Intersections Read online

  “I’m gonna come,” he whispered, all husky in her ear.

  “Okay. Great,” she said, voice deadpan.

  And he did and she didn’t and as his body clenched and spasmed on top of her, people started returning her text messages. The obnoxious sound of a horn honking burst in the room and out of breath, Brady giggled. But the laughter got sucked right back down his throat when he propped himself up on his elbows and saw Keisha sitting their, nonchalant and uninterested.

  She’d made her point, and she didn’t think he’d ever want to be back.

  “What the hell do you call that?” he said. He shook his head.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t get what you wanted,” she said. It came off colder than she wanted, but sometimes you couldn’t control your words or your tone.

  Brady blinked.

  “I’m uh… I’m gonna go.” He stood up.

  “Okay,” Keisha said and glanced back at her phone. “Sorry about your face.”

  “Yeah...” He didn’t look at her.

  He grabbed his clothes and left the room. After a long moment, the front door slammed shut. If he ever took the condom off, she never heard it.

  Keisha didn’t feel great about what she’d done, but she didn’t feel all that bad either. She’d given him what he came for, a little attention and something more. It wasn’t her fault that the board didn’t see a future between them, and who was she to get in the way of Conrad. One of these days he’d answer her and she’d find the guy that was more than just a one-night stand, but until then, she had to do everything to make sure all these adventures stopped after the first night. Anything else would only clog the path to her second and hopefully final true love.

  She set an alarm for the morning on her phone and masturbated to the memory of Brady inside her. With the moment still vivid and her nerves still tingling, it didn’t take long before her body burst into orgasm and she drifted off to sleep.

  3

  Keisha woke shivering with a mild headache, but nothing a few ibuprofen and a coffee wouldn’t wash away. She’d fallen asleep on top of the sheets and the comforter never made it back onto the bed. Stumbling to the bathroom, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and noted the tightness of several muscles. Sex always seemed to work out muscles you forgot you had.

  Feeling better, she took her phone from the nightstand and scrolled through, no new messages, nothing important but the shrill of her alarm that she quickly shut off. She didn’t have any big plans for the day, but most weekends, if she didn’t force herself out of bed before ten she’d sleep the whole day away.

  In the kitchen she put on a pot of coffee and replayed the events of last night through her head. With the 20/20 vision that sobriety often brings about, she felt a twinge of guilt at the cruelty she’d exercised on Brady during last night’s romp. But she also knew that in a week, a month or whatever, he’d be nothing more than a faded memory. Plus, if things went too well, some guys, especially the good ones had a tendency to get clingy. She didn’t mind a good guy, hoped to settle down with one actually, but that was up to the Ouija board. To Conrad.

  She looked at the Ouija board on the coffee table. The alpha and omega for Brady and so many others. Keisha sipped black coffee, already feeling her hangover enter remission. She walked over to clean up after last night and put the board back in its box when a shock of anxiety pulsed through her. Something was missing. Conrad was missing. In a panic she searched under the tables and couch, under the cushions and behind it. Exasperated, she could only draw one conclusion. That weaselly little fuck Brady must have stolen him.

  Fuck.

  All that remained of Conrad had been in that bottle. Her last link to him in the spirit world.

  “No. No. It can’t be…” Tears filled her eyes and her chest heaved with sobs as hysteria gripped hold. Slowly clarity bloomed in front of her as she took control of her breathing.

  The ashes weren’t here. Brady had them. It’s not like they were in a dumpster somewhere or flushed down the toilet. She could get them back.

  He looked too sad and disappointed to do something that mean last night, she thought. The last thing she wanted to do was see him again. She’d never faced a guy afterward. But it didn’t look like Brady left her much of a choice. Keisha had to track him down.

  She pulled out her phone, then realized that she never got his number and never gave him hers. Shit, she didn’t even know his last name or where he worked or anything. Hysteria threatened again, but a glance at the board flooded her with hope. Some of Conrad’s ashes still littered the board like a rain of soot. Enough for him to help her through this.

  Keisha got to her knees and picked up the planchette. She squeezed her eyes shut reciting the mantra “Please work, please work, please work” over and over in her mind.

  “What was his last name?” she asked, her brain focused completely on the question.

  The planchette came alive in her fingers and she opened her eyes. It started to move, spelling out “MacGregor.” Once it was out something clicked in her head. A notion like “You’ll know it when you see it” even if you can’t recall it from memory. Yes. That was it. Brady fucking MacGregor.

  “Thank you, Conrad.” She ran to her room.

  Drumming her fingers on the edge of her laptop as it booted up, excitement sizzled in her joints. A quick search online and there he was, all sunglasses and smiles in his profile picture.

  Unfortunately he kept his page mostly private, but she garnered enough information to go on. From his pictures he seemed like an okay guy, maybe even a nice one, but that didn’t matter. Conrad ruled and she just wanted his ashes back. She found what she was looking for. He served and bartended at a place called the Ooga Booga downtown, not too far from her house.

  After a shower and a shave, she tied her dark hair in a ponytail and put on some big, bug-eyed sunglasses. She slid a book in her purse and headed out of her apartment.

  The early autumn air soothed her skin and tasted clean in her lungs. It was a refreshing change from the sweltering summer. So many great memories in the early autumn, she smiled and shook the ideas out of her head. A few bad ones too.

  She walked along the streets weaving through people, their faces glued to their smartphones. Up ahead she saw the neon sign, a palm tree that read Ooga Booga just below it, somehow bright even in the afternoon sunlight. Keisha steadied herself and stepped through the door.

  Ooga Booga looked like a great place, full of tiki torches and pineapples, and flip-flops, and not a big crowd on a Sunday afternoon. Though a few screens showed football, it wasn’t the kind of place people went to murder as many beers and chicken wings as humanly possible every Sunday from September to January. The luscious smells from the kitchen reminded her of the hunger in her stomach.

  The lighting in the place wasn’t great and she had every intention of reading some of her book whether Brady showed up or not. In the corner she found a perfect spot, well lit but isolated enough to keep her incognito, unless he happened to be around.

  She flipped through the menu and ordered a Bloody Mary, a water, and some kind of pineapple habanero chicken thing highly recommended by the server.

  While she waited, she pulled out her paperpack, Darkness Tell Us, which was one of the few remaining books by Richard Laymon she hadn’t read. It even involved a Ouija board. Her waitress, Mariah, brought her a Bloody Mary, extra spicy and with a house twist, a massive pickle spear poking out the top.

  Keisha didn’t remove her sunglasses while she read. Every now and then she poked her head up over the corner looking for fuckboy Brady. She finished her drink, ordered another and finished her entrée. It tasted as good as it looked. When she finished her second drink, she was so into the Laymon book that she ordered a third. When Mariah set it down, Keisha thanked her and checked her phone and saw that she’d been there almost an hour and a half. Mid afternoon leaned toward late afternoon and she decided to give it another half hour.

  Her