Page 41 of Bad Intentions

“Really? Oh my god.”

“Really. I am the one still cooking for you too.”

She swore under her breath—I heard it.

“Pardon me?” I pressed, daring her to say it louder.

She snorted, grabbed her purse, and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her.

I was no Mother of the Year, but I ran a business. In my opinion, giving a child financial stability was more important than playing house and struggling to make ends meet, then kicking her out into the world with nothing to her name.

She and Donna’s girl, Victoria, were two peas in a pod. We’d thought we’d been saving them from hard life, the bar business, the riffraff that often drifted through. Looked like those two had found their own trouble. I’d blinked, and somehow, my once sweet girl had gotten out of hand. “Out of hand”—that’s something you’d never thought you’d say as a mother about your child. Yet, here we were.

I pressed my lips tightly, watching Alysha get into her car—my car I’d bought for her—and drive off.

I phoned Donna.

“Did you talk to Victoria about Derek?” I asked.

“She said he was nothing.”

“I checked Alysha’s phone last night. She’d been texting him. The sort of stuff you don’t text to just a regular boy.”

“He’s not a boy.”

“Exactly my point. So what is he doing with two girls fresh out of high school?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

I cursed under my breath.

“You think she’s deep in with him, your Alysha?” Donna asked.

“Don’t know.”

“Victoria pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“Yet they are going to the fair. I’m sure he’ll be around.”

“Did you tell Alysha you want her to stay home?”

“She’d break the windows and run away. You remember yourself at their age?”

“We had more sense than this generation.”

“That we did. That we did.”

“Well?” Donna exhaled loudly. “Let me know if he shows up again at the bar.”

“No doubt in my mind. Telling you, D, he’s trouble.”

“There are a lot of folks in town for the fair. Maybe he’ll leave too.”

I doubted that. Didn’t say anything. All we could do was wait.

Victoria wasn’t an angel either, but Victoria listened to Donna more, was more careful. My girl? Well, my girl was a leader. Came from her father, no doubt. Cigarettes in her car. Booze. Condoms in her purse—at least she had enough sense for that. I wasn’t afraid about those—I wasn’t clueless. At the right time, I’d sat Dougie down and given him a lecture. I had a bar, heard plenty when people drank and ran their mouths.

That evening, I didn’t know how deep the trouble ran. I went to my bar as usual. It was crowded, but no sign of Derek.