Fries Before Guys

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I looked over and up to find Derek standing at my side, his massive body protecting me, and generating so much heat that I yearned to lean into him.

  He looked good today.

  He looked good every day, but today especially.

  He wasn’t in anything special.

  A white t-shirt that fit him not too tight, but not loose either. A pair of faded jeans and a brown pair of work boots.

  And then there was the white baseball hat.

  There was a bright red clover on it, and I loved the hat.

  I wanted the hat.

  So bad that I’d looked the hats up online, intending to buy one, but the damn things were thirty-five bucks, and I barely had enough money to buy food every week. Wasting thirty-five dollars on a hat was insane.

  But it didn’t stop me from wanting it.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered.

  He grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me to my feet, dragging me to the side of the room where there was a little more privacy.

  “What are you doing here?” he countered.

  I raised my brows. “I thought it was obvious.”

  “How did you even know it was happening today?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “People talk. I heard about it at school of all places. One of the other cop’s kids told me. He’s a freshman and doesn’t realize he’s supposed to hate me yet. The popular kids will remedy that by the end of the day.”

  Derek snorted and shoved both of his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “Watching someone die…”

  I gave him a level look.

  “Is something that I deserve,” I countered. “This man shot my father. I deserve to watch him die.”

  There was a silence behind me that made me realize I wasn’t being quite as quiet as I’d intended.

  Derek looked over my shoulder and sighed.

  “So do you want to sit in the front or the back?” he asked.

  I frowned at him, unsure what he was talking about.

  But when I turned around, it was to find the seating practically cleared except for an older man who was sitting on the very back row. All the other people that had once been seated were now standing, deferring to me as they waited to see where I would want to sit.

  All of them were looking at me as if I was about to break at any moment.

  “Pick a seat, darlin’, so they can sit back down,” Derek murmured softly into my ear.

  I picked the front row seat, directly in the middle.

  The men piled in around me, filling the seating back up, but no one got too close to me.

  And the man who had glared at me earlier for sitting too close to him resumed his seat on the very end. But not before he stopped in front of me and offered me his hand.

  “I apologize for acting the way I did earlier,” he said. “My name is Roger MacMillan. I worked with your father as his partner until I moved down here for better pay. I was at the funeral that day, but there were a lot of people there and…”

  I waved his apology away.

  It was more than obvious that the man didn’t like being too close to people. And that’d been what I’d done, encroach on his space.

  “No apologies needed,” I said quietly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  The man, Roger, sat down and looked at the empty room in front of us.

  I did, too, allowing myself to take it all in.

  “I asked the guard what his last meal was,” I murmured softly. “He told me he didn’t know, but he would find out for me. Is that stupid to ask?”

  Derek shrugged his large shoulders as he said, “Maybe. Maybe not. Who’s ever one to say that any question is stupid? Why do you want to know?”

  I didn’t know.

  I just felt like it was something that I needed to know.

  “I feel like he shouldn’t have gotten that choice,” I admitted. “What makes him think that he can have anything nice after what he did?”

  Derek made an agreeing sound in the back of his throat as he said, “Well then, you’ll be happy to know that Texas doesn’t do last meals anymore. Some dumbass ordered a huge immaculate meal back in 2011, I think and didn’t eat it. So they did away with last meals altogether.”

  I looked over at him.

  “How do you know that?” I asked curiously.

  He shrugged. “I was curious too this morning, and I had time while I was waiting for a train on the way here. So I looked it up.”

  I smiled. “You don’t think they gave Jorgan that option?”

  Derek looked down at me, his beautiful face set in a frown.

  “Avery, Jorgan is a cop killer. I doubt he got anything he wanted,” he finally said.

  That was true.

  Cop killers were treated differently than any other criminals.

  Killing a police officer was a very big deal, especially to other cops.

  Something—movement of some kind—had me looking back toward the room in front of us.

  The door.

  The door had opened.

  I tensed, and Derek put his arm around me, pulling me in tight.

  I stayed stiff for all of two seconds before I leaned into him, watching as they marched Jorgan into the room, arms and legs shackled and chained together by a long chain that went from his wrists to his feet.

  I stiffened when he looked over at the viewing room we were sitting in.

  His eyes found me, and he smiled.

  I narrowed my eyes at the evil man, then smiled right back.

  “Don’t lose your cool,” Derek ordered.

  The guards got Jorgan on the stretcher, and I watched with anger as they situated him.

  He was strapped down by Velcro straps across his feet, arms, and chest.

  Once he was sufficiently immobile, a man wearing slacks and a black button-down shirt walked up to Jorgan, snapping gloves onto his hands.

  He pulled out something from his pocket and proceeded to start an IV on Jorgan despite Jorgan’s struggles.

  “I would’ve thought they’d give him something to make him cooperative,” I found myself saying.

  Derek didn’t say anything.

  There wasn’t anything to say.

  They rolled up a machine with pre-filled syringes full of liquid and began to hook the machine up to Jorgan’s IV.

  “I think I would’ve rather seen him fry in an electric chair,” I muttered darkly.

  Jorgan’s eyes turned to me as if he could hear my comment, and he smiled.

  “I would’ve rather that happen, too,” Derek admitted. “If that guy wasn’t about to die, I would’ve found some way to make his life a living hell.”

  Amen to that.

  Jorgan pursed his lips at me and jerked his chin, indicating that it was for me.

  So I flipped him off.

  Then, just like that, the switch was flipped, so to speak.

  The plungers on the syringes depressed, and suddenly the life died right out of Jorgan’s eyes.

  Just. Like. That.

  “Well,” I said when his eyes were no longer filled with life. “That was honestly anti-climactic.”

  I didn’t really know what to expect, but I thought maybe some final words would be said. That maybe it’d be more exciting.

  But honestly, it was kind of boring.

  Way less fulfilling than I thought it would be.

  “I feel like they should stab him in the heart with a wooden stake just to make sure that he’s actually dead,” I muttered.

  Derek’s arm tightened around me as he lifted me up and guided me to the door.

  Nobody spoke to me as we made our way outside, but eventually the events of what had just happened started to catch up to me, and I slowed.

  People passed me on the way out, but I didn’t notice or care.

  I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even realize
we were outside until Derek’s shout had me blinking back into reality.

  “Hey,” Derek called to the two men who were in front of us.

  I allowed my eyes to follow Derek as he let my hand go and jogged up to the two men.

  “Hey, did y’all ride together?” he asked them.

  The two young rookies nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Would one of y’all mind driving her car home?” Derek asked.

  I opened my mouth to deny that I was more than capable of driving myself home but thought better of it.

  I wasn’t capable right now.

  I’d expected to feel relief at watching that man die.

  I expected to feel like some big weight had lifted off my chest.

  Only, there wasn’t some big weight.

  In fact, all there was in my chest was this feeling of hollowness inside of me that was getting bigger and bigger by the second.

  “Sure thing,” one of them said. “We’re stopping for lunch, but it shouldn’t take us much longer than that to get it back.”

  Stopping for lunch.

  They acted like seeing a man die was nothing to them.

  And, maybe it was.

  Maybe it really was nothing to them.

  But before I had a chance to ask Derek about it, someone else called my name.

  I turned to find an older man shuffling toward us.

  The older man who was sitting in the back row during the execution was looking directly at me.

  I frowned and turned. Derek turned with me so he didn’t have to let go of my hand.

  “Avery,” he said once he was finally close enough. “I just wanted to apologize.”

  I frowned. “Ummm, for what?”

  Derek’s hand tightened as if he knew something that I did not. Something that I learned in the next few breaths as the man continued.

  “My son was Jorgan O’Malley,” he said. “My name is Ansel O’Malley.”

  My heart hitched and my breath caught in my throat.

  I took a step back almost on reflex, but Derek’s hand had moved during Ansel’s words, wrapping his strong arm around my hip and pulling me in tight, making it to where I had nowhere to go.

  Not with the steel band he called an arm wrapped around me.

  I almost froze as I took in the feeling, but Ansel’s distressed face had me focusing in on him instead of the way I was feeling—at least on the outside.

  He truly looked upset, as if his world had just ended.

  “My wife and I adopted Jorgan when he was eleven,” Ansel said, his eyes filling with tears. “He’d been in multiple abusive situations, and we knew that he’d been taken from his mother for abuse as well.” He paused. “I’m not condoning his behavior in the least. I just…I wanted to give you a little insight into his head.”

  Derek opened his mouth to say something to Ansel, but I placed my hand on his belly and patted it, telling him without words that it was okay.

  It wasn’t. I didn’t want to hear anything about the man that had killed my father.

  But I also could see the guilt and fear in the older man’s eyes.

  He was hurting. He was hurting because of me and because of his son.

  “I’m a profiler.” He paused. “I have multiple degrees in psychology, and I’ve been working for the FBI for years on serial killer cases.” He paused again. “I’ve written multiple books in my time about serial killers. If there’s something someone needs to know when it comes to a criminal’s head, I know it.” He swallowed hard as if he was about to lose his lunch. “I should’ve seen it happening in my own son, but I didn’t. Not until it was way too late. And for that, I’m deeply sorry.”

  “You’re the one who realized who it was that was doing the killings, weren’t you?” Derek said suddenly. “They said that a famous author had figured it out.”

  Ansel nodded. “It was me. I figured it out… but it was way too late. Way too late.”

  God. To have to inform the police on your own son. That had to be one of the hardest things ever to have to do.

  “Anyway.” He looked at me, letting me see the tiredness in his eyes. “I just wanted to apologize. To meet you and tell you that the man you saw in the room today? That wasn’t my son. I don’t know when I lost him… but that man in there wasn’t him. My son, the one I raised and threw baseballs with for hours and hours… that wasn’t him.”

  With that, he turned and walked away, but I stopped him by calling his name.

  “Ansel?”

  Ansel turned and looked at me tiredly.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “I don’t blame you,” I informed him. “And I don’t want you to blame yourself, either. We’re all our own people, making our own decisions. You did what you could, and you have to hope that when they’re old enough to make their own decisions, that they make the right ones. Jorgan didn’t do that, but that is nothing to do with you. Maybe he was just too broken to fix.”

  Ansel gave me one more tired smile. “You’re a beautiful girl, Avery Flynn. I hope that you have a very nice life.”

  With those words, he left, and Derek and I watched him leave.

  “That’s sad,” I finally said.

  “That’s life,” Derek countered. “I think I’m happier to know that guy isn’t related to him than I am to see him leave.”

  I snorted and gestured to the bike in the parking lot.

  “Let me guess, you drove your bike?” I drawled, unsure what to say at this point.

  “Rode, and yes,” he said. “I was on it this morning when I realized what you were doing. I didn’t have time to get home and change my vehicle out and then follow you here after going to your place. So I rode.”

  I thought about being smushed up against Derek’s hard body for hours as we drove back to Kilgore, and decided that it sounded like the best thing to happen to me all day.

  “Let’s go,” I muttered.

  He handed me the helmet like he did last time, waited for me to get it on, then mounted the bike before holding his hand out to me.

  I didn’t bother taking the offering of help, mounting the bike behind him and scooting in close just like last time I was on it with him.

  He grunted something unintelligible, then started the bike up, drowning out thoughts.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked over the roar of the engine.

  “No,” I answered, shaking my head.

  He gave me a level look over his shoulder, then started off, not replying to my denial.

  My mind spun through a thousand thoughts as we were riding back home.

  What I was going to do when I got home.

  Where I would move to.

  It would have to be somewhere affordable. Somewhere that I could put a down payment on and afford on my limited income until I was able to get a job.

  I had just enough money in my savings to put this month and last month’s rent on a decent apartment.

  Then there was moving itself. I had to go get some moving boxes.

  I also had to grow a pair of balls and use my dad’s truck.

  That was the only one logically that would work for transporting boxes.

  It was only as we were pulling over for gas that the question finally popped into my mind.

  I debated whether to ask him for all of two seconds before I shrugged and went for it.

  “How many people have you seen die?” I asked softly, not moving off the back of his bike as he unscrewed his gas cap.

  He froze, his eyes going distant for a few seconds before he focused back on his task.

  “More than I can count,” he admitted. “Why?”

  I thought about why I’d asked him the question in the first place, then decided I wasn’t going to scare him off with my morbid thoughts.

  “I feel like…” I swallowed hard, pulling his helmet off of my head. “I feel like his death was too easy.”

  He straightened, his shoulders
going back as he processed my words.

  I shook my head immediately.

  “I didn’t mean that,” I blurted.

  He tilted his head sideways as he said, “It was too easy.”

  My shoulders slumped.

  “He ruined my life,” my voice rasped out of my throat. “He got off easy. His life was forfeit. So what? I have to live the rest of my life without my dad. He can’t walk me down the aisle when I get married. He can’t go to my graduation. He can’t hold my first child. Hell, my child will only have one set of grandparents!”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I rubbed my face with my one free hand that wasn’t holding the helmet and started to pace next to his bike.

  “The man who killed my mom got four years in prison, with the possibility of parole at two. And a ten-thousand-dollar fine,” I found myself saying. “He can possibly be out next month.”

  I lightly tapped the tire of the motorcycle with the toe of my bright yellow Keds.

  “He lives in Kilgore, did you know?” I continued, not expecting an answer. “He has a wife and three kids.” I started pacing again. “I actually feel sorry for him. He killed my mother and I feel sorry for him.”

  Derek hung the gas pump nozzle back up, and I took that as my cue to get my ass back on the bike.

  I did so, situating my helmet on my head as he mounted the bike in front of me.

  He didn’t say a word until we were almost all the way back in Kilgore.

  “Are you hungry yet?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be hungry again.

  “No,” I said loudly enough so that he could hear it over his bike. “Take me home.”

  And that was exactly what he did.

  When I walked into my house later, I looked at it with new eyes.

  The house wasn’t mine anymore.

  I needed to pack up all of the stuff, but like their vehicles, I just couldn’t talk myself into touching their things.

  Touching their things felt wrong on so many levels.

  But it had to be done.

  I’d been beating around the bush for too long.

  Getting it done was what needed to happen, and it was time.

  Chapter 6

  Roses are red, I’m going to bed.

  -T-shirt

  Derek

  “I think this is something that we should do for her,” I found myself saying. “I read up on the pension that she would’ve gotten had she been eighteen. I think that we need to talk to the board and see if we can get them to give it to her anyway. She’s a year over being eighteen now. And, technically, at the time of her father’s death, she was eighteen still.”