by T. L Smith
“Will you tell me who he is to you?”
She finally looks to me, tears dried on her cheeks. “My husband.”
She had mentioned she’d loved before and he had died. But a husband, she didn’t mention that fact.
“Do you still love him?”
Her whole body turns to me as we stop at her cottage. I go to open my door, and she stops me with a hand to my leg, so I can’t go anywhere.
“Don’t ask me that, you don’t have the right. Thank you for tonight, I really do appreciate it.” Then she lets herself out and runs up her stairs, only looking back to me when she closes her door. My hands grip the steering wheel with white knuckles, and I drive the fuck out of there all the way back to the racetrack. Looking around for Patrick, I don’t see him anywhere. He’s fucking lucky, because if my hands were to touch him right now he may very well end up where she thought he was.
Dead in the fucking ground.
And I would smile as I did it.
Fucker.
Chapter 18
Jarod
Leaving her wasn’t my wisest of decisions. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. It took me a while to see that she was the best thing that had ever happened to me. That she was it. But by the time I realized it, it was too late. I had to pay my dues. For all the wrong I’d done. My hand rubs the gunshot that hit my leg the day I left her.
The day I made her leave me even though I knew she didn’t want to. It had to look real, she had to believe I was dead. She wouldn’t have left otherwise. I couldn’t risk putting her in that much danger. Huxley wasn’t known for being kind, he was known for being an asshole that took everything he wanted, and didn’t care who was affected. He was known for being the most ruthless businessman ever encountered. It just proved even more so when I heard he owned a town named Candy.
I walk to my car, after watching her leave. I see them smiling off in the distance—Ethan and Will. Huxley’s two men. They were the ones that helped me make it believable because I had to make her believe.
“Not in the back, not in the fucking back.” Ethan rubbed at his jaw as he looked at me, contemplating my words. “I can’t race for him if you shoot me in the back,” I said, hitting him with my stare. He looked to his brother who was just as big an idiot as him and they both smiled.
“Huxley would love the girl. Bring her.” I contemplated it, taking her with me. But in truthfulness, I wanted space. I loved her, forever, but I wanted to know who I was without her. Plus, the thought of Huxley being near her, touching her, honestly, it made me sick.
“No, she doesn’t get involved.” Pulling out my phone, I dialed his number. He answered on the first ring. “You won’t come after her, if I come. You won’t come after her, right?” He paused, and I waited for his response.
“That’s correct.” I handed the phone back. They nodded their heads as they listened to what he said. And that was when I saw her car come into view. That was when I knew I was about to fake my death, and make her watch. She wouldn’t move on otherwise. And I didn’t want to make her wait for me because she would have waited, even though I was the most selfish prick on this earth.
My biggest problem was I also wanted to be free to do what I wanted. It would take me a year, maybe two to pay Huxley back. Racing was in my blood, cars and I got along.
“Your pretty is here. You have two minutes before we shoot you. Don’t even think of running either. That would be stupidity at its finest.” Will spoke and Ethan nodded in agreement.
Her pink hair became visible. She got out of the car, and it was then that I knew I was about to break her heart.
And the most fucked-up thing about it.
It didn’t bother me.
Chapter 19
Kandi
My hands shake so badly I can’t even lift the glass of water. Stacey’s not answering her phone, and my back is to my bedroom door like any minute he’s going to sneak in and explain. I don’t want an explanation, I would have preferred to not have a dead husband. I lost him, grieved him, buried him—or so I thought—and he chose to just leave. My anger and pain are mixed together whirling up in some sort of vortex, and I’m unsure of what I should be doing. My hand hovers over my mother’s name in my phone, I don’t know what else to do. She’s the only person I want to call right now since Stacey won’t answer. It’s late, and her voice is groggy when she answers. My voice hiccups when I try to speak to her.
“M... om...”
“Baby, what’s wrong? It’s late. Are you okay?”
“Mom...” Hiccup. “Jarod...” Hiccup. “He’s here,” I somehow manage to get out.
She goes silent. “Oh, honey, those that we love and lose, sometimes we think we see them when we miss them. It’s okay to miss him.”
“No, Mom, no. He faked his death. He’s here, racing cars.”
Her silence is deafening. I don’t know what to say. After a few heavy heartbeats, she speaks. “He’s really there?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Fuck.”
I pull the phone away, looking to it to make sure I’m speaking to the right person. One thing about my mother, she never swears. Ever.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Okay, I’m getting up and coming to see you. I’ll be there within a few hours, baby.”
“Mom.”
“Yeah?” she replies, waiting for me to speak.
“Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Then we hang up. My body slumps to the floor, and I curl myself into a little ball. And that’s how I end up passing out.
MY HANDS ARE SORE, that’s the first thing that enters my mind when I wake.
Why are they sore?
Sitting up, I open them. I must have had them clenched in tight fists all night, and in doing so my nails have dug into my skin, marking it.
Standing, my legs shake. Then it hits me, why I was on the floor.
He’s alive.
My husband is alive.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
My mind tells me to be thankful, to be grateful that he is. But there’s this other part of me that wants to scream at him, scratch his eyes out for what he did to me.
He lied to me.
He broke my heart.
Tore it to shreds, and he didn’t seem to have any issues in doing so.
Who does that to someone they love?
A knock comes on my door, and that’s when I hear her voice—my mother. Pulling it open, I’m met with the same green eyes as mine staring back at me. Her long blonde hair, which also matches my natural color, is tied back in a conservative bun on her head. My body slumps at the sight of her. Her bags drop to her side as she steps through the door and wraps her arms tightly around me. That’s when I choose to let the tears fall and fast. Last night I didn’t get a choice, so I acted as if I didn’t know they had fallen. Today, though, in the sunlight of a new day with my mother’s arms around me, I let them fall without caring. She stays exactly where she is until I calm down. Enough so I can breathe properly. My breath leaves me when I’m upset like it knows it has no right to be there through the pain. Pulling back, I wipe at my eyes, and she helps by wiping under one eye and smiles at me.
“It will stop hurting, baby, one day soon it will stop.” I want to believe her, but just when I think I’m finally on the verge of being happy, life comes barreling in and tearing it apart. Wreaking havoc on my already shredded heart. Pulling away, I don’t answer her. No one I know has ever dealt with something like this. I’m not even sure how I’m meant to deal with something like this. It hurts too much to constantly think about it. I don’t want to think about it at all.
I’m not happy. Should I be?
I’m not sad. Should I be?
Numbness rings through my head.
My emotions are literally everywhere. I need time to work them out, to understand which emotion is the one I want to follow. Which is the one I want.
“Stacey’s on her
way back as well,” my mother says smiling. She goes straight to the kitchen after placing her things in my room. She’ll share with me because Stacey and Henry have the other room. I hear the clatter of pots and pans and know she’s about to start making her famous cookies. No one bakes cookies like my mother does. We didn’t get them regularly growing up, only on the special occasions. I guess today is one of those special occasions, though personally, I don’t see anything special about it. At all.
“She’s tried calling you.”
My phone, I don’t even know where it is.
Looking around, I see it lying at the door on the floor where I came in and collapsed. Walking to the couch, I tuck my legs under me and bravely open it.
Stacey missed call—over ten times.
Then Huxley, he’s sent me one message. Tried calling once. Then that’s it.
Then there’s a missed call from a number I don’t recognize.
Pressing redial, it answers straight away.
“Kandi.” My heart stops, and the phone drops from my hand.
Why is he calling me?
Does he want to torture me?
Is that his plan?
“Who was that?” My mother reaches down, picking up my phone that landed on the floor and placing it to her ear. “Hello,” she says. I can hear his voice and cover my ears. It’s not something I want to hear, only crazy people hear the voice of their dead husband. Not normal functioning adults. “Jarod, I think it’s best you give her some space.” She looks to me as he speaks. “Yes, I know. Now, think of it from her point of view. Stop calling, let her breathe.” Then she pulls it away and hangs up. She places the phone back next to me and taps my head like I’m a little girl again. “Rest, baby, he won’t call again.” Then she walks off back to her cookies.
Laying my head down on my couch the door bursts open and Stacey’s loud voice is heard. “Where is he, I’m going to kill him and bury him myself. That inconsiderate fucking bastard,” she yells.
I sit up somehow with tears still in my eyes, and she runs to me, almost jumping on top of me as she cuddles into me.
“I’ll kill him, I mean it.”
I know and nod my head. I want to say something but my throat seems to have clogged up. I hear Henry walking in, but don’t see him. I can’t see anything but Stacey as she holds me in a vise grip.
“Hold on...” She pulls back. “You were with Huxley. How did that work out?”
“He dropped me home.”
She looks at me waiting for more, but I don’t have more to give. I’m not really sure what she wants to hear. She knows the deal with Huxley and me. Sex, we agreed to that and nothing more.
“It’s just sex, Stacey.”
“If all you two have is sex, then I’ve never had anal,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
Stacey loves anal. We all know it.
My mother coughs from the kitchen. “Stacey...” she chastises her.
Stacey smiles, shrugging her shoulders. Henry comes out and puts a scary movie on Netflix. He says it’s to “take our mind off things” and it does, for the two hours I’m hiding under the covers. My mother feeds us, all day. We do nothing but spend time together, and they’re all very careful with their words.
And soon, I fall back asleep when the sun sets, and my heart cracks a little more.
“HONEY, THERE’S A GIRL at your door asking for you.”
Opening my eyes, I think, is it early or late? I’m not sure. Sitting up, my mother passes me a glass of water, and when I take a sip I turn to see Pam standing at my door. Her head down and her face red. I run to her, pulling her by the arm into my cottage.
“What happened?”
“I had nowhere else to go. If I go to Hux’s they’ll know where I am.” She looks up, and I can see the red mark on her cheek. She was hit. My mother comes out with an ice pack for Pamela, placing it on her cheek then walking away. Looking at the time, it’s early. Six o’clock early.
“You said it was okay, if I came here.”
I nod my head.
She looks around. “Can we paint?”
I want to tell her, no. That right now I shouldn’t be near her because my head needs time to heal. Instead, I nod and we walk out the back where I have supplies. Somehow, I changed into white shorts and a white shirt. It’s going to get paint on it, but that’s okay.
Pam lights up when she sees the easels on the stands.
Opening Huxley’s name on my phone, I shoot him a quick message careful to not read the previous message he sent me and hit send.
Then we paint.
Chapter 20
Huxley
I’m running off hardly any sleep, and getting a message the next day from her not even answering my previous message has me fucked up. But Pam is there when she’s meant to be back home. She ran away again. I wish they didn’t have her, they have already fucked her up enough. More than necessary for any teenager. I do everything I can to get her away from there. They also like to call the cops on me to find her. So she’s learned how not to come straight to me because that’s the first place they look. Now she’s at Kandi’s.
What a fucking shit show that will be. The last thing I want to do is walk in and see her with him. I wonder if that’s what she did when she got back? Have they worked everything out, and now she wants nothing to do with me? The least she could do is fucking tell me if that’s how she feels.
Pulling up into her driveway, there are more cars than normal parked. Stacey should still be away as that was the original plan, yet her car is here. Plus, another I don’t recognize. And I know all who stay in this town, it’s the perks I have of owning most of it. My hands scrub my face as I knock on her old door. I don’t know how she managed to keep this place alive, but she did. She gave it back its life.
“Hello...” An older version of Kandi looks up at me, and I just know it’s her mother without even asking her. “Oh, you must be here for Pam. Such a sweet girl.”
My eyebrows rise in question. Pam, sweet? Wouldn’t have used those two words in the same sentence about Pam.
“Yes.”
She nods her head opening the front door wider. Then she starts to walk into the cottage, and she turns back waving me in. “They are out back, why don’t you come?”
My black Armani shoes hit the wooden floorboards as I follow her inside. She pulls open the back door and instantly laughter greets me.
“It’s been good to see her smile today.”
At first, I’m confused. Pam? Then I realize she means Kandi.
Looking for myself, I see Kandi dressed in a small white cut-off shirt with small white shorts. Her hair is tied back, and her clothes aren’t entirely white anymore either. No. They’re covered in paint as well as her hair and face. She doesn’t recognize I’m there, and I don’t announce my arrival either. I watch as she flicks paint at Pam, making her giggle like the teenager she really is. It makes me happy to see Pam happy. But it makes me even happier to see the woman who’s making her smile look fucking irresistible.
Can I really say no to her?
Can I even stay away from her since I’ve already had her?
I thought I could, but maybe I can’t.
“Kandi...” Her mom breaks Kandi’s paint throwing at Pam as her head turns toward me. The smile she had on falls from her lips, and she stands brushing her red fingers down her top. I watch in fascination as her nipples peak at the sight of me. No bra either.
“Huxley...” She says my name but doesn’t say anything else. Like it was on her lips then she remembered we weren’t alone. Her eyes fall to Pam. “Thank you for today, Pam.”
Pam blushes, she actually blushes. She’s the toughest sixteen-year-old I know, and I’ve never seen her blush.
“I can come back again, right?”
Kandi nods her head. “Of course, you can. You don’t even have to ask.” Her voice changes when she speaks to Pam. More pleasant than the way she spoke my name.
Pam w
alks over to me, and my hands go up in the air. “You’re not getting in my car in that.” I point to her paint-covered clothes.
Kandi walks in, nodding for Pam to follow her. Pam takes hold of my hand, pulling me into a room where Kandi’s in a closet. She pulls out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and she stops moving, her breathing stops for a split second, noticing we’re both in here. She instantly covers her reaction with a small smile. Pam accepts the clothes from Kandi, then runs out of the room leaving us in there by ourselves.
Kandi looks to the door then back to me. I kick it shut with my foot and step closer to her. She looks down to the floor, and my hand touches her arm. She doesn’t flinch or move away from my touch like I thought she would.
“We can’t.”
“You were mine,” I say to her.
She looks up to me, her green eyes hitting me hard. “And now I’m not.”
I thought she would have told me she wasn’t. She was never really mine, I just wanted her to be.
“You could be mine again.”
Her head shakes, and she goes to step away. I pull her to me so her body slams into mine and she cries out. Not from pain, I wouldn’t hurt her, but from wanting and not wanting to do something. My cock stiffens at her nearness, it always does even from the smell of her. It’s addicted to Kandi and wants her despite any circumstances.
My hands slide up her body as she stands unable to move. As I grip her face, her hands lie flat at her sides. I reach down leaving a soft kiss on her lips.
I hear Pam’s footsteps coming so I take the kiss quickly then step back. Her eyes which were closed now open as the door is pushed open by Pam.
“I’ll be back, Kandi. Thanks for the clothes.” She bounces out of the room.
Kandi steps away from me now, her hands up in surrender. “Goodbye, Huxley.”
“Come to my place... tonight.”
She shakes her head.
“Tonight, Kandi,” I say sternly.
Her hands drop as I walk out. Her mother offers me a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes as she walks to where her daughter is standing.
