want this one back, somebody would want a brandy-ass-new one hundred percent white baby. Lots of options, just keep his head on straight, keep thinking. Jason’s leg starts to jiggle, sewing machine leg, they call it on the inside. Jiggle-jiggle, his jacket buckles jingle in time, like a one-man band.
Problem: seven tours of different jails and detention centers and lockups, and somehow, he hasn’t managed to make the connections a guy would need to find a person to buy a baby. Victor’s the biggest shithead he knows, but he’s Catholic, wears his six kids’ names in loopy script on his gold chains.
And then it wakes up, shit, he’s bumped it. It’s screaming now, red-faced, eyes closed, and he can’t help it, he holds it out away from him, out on his knees, here ya go, kiddo, jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. “Come on, Buddy,” he says, eyes darting around the bus.
Mrs. Fatty smiles thinly at him, a been-there-done-that look, and even in the chaos, the storm of the screaming, he marks this as good, that he’s pulling this off.
Christ, how does anyone stand this noise? He can’t wait to get to the apartment and be rid of it, pass it off to one of the girls and go stand under the shower for some peace. Then he remembers that Brandi won’t be home, will still be at work…. God, she wouldn’t give him up, would she? He hadn’t kept fucking her, had he, once she started with the whining? And he hadn’t been unclear. “I got a little proposition for you,” he’d told her that morning as they waited to open up the gas station at eight for all the good citizens of Portland. He’d waved the baggie, and she’d grinned and practically ran ahead of him to the bathroom. So it was fair. He’d given her the blow, and she’d given it to him, close enough. He’s still jiggling the screaming kid, its head waggling back and forth, maybe he shouldn’t bounce it so hard, but the fucking screaming’s got him all jangled.
Christ, two more stops, and then only a few blocks, maybe the fresh air will shut it up. He pictures Penny’s face when he plops it down beside her in their bed, all warm and dark. She won’t mind the crying, he doesn’t think. And he takes mental stock of the apartment—they’ve still got the diapers Lisle bought, he can run out for some milk, see if he can use one of the expired WIC checks on that dumb-ass red-dot Indian at the minimart on the corner. It’ll all be all right.
Still screaming. What’s the fucking problem! Not even pausing for a decent breath, all wound up. No wonder Mrs. Volvo left it in the car—the lungs on this thing. Mental privacy glass, he thinks, like a limo driver, just put up the window and you won’t hear it.
And then it chucks all over him, all down the front of his jacket like a freak film, spewing hot across his lap, all over the leather, white and curdled, reeking of bile. Jason jumps up, and it takes all he has not to drop it right on the floor of the bus.
“Do you need a wet wipe?” Mrs. Fatty asks, and at first he’s grateful—his jacket will be saved—but then it’s clear she’s laughing at him. Bitch. Whorebag.
“Uh, yeah.” He wants to smash her fat face in, push that pug nose right back in between those silly putty cheeks, watch her implode like a rotten tomato, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he smiles his charming smile, his “I-know-you-know-you-want-me-to-bend-you-over-like-the-bad-girl-you-are” smile that works so well. He looks down, then up at her through his black lashes—women always love that. “I, uh, forgot the bag.”
“My husband won’t carry one either. I even got him one without the duckies and bunnies.” She digs around in hers, pulls out a crinkly yellow pack of wipes. “Here.”
He puts the kid on the seat, sideways so it won’t roll off while he swipes at his jacket, facing her, his cock level with her head, her sitting down, the bus swaying. He could grab a handful of that drugstore-dyed hair, pull her to him, finish. Before she ate the whole goddamn Krispy Kreme factory, she was probably hot. Hell, last call, liquored up, he’d fuck her now, fat ass and all. His dick jerks, and he smiles down at her, I’ve-gotcha-where-I-wantcha…
But she’s looking around him, behind him, to the baby who’s like a tick on its back, waving arms and legs, hasn’t