Page 88 of Bad Intentions

I only promised him two bucks, but hey, that was big money for ten seconds of conversation.

I dialed Dougie’s number, punching *67 before it. That was how you blocked your phone number ID back then.

When Dougie picked up, Johnny blurted, “Your girl, Alysha, is at the fair with her new boyfriend. He says you are a wuss and a redneck.”

He hung up, giggling, as I handed him two bucks. Small price to pay for what happened next.

I didn’t notice Dougie approach the group, but heard his shouting first. Suddenly, he was chest to chest with Derek, though there was nothing he could do in public. Then Derek was walking away. Alysha was pissed, pushing Dougie’s chest.

I followed Derek toward the west entrance and out of the fair to the field parking. Ducking behind the cars, I watched him get into his. That’s when I heard loud calls.

“Yo, you!”

And there was Dougie and several of his bulls. They surrounded the car, banged on the roof. Dougie angrily knocked on the driver’s window.

Derek slowly got out of the car, and when Dougie lunged at him, I pulled out my phone to call 911. Sure, Derek was a fine guy, but there were four against one.

The phone froze in my hand as I looked at what happened next. Derek suddenly had a gun in his hand.

It could’ve ended badly. But Derek wasn’t Dougie. He was cool. Calm. In less than a minute, Dougie and his friends were nowhere to be seen, Derek was driving out of the parking lot, and I wondered what he’d said to Dougie to make him back away.

I drove home, changed into the proper clothes for work, and thought about texting Derek, asking who he was going to the concert with—if he actually was, because he’d left the fair.

It was already getting dark outside, so on my way to work, I decided to drive past Derek’s house. If his car was there, I would pop in. Maybe call him, see if he wanted to “blow off steam.”

Except when I approached his house, there was another car parked out front next to his. I recognized it. Al’s.

She always got what she wanted. What was worse, she always got what I wanted. Clothes, toys, boys.

And she was here, at Derek’s.

If it were daylight, I would’ve driven off. I wouldn’t have dared park around the corner, grab a hoodie from my back seat, and, pulling it over my head, walk toward Derek’s house. I wouldn’t have gotten riled up seeing the dim light in his bedroom. I stood outside the bedroom window and simmered with hate as I heard Al’s moans coming from the inside.

I spotted a watering can by the porch. There was water in it—a sign that everything happened for a reason.

I crept up to Al’s car, untwisted the fuel cap, and poured water into the gas tank.

Have a great effin’ night, slut.

48

MALLORY

Derek was like the most delicious chocolate, so good you couldn’t get enough and didn’t want to share.

Except, as it turned out, I was sharing him with plenty of others.

My only play was to do what men usually did—get what I wanted in the most straightforward way.

A text—I need to blow off steam—worked like a charm every time, getting him to reply and invite me over. Booty call, that’s what they said. I pretended that he was mine, though he probably thought it was the other way around. Guys, for the most part, were primitive in their needs. They stayed away from pettiness and neediness, so I had to pretend that I was only in this for sex.

Derek never let me stay the night, and it bothered me. Every time I left his house, usually late at night, after my shift at Ma Shirley’s, I parked around the corner and watched his place. What ticked me off was the other women who came there, including that bitch Al. I gritted my teeth at the sight, confronted Derek one night. A mistake on my part. I knew that with a guy like him, I had to be above jealousy. He needed to see that I was the only one worthy, and for that, I couldn’t be a whiny sidekick.

One, I had to get rid of Al. This wasn’t about getting her sloppy seconds. This was her getting on my nerves.

Two, I had to make sure that Derek couldn’t come back to this town once he left. Not for anyone else but me.

Three, I wanted him to take me with him wherever he was going next. He’d said San Francisco.