***
That winter he did pawn his watch, but only to buy Scout a coat. They’d become friends, but she always kept him at arm’s length until the day he found her with Slim.
Parker had noticed the man leering at Scout in a way that made him uneasy. He tried to always know where Scout was, but soon became equally as interested in where Slim was. His instincts had done him good. It wasn’t long before Slim proved to be as creepy as he appeared and Parker had to step in.
She was too young for the tracks and too beautiful for a girl of her age. Parker always kept an eye on her, watchful of the older men who looked a little too closely at young Scout.
Over time, she’d changed in subtle ways that only made the job of protecting her more difficult. When his mother died, she’d come to him and sat silently beside him through the night. She never said much, but she missed nothing. After losing his mother, he and Scout sort of stuck together, like a team. The only time she went missing was when Pearl needed something.
He had mixed emotions about Pearl. Parker knew what it was to lose a mother. He’d lost both his parents, but losing his mom hurt the worst, mostly because she was a victim.
Pearl was nothing like his mother. Over the years she became harder, colder, but no matter what, Scout loved her and he loved that about her, her loyalty. Scout didn’t turn her back on those she cared about. He liked that he fell into that category.
Parker liked to believe he was a man of the mind. He learned at an early age to value less earthly things, a beautiful sunset, the sight of a father holding his child’s hand, words of love written from heroes to their far-off lovers just before a battle.
He had a romantic soul and Scout had one too. She loved stories. His favorite days were those spent taking her on an adventure in the public library. They’d visited Atlantis, traveled back in time, flew the Jolly Roger, without ever having to spend a penny or leave that braided carpet.
She was enraptured by fiction. “You’re magic, Parker,” she’d told him one rainy afternoon. “I think this carpet is magic too. All we have to do is sit on it and your voice flies us away from Folsom, to places where we are rich and warm and feasting like kings.”
Her vocabulary and grammar had improved greatly once he started reading to her. It wasn’t easy for her to confess she couldn’t read. He’d always suspected she couldn’t, but it took years for her to admit it. When he promised to teach her, she hugged him fiercely. It was the first time she’d ever touched him and it had been years since he’d been hugged.
It wasn’t long after those physical boundaries had been crossed that he started seeing Scout differently. He became a bit more protective, territorial. She was still young, not yet an adult, but he’d decided once she came of age he’d press his luck and introduce her to other things.
He’d dreamt many times of kissing her. She was so innocent. When that time came, he didn’t want to frighten her. Knowing Scout, if she was kissed and didn’t want to be, she’d break his nose. He started reading her more adult stories with romantic plotlines by the time she was seventeen. During the intimate moments, she’d blush and fidget.
Then one day she’d caught him in the alley with another woman. He was an adult and technically doing nothing wrong, but the repulsed look on Scout’s face when she’d caught him haunted him for a long time. She truly was innocent.
He grit his teeth and paced his apartment. A man like Patras likely had a twisted definition of love. Scout deserved a love that was pure, without condition. He couldn’t imagine Patras using a slow hand to teach Scout about things she’d not yet learned. It was almost an intolerable thought, the two of them together. He was furious when he’d found out she’d given herself to a man like Lucian. She was his first.
Scout gave herself to a man who knew nothing about her. He hated that she was so enchanted by money. She could be quite the fool and he’d told her so last fall. He wanted to tell her only whores sold their bodies for riches, but he didn’t have to. She connected the dots on her own and he could see in her eyes that sleeping with a man like Patras did not come without the price of her pride.
Scout had dignity in spades, and Parker saw the mistakes she was making. However, until he was in a position to put another solution on the table, his hands were tied. He never expected her to fall so willingly into the arms of Lucian Patras. She was stronger than that, and the fact that he’d miscalculated her emotions for the other man irritated him to no end.