Penelope let the other’s words echo inside of her mind, looking at the man in disbelief. If she didn’t know any better, the blonde could very well think she was back in high school and dealing with Miami’s Regina George in the making. However, she was sure she wasn’t back to being seventeen again. “Free People. All of the stores in one day.” Penelope gave him a smirk.
Her gaze went from the top of his head, to the tip of his shoes and all the way back up. His question caused Penelope’s eyebrow to raise. What did she consider worth the trouble? Some days, nothing was worth the trouble; other days, five bucks were worth the chaos it would follow. “Something that’s not worth thirty bucks on Amazon, that’s for sure.” Truthfully, Penelope didn’t even know how factual her statement was.
“Are you usually this nice to strangers?”
( @cosmlc)
Jack wrinkles his nose in distaste, flipping the phone open and closed absently as he speaks. “You can’t get authentic vintage like this on Amazon, sweetheart. Ebay, maybe, but this baby’s been with me since I bought it at a T-Mobile mall kiosk in 2004.”
He resists the urge to quickly kiss the hinged part of the phone, one of a hundred of his compulsive habits for good luck, or protection or whatever, that usually only come out when he’s alone. It’s always been a useful way for him to gauge when he’s been isolated too long, when he accidentally acts out one of his weird little rituals in front of another human without realizing. Tonight he manages to catch himself in time, but his arm still jerks like it’s attached to a puppet string. It only makes him more irritable, the suppression of an itch he wants to scratch. “No. You caught me in a good mood.” He smiles with all his teeth.
Normally that would be his cue to fuck off and not look back, but he’s never been able to help his own curiosity. Something about her comment about thirty bucks on Amazon rang too close to truth for him. He lowers his voice, the acid dropping from his tone as he can’t help but ask, “Are you really a thief? Because that would be very interesting to me.”
He’s looking for some... particular sorts of connections, connections he’d had in Chicago that he’s had shit luck finding in Miami. If she knows the right sort of people, the sort of people he’s been looking for, she could be a very useful person to know indeed.