He could stay pissed off for all I cared.
The next day was the same. We'd gotten into such a tight routine that there was no need to communicate. I recognized when he was getting ready to leave every afternoon and we went through the motions quietly, tensely, like clockwork.
At Pins, we'd avoid each other. Anger seeped from his pores, from his gaze, from his body language. I let myself soak in a mixture of embarrassment, frustration and disappointment when I had to face Slim and Blue's pitiful eyes.
Luther had come in for the second time ever—or at least the second time since I'd started working at Pins—and given me a sad little smile before patting my hand.
I got mad all over again. Wasn't that exactly why I hadn't told anyone about my arm? The answer was a blaring yes. Only this time it was because I got yelled at by Dex, the neighborhood schizophrenic that got mad when he wasn't immediately forgiven for his transgressions. Jerk.
The night went by in the same way, except Dex made dinner and we ate on opposite sides of the couch, silently.
Even the guys at the shop were quieter than normal, handling me with kid gloves.
Annoyed didn't even begin to describe how I felt. And I hated it.
On top of that, I'd been dodging Sonny's calls. Getting yelled at by one person I cared about was more than enough. Two would just be overkill. It was probably asking to get the pinch of a lifetime when he got back but I'd take my chances with my brother.
Dex on the other hand...
"Do you think I'm being a bitch?" I asked after completely ignoring Dex when he stood by my desk, talking to a customer a few minutes before.
Slim cocked an eyebrow at me from behind the tablet he was currently pecking at. "A bitch?" He said the word so slowly it immediately made my hackles go up.
"Yeah."
He scrunched up his face. "I wouldn't say a bitch exactly."
Oh lord.
For Slim of all people to put it like that...damn it. Guilt brushed at the sides of my mind. Did I have a good reason to stay mad? I thought so. On the other hand, did Dex have a good reason to have lost his shit like that? Not to that extent. To add onto that...he had tried to apologize in his own Dex-way.
Slim glanced up before looking back at the screen. "Do you want me to tell you the truth or do you want me to be nice?"
Double oh lord. Had I really been that much of a bitch?
"The truth, Slimmy," I huffed, already feeling like a jerk before my friend had even started talking.
"Well, Ris, you're kinda being just a wee bit unreasonable," he stated evenly. Slim tapped at his tablet. "If somebody yelled at my sister like he yelled at you, I'd try to beat their ass." I almost snorted at the keyword in his sentence: try. But he kept going so I couldn't make a crack. "But if my sis did the shit you did, I would've yelled at her like that."
Ugh.
"He only got that pissed off because he cares, you know that?" he asked carefully, finally glancing up at me with those bright green eyes.
And that comment deflated me.
"Yeah..." I sighed.
"But," he winked, "That 'go fuck yourself' was pretty dead on, Rainbow Ris."
I had said that, hadn't I? Whoops.
Slim smiled indulgently, erasing the last pieces of anger that had clung to my chest. He had a point. "You ever do that shit again though, and I'll hunt you down myself next time. You got it?"
"Yeah, I got it."
And just like that, I felt a little relieved. Staying angry was too much work. I needed to figure out how to apologize to Dex without completely rolling over in submission. I wouldn't give him that much.
So when the phone rang a little while later, the chance fell onto... my desk.
"Pins and Needles, this is Iris speaking, how can I help you?"
A prerecorded message stated that I was receiving a call from an inmate at Byrd Unit.
The name triggered a memory of my dad. Was that where he'd gone to jail before he'd met my mom? Something steered me toward a yes.
I probably should have hung up, but I stayed on the line while the call connected and my brain ran. Was my dad in jail? I didn't think it'd been long enough from the last time he'd been in town but there was a chance.
"'Lo?" a rough voice on the other end finally answered. It wasn't him. Ten years later, and I know I'd recognize his voice.
"Pins and Needles," I answered in a weird way. Okay then, why would someone be calling the shop from jail?
There was some shuffling before the man spoke again. "I need to speak to Dex."
It hit me right then who was calling. There was only one other person in jail that would be calling Pins—Dex's dad. Crap!
It wasn't my place to guard his calls or any aspect of his life but I made myself forget that. He'd been in such a terrible mood since I'd blown him off at the theater, and this would tip his off-balance scales. There was no way in any dimension of hell that Dex would want to speak to his father.
"He's not available right now. I can take a message." A message that would be written in invisible ink.
"I know that fucker's there," the man—the older Locke—grunted. "Put him on the phone."
Oh. Hell. No. "He's not available right now. Would you like to leave a message?" I ground out in my best imitation of Dex when he was angry.
"He's there. Put him on the goddamn phone."
I pulled the phone away from my face and looked at it. Don't disrespect your elders, Ris. "I'm not putting him on the phone. If you want to leave a message, leave it. If you don't, then feel free to call his cell phone." Like he'd answer it. Ha!
I might not be able to talk shit to the younger Locke, but the older man was in jail so he was harmless. At the moment at least.
"What did you say your name was?" His voice had started picking up in pitch the angrier he got.
I might do stupid things every once in a while but I wasn't dumb enough to tell him my name. "Would you like to leave a message, sir?"
"What I'd like to do is talk to my goddamn—"
I hung up with a little flourish, smiling indulgently to myself. Not even three minutes later, the shop phone started ringing again. I picked it up, only to hear the prerecorded message start playing, and I hung up again.
The phone rang twice more but I didn't even bother picking it up those times. The shop was empty with the exception of The Dick in his office and Blue at her station. She wouldn't give a crap about me ignoring the phones.
"Phone!" Dex yelled from his office.
Like he couldn't answer the friggin' phone himself. Which in this case, was a good thing.
"Don't answer it!" I screamed back.
There was a brief pause before he yelled again. "Ritz! Phone!"
Crap. I sighed and saved the work I'd been doing on Pins' website so that I could go talk to The Dick.
I tried to mentally prepare myself to speak with Dex on the short walk into his office. He was sitting at his desk, messing around on the computer when I came up to the door.
Then I thought better of it, took a step back, and peeked my head into the doorway instead. "Your dad was calling."
He didn't jerk, flinch, or even blink at his computer screen. Instead, those intense blue eyes I'd grown so fond of drifted over in my direction almost incredulously. "What?" The question reminded me of verbal stalactite.
"That was your dad calling. Or at least I'm ninety-nine percent positive it was him calling from Byrd Unit." I blinked, inching my feet further away from the door. "He was being rude, and I hung up on him."
When he didn't say anything or give me a high-five for standing up for him, I started to think maybe I'd done something wrong. It was one of the biggest things we had in common: our mutual hate for what our fathers represented. The past and the dread of a similar future.