Then I smooth away her hair and twist it back over her shoulders.
“What does my girl like to do?” I ask. “When she isn’t fucking shit up out on the streets.”
“Your girl,” she scoffs. “For the record, Ace, I’m nobody’s girl. And you really ought to stay away from me.”
I smile and she frowns and she isn’t done.
“I mean that,” she repeats.
“Do your worst, Scarlett.”
She stares at my chest and her fingers move over the tattoos there while she speaks.
“This dating thing,” she says. “It’s my game. My rules.”
“Tell me what sort of things ye fancy. And I’ll see if I can make it happen.”
She ponders this for a moment while she swings her legs back and forth in a childlike fashion before wincing.
I try to focus on her words and not the fact that she’s in pain, because it will only make me homicidal all over again.
“I don’t like people,” she says. “Or texting. Or foods that are orange. Black licorice. Television. Concerts. Restaurants. Clubs. Malls.”
She falls silent as I stare at her curiously.
The sad part is, she isn’t even joking.
“Did I mention people?” she adds.
“Twice,” I tell her. “But I’m the exception to that rule.”
“You can’t declare yourself an exception to a rule. The rule maker has to do that.”
“Scarlett.”
My voice is a warning, which she ignores.
“I’m just laying it out for you, Brodrick,” she says. “You think you’ll get me liquored up and I’ll ease up a little. But that’s not going to happen. What you see is what you get. Always. I’m incredibly dull and very blasé in regards to literally everything. So, you should just move on along now and save yourself the trouble of a failed attempt.”
“I did get loafed in the head tonight,” I tell her. “But I do recall you just asking me to have a go at ye not so long ago after I walked in the door.”
“Only because I had a moment where I wondered what it was like,” she says. “But the moment is gone now.”
“What do ye mean, what it was like?” I press.
“Just, you know.” She waves her hands about in an ambiguous fashion. “What fucking someone that didn’t repulse me was like.”
Scarlett is blunt. That’s one thing I’ve come to know about her since we met. Mack regaled me one night with countless admissions about her. How she is a genius with no filter and no social skills either. That she never fit in so she’s never bothered to try after that. But this admission catches me off guard.
The last thing I want to do is delve into who she was shacking up with before me. But now, I can’t stop myself from asking about it.
“You’ve never been with a man ye weren’t repulsed by?” I question her. “Really? What about your boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends?” she blinks. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. Well, not since high school anyway.”
This time I’m officially stunned into silence. Which only seems to offend her more.
“Who needs a fucking boyfriend?” she huffs. “Relationships are just a headache. I’ve never understood why anyone would want to put themselves through such hell. And willingly too. I might be sadistic, but a masochist I am not.”
