He nodded and said, “Thank you. And you already know how you look. I’m sure that plenty of guys have already told you.”

She grinned and said, “Yeah.” That’s all she had to say.

Boy, she knows she bad, Ivan thought. He began to feel comfortable with her, but he’d been ignoring Audrey. So he walked forward and asked the forgotten friend, “What are you about to do, buy the whole store in here?”

“Oh, they just have so many great bags,” Audrey told him. “They have some I haven’t seen before.”

“In Vegas?” he asked her.

She turned to face him. “Yeah.”

“Is that where you’re from originally?”

“Well, I’m actually from Hawaii, but I’ve been in Las Vegas for two years now,” she answered. “Do you like this one?” she asked him, holding up another large Fendi bag.

It looked like a typical Fendi bag to Ivan. It had the up and down F’s all over it in brown, burgundy, and beige, like the majority of them. He didn’t see what the big deal was with Fendi. Most of the bags were not even leather.

He flattered her anyway. “That’s all you.”

Then he turned back to Chris. She had walked over to check out a lone Fendi bag on display in the middle of the store. It was the only one that looked different, a multicolored bag that didn’t even look Fendi. There were no F’s all over it.

One of the female salesclerks commented on it. She could see that Chris was admiring it.

“That’s one of our newest bags,” she said. “It’s our latest promotion.”

Chris nodded to her. “I like it. It’s different.”

“Would you like to have it today?” the salesclerk asked her. She angled toward Ivan when she asked her. She was a crafty, older white woman with dark brown hair and hard green eyes.

“Sure, if I could afford it,” Chris told her with a sly grin.

The salesclerk looked right at Ivan. “Wouldn’t this bag look beautiful on her? She’s gorgeous.”

That even got Audrey’s attention. “Oh, my God, I didn’t even see that one.” She walked over to it immediately.

The multicolored bag was practically the first purse you saw when you walked into the store. Ivan didn’t see how Audrey could have missed it. But Chris hadn’t missed it. And all eyes were on Ivan now.

He thought, Okay, am I supposed to buy them this now? I’m not spending thousands of dollars on these girls. Is this how Lucina hooks them up, with that “generous” shit? Because I’m not into it.