“Does doing a wicked thing make you bad inside?

I must believe it doesn’t.”

–Dovey

THE MAN INSISTED on walking me to the lobby, and because I didn’t want to be weird, I let him. It was just past ten o’clock, so more than likely, the BA dance was still going strong.

We stepped off the elevator and onto the first floor, his hand at my elbow again, this time more firmly, as if he’d staked his claim and now I was his.

I walked fast.

We passed by the bar where we’d met earlier, and a guy with white hair caught my attention at one of the bar stools. With dawning horror, I realized it was Spider.

He sat there, nursing a whisky, his brown eyes widening as he caught my eyes through the glass wall that separated the bar from the hotel. I tried to make myself disappear, but yeah, that didn’t work. His mouth opened as if to speak, but then he noticed The Man. Red colored his cheeks as he bolted from the stool and came barreling out the door.

My stomach dropped, and I walked more briskly for the exit, putting some distance between us.

“Dovey!” he yelled. The sound of his footfalls were like a death knell in my head.

The Man stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Friend of yours?”

I licked my lips. “He’s one of the students at my school. There was a dance here tonight.”

“Ah,” he murmured. He brushed his lips against mine. “Perhaps I should be going then?”

Please, yes!

“Yes,” I whispered.

He turned and walked away just as Spider reached me.

“Who the fuck was that douche?” he shouted, his voice loud and carrying down the hall of the hotel. He literally bounced around me, jittery, with a wild look in his eyes. Something was more wrong with him than just seeing me with someone. Maybe it had something to do with his black eye.

“Calm down,” I said, tugging on his arm, ushering him to the side.

“You turn me down, but you’re with some old fuck?” he hissed at me.

“Shut up,” I seethed. “You messed us up, not me.” And then I pivoted, my heels clicking against the tile.

“Don’t walk away from me.” He whipped me around, and nose to nose, we faced off so close I could smell the bourbon on his breath. How much had he had tonight?

“Why were you coming from where the rooms are with a man twice your age?” He enunciated the words slowly.

“Let go of me,” I snapped, pulling away my arm. “You do not own me. I do not have to answer to you.”

He let me go, and I stumbled back but caught myself on one of the heavy pieces of hotel furniture. He immediately looked sorry, but my mouth tightened.

“Go away, Spider. I’m not talking to you when you’re trashed.”

He waved his hands around. “I’m not drunk.”

I shook my head, words I shouldn’t say spilling out. “Yes, you are. And you only want me because I keep telling you no. And that man you saw? I was making the money I needed to pay back the loan shark. Because if I didn’t, he was going to hurt Sarah or me or anybody I cared about. Maybe you.”

His face whitened. “To pay off your debt? But I thought—”

“You thought what? You haven’t spoken to me! You’re too busy getting blow jobs in your car.”

“I tried to give you money—”

“I don’t want it,” I bit out. “And it’s not like you’ve tried to ask me how it was going anyway. You didn’t call me or try to talk to me at school. What was I supposed to think?”

He clutched his stomach, his anger gone. He gazed at me in horror. “You fucked him for money?”

A low voice growled at me from behind. “What have you done?”

No. Just no.

Please, not him. Not Cuba.

I turned.

The hotel lobby shrank down to just me in my black dress and him in his black tux. All the sounds disappeared around us except for his heavy breathing and my short pants. His jungle cat eyes were the darkest I’d ever seen them, his neck corded, his nose flared.

He clenched his fists. “You whored yourself out for money when I had plenty? When Spider had plenty? Why?”

I clung to my purse, swaying on my feet, trying to quiet the screaming in my head. I didn’t have an answer for him that he’d understand.

And so. A second later, I took off in a dead-run for the exit, and part of me wanted him to yell and call me back, but all I got was silence.

Blinded by tears, I somehow managed to crawl inside a waiting taxi that drove me back to Ratcliffe where I belonged.

“Everyone’s got a limit.”

–Dovey

I CAME HOME and sat on the front porch until the dawn peeked her yellow fingers over the horizon. Heather-Lynn found me there when she came out for the morning paper.

She didn’t seem surprised by my all-nighter. She simply plopped down beside me, dressed in her housecoat and kitten heels. Together, we watched Ricky look for a place to potty. She smelled like tea and cigarettes. She smelled like home. Not this old house, but the warmth of our threesome, the way it held us all together.

Sighing, I leaned my head on her shoulder. “I did something bad.”

She was quiet for a while, mulling over my words. She was a smart lady in the end. “You lied about Alexander waiting for the house to sell, didn’t you? He wants his money now?”

I nodded.

She wrapped her arms around me. “You wanna talk? Tell me what you did?”