Jersey Six - Jewel E Ann Page 0,10
in one hand while offering his other hand to help Jersey up from the ground.
She could do one-arm pushups. There was no need to play damsel in distress, so she stood, brushing her hands on her sweatshirt while squinting up at him. He owned a crooked and undecipherable smile. After sharing it with her, as if his smile alone was some sort of gift, he proceeded to deposit a squiggly line of ketchup on each hot dog before handing one to Jersey.
“Thank … you …” She accepted the hot dog without taking her eyes off his smirking face. “What if I don’t like ketchup?”
He eyed the scar on her right cheek for a few seconds, his grin faltering for a breath, as if it somehow distracted him.
“I said, what if I don’t like ketchup?”
He tore his gaze away from her scar, meeting her eyes and blinking at her for another few really uncomfortable seconds before taking a bite of his hot dog while moving a few steps away from the food truck. “Then lick it off and forget about it.”
Jersey laughed. “If I didn’t like ketchup, then why would I lick it off?”
His long legs took tiny steps, as if walking and eating a hot dog could end in disaster. “You said if and didn’t, not since and don’t, which means you like ketchup, but you’re just trying to bust my generous balls by throwing out some hypothetical situation.”
Taking a massive bite of the hot dog, Jersey followed a few steps behind him. She liked ketchup on her hot dog. Only ketchup.
“Are you stalking me?” His strides lengthened toward the stoplight.
Jersey took another bite. One more bite and it would be gone. She chewed slowly, the only option with a third of a hot dog and bun shoved into her mouth. “Well…” she mumbled, swallowing twice to get the partially chewed food into her stomach “…I need to know about your generous balls. They wouldn’t happen to have some spare change, would they?”
Hard work, a paycheck, job promotions … and a million other things imparted a sense of pride to the average person. People who lived on the street could be proud and starve to death, or they could swallow their muted pride along with a hot dog and possibly some spare change for their next meal.
“You live around here?” The man wadded up his napkin, proving to be a faster eater than Jersey.
“Yes. You?”
He turned, sliding his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and sizing her up with his dark eyes. “I used to.”
Jersey finished her hot dog and wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. That seemed to elicit that undecipherable grin again. Men like him didn’t grin at women like Jersey, especially after being solicited for money. But after a few more odd moments of just staring at her, his grin faltered.
“Do you have a job?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Her eyes narrowed into slits.
He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. “Like what?”
“Like I confuse you?”
On a shrug, he shook his head. “You don’t confuse me. You didn’t answer my question. Do you have a job?”
Her lips twisted. “Sort of.”
“But it doesn’t pay well?”
“Doesn’t pay at all. I work for benefits.”
“Benefits, huh?” He glanced around the neighborhood before returning his attention to Jersey. “Well, sounds like good old bartering.”
“What do you mean?” Her gaze sank to her feet.
“What do I mean by bartering?”
“Yes … no …” She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Never mind. I was just looking for spare change. Thanks for the hot dog.” Hugging her arms to her chest while denying him one last glance, Jersey fled in the opposite direction.
“I have change.”
Her steps faltered. The hot dog satisfied her hunger. She could figure out the next meal later, but she thought of Chris and wondered if he needed something to eat.
She turned.
He held out a twenty-dollar bill. “What are your benefits? What do you do in exchange for them?”
The girl who took off her clothes and gave away the last piece of her pride for a sack of groceries, a blanket, and a gently used pair of shoes had no good reason to withhold simple information with twenty dollars at stake. “A gym membership and a bed.” Her chin lifted, heavy with her life’s reality. “I clean a few things and help out where I’m needed.”
He slipped the twenty dollars into the pocket of her hoodie. Jersey stiffened, holding her