Bad Boy Ink (Get Ink'd #5) - Ali Lyda Page 0,10

or final word aside, I really did have to haul ass to work off campus. Because in an effort to step away from the sugar daddy app, I’d done the unthinkable: I'd gotten a legitimate job, at the local mall and everything.

The store that I worked at was by far the most popular shop in the entire mall, selling a very popular tech brand that sold everything from phones to computers to watches that did more than a watch should ever need to do. The work was ridiculously easy—I’d been fixing hardware issues when I was eight—but it kept me busy and it would put work experience on my resume. It had occurred to me that I couldn’t apply to the FBI without them doing some background checks and...they would notice a lack of documented jobs. And that some of my living habits didn’t exactly line up with the lack of cash flow.

My parents’ pay-off check could account for most of my years of joblessness, but the retail job would hopefully smooth over any questions. It also allowed me to experience life on the up and up—no fleecing customers here. At least, not in the ways I normally did. But my boss certainly leaned on me to upsell instead of fix whenever possible.

Come to think of it, I wasn't sure that this was that much more morally acceptable than what I had been doing with the sugar daddy app. But it was on paper at least, and an honest paycheck.

Most days my shift began about an hour after school ended, and today was no different, so I hadn't had a whole lot of time to process the encounter with Bryce. That's okay though, I thought to myself, I shouldn't be processing anything about him. I should be ignoring him.

An older man walked into the store wearing slacks, and boat shoes, and a polo shirt of a brand that lets you know that he has money. He reached into the front of his pockets as he walked over to me, his smarmy smile bright in the yellow lights of the store. He pulled out his phone.

“Hey there,” he said as he approached me. “Do you work here?”

This was one of those questions that drove me absolutely batshit crazy. I was wearing a shirt with the logo of the company plastered over the back in such a large font it was impossible to miss if you looked at it from space. Plus, there was my name tag. Did he believe that I just walked around everywhere I went with a name tag?

No, you asshole, I obviously worked here.

Of course, customer service rules dictated I could say none of this. “Yes, sir, how may I help you?” I even managed a smile.

The man slid over to me with a greasy confidence like he owned the store... and everyone in it. When I got a good look at his watch, I realized that while he didn’t own the store, he probably could if he wanted to. Everything about this man screamed money and he wanted you to know it.

“I've been having some troubles with my phone,” he said as he stepped closer to me than social politeness dictated. There was an appraising look in his eyes that I also didn’t miss. Okay, this was going to be one of those interactions. “I was hoping you could take a look at it and see what's wrong?”

“Sure.” I held out my hand and he put the phone in it, making sure his fingertips dragged along the side of my palm. It took effort not to roll my eyes at his over-the-top flirtation.

He looked at my name tag then smiled a little bigger. “Thank you, Aiden. I really appreciate your time.”

“Oh, it's nothing, sir, just doing my job.” I held his phone and turned it on. So far, so good. “You'll need to unlock it for me,” I said as I started to hand it back to him. “Tell me what's been going on with it.”

I watched with greedy eyes as his fingers typed in his far too easy passcode. It was in my brain, stuck tight, and with it came the list of things I'd be able to do with this information alone. For all his riches, he certainly hadn't been able to buy some common fucking sense.

“Well, you see, I've been having a hard time with my contacts crashing,” he said. “And oftentimes it’s too slow when I'm trying to look things up on the