Chicky's eyes were round as quarters. In her astonishment, she forgot all about not staring.
Confusion rippled through the boys, too. This wasn't going the way they'd expected. The tallest boy, the one who'd laughed nastily about needing shut-up oil for his girlfriend, recovered first. "Yeah, exactly, it's like reverse racism. Cuz we're white. And..." he waved a hand vaguely at the shelves, the colourful orisha statues and the soaps and candles with their Spanish labels. He seemed a little uncomfortable at being made to spell it out.
"Yeah. Yeah, that's what I meant," nodded the guy who'd received the dousing of fragrance. "Uh... you like my cologne, officer? It's, I dunno actually, like Paco Rabanne or something, I wasn't really paying attention this morning."
The truth stirred in Chicky's throat again, squirming, frustrating, pressing on her windpipes. The cop's expression hadn't changed in that whole time. His eyebrow was still cocked skeptically, his stare unblinking. And it was fixed on the boys. Argh, god she wanted to say something.
But her eye kept being pulled magnetically back to the gleaming gold shield at his belt, and her jaw stayed tightly shut. Just cuz he wasn't on their side, didn't mean he was on hers. Cops were only on the cops' side.