Milla
Three days. I had run and hidden in my home for three days after ruining things with my cousin and his mate, and I would’ve stayed there longer, working on projects more to keep me busy than to earn a living. I had plenty of money, and the human in me wanted to use it to travel and explore all things. My gator was a hard pass on that.
In fact, ever since the incident at the bakery, she had become even more stubborn. She wanted to be here. Worse than that, she wanted Justice. I knew it was only because he was the first unmated gator she’d run across, but she was stubborn. Stubborn and pushed back. Maybe it was for the best. If she was this strong as a repressed latent shifter, I couldn’t imagine her strength once she was set free.
I slipped on my shoes. I wanted to stay inside, possibly read a book, but I was down to one roll of toilet paper, two packages of ramen, and no cream for my coffee. If we were in a city, I’d have had that and so much more delivered already, but there wasn’t even any pizza delivery, so off I went.
T-Mack’s was a creepy excuse for a store. From the look of the produce and meat sections, they were lucky to get two deliveries a week, and the selection of cereal was abysmal. It was more than that, though. The place felt dark, and I was glad to be there during the day.
I pulled into the parking spot, list in hand. I didn’t need much to get by, but if I was going to be there, I might as well get all the supplies so I didn’t need to head back any time soon.
In front of the store, they had a clearance section of some patio furniture and grills. I meandered over, liking the idea of grilled meat, the real kind, not the gas grill garbage people seemed to think was so fantastic in the city. They only had two styles left, and neither was great, but I popped the tag off one to take to the register anyway, now craving steak more than my next breath. I added briquettes to my list, grabbing a cart from the return and heading inside.
It was just as heavy a feeling as I remembered. Whatever went down here had to be bad if even I sensed it. My dad was the one who had gifts in this area, while I simply had learned not to ignore my gut.
I worked my way around to the seasonal aisle to grab the charcoal and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of the most beautiful carved trunk I had ever seen. It was so out of place in this craptastic excuse for a grocery store and was far from seasonal. Without glancing at the price, I picked it up, balancing it on my cart and bringing it to customer service.
“I want to buy this, but I have more shopping to do. Do you need me to pay for it first, take it to my car, and come back inside?” I asked the girl behind the counter who only half listened to me as she chomped her gum and did something on her phone. I just stood there until she noticed me because her phone seemed to hold the fucking meaning of life the way she refused to look up from it.
“What?” she asked when she finally noticed.
“I need this.”
“Give me the sticker.” You know, because her reaching for the sticker that was closer to her than me was an imposition. This was why I worked alone. I wasn’t even this chick’s coworker and her laziness ticked me off.
“Here.” I all but threw it at her, not even pretending to give a crap about her feels.
“Make sure you love it and it works because sales final, lady.”
“Works?” It was a trunk. A beautiful trunk, but a trunk. No working parts that I knew of.
“Hinges.” She rolled her eyes. “No returns.”
“It’s fine.” I signed in exacerbation as she rang up the piece. If the hinges were broken, I’d fix them. It was too stunning to turn down over something so simple to repair, if, in fact it was even broken. I was so not giving her the satisfaction of checking. I tended to be a bit stubborn.
“Two hundred ten dollars and eighty-one cents with tax.”
“Really?” The piece had to be worth four times that. It was hand carved. I’d put money on that. It was a piece of art.
“It’s locally made, lady. If you want cheap, there’s a SaveMart about an hour north of here.” Bitch thought I was a cheap ass.
“I think it scanned wrong. May I see a manager?” I was posturing, I knew it, and it never suited me, but people like her had a way of ruffling every last feather I had.
“Whatever,” she mumbled before calling her manager who showed up within a half a minute. “This lady here thinks we are overcharging on the box,” she told her manager before walking to the back of her workspace and pretending to be looking at something both important and store related.
“Sorry, ma’am. We don’t set those prices. The trunks are made from reclaimed cypress and are on consignment. We have no discretion.” The manager was polite enough, but I was already agitated. I’d hoped being here would calm my inners, but that didn’t appear to be the case.
“I understand this,” I lied. I’d assumed they’d picked it up for a song. Consignment. That had my brain working. Maybe the artist could make me a functional work desk. “I just think she missed a zero in her price.”
“A zero. As in over two thousand.” The girl who was pretending to not be eavesdropping dropped her facade.
“It’s a piece of art, so, yes, over two thousand.” It probably would garner more in one of the northern auctions, but I was keeping it, and now I was paying a shit-ton more than necessary for it because of my awesome pride.
“The consigner appreciates your honesty,” the manager said before ringing me up and taking my money.
I was halfway down the road with my treasure when it hit me. Fuck. I needed to go back and buy the things on my list. Oh well. At least I had my new trunk, and I’d made someone’s day. Maybe this would help whomever it was put value on their work. Probably some little old man in a shotgun house who was bored by his retirement. The smile on my imaginary old man’s face made the extra expense completely worth it.
Now, if only said old man would start a grocery delivery service so I didn’t need to go back to T-Mack’s?