#starlike

“I can hardly be glad watching you flaunting and fawning so shamelessly just to manipulate men in a game of chance.”

“I did nothing of the kind! I won by own wit and my merit!” She furrowed her brow and pulled her arm away, “You take it back, Erick.”

He said nothing, keeping his optics ahead of them at the florescence-lit shopping center beckoning like a cheap, linoleum beacon. “Of all places to escape an angry gaming house, why you chose this maligned strip of destitution I cannot fathom.”

Estella fluffed her hair absently, “Los Angeles is so beautiful this time of the evening. All the most beautiful people come out to look around. You watch and see...” She looked towards the parking lot of the largest store on the strip: some manner of cheap department store. Her optics clicked and she glanced up at Erick. Smiling, she tugged his hand, “You’re not too tired yet, are you?”

He snorted in reply, shaking her hand away, “I am none too eager to start anymore fights, nay. I have already ruined my apparel tonight on your account..” He gestured down to his ruined clothing, spattered with alcohol and blood from the noses and gums of the irritated poker players that had tried to make good on their promise of taking back their money from the pretty young woman they were sure they’d been cheated by.

“I agree. You cannot go home in those...Come, we’ll buy you some new clothes. You complained you were needing new items in your drawers, at any rate...” She was already sashaying her way to the sliding doors of the super center when he halted.

“If you’ve forgotten, I am covered in incriminating fluids,” the man growled, pulling away from her, “And you want to turn me into a spectacle.”

Estella rolled her optics, “For heavens sake...Very well, you may wait outside if you wish. But you know it may take me awhile, fitting you is no easy task.”

“I’ll open the portal home without you and leave you here if you tarry. I’ll have no bad feelings about it, either.”

What a gentleman. Estella sighed and entered the store, adjusting the hem of her less-than-modest top as she was blasted with the A/C. She had no doubt Erick would make good on his threat, and wasted no time flip-flopping her way into the store, rubbing under her optics as she attempted to adjust to the florescent lighting. Where was the men’s department? Did they even have a men’s department, or was it just separated into sweats and scrubs?

There were a few straggling shoppers shuffling about without paying anyone else much heed. She poked her head this way and that, making it painfully obvious to any employees that she was angling for assistance.