“God no.”
“It’s none of your damn business how old I am.” The bravado in her voice doesn’t scare me. It just makes me sad that she needs such strong defenses. “So go get your pervy kicks somewhere else.”
She takes a step back, and panic rises in my throat. “Wait. Let me give you the cash I have with me. It’s not that much, but it should be a couple nights at a motel or something.”
That makes her pause, at least. “That’s what you are. A Mother Theresa.”
I’m the one who snorts a laugh. “Definitely not.”
“You want to save me? You want to protect me from the big bad wolves of the world?”
“I don’t—” Except of course I do. “I just want to help, like a tiny bit. That’s all.”
There’s a pause while she wanders forward, almost as if she is a deer walking through the forest, unknowing of the dangers within. Then she’s a few feet away. The eyeliner can’t hide the hurt in her eyes. Her lips are still swollen and slick from the blowjob. This is why the community needs a library; this is why they need art that looks like hope. Because the west side takes girls and turns them into prostitutes. It leaves them on their hands and knees with money lying on the pavement. Books are the answer to this. Knowledge and a safe space in which to learn it.
“I’m not some kind of fashion genius,” she says, her voice hard and cold. “I figured you were the library girl as soon as I saw you.”
“The library girl?”
“The one who painted the library and made it fall down.”
There’s a wealth of condemnation in that voice. I wasn’t the reason the wrecking ball went into the front of the library, but I blame myself that I didn’t stop it sooner. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah, it wasn’t so bad. I had a stash of the painted pieces for a while. That shit was like gold. I’d sell them for twenty bucks when people would come around during the day.”
Twenty bucks, and those people would turn around and sell them online for hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. My stomach twists with a sense of hopelessness. “I’m so sorry.”
“Now you just sound like the suit.”
“The what?”
She nods toward the library. Over the roof a skyscraper rises, gleaming in the wasteland. “The suit. He owns that building. Has eyes that look like coffee without any cream or sugar.”
Comes around to pay for rough blowjobs from desperate young women? Bile rises in my throat. I never had any right to expect monogamy from Christopher Bardot, but I pictured him with soap opera actresses and local socialites. “Is he…” I have to swallow down the acid before I can finish. “Is he a customer?” Don’t break my heart, Christopher.
“Nah,” she says, oblivious to the way relief fills me, warmth in my cold limbs. “He never touches me. But he gives me money whenever he comes down. Whatever he has with him, like you’re trying to do.”
I never would have expected that of Christopher. It makes me feel uneasy in my own skin, as if I’m a little itchy, sitting inside a world that doesn’t fit me anymore. “He does?” I ask faintly.
“It’s different when he gives me money, though, ’cause if he ever wanted a fuck, I’d give it to him for free anyway. I figure it’s kind of like a deposit until he gets hard up.”
That makes me laugh. “You wouldn’t consider the money I give you an advance?”
“Nah, you aren’t gonna fuck me. I already know. Besides that’s part of the deal with the suit. He told me to keep an eye on you. If any of my johns give you a hard time, I’m supposed to call him.”
I want to seek out Christopher, but something holds me back. It’s been bothering me since the night of the poker game, questions half-formed and smoky in my head. Only Sutton can tell me the truth about this.
Except Sutton isn’t here.
He works at the library every day with the crew. He’s the main person I talk to, how I know about the many, many problems they’ve found. The foundation problems.
The plumbing leaks. The termites. The broken pipes.
If testosterone were to stand up and walk around, it would look like Asher Cook. The foreman of the construction crew wears a white T-shirt, always crisp and clean in the morning. He’s the only person here I actually know, now that Sutton’s disappeared.
Always smudged in dirt and sweat by the end of the day.
His muscles bulge in a way that looks explicit, even fully clothed. A beard does little to hide his constantly surly expression. Dark eyebrows slash over pale green eyes, making me shiver every time he glances at me. He has a yellow hard hat, like everyone else, but frankly his head is probably made of tougher material. As if to prove the point, I find him hanging from the ceiling like some kind of explorer on Mount Kilimanjaro, some kind of complicated tool in his hand, shouting measurements to someone on the ground taking notes. From twenty feet in the air he manages to scowl when he sees me.
Which just makes my smile more cheerful. “Hello, Mr. Cook. Have you seen Sutton?”
At a rough gesture a pulley system lowers him to the ground. “Come with me.” He doesn’t wait for me to respond. His long strides take him halfway across the library before I catch up to him.
Asher stops at the wall so suddenly I almost fall into him.
I stand there looking for Sutton, because that must be why he brought me here. Except there’s no one around. He gestures impatiently toward a tall metal structure on wheels. “Where the hell did this come from?”
“I don’t know, it was just there one day.” From Christopher, my mind helpfully supplies. This seems to confirm that he had it moved here for me. Like he can pull anything out of his pocket, even sea salt grilled edamame and forty foot scaffolding towers.
“Hell,” he mutters. “I suppose that’s better than you using our ladders.”
A huff escapes me. “I put them back where I found them.”
His pale green gaze could sear a hole straight through me. “After drawing graffiti all over the expensive fiberglass. In permanent marker. Don’t think I didn’t see that.”
“Knowing my luck they’re probably worth a fortune on the Internet.” I have a tendency for turning straw into gold, but it doesn’t feel like a blessing lately. Is this how Daddy felt? For maybe the first time in my life I feel an similarity with the man who fathered me. Money comes easy, but love is the elusive dream, the one thing always out of reach.
Asher makes a low sound of dissent. “I don’t want to sell the ladders on the Internet. I want my men to use them, not jack off to them. And you should be wearing a hard hat inside the building. It’s not safe for you to be here without one.”
“Is it my fault your men would jack off to hand-drawn images of the goddess Circe? If that had been on a thousand-year-old cave, it would have been a sociological marvel. Because I’m born in the present time it’s suddenly ‘graffiti.’” I make quotes with my fingers, and I swear, there’s a hint of a smile beneath that unruly beard before he frowns.
“This is serious. Hard hat or get the fuck out.”
In that case I’ll be getting the fuck out. “Have you seen Sutton?”