Lord Have Mercy

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I looked at my girl, who was busy cleaning sweet tea off of her dress. She didn’t look upset. Scandalized, yes. Upset and kicking me to the couch for a week? Not even close.

  I was literally thinking that she looked kind of flushed when I felt her foot slink up between my thighs.

  I stiffened when I felt her toes press against my very obvious erection.

  And, of course, that was when Nivea had to make her way over.

  I grabbed hold of Camryn’s foot and pressed it tight against me, likely harder than she ever would’ve thought to try.

  Her eyes widened and she tried to pull her foot back with a jerk, but I wouldn’t let her.

  She sent me a wilting glare, and I only grinned.

  “Hello,” Nivea said sweetly. “How are you doing, Chief Donaldson?”

  Chief backed subtly away until he had about two feet of space between him and Nivea.

  “I’m well, ma’am,” Chief said. “How are you?”

  He didn’t remember her name. I could tell that right off the bat. He also didn’t like her.

  He got this nervous tick in his cheek when he was annoyed, and Nivea coming up behind him and standing so close wasn’t something he liked. Not even from the people he did know.

  “Great,” Nivea chirped, sounding falsely cheerful.

  We all paused, waiting for her to talk, but she never did.

  In fact, it got to the point of discomfort before our waiter was back with another basket of bread.

  Camryn immediately reached forward and grabbed a roll almost as fast as they were set down and started to shove it straight into her face seconds later.

  She immediately opened her mouth, her eyes starting to water. “Hot,” she said around the bite of roll.

  I snorted. “There’s steam coming off of them, baby.”

  Nivea hissed. “I don’t eat the rolls here. Do you know that each one of those rolls has over two hundred and twenty-nine calories? And that’s not even including the honey butter.”

  “Huh,” Camryn said as she picked up the little cup of butter. “Imagine that.”

  Then she proceeded to dip the entire roll into it, taking up half of the butter, and then biting off a rather large chunk.

  The Chief started to laugh. “That’s what I say every time I take a bite, too. Well, y’all have a good night, ya hear?”

  I offered my hand to the Chief one last time, and then he took off back to his table where his wife was talking to a woman the next table over. When my eyes returned to Nivea, it was to find her glaring daggers at Camryn.

  “Is there something we can help you with?” I asked, sounding a whole lot more in control than I actually was.

  Nivea turned her glare on me and then crossed her arms. “Is there a reason y’all are here, and ruining mine and Carver’s anniversary dinner?”

  My eyes moved to Camryn.

  “Well, is there?” Camryn asked me.

  I shook my head, unable to stop myself. Then squeezed her foot that started to move along my crotch again.

  “We’re here because I had reservations since last week,” I said softly, trying not to draw anybody’s attention, unlike a certain other person. “And I had no idea it was yours and your man’s one week anniversary.”

  Nivea lifted her chin up even higher. “Well, let me just say that I had a lot of different plans for today. Now you’ve gone and ruined them.”

  With that, she left, and I was left staring at Camryn who was trying hard not to laugh.

  “I swear to God,” Camryn said. “I don’t know what you ever saw in her.”

  “Convenience,” I answered.

  She rolled her eyes and tried to once again pull her foot away, but again, I wouldn’t allow her to pull away.

  “You’re a pig,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know why I decided to do anything with her. She was there, convenient, and I was trying hard to stay away from you. A distraction.”

  An inhaled hiss had me turning to see Nivea, who’d turned around to obviously give us more shit, listening to every word that I said.

  “What?!” Nivea screeched.

  Chapter 13

  That moment when you leave Target with the receipt in your hand trying to find a mistake and realize that no, that was all you.

  -Text from Camryn to Flint

  Flint

  “Shut up!” I yelled at Camryn as I tried not to start laughing right along with her. “That was my favorite steak joint, and I was just kicked out!”

  “They gave us our food!” Camryn held up our bag.

  “Yeah, but they didn’t give me any butter or rolls to go, and now I have to eat my mashed potatoes without them,” I muttered darkly.

  That really wasn’t the point of why I was mad. I was mad because once again Nivea made a scene, and we were forced to leave to calm her ass down.

  We weren’t really kicked out. We were more asked, gently, by the manager who didn’t want to piss off the police officer or the chief of police, who also decided to come back to the table.

  “I snagged some on the way out,” she said, holding up two paper cartons with steaming rolls in them. “And butter!”

  I looked into the bag she was holding up and saw about four times the amount of butter that we would need.

  Grinning and ignoring the woman behind us, I walked Camryn over to my bike. “How about we make this a picnic? We’ll stop by that convenience store next to the park and grab some drinks.”

  She batted her eyelashes at me, and I tilted my head sideways. “Is there something wrong with your eye?”

  “No,” she rolled hers. “I was trying to be all lovey-dovey and shit.”

  I snorted. “You failed.”

  She flipped me off and walked over to my bike, coming to a stop directly next to it.

  “You let her ride your bike?!” Nivea yelled.

  I glanced up at Camryn. “Please tell me she’s not walking over here.”

  Camryn looked up and shook her head. “She’s not walking…”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Nivea stomping her way over. Carver, who’d never stopped drinking his beer during the entire show that Nivea had just put on, followed directly behind, a look of almost pain on his face.

  “Carver doesn’t look like he appreciates Nivea’s shit,” I mused.

  “Carver is a pushover and never could decide between me and Nivea.” She sighed. “The only reason I agreed to go out on a few dates with him was that I liked how he finally grew a pair and asked me out. Honestly, I think I only said yes out of spite because Nivea didn’t think he ever would.”

  “Why is that something y’all talked about?” I wondered. “I thought y’all didn’t talk.”

  “We don’t,” she amended. “But she talks, and the other teachers listen. Satan Gillingham…”

  “Her name isn’t Satan, it’s Neta,” I laughed.

  “Anyway, as I was saying, Satan Gillingham liked to listen to everything that went on. She blends in well, you see?” she continued. “Anyway, Satan…”

  “Why are you calling her Satan?” I asked. “Why does everyone call her Satan?”

  “Because of her married name. It was Diablo. She changed it when her divorce was finalized,” she explained.

  I rolled my eyes, then lifted my hand and urged her to continue.

  “Anyway, she blends in well. Her ex-husband taught her how to do that so she didn’t get his wrath turned on her, you know?” She paused, waiting for me to acknowledge her.

  I nodded, not liking that part of the explanation, but knowing that it was at least somewhat true. Neta was a sweet young woman—about three years younger than me—and honestly looked like she would blow over with a harsh wind. She was also really good at hiding in plain sight among the students and, obviously, among the teachers.

  “Anyway, Neta overheard a conversation between Nivea and another
teacher,” she finished. “She didn’t think that I would say yes, and she also didn’t think that Carver would ask me seeing as I was overbearing.”

  I sighed as I took the food from her hand. “Get on. Let’s go before she gets all the way over here.”

  “Too late,” Camryn said as she eyed something over my shoulder. “She’s running.”

  I looked to where she was looking and winced. She was, indeed, now running.

  I had to admit, she ran pretty damn well seeing as she was in high heels that would’ve caused most people to break an ankle by now.

  “How could you do this to me?” Nivea snapped as she finally arrived.

  I looked over at Camryn, waiting for her to answer.

  “Is she talking to me or you?” I wondered.

  Camryn’s lips quirked. “I’m thinking she’s talking to you, honey.”

  I liked when she called me ‘honey.’

  “I’m talking to both of you,” Nivea seethed. “What did I ever do to deserve y’all humiliating me this way?”

  I really had no clue what she was talking about.

  “Nivea, sweetie.” Camryn sounded so falsely sweet that I wanted to laugh. “I’m not sure if you understand this or not, but it’s damn near a common day occurrence for people to break up and stop seeing each other. Though, from what I understand, what you had with Flint here wasn’t even a relationship. It was more of a mutual understanding that was based solely on sexual gratification. You don’t get humiliated unless you have something to be humiliated about…which you don’t. At this point, you’re making this out to be something so sordid—my and Flint’s relationship—that I don’t know what to say to you to make this ‘all right’ in your eyes.”

  I groaned inwardly, knowing that Nivea was about to lose her shit.

  She didn’t like to be embarrassed, even if the slight was only ever done in her mind and not anybody else’s.

  That had been one of the problems that I always encountered with her during our very short time together.

  The imaginary things that I’d done wrong.

  Like the one time she caught me talking to Raleigh during school hours about doing something with her and Ezra over the weekend without first consulting her about it. She hadn’t talked to me for four days, and I hadn’t even realized that she was giving me the cold shoulder until I’d arrived back at school over the weekend to hear from Raleigh that she was sorry she’d caused me and Nivea problems for not inviting Nivea to the get-together.

  Needless to say, I’d dodged a bullet getting away from her when I did.

  Not that she’d see it that way because she saw it as a betrayal that I’d moved on to Camryn as fast as I did.

  “Were you cheating on me the whole time?” Nivea growled.

  I looked at her.

  “No,” I said. “I wasn’t. Though, like Camryn was saying, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t consider myself to have been ‘with you’ at all. There’s a difference between a relationship and what we had.”

  Nivea narrowed her eyes.

  “You’re…”

  “I think it’s time to go,” Carver announced. “I’m tired, still freakin’ hungry, and I have a TV dinner I could be eating. This has been fun and all, but if you don’t get in my car right now, you’re going to have to find your own way home.”

  Nivea turned a snarling grimace toward Carver. “You’re going to wait like the good little boy you are.”

  I wouldn’t laugh. I wouldn’t laugh.

  I laughed.

  ***

  Camryn patted my nose with the paper towel, her lips twitching the entire time.

  “It was worth it,” I said assuredly. “God, I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with those two, but I wish they’d forget me.”

  “It’s going to be hard to forget you when you make them want to punch you in the face,” she pointed out. “You’re going to have a black eye in the morning.”

  I shook my head. “The only reason he made my nose bleed when he punched me was because I wasn’t actually expecting him to grow a pair. I dodged enough that he only grazed the tip of my nose.” I paused. “My nose bleeds sometimes when I blow it too hard. This’ll go away.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I grinned at her annoyance.

  “It was worth it, though,” I muttered, tasting the blood that was running down the back of my throat. “Did you see the look on his face when he hit me?”

  “He was waiting for you to break his face.” She grinned, her eyes huge and laughing.

  “I know.” I grinned right back.

  “Why didn’t you?” she wondered.

  I shrugged. “Mainly because I could’ve really hurt him, and I’m fairly sure the Chief was watching the exchange from inside. He would’ve seen me do it and been pissed.”

  She snorted. “How are you always thinking eight steps ahead?”

  “It’s my job,” I informed her. “I’m supposed to be able to anticipate what could happen and prevent it.”

  She pulled the paper towel away from my face and stared at my nose, waiting for more blood to come pouring out like it’d been doing for the last ten minutes.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go home?” she wondered.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I answered. “Eat your food before it gets too cold.”

  I’d driven her to the convenient store by the park and she’d run in for drinks and had come out with a handful of E-Z-Mart paper towels in one fist, and a bag containing drinks in the other.

  Once she was back to my bike, she placed the drinks on the ground along with about three-quarters of the paper towels and then pressed the rest of the stack to my nose.

  “We’re not going to the park?” she asked.

  I gestured for her to pick up the bag of drinks and she did, holding them with one hand as she remounted the bike and situated herself behind me once more.

  I closed my eyes as she wrapped one hand around my waist, loving the feeling of her pressed up against me.

  “Jesus Christ, baby,” I muttered underneath my breath. “You undo me.”

  She leaned forward until her head was pressed against my back and said, “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said hold on,” I lied and then started the bike.

  She did, squealing excitedly when I accelerated a little faster than was needed out of the parking lot.

  We arrived at the park in less than ten seconds, and then I was parked underneath a tree near the back of the lot where no one was in sight.

  “How did you know this was here?” she wondered, looking around. “I didn’t even realize there were parking spots back here.”

  I dismounted the bike and then held my hand out for her.

  She took my hand and held on tight as I guided her through the trees toward where I knew was a table that nobody knew about as well.

  “Some of the kids from school told me this was the make-out spot,” I answered her. “Can you hold this for a second?”

  She held out her hand for the bag of food I’d been holding since we’d left and waited while I swept off the acorns and leaves from the tabletop as well as the bench seats before setting the bags down.

  I gestured for her to sit, and she did, straddling the bench while also digging into the boxes.

  “I didn’t know that this was the make-out spot now,” she laughed. “I was under the impression that the make-out spot was over by the lookout point by the lake.”

  I grunted. “That was the make-out spot until the new gang in town started using it to do initiations. Now it’s the ‘don’t go there unless you want your ass kicked’ spot.”

  She winced. “The Blue Raiders?”

  “The Blue Razors,” I corrected.

  She gagged. “They’re a nuisance. I swear to God, they’re causing so much trouble at the school now. I didn’t think towns this size had problems with gangs.”

  “A
ll towns have gangs,” I told her. “It’s just a way of life, unfortunately. However, the gang here is small potatoes compared to some of the gangs that are out there.”

  “True,” she agreed. “Hey, did you see the silverware?”

  I pulled out the plastic cutlery that’d fallen to the ground in her haste to open the boxes and handed her one, keeping the other for myself.

  “Thanks,” she paused. “I’m not sure how the hell I’m supposed to cut a steak with a plastic knife.”

  I pulled out both of the pocket knives that I carried with me at all times and handed her one. “This’ll work.”

  She took it and glanced up at me. “You didn’t shave your arm or anything with it, did you?”

  “Not in at least a couple of days,” I told her. “The last thing I did with it was eat an apple at lunch today.”

  She snorted.

  “How did I know that you cut the hair on your arm with the knife?” she asked.

  “Probably because that’s how you know if it’s sharp enough,” I guessed.

  She snickered, and then opened the knife and started cutting into her steak.

  She took a bite and moaned as the flavor hit her tongue. “Oh, this is so good. Even only semi-warm.”

  I took a bite of my own steak and agreed.

  Chapter 14

  There are more germs and bacteria on movie theater seats than almost any other public place. Enjoy your movie.

  -Text from Flint to Ezra

  Flint

  I rode to the gym with a smile on my face.

  Camryn was meeting me at the school with Dooley, giving me more than ample time to teach the class that Croft couldn’t cover, and then get to the school by seven thirty to help with the middle school drop-off.

  We had a plan to meet in the cafeteria where I would take Dooley, and she could run to the bus drop-off to do her part in getting the kids to where they needed to go in the morning.

  I was so proud of the progress she’d made with my dog.

  Honestly, that part of it all had scared the crap out of me because it wasn’t like I could really give Dooley up. Not only was he family, but he was also my job as well. Sure, I’d trained him from the time he was a puppy, and he was my own personal canine, but he was also a lot of why I had the cushy job that I did.