Good Girl(42)

"The color of the week is blue. I always get lucky with blue," she says and I wonder if I'm having a stroke of some kind because nothing, not one thing about the last twenty or so hours makes any sense.

Lydia grabs a cart and drives it towards the back of the store, past industrial shelving set up with piles of crap. I watch her make a quick scan of the shelves as she passes, but clearly she's got some kind of strategy or destination already in mind because she keeps moving, even when an orange ceramic lamp in the shape of a cat catches her eye. It's missing a shade and it's hideous. I'm still staring at it wondering what would have possessed anyone to buy it in the first place, wondering if it was mass-produced or if it's a godawful one-off, when I see Lydia has reached her destination. She's placing a used sheet into the cart when I catch up. A used sheet that looks like it came from the home of a Vegas entertainer circa the fifties.

"When is Vince paying you?" I ask, because I cannot understand what is happening right now. Is she this hard up for money? The sheets aren't labeled as far as I can see so how does she know if they'll fit her bed? I don't think she even got a fitted sheet, just one random top sheet with a shady unknown past.

Which I can't even judge because she's sleeping with me and I don't doubt that my dick has a shadier past than this sheet.

"What?" She stops, and looks at me. She's holding a pants hanger with a pillowcase dangling from the clips, running the material through her fingertips with her other hand.

"When is Vince paying you?” I prod. "Do you need money?"

"Oh." She blinks and drops her eyes from mine, a flicker of hurt or discomfort crossing her face. "I don't know." And then after a pause, "No. I don't want any more of your money. Thank you."

What does she mean she doesn't know? That fucker made me wire him the money before we left, as if I wasn't good for it. Asshole.

"So you didn't get it last night?"

"No. We have to figure out something about taxes first."

Something about taxes? I roll that through my head and I'm sure my face conveys my confusion because she stops, her hand hovering over the rack of pillowcases, and turns to me. "Sorry, is that not a part of your fetish? Should I not have mentioned the taxes?"

"What fetish?"

"Um, the paying for sex thing. I'm not sure how you normally do it. Is it the actual sight of cash that turns you on? Because if you want to leave a pile of money on the nightstand every morning I can slip it back into your nightstand when you're not looking and then you can put it back on my nightstand after you come. Whatever you need."

Do you want to know what the oddest part of that speech was? I don't think she's fucking with me. Not one tiny bit. There wasn't an ounce of reprobation in her tone, just blunt acceptance.

"It's not really a fetish, Lydia. More of a convenience. Like two-day shipping." Fuck me. Did I really just compare her to the convenience of getting a stick of deodorant delivered in under forty-eight hours? I'm not emotionally equipped for her. She's a deep-emotional-attachment kind of girl, not a minimal-expectations kind of girl.

"Oh, okay." She blinks a few times and drops a pillowcase into the cart. "I can be convenient."

"Great." I'm annoyed with this entire conversation and I'm not sure why.

"Great," Lydia replies and I don't get the sense that she's annoyed about anything at all. She takes another sip of her iced coffee and smiles at me around the straw and I want to kiss her. Or fuck her. Or take her back to Vince and forget this entire thing ever happened. That's what she said yesterday, didn't she? Just take me back. Just take me back, Rhys.

Take her back to Vince? To Double Diamonds? When the hell did she get involved with him to begin with?

When did this get so convoluted?

I've got responsibilities. A hotel to open. A legacy to build. I'm too goddamned busy for complications right now. Which is why I pay for strippers and lap dances and blow jobs and sex. Which is why I gave half a million to a girl putting an orange cat lamp into a shopping cart right now.

Fuck my fucking life.

I'm under too much stress, I decide. Stress Lydia is going to help me relieve for the next month. Whatever this thing we have is will be out of my system by then. That thought eases some of the tension from my shoulders and I put the rest of it out of my mind.

It seems Lydia's done shopping with the addition of the lamp—a lamp I can only assume is a joke—so once she pays eleven dollars and seventy-four cents for her purchase we leave. She mentions something about what a great find the lamp was as I unlock the car. I don't reply because I haven't a clue what the fuck she's talking about.

She's quiet on the way to her place save for asking if she can have the rest of my coffee. She seems pretty content with the silence, happily sipping away on her second coffee between giving me directions to her place. I already know that she lives near Hennigan's but I don't let on, instead following her directions to take the 515 towards Henderson without comment.

When we exit the highway onto Galleria she starts talking. Sort of.

"The thing is," she starts and then stops, digging the straw around in the cup to distribute the ice or procrastinate, I'm not sure which.

"What's the thing?" I prompt.