield.
Becki follows and leans in the doorway, arms crossed, watching like she’s security and witness both.
“On break,” she explains.
Then Lottie looks at me. Her eyes shoot holes in me.
“You didn’t just dance with him,” she says.
It ain’t a question.
My throat tightens. Hives crawl up my neck. “We didn’t f.u.c.k.,” I say, and I keep my voice low because Mason doesn’t need new vocabulary today.
“I know,” Lottie says too fast, and I can hear her checking her own words like she’s trying to keep the world from twisting them. “I know that. But Hell don’t give a shit about right.”
Becki’s eyes sharpen. “Beth thinks you did.”
“That’s it,” Lottie adds. “That’s all it takes.”
I shake my head so hard my fresh hair swings. “That’s insane. I was unconscious.”
“Welcome to biker country,” Becki says dry. “You brush the wrong shoulder and suddenly you’re a problem to solve.”
“Beth…” I start, then stop because saying her name out loud feels like summoning something.
Becki’s eyes flicker, just a fraction, like the name hits a bruise.
Lottie exhales slow. “They ain’t gonna come for you head-on. Not yet.”
My pulse kicks. “Who?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lottie says. “What matters is you watch your back.”
I think about the salon. The diner where my plate got set down without a smile. The way men go quiet when I walk past, like I’m contagious.
“I work,” I say, voice too thin. “I do my online class. I babysit. I mind my own business.”
Becki snorts. “That don’t save you.”
Mason squeals in the playpen, slamming his toy truck against the bars, happy as can be. The sound makes my eyes sting because it’s normal and I’m not sure I remember what normal feels like.
Lottie’s face softens, just a little. “You didn’t do wrong, Brit. You hear me?”
I nod. My throat’s too tight for words.
“But,” she continues, and the softness vanishes because Lottie is a realist, “you got close to a married man with a patch. People notice. Especially when he don’t act like he usually does.”
My heart stutters. “What does that mean?”
