by Cherrie Lynn
Leaving the front lights off, he headed to the back and got a Monster out of the fridge in the break room. His employees left crazy messages to one another on the bulletin board in there, a little running joke. There was a new one for him: “B: You totally need to get laid.” It looked like Ghost had written it. He smirked. Apparently he really had been in a funk all night.
Grabbing a Post-It from the counter, he scribbled, “Talk to your sister, she’s not fulfilling my carnal needs of late,” and tacked it up amid all the other good-natured insults and name-calling.
Yeah, he often complained of being treated as if he was fourteen again, but he damn sure enjoyed acting like it. Something else there was really no sense in denying.
Except where Candace was concerned. She called forth a violent protectiveness in him he’d never known before, and it was kind of freaking him out. Oh, he’d always been capable of the alpha male bit, had never liked another guy sniffing around his turf, but this was…different. Those feeling had been about marking his territory. These were a deep, primal need to defend something precious to him.
He wanted to be with that girl. He wanted to take care of that girl. He wanted to give her whatever she wanted in life and beat the ever-loving shit out of anyone who ever hurt her. That included pretty much her entire family right now.
Shit. Ordinarily he would think there was no way she could have him so sprung after one night, but this had been ongoing for a while, hadn’t it. He just hadn’t realized, and he damn sure didn’t want to think about how long it had been or he might feel more wretched.
Once he left All That Remains’ “Two Weeks” playing so loud on the stereo system it drowned out most of his chaotic thoughts, he carried his energy drink to the drawing room, prepared to spend the night there until he exorcised some of this aggression. If he was here until the sun came up, so much the better. Maybe the harsh light of day would kill some of this dark passion he had roiling inside him. Drill some sense right between his eyes when he walked outside in the morning.
The process was just beginning to flow when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Damn. He’d forgotten to leave it in the truck, and he could have ignored it, but his damn traitor heart leapt. Leaning back and fishing it out of his jeans, he cursed when he saw the name on the display.
Michelle? It all just kept getting weirder.
For a split second, he wondered if it could be about Candace, but that didn’t make any sense, did it? How much did everyone know by now?
He flipped it open and raised it to his ear as he headed over to turn the music down. “Hello?”
Michelle’s voice was soft, lacking its usual confidence. “Hi.”
“Hey. Wow, it’s been a while.”
“I hope you don’t think I’m weird or anything. I was reminded of you today and thought I would check in on you. How are you?”
“I’m great. Parlor is running smoothly, and everything’s…great.” He ended on an awkward note, but he didn’t know what else to say. “How are you?”
“Oh, fine. School is kicking my ass, as usual, but I’m hanging in there.”
“That’s good.” They were both silent for a moment. “So…you were reminded of me, huh? How so?”
“I was having lunch with Deanne, Aunt Syl and Candace today. We were talking about tattoos. Made me remember when you gave me mine.” She gave a girlish giggle. Oh, damn, he remembered that too. It had been here, after hours, the night of their grand opening. After they’d christened this very room, so to speak. More specifically, the wall in this very room. “Of course, I think about it every time I look at them,” she said.
He frowned. Was she seeking information? Was this a set-up?
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
It had to be.
He cleared his throat. It would’ve been so easy to take the easy way out and say there was no one, but for some reason it seemed very important that he not lie, not dismiss Candace just because things were rough right now. She deserved more from him than that. “Actually, there is someone I’m interested in.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m with someone too. I actually have no idea why I’m calling you so late at night, I just…I care about you. I want to know you’re happy.”
It was nice that someone did. “Are you happy?”
“Really, I am. He’s not anything like you, but then, not many guys are, at least around here.” She laughed, a little sadly. “So is this girl anyone I know?”
Shit. He didn’t want to get Candace in any more trouble than she was apparently already in with her folks. Cryptic was the way to go. “I’m not sure if anyone here really knows her. She’s beautiful and amazing and someone I care about very much, and I’d do anything for her. But she apparently has her doubts about me now.”
“That’s a shame. The way you talk about her…wow. I have to say I’m a bit jealous. But I really hope it works out for you.”
Yeah, you say that now…
She must truly have no idea.
He couldn’t help but smile at her sincerity, though. Loneliness must be in the air tonight. He settled back on his stool and raised his hand to the board to put the finishing touch on a drawing. “No need for you to be jealous, sweetheart. You rocked my world for as long as you wanted to be in it.”
“As long as you let me be in it.”
“Hey, neither of us is to blame. We discussed it for days. In the end, we agreed it was mutual.”
“Yeah, that’s what we said, anyway. But I think those were possibly the most heartbreaking days of my life.”
That was a revelation. Michelle was always cool, always totally together. She wouldn’t have let on to anyone that she was hurting, especially not him.
Candace would. He wondered if that was the drive behind this blinding need to hold her close and protect her from all harm: that she might actually let him do it. If she hadn’t just basically told him goodbye in his truck.
She couldn’t have meant it. Give her a day or two to cool off, and hopefully she would be okay.
“I didn’t know that,” he said to Michelle. “You should have told me if you were having second thoughts.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
Good point. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Brian, I really didn’t call to get into all this. And I’m glad everything is going good for you. I hope you and your girlfriend get things worked out.”
“Yeah, me too. Good luck with everything you’ve got going on.”
They hung up soon after, and then he was left with an extra layer of melancholy weighing him down. That relationship had been like a skin he’d needed to shed, but he was grateful for it. It had served its purpose in his life. He thought maybe it had prepared him for the one he could have with Candace, shown him that he wasn’t a reptile; he could have feelings for someone.
That night he’d given Michelle her tattoos had been one of the most memorable of his life. His parlor had finally opened, his dream realized. He’d had a beautiful girl at his side. She’d told him all along that he could give her ink when he could do it in his own place. Then she’d changed the rules in the middle of the game that night and told him as they were getting hot and heavy in here that he could give her a small one for every orgasm she had.
He’d let her off easy and called it after three. She’d started to look a bit panicked.
Damn it to hell, now he didn’t really feel like being in here, either. Everywhere he looked, there was a phantom.
“What are you doing here?”
The sudden bellow from the doorway startled him so much, he nearly dropped his pencil. “Fuck! Starla? The hell!”
She laughed merrily as he wondered if it was too frigging much to ask for some privacy. But then, he guessed he should’ve gone home for that. “No, really, what are you doing here?” she repeated.
“Working, damn it. Is that all right?”
“Not when you’re supposed to be with your little love muffin.”
He scoffed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m with the asshole. He brought me to get my car so we could go home. Together.”
“Congratulations.”
“Whatever, like it’ll last a week. Although I did tell him if he fucks me around again, I’m gonna give him that apa he’s been thinking about. In his sleep.”
“Damn, girl. That’s not even right.”
“Anyway, I saw you were here. I wanted to check on you.”
“I might’ve been in here getting busy with her, for all you knew.”
“Yum. Did I ever tell you I have voyeuristic tendencies?”
“Oh, God.”
Starla waved and disappeared from sight, her voice growing fainter as she headed for the door. “Good night, Brian. Don’t mope. She’s not worth it. Go get laid or something.”
That was the big cure-all with these people, wasn’t it? Girl got you down? Get laid. No money? Get laid. Armageddon ensuing? Get laid a lot.
He sighed and hollered, “I’m not moping!” just as the door closed behind her. He hoped she remembered to lock it. Getting laid damn sure wouldn’t cure an armed robbery and a bullet in the brain. They might argue that point, however.
At least he had the concert to look forward to. The more pissed off at the world he got, the more he felt inclined to shut down the parlor completely and let everyone make a day of it. In fact, that’s exactly what he needed. A long weekend with his best buddies and all the debauchery they could handle. His father would probably have a coronary that he dared to shut down. To hell with it. The day the old man didn’t get paid on time was the day he could bitch.
Chapter Twelve
Candace was drowning. Slowly. Choking, gasping, dying. A little more each day.
Oh, stop being so damn melodramatic.
Picking up her silverware and stabbing blindly at her food, she tried, she tried to tune out the polite chatter around her. It was impossible. Her mother’s voice had become like the scrape of fingernails down a blackboard in her mind. Deanne’s fakeness compounded the sensation, and her sugary sweetness grated Candace’s nerves until they were naked live wires. If the wrong one got touched, someone was going to burn.
She’d just had to walk down the aisle with her arm linked through Stephen’s, and now he sat beside her at the rehearsal dinner table, keeping up his oh-so-charming appearance to the other guests. Only she saw the way he leered at her breasts. She wasn’t even wearing a revealing top. No hint of cleavage, no straining fabric. He was probably remembering the night he’d had his hands all over them without her consent, if he could even recall that particular drunken stupor.
When she nearly choked on the forkful of bland something-or-other she’d shoveled into her mouth, she quickly sipped her wine before her eyes could start watering.
Yes, dying. Get me the hell out of here. Someone. Anyone. It didn’t even matter anymore.
“How is school going?” Stephen asked her. “What’s your major again?”
“Social work,” she replied softly, hoping it wouldn’t get her mother’s attention. No such luck. Sylvia’s gaze whipped directly to them across the table.
“Can you believe that, Stephen?” she fretted, lacing her fingers together. “We pushed so hard for Candy to be an elementary school teacher. She’s so good with children. And Lord knows many of them need a positive role model.”
Candace schooled her voice carefully, desperately trying to keep the deadly edge from gathering too much notice from the other guests. “Mother, I can still be a positive influence.” Without looking at Stephen, she muttered, “My ultimate goal is to be a LPC. But I could work for CPS, or do any number of things. Helping people who need it.”
She saw him nod in her peripheral vision, but couldn’t tell how interested he looked. She didn’t really give a damn.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia went on, more to Stephen than to her, “but I don’t like the thought. Consider the element she’ll be coming in contact with.”
“Well, it’s a noble aspiration, Mrs. Andrews. You should be proud of her.”
“Yes, of course, of course. We are.”
Right. Her mother would’ve cut off her tuition when she changed her major if Dad hadn’t talked her out of it. Which surprised her, because he was usually right up her mom’s ass controlling her every move, the master puppeteer. That they’d actually disagreed on something like that had floored Candace.
“Stephen, I have a wonderful idea,” Sylvia twittered suddenly. “We’ll be going to our lake house for the weekend after the wedding. You should come by for a visit, and of course you’re always welcome to stay if you don’t already have accommodations. Maybe you and Candace can get better acquainted then.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Andrews,” he said smoothly. “I’ll probably take you up on that.”
He hadn’t looked away from Candace. She felt like a caged mouse under that stare, and it made her seethe. Taking a breath, she reached for her water glass and hated how her hand trembled. Hated how that breath had been like trying to inhale through sludge.
Drowning. She was going down.
“I figured someone as beautiful as you would be seeing someone by now,” Stephen said.
The glass froze on its way to her mouth. By now. He remembered her, all right. But that wasn’t what caused her to shudder. All night, she’d tried not to think about Brian. His image in her mind would’ve been her final desperate gasp, the one-two-three count until sweet oblivion…because she figured she would completely lose her mind. In front of all of them.
At that moment, it felt as if every set of eyes in the room was trained on her, though truthfully it was only Stephen’s and her mother’s. Everyone else chattered right along, sucking up to the happy, too-perfect couple beaming at each other over champagne and filet mignon at the head of the table. She watched it all as if from a separate plane of reality.
Slowly, Candace put her glass back down without ever taking a drink. “There is someone,” she said quietly.
“Nonsense,” her mother announced, earning herself a murderous look she easily ignored. “She isn’t seeing anyone, Stephen. Not at all.”
It was the truth, wasn’t it? She wasn’t. At all. But…
“I am in love with someone,” she said firmly, staring daggers at Sylvia Andrews. “I may not be with him, but in my heart—”
“Stop this right now,” her mother said, her voice practically a hiss, every word its own sentence. “If I hear one more word about that boy, so help me God—”
It took only one innocent question to bring the world to an end. Michelle was the one who asked it, leaning over the table from her seat on Stephen’s opposite side. “Who?”
Horrified, Candace looked past him at her cousin’s lovely, inquisitive face. “Michelle, I— Can I talk to you later about that?”
Michelle’s brow furrowed. “Well, of course, if that’s what you want. I was just curious. I wasn’t aware you were that interested in anyone.”
“She still doesn’t know?” Sylvia demanded. Now they were starting to get some uneasy glances. “Well, that’s reaching a new low, isn’t it, Candace? I thought she at least knew what you’ve been trying to do.”
Candace’s voice was scarcely a whisper. Given the sound of her own pulse thundering in her ears, she could hardly hear it herself. “Mother, please don’t.”
“Ashamed of yourself? You should be.”
When Sylvia’s face began to swim in her vision, Candace calmly picked her napkin up out of her lap and laid it on the table, scooting her chair back as she stood. Stephen half rose next to her. “Excuse me, I need some air.”
“Candace Marie, I’m not done. Sit down.”
“I’m done. If you have something to say to me, then you’re going to have to drag your ass out of that chair and follow me.” Amid some gasps but mostly shocked silence, she whirled and strode for the door, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Several chairs scraped against the tiles
behind her. Wonderful. How many were coming outside to witness this? She was shaking so hard, her heart beating so fast, she feared she might faint. The hot tears that had been building spilled over, agitated by her pounding steps, leaving warm trails on her cheeks that were oddly comforting.
Finally, blessedly, she emerged into the muggy air outside her aunt and uncle’s palatial home. It was stifling, but far less so than the atmosphere in that dining room. Out here the sky was huge and stained with twilight. The crickets were joyous, and she felt she could finally breathe again. Until her mother seized her arm and jerked her around to face her. Michelle was at her side, along with Candace’s father, who looked stern and way too tall and mightily pissed off. A few seconds later, her older brother Jameson stormed out.
“I can’t believe what I just heard in there,” her dad thundered. “If I ever hear you disrespect your mother again—”
“What about my respect, Dad? As an adult, and a member of this family, not to mention your daughter? When in the hell is it my turn to get some respect?”
“When you earn it,” Sylvia snapped. “When you learn to act like an adult and make adult decisions. When you can refrain from episodes like the one we all just witnessed, maybe then it’ll be ‘your turn’.”
“Aunt Syl—” Michelle began, trying to get a word in. Candace’s parents promptly drowned her out.
“You still technically reside under our roof,” Phillip warned, putting a finger in her face. Michelle tried to lay a calming hand on his arm, but he ignored her, every iota of his focus trained on Candace. There had been moments in her childhood that look had terrified her. Now, it only infuriated her more. Here comes his all too familiar “respect my authoritah!” bit. “As long as that’s the case, we’re the authority figures, Candace. I’ll not have you running wild and embarrassing this family while we still foot the bill for it!”
“What have I done?” she shrieked. “I go to school and I go home! I’m not out partying and blowing your money on booze and male strippers, Dad. And really, so what if I was? I still have a fucking four-point-oh average—”
