Crazy In Love | Buggy

t h i r t y t h r e e

The energy in the navigation room was palpable. It was obvious that most of the crew hated me with a passion. Not only had I broken off the fun that they were having trashing the town, I had also robbed them of whatever treasure had been in that volt.

The only person who was being even remotely nice to me was Dilly. Well, nice in her own unique way.

She sat on the table, watching me closely as I told them the route and attempting to scribble the route so they'd remember.

"I bet they didn't even have anything good in that vault - that town was poor as hell. It could have been empty, for all we know."

I could tell she was trying to be nice, but all it made me think about was how that poor town had to rebuild when they already didn't have much.

"Or it could have had gold, diamonds -" Bozo started but Dilly cut him off before he had the chance to finish.

Staring daggers at him, she said, "You can't even break into vaults, so none of that would have been yours anyway."

Bozo basically growled at that but didn't say anything else. He walked off, leaving just me, Dilly and a female clown who was the main navigator. Her name was Arlene, I'd found out.

Arlene, now that we were alone, asked, "So is he good?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Is... who good?"

"Don't be coy. Buggy."

My face flushed red. Not this again. "I wouldn't know."

"Come on, Betty, we're all friends here."

Are we? I wondered. I definitely wasn't friends with Arlene. I couldn't say that, though. Most people hated me. I needed to keep the couple of allies I did have.

"Genuinely, me and Buggy aren't an item."

"You're not an item but you're definitely fucking," Dilly said and Arlene laughed.

It was humiliating. "We haven't. We've never even kissed."

That was a lie. I couldn't exactly tell them what we had gotten up to this morning. I was still conflicted about that. It felt wrong that I had allowed that to happen but I wasn't sure that I could resist if he tried to make it happen again.

"That's not what Go-Go said."

"Who the hell is Go-Go?"

Arlene giggled. "He's the clown that walked in on you and Buggy getting it on this morning."

My heart sunk. I should have expected that he would tell people about what he had seen, but somehow I didn't. My assumption had been that he would be too scared to talk about his captain.

Now there was no way that people would believe me when I said nothing had happened. The thought of this getting back to my town, to my family, made me feel nauseous.

They were both looking at me expectantly. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to flan the flames anymore.

"He must have seen it wrong," I lied. "I'd never go near Buggy like that."

Dilly pouted. "You know, you could do worse. A lot of the crew quite likes him. People like a bad boy."

I wished I could tell them how Buggy could be good. That's why I liked him. The bad boy element to him was what was putting me off of him.

"I don't," I said, which was true.

In the past, I had gone for bad boys. Not this bad, of course. But now I was realising that I wanted the opposite. I wanted what I had never had - a healthy stable relationship.

Arlene suddenly spoke up again. "So, if you two aren't a thing, that means he's free, right?"

Jealously bubbled up in me. I did my best to hide it. "I guess so."

"Can you put in a good word for me?"

No. Absolutely not. "I'm not sure how I'd work that into conversation."

As if he had heard our conversation, Buggy came basically dancing into the room. I had to do my best to suppress the smile that tried to spread across my face.

"Hello, ladies!" He cheered, his eyes locked onto me. "How's navigating going?"

"It's going swimmingly," Dilly told him. "Betty really knows her away around a map."

Buggy beamed at me and I had to widen my eyes at another warning. Other clowns had gathered around now that he was here. He needed to treat everyone equally.

I saw his face drop. He had clearly understood my message.

"She needs to be. It's all she's good for."

"Damn. You'd think you'd be nice to someone who was getting you off every day."

Buggy glared at Dilly. I went to speak, dispell what she was saying, but Buggy beat me to it.

"I don't know how these rumours get about. Do you really think I'd go anywhere near a girl like this?"

He was doing what I had asked. He was dispelling the rumours, but it still hurt to hear him speak about me like that. It wasn't true. I knew that.

"Are clowns more your type?" Asked Arlene suddenly.

"Uhm, sure."

Arlene leaned towards him, batting her big colourful eyelashes. Arlene was beautiful, I couldn't deny that. She had bright red hair, that was up in two pigtails. Her makeup was colourful, rainbow.

Jealousy was definitely a feeling that was boiling up inside me. I wanted to smack her. Which wasn't fair. She had every right to flirt with whoever she wanted. Especially after I'd said nothing had happened between us.

Still, I felt like hurting her. I kept that to myself. Buggy didn't seem to realise her doing that.

He was studying the map when Arlene spoke again. "What is your type specifically?"

He shrugged. I saw his eyes land on me for a second before settling back onto the map. Part of me wanting him to describe me. It was stupid of me.

"I'm not picky."

"That's good to hear."

God, how I wanted to hit her.

"Well, I'll leave you all to it. I'll see you later, Betty."

With that, he walked off. Dilly waited till he was gone and repeated, "I'll see you later, Betty."

"Shush."

"Are you sure nothing is going on between you two? That whole interaction was quite tense."

"You heard him to say, too," I reminded her. "There's nothing between us."

Arlene said, "But there will be stuff going on between me and Buggy. Give me a week and I'll have him in my bed."

"God, I hope not. We share a bunk bed."

We all laughed at that. Although, deep down, I was still mad that Arlene was interested in Buggy. I was also mad that I even cared that she was interested in Buggy.