“Why the outpouring of advice from my not-brother?”
“It’s Christmas. Consider it my gift to you.”
“I thought your gift to me was the bracelet.”
“That too. Merry Christmas.” He stood up. “You going to bed?”
“In a little while. I’ll see you in the morning in my tattered, unattractive T-shirt.”
“It’s a date.”
After Ricky left the room, Candy stared at the tree. Of all the years she and Tyler dated, they’d only had one Christmas together. The first year, she’d been living with her dad and he’d still been at his parents. Every year she put up the tree, but that year Tyler had helped her. They’d baked cookies together and watched Christmas movies. It had been the best Christmas she could remember since her mom left. Maybe the best Christmas ever.
And here she was spending another Christmas wishing she could go back to that one.
She needed to make new Christmases. Finding another guy wasn’t going to happen. Men left. They abdicated responsibility, died, or got distracted with some other part of their life that they thought was more important. No, if she wanted to settle down she needed to start her own family from scratch.
* * * *
June bounded up to her at Brian and Suzi’s reception and started chattering in Chinese.
“Babe, you have to speak to me in English,” Candy said. She glanced over her daughter’s head. Joey had hung back letting his sister lead as usual.
June blinked. “Mama, can we play with Sonya and Andi?”
“Of course, but be careful with Sonya, she’s little.”
“I know.”
“And stay where we can see you.”
“Mama!” June scoffed as she flounced away.
“Why do your kids speak Chinese again?” Alex asked.
Candy smiled at Marc’s wife wondering again how Marc ended up with the thin, serious English professor. He didn’t deserve her. “I adopted them from China and I thought they should know about their own culture.”
“And their nanny speaks Chinese.”
“She barely speaks English and it’s not the right dialect of Chinese, but it’s at least Chinese. She’s teaching June to write it, too. When Joey starts school, she’ll start teaching him.”
“And why did you adopt two kids from China?”
“Because I wanted a family and Mr. Right wasn’t coming around.”
Alex shook her head. “It still seems odd to me.”
“You’re not the only one. June’s teacher didn’t know what to make of it when she started hanging out with the ESL kids on the playground.”
“She’s very serious, isn’t she?”
“June? Yes, she is. She was almost two when I adopted her and I think she has some memories of the orphanage. It wasn’t a great place to be. Especially in comparison.”
Alex looked around again and Candy knew what she was seeing. The white tent filled with round white linen covered tables, set with china and crystal the caterers were busy cleaning up. The whole spectacle, finished. Candy just saw another wedding, but one she hadn’t put together.
“I wanted to thank you again for helping me with my wedding. I never could have done it without you.” Alex fiddled with the white linen napkin on her lap. Smoothing it, folding it, and smoothing it again. Given enough time, the caterers wouldn’t have to iron that one.
“No sweat. I’m starting to think I should go into wedding planning. I’ve done so many of these things lately.”
“Are all the guys married now?”
“Everyone but Tyler.” Who had been loudly proclaiming all day that he was never getting married. Bless his heart.
“Have you seen my sister?” Jason demanded.
“Jason, we were talking here.”
“Excuse me.” Jason bowed elaborately. “Pardon the interruption ladies, but have you seen Tessa?”
Candy gestured with her head toward the overlook. “She said she needed some air.”
“Shit. She’s taking this hard, isn’t she?”
“Can you blame her?”
“Yes. She could have had Brian sixteen years ago if she’d wanted him.”
“She didn’t want Brian sixteen years ago.” Candy swiveled her glass on the condensation ring it had left in the linen.
“No, she wanted Marc and every other rock star, movie star, and athlete she could get her hands on. No thanks to you.” Jason scowled.
“I am not taking responsibility for the fact that your sister was youth-gone-wild like you boys were.”
“You just happened to have all the connections.”
Alex was watching all this like a tennis match.
“Why was it okay for you boys to tramp around as much as you wanted, but not for her? She was doing what you all were.”
“That doesn’t mean she gets to be pissy about it now.”
Candy shrugged. “We all knew this wedding was going to be tough on a couple of people, just like yours was.”
“Hey, Jody always knew I wasn’t interested in her.”
“And yet she dreamed.”
Jason hunched his shoulders and then relaxed them with a gusty breath. “When are you coming out of semi-retirement? I don’t like the new girl.”
“Sarina is very good at what she does and when Joey starts school, I’ll think about it.”
Jason grumbled and stomped away.
“I missed something,” Alex said.
“We’ve been stewing together for a long time. Jody had a crush on Jason before she ever met him and until he married Cassie and they started cranking out babies, she thought she still had a chance despite all signs.”
“And Tessa?”
Candy scanned the tent. Unless Jody was outside, she’d ducked out early. Better than what she’d done at Jason and Cassie’s wedding, which was to get drunk and cry. “Brian had a crush on Tessa and she wasn’t interested in him so she let him down easy by starting a torrid affair with Marc.”
“My Marc?”
“It was a long time ago. At the time the boys were partying pretty hardy. He’s different now. They all are.” Almost all of them. Not Tyler.
Alex nodded. “You guys know all about each other, don’t you?”
“Just about. I met Tyler on the day of his audition.” Candy couldn’t stop the soft smile creeping across her lips remember that burnout wandering her section in the department store a million years ago.
“I feel like a carpetbagger.” Alex wrapped her hands around the bowl of her wine glass.
Candy patted her arm. “We need fresh blood.”
A wail headed her direction from the opening in the tent caught her attention. Tyler was headed her way with Joey in his arms and June trailing behind clutching his shirttail. She met them halfway.
“He fell and tore up his knees,” Tyler said.
“Sit down and hold him so I can see.” Joey’s little moon face was screwed up with sobs. “Hush, sweetie. Mama’s here.”
The knees of his pants were shredded and bloody. Peeling them up, she could see the little pebbles imbedded in his skin. She brushed at them with a napkin, but Joey was clutching at her shoulders trying to climb into her arms.
“I’m sorry.” Tyler hugged Joey, kissing his hair.
“What was he doing?”
“He climbed over the side of the slide and fell off.”
Candy sighed. No doubt June or Andi did it first.
“Mama?” June whimpered.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Joey hurt himself. It’s not your fault.”
“What happened?” Suzi crouched next to her, trying to push her white dress out of the way.
“Suzi, you don’t want to get blood on your wedding dress.” Candy gave in and let Joey climb into her lap.
“Oh don’t worry about it.” Suzi inspected Joey’s knees. “Poor baby. The caterers have a first-aid kit. Tess! Tess, run and ask one of the caterers fo
r the first-aid kit.”
Brian’s daughter took off at a run.
Of course the caterers had a first-aid kit. If Suzi didn’t already have a very lucrative career of her own, Candy would have to hire her to work at her publicity firm.
“Maybe I should take him home.” Joey’s little body was hot and heavy and he was about to succeed in choking her.
“I hate for you to have to leave early.” Suzi kept brushing gently at the dirt imbedded in Joey’s knees.
“What’s the matter?” Brian leaned over Suzi’s shoulder. “Poor little guy.”
“It’s been a long day for them.” Candy tried to struggle to her feet and ended up tipping over backward. Brian and Tyler both grabbed for her.
“I’ve got her,” Tyler snarled.
“Fine.” Brian took a step back with his hands up.
Tyler pulled Candy up with Joey still in her arms. “I’ll drive you home.”
“I can drive. June, go get Mama’s purse.”
“He’s not going to let you go.”
“He knows he has to sit in his car seat.”
“Why are you arguing with me?”
Candy stared at him. Excellent question. If anyone else had asked if she wanted them to drive her home, she’d have agreed. But not Tyler. “I’m not. Joey will let go when we get to the car. He’s already calming down.”
“I think this is our cue to leave.” Brian put his arm around Suzi’s shoulders and pulled her away.
Tyler stepped closer. “Candy, let me take you and the kids home.”
“I can do it myself. Joey isn’t crying anymore.”
“Candy.”
Was he pleading? Why? “There’s no point, Tyler. We’ll be fine.” She headed out of the tent to find June.
“Why not use the first-aid kit before you go? Get him taken care of. If he’s stopped crying, maybe you can stay a little while longer.” Tyler followed her.
In the corner of the tent nearest the opening, Candy spotted Jerry Eland with a girl on his lap. “Is that your date with Jerry?”
“What?” Tyler glanced in their direction. “Yeah, I kinda had that pegged.”
“Okay.” He hadn’t changed. One woman was as good as another, and he’d have another within the hour.
June caught up to them and Tyler held out his hand. She took it without hesitation. Odd. June was usually very shy unless someone needed her help.
“Why don’t I follow you home then? Make sure you get there okay.”
“I know the way home. Find my keys and hit the button, June.”
June fished through Candy’s purse until she found the keys and deactivated the locks. Then she dropped the keys back in Candy’s purse and reached for Tyler again. Really odd. June had time to open and close those locks a couple of times between here and the car. Normally she would hit that button a dozen times.
“Candy, why are you stonewalling me?”
“I’m not stonewalling you. My kids have had a long day and I’m taking them home. I don’t need any help. I can manage two kids by myself for an evening. Wei might even be home already. You know the party is only half over.”
“I don’t care about the party.”
“That’s a first.” Candy opened the driver’s side rear door and settled Joey into his seat.
Tyler opened the other side and helped June strap herself in. “Is there some reason you don’t want me to come to your house?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t need to you to follow me home.” Candy closed the door and so did Tyler.
“Okay.”
Okay? He must be getting soft with age. “Well, it was nice seeing you again. Bye, Tyler.”
He took a step back from the car and smiled.
“I like Tyler,” June announced as Candy started the car.
“That’s good.”
“Do you like Tyler?”
“Tyler is a very old friend.”
“But do you like him?”
“Yes, I like him.” Too much. Still.
“He likes you.”
“That’s nice.” He probably did in his way, but it wasn’t enough. She needed a full-time partner, not somebody who thought it was his God-given duty to sample as many women as he could. True, he’d slowed down over the past few years, but she put that down to age.
“Can Andi and Sonya come play with us?”
“I will call their mom and see if we can arrange a play date.” Might be nice to sit around with Cassie. She seemed nice enough. She’d certainly pulled Jason out of a hole. There’d been a sea of changes in the band over the last six or seven years. It was as if Bear found Maureen and all of them realized the joys of domestic bliss. All except Tyler.
Chapter 9
June chattered about the kids she’d met all the way home. Joey fell asleep. At the house he woke up crying. Wei was home, so she got June bathed and into her nightgown while Candy dealt with Joey’s wound then got him bathed and into bed. June and Candy were playing Chutes and Ladders in the living room when the doorbell rang.
Candy checked the clock on the way to the door. Eight. Not terribly late, but she wasn’t expecting anyone.
Tyler stood on the porch with a pizza box in his hands.
“What are you doing here?”
“I brought pizza.” He stepped through the door past her.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“You left pretty early. I thought the kids might be hungry.”
“Joey is in bed and June is about to go.”
“Mama!” June wailed.
“No argument. Fifteen minutes then one story and lights out,” Candy told her.
“But Tyler brought pizza.”
“Yeah, Tyler brought pizza.” Tyler put the pizza box on the table but didn’t open it.
“One piece. A skinny one.”
Wei came downstairs and asked June something in Chinese. June answered. Candy assumed it was about the pizza because Wei helped herself to a piece.
“Did I screw up?” Tyler asked. “I figured since you guys left so early the kids might be hungry.”
“We didn’t leave early.”
“It seemed early.”
“We run on a different clock than you do.”
Tyler stroked June’s hair and she grinned at him. “I guess so. You gonna have any?”
“It’s a little late for me to eat, but you go ahead. Do you want a drink?” Why was he here? She hadn’t even realized he knew where she lived.
“Sure.”
Candy poured him a gin and tonic. She had to open new bottles of both and she wondered why she even kept it in the house. Nobody else drank gin and the tonic water would go flat before anyone finished it. Of course, she knew exactly what Tyler drank and how he liked it down to the brand of gin. She brought him the glass.
June was sitting in front of a half-eaten piece of pizza teaching Tyler Chinese under the humoring gaze of Wei.
“Not like that!” June squealed. “If you say it like that it means stupid. You have to say it like this. Mei mei.”
“Mei mei.”
Candy didn’t hear the difference, but June and Wei both clapped so he must have gotten it right. “Finish up, June. You don’t want to be grumpy tomorrow because you didn’t get enough sleep.”
“Yes, Mama.” June focused on her pizza.
Candy glanced at Tyler, but he was watching June and she couldn’t very well ask him what the hell he was doing here again because she wasn’t going to get any straighter an answer out of him than she had at the door.
So what was he doing here? She hadn’t seen much of him for a couple of years. Not since she told the band she was taking a sabbatical to raise the kids. Sarina ran the agency and there were two other publicists working there now so the profit from it was enough to keep her more than afloat. The last five years she’d spent creating her own home, not keeping tabs on their lives. She’d shown u
p for weddings, first Bear’s, then Jason’s. Then Marc met Alex and she’d help put that one together, but it didn’t involve talking to Tyler at all except at the reception, which he’d appeared at each one with a different woman on his arm. According to all reports, he’d continued his rock star lifestyle without a hiccup. As all his friends settled down, he found new ones to party with.
Yet she’d kept a bottle of his favorite gin in the cupboard all these years even as she dated around looking for a reasonable facsimile and finding men who wanted a mother for their children or her connections or a warm bed or some combination thereof.
“Good night, Mama.” June stood up, crumbling her paper towel in her hand. “Thank you for the pizza, Tyler.” She said something to Wei in Chinese and Wei answered. Then June bounded toward the stairs.
“What did she say?” Candy asked Wei, stalling. Wei wouldn’t hang around now that June was gone.
“She asks me for pizza breakfast. I say, we see.” Wei stood and bowed. “Good night.” She took the pizza box into the kitchen.
Candy stared at the empty space on the table. Now what was she supposed to say to him? He wasn’t making any moves to go even though his fake errand had been completed.
“Nice wedding.” Tyler wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and leaned back in his chair.
“Yeah. Very nice. She’s very sweet. I remember helping her out when that sex tape thing happened a few years ago. She’s nice. I think Brian will be a lot happier with her.”
“The kids seem to like her a lot.”
“They do.”
Candy splayed her hands on the tabletop. Brian had screwed around on Bonnie all the time, but then Bonnie had done her fair share of screwing around, too. “He’s gonna be faithful this time, right?”
“As far as I know.” Tyler shrugged, twisting his glass on the table.
“I wouldn’t want to see him messing with her head.”
“He’s not gonna mess with her head.” Tyler scowled. “He’s changed. People can change, you know.”
“And yet more often than not, they don’t.” Candy stood up. She should check on the kids. June had had time to brush her teeth. She should be in bed by now.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tyler stood too.
“Nothing.”
Keep Coming Back to Love Page 16
