Page 86 of Not Like The Other Girls

Every smiles proudly at her acknowledgement of him being a singer. A totally self-obsessed bastard, that man. “Yeah, that you don’t. And no, I am not a singer. I just filled in for a friend last summer.”

Then her tall man walks into the shop, nearly smacking his head against the top of the glass door thanks to his towering height. He toys with some toys. No. He toys with some phones, before settling on the newest, most expensive one because he’s feeling quite generous right now.

Lily-girl just smiles at him, of course.

“We’re getting this,” he announces not to just the sales person, but rather to the whole room of customers hanging around, minding their own business.

Lily, just for the sake of being modest, and not coming off looking like she is taking advantage of his poor soul, whines. “Oh, Every, that is way too expensive. No way I can help you pay for that. I’ll find a way to pay it back for you. Trust me.”

“You sure are, sugartits, but not with cash.”

He meant tutoring him or something like that, right?

Right?

“Sure, I’ll cook you fried chicken for dinner. How about a delivery from McDonald’s that I reheat in your microwave?” She grins happily.

Right, then.

Every gives her a side hug. “That would be amazing, babe.”

So they pay for that stupid phone to replace Lily’s even stupider former phone. He scans the QR code on the steel counter with his own phone.

Lily nods to herself, understanding dawning in her mind. “Man, I understand it now. You got the phone for me because it’s free.”

Her man turns to her, his confused face blank. “The fuck are you talking about, girly? That mobile was expensive as shit.”

“But you didn’t even pay.”

“Of course I did, you silly girl.”

“No, you didn’t. Don’t fool me, boy. That would’ve cost a whole truckload of cash. Literally.”

“There’s something called mobile transfer, sugartits. I pay through my phone by scanning that alien language QR code over there, and a bank transaction is made. Guess you’re too poor to know about this, huh? Do you even have a bank account?”

“Of course not, man. I’ve got nothing to keep in there—maybe except for my grandfather’s ashes.”

“All right then, this is how you do it. This is the new generation AMEX black card. You scan your face in the app, yeah, then the money is wired.”

Lily blinks at him, perpetually confused. “So if a thief smiles at your phone, he could also get your cash wired account? But damn, that’s so dope, dude.”

“Nah, there’s some security shit that deals with that. Not that I understand anything about how it works.”

“Dude, you sure don’t understand many deals.”

“Girly, if I did, I would’ve become a scientist, not a CEO.”

“Good point.”



Now, after the whole phone ordeal and the mama ordeal and the fan girls ordeal and the mobile banking ordeal—not in order—they move on to the next one. Fashion house boutiques line the first floor’s, well, floors. They walked past Prada, Louis Vuitton, and other similar shops before Every decides that they stop. It’s some brand’s fictional shop called Isela.

The earth-toned shop, named after a random genus of African spiders, greets them with overpriced handbags and dresses they could get from other tailors out there for one in a hundredth of its price here. An incredibly snooty sales lady gives a little bow at specifically Every, before leading them both into the store.

Nice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane, would you like to see our new winter collection? This generic, overpriced pair of underwear is straight from the runway shows.” The snooty sales lady, whose name tag says Mara, greets Lily’s man.