“Your laugh sounds like bells,” he whispered.
I immediately stopped giggling.
He visibly pulled himself together and kept talking.
“Even so, I’m not certain what was funny.”
“You,” I shared.
“Me?”he asked.
“You,thinkin’ I’d have a problemwith youbein’ Marcus Sloan,” I expanded.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nope.”I shrugged.“Don’t care either.Though, that’s tosay ‘nope’ don’t mean that I don’t know.I just don’t reallyknow.Istill don’t care.And that’s not why I don’twannahave dinner with you.”
“I’m still not understanding.”
“Honey bunch, I’m a stripper.”
“Yes.And?”
I shut up.
Dear God, he thought I thought I was better than him.
No.
HethoughtIthought I had reason to thinkI was better than him.
“I don’t judge,” I said quietly.“Life’s life and a person’sgottado what they feel theygottado to get along in it.”
“This is correct.”
“So I don’t care what you do or who you are.”
“And this delights me.”
My heart started racing because it did.Itdelightedhim.
And I knew this because his eyes were again twinkling.
“Men are assholes,” I shared.
“Some of them are, yes,” he somewhat agreed.
“Not met many who aren’t.My count, all my life, that numberequals two.”
Those twinkling eyes stopped twinkling in order to flash.
“Just two?”
“Yup.Two,” I confirmed.
“Although I find that knowledge upsetting, I’ll share I’dlike to make that three,” he told me something I already (mostly) got.
“Listen, Marcus, this,” I gestured between us with my handand this time he didn’t watch it, he didn’t tear his gaze from my own “it’ssweet, honey.Real sweet.Thanks for it.For the daisies.All that’s real nice.But a woman lives the life I’ve lived and finds herself raped in a parking lot,she makes certain decisions.And those decisions don’t include dinner with ahot guy who wears a suit real well, has a superior set of lips, and opens thedoor for her.She goes about her business her own damned self and that’s that.I got me a good job.I got me a Porsche.I’m in the market to find me a house Ilike where I can garden and set the table like a good Southern woman should.What I don’t got and don’twantis a man.”
