Under Locke(124)

He scrunched up his face. "I wouldn't say a bitch exactly."



Oh lord.



For Slim of all people to put it like that...damn it. Guilt brushed at the sides of my mind. Did I have a good reason to stay mad? I thought so. On the other hand, did Dex have a good reason to have lost his shit like that? Not to that extent. To add onto that...he had tried to apologize in his own Dex-way.



Slim glanced up before looking back at the screen. "Do you want me to tell you the truth or do you want me to be nice?"



Double oh lord. Had I really been that much of a bitch?



"The truth, Slimmy," I huffed, already feeling like a jerk before my friend had even started talking.



"Well, Ris, you're kinda being just a wee bit unreasonable," he stated evenly. Slim tapped at his tablet. "If somebody yelled at my sister like he yelled at you, I'd try to beat their ass." I almost snorted at the keyword in his sentence: try. But he kept going so I couldn't make a crack. "But if my sis did the shit you did, I would've yelled at her like that."



Ugh.



"He only got that pissed off because he cares, you know that?" he asked carefully, finally glancing up at me with those bright green eyes.



And that comment deflated me.



"Yeah..." I sighed.



"But," he winked, "That 'go fuck yourself' was pretty dead on, Rainbow Ris."



I had said that, hadn't I? Whoops.



Slim smiled indulgently, erasing the last pieces of anger that had clung to my chest. He had a point. "You ever do that shit again though, and I'll hunt you down myself next time. You got it?"



"Yeah, I got it."



And just like that, I felt a little relieved. Staying angry was too much work. I needed to figure out how to apologize to Dex without completely rolling over in submission. I wouldn't give him that much.



So when the phone rang a little while later, the chance fell onto... my desk.



"Pins and Needles, this is Iris speaking, how can I help you?"



A prerecorded message stated that I was receiving a call from an inmate at Byrd Unit.



The name triggered a memory of my dad. Was that where he'd gone to jail before he'd met my mom? Something steered me toward a yes.



I probably should have hung up, but I stayed on the line while the call connected and my brain ran. Was my dad in jail? I didn't think it'd been long enough from the last time he'd been in town but there was a chance.



"'Lo?" a rough voice on the other end finally answered. It wasn't him. Ten years later, and I know I'd recognize his voice.



"Pins and Needles," I answered in a weird way. Okay then, why would someone be calling the shop from jail?



There was some shuffling before the man spoke again. "I need to speak to Dex."



It hit me right then who was calling. There was only one other person in jail that would be calling Pins—Dex's dad. Crap!



It wasn't my place to guard his calls or any aspect of his life but I made myself forget that. He'd been in such a terrible mood since I'd blown him off at the theater, and this would tip his off-balance scales. There was no way in any dimension of hell that Dex would want to speak to his father.



"He's not available right now. I can take a message." A message that would be written in invisible ink.



"I know that fucker's there," the man—the older Locke—grunted. "Put him on the phone."



Oh. Hell. No. "He's not available right now. Would you like to leave a message?" I ground out in my best imitation of Dex when he was angry.



"He's there. Put him on the goddamn phone."



I pulled the phone away from my face and looked at it. Don't disrespect your elders, Ris. "I'm not putting him on the phone. If you want to leave a message, leave it. If you don't, then feel free to call his cell phone." Like he'd answer it. Ha!



I might not be able to talk shit to the younger Locke, but the older man was in jail so he was harmless. At the moment at least.



"What did you say your name was?" His voice had started picking up in pitch the angrier he got.



I might do stupid things every once in a while but I wasn't dumb enough to tell him my name. "Would you like to leave a message, sir?"



"What I'd like to do is talk to my goddamn—"



I hung up with a little flourish, smiling indulgently to myself. Not even three minutes later, the shop phone started ringing again. I picked it up, only to hear the prerecorded message start playing, and I hung up again.



The phone rang twice more but I didn't even bother picking it up those times. The shop was empty with the exception of The Dick in his office and Blue at her station. She wouldn't give a crap about me ignoring the phones.