Shield's Devotion: Book One

Chapter 3: Aurora

"Three hundred even," she tells me and scans my card.

"Thank you. Could you put a one hundred dollar tip on there for me?"

"Um, sure. I just need your signature here," she points at the skinny like on the receipt for me to sign.

I sign and take my debit card back in my wallet. I think about it for a second and decide to pull out some cash to give to her. I hand her three hundred dollars in cash and she looks confused.

"Just take care of your boys," I move my eyes to the picture of them and smile before walking out the door.

I hop in the driver's seat of my Rav4 and set my purse in the backseat before looking at Taylor. She looks pissed.

"What's with the face?" I ask and poke her face.

"I'm so mad that you didn't let me pay! You're leaving tomorrow and I wanted to pay for them," she pouts but I ignore it.

"Oh well you'll get over it. You can pay for snacks and stuff tonight."

"There's a huge difference between thirty dollars and four hundred dollars. Oh I know! Let's go shopping. We're in Houston so let's go to the biggest mall they've got," she jumps in her seat, excited.

In Timpson we don't have a mall. Really we don't have any kind of clothing store so we have to drive an hour out of town to buy clothes.

"Okay for what?" I ask.

"I'm going to buy you an outfit for your first day of school."

"Works for me," I pull up Google Maps on my phone and find a mall called "The Galleria".

We pull up to the Galleria and it's way bigger than what I expected. Inside is even more exciting.

"Can this even be considered a mall? This place is huge! OMG, Aurora they have and ice skating rink," Taylor squeals as we walk through the ridiculously huge building.

"This is insane. And while this place is magnificent as it is, we have a time frame to stick to here so let's get moving," I loop my arm through hers and drag her with me.

After about an hour of shopping, I've found the perfect outfit and I'm modeling it for Taylor. The outfit fits me great in all the right places and I suddenly can't wait to wear it to school. It consists of a loose white tank top that shows off just a tasteful amount of cleavage, a pair of dark gray washed skinny jeans with zipper pockets, a sexy leather jacket, and black Christian Louboutin heels. To accessorize, I chose a big gold necklace, gold dangling earrings, and gold aviator sunglasses. I look fucking hot.

Taylor snaps a photo of me and posts it on Instagram, tagging me.

"Sacramento High better watch out because the sexy bitch is movin' in! #modelworthy," I read aloud.

"Well it's true. Now we're even. That outfit cost four times as much as these tattoos. Let's go home now," she hugs me and then I go back into the dressing room to change.

The ride back home was quiet except for the rock music coming from my car speakers and Taylor's light snoring. She fell asleep ten minutes into the ride like she always does. It's like my car is her favorite place to nap. It's not even dark out yet. When I get home I wake her up and we meet my dad inside, carrying a million shopping bags with us.

"So let me see these tattoos," my dad rubs his hands together, excited to see our matching artwork.

Dad has a full back piece in black and white. It's a tribute to my mom who passed away when I was eleven. He paid ten thousand dollars for the whole thing and it was well spent. The tattoo is absolutely breathtaking. It contains a bunch of his memories of them, splayed out across his back.