Page 4 of Tiger Bitten

She grinned and headed directly for the bin she wanted. She grabbed a Soundgarden record and faced it to him. “This one. I’m going to dig up all those nostalgic memories for you. This one will send you down the rabbit hole.”

The smile faded from his face, and he jerked his gaze to the carpet.

“Did I…did I say something wrong?”

He cleared his throat and tilted his chin toward the record in her hands. “I’ll take it.”

Confused by the strange moment, she murmured. “Okay. I’ll go ring you up.”

He followed her at a distance, milled around, and looked at a few more record bins before he returned to the cash register. Again, he handed her cash. He had a huge wad of it in his wallet.

“What do you do for work?” she asked conversationally.

He was frowning down at his vibrating phone. “I detail cars. I had my own company I built from the ground up and sold it this year.”

“Wow,” she said, impressed. “Congratulations.”

He denied the call and shoved his phone into his back pocket. “I ended up getting screwed in the deal. Figured it out after all the paperwork was signed.” He gave her an empty smile and then took the handles of the bags from her grasp. “Have a good day…Ren, did you say it was?”

“Yeah. Ren.”

He looked her up and down, but it wasn’t a hungry look that made her uncomfortable. More like he was trying to figure her out. “I’m Marsden. People call me Mars.”

“Mars,” she repeated softly. That was a cool name.

“I like your Bronco,” he said, gesturing out the window.

“I like your…” Face and physique, honestly. “Um, hoodie.”

He looked down at the logo on his chest. It was a hunting and fishing logo with a buck on there. “Thanks. Hey listen, if I come back here again, don’t tell me anything personal, okay?”

“Uuuuh, okay?”

And then Marsden…Mars…the mysterious hot and cold white tiger Cat left, and the sound of the bell on the door echoed a strange and lonely sound into the shop.

Chapter Three

“What’s he doing?” Ren’s mom asked.

Ren tapped the end of the pen against her lips gently, frowning at the man who was pacing the sidewalk just outside the front window. Mars had acted like he was going to come in three times, and then changed his mind, and now he was seemingly having a conversation with himself.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, and from here, she could hear the irritation in his tone as he answered a call. “What?”

He rested his hand on his hip and stared off at the street, his back to the window. They had the mirrored tint on there, so he perhaps didn’t realize they could see him so easily.

“Maybe he’s on drugs,” her mom murmured.

“Maybe,” Ren agreed.

“He has a nice truck,” Mom pointed out.

“Super nice,” she said, squinting at the jacked up, glossy black Ram pickup parked right on the street in front of the shop.

“And he’s very handsome,” Mom pointed out.

“So hot.”

“But you know, it’s not right for us to judge a book by its cover. People who seem to have it all together also can do drugs.”