Dirty Princes (Hot Candy 3)

Very drunk. I can tell from the way the room tilts and keeps going, so that I lurch sideways and knock into a wall.

“Fucker.” This is Joel, Jet’s boyfriend, his hand steering me away from said wall. “What’s wrong with you? Jet, what did you give him, and can I have some, too?”

“Just two beers,” Jet says, miraculously appearing beside me. He gives me a long look. “They shouldn’t have hit him so hard.”

“Did you eat tonight?” Joel demands, and that’s easy, so I shake my head.

“Or today all day?” Jet asks, and it takes me a moment to think back.

Then I shake my head again.

“Fuck, another one who forgets to eat,” Joel mutters and drags me into the kitchen.

Fortunate, since that was the way I was heading before I crashed into the wall.

The smell of food hits me the moment we enter, and my stomach growls like a MOFO. A cramp hits me, and I groan softly, bending over.

“Dammit, man.” Jet pulls out a chair and I fall into it. “That sounded like a bear. Wait a sec… Since when haven’t you eaten?”

I shrug, not sure.

“Is he related to you?” Joel grumbles. “Oh, right, he is. Candy, fix a plate for our guest?”

“What’s going on?” Candy asks. She has take-out boxes open in front of her, where the heavenly smell is coming from. “You like Indian, Rid?”

“Yeah,” I mutter.

Anything.

“He pulled a Jethro,” Joel says accusingly. “Forgot to eat.”

Huh.

“I didn’t forget,” I whisper with a wisp of irritation—or maybe exhaustion.

Why the fuck am I replying? I should keep my mouth shut. Booze makes me chatty.

The thing is…right now I have no money, since Xavier cleaned me out. I’m saving my last pennies for the rent and the gas I need to drive to work. Since borrowing money ain’t my style, I have been saving on food.

A bad idea, maybe, but what are my options?

“Rid. Here.” A plate appears in front of me, and Candy leans in to place a fork in my hand. “You can start.”

A tiny voice in the back of my mind insists I wait for them, but my hand is already closing around the fork, and I’m digging in like I haven’t eaten in a year.

Oh God. This is as good as an orgasm.

Haven’t had one of those in a while, either.

Jeez, Rid.

I vacuum my food, stopping short from licking the plate clean when I’m done, and I couldn’t even tell you what I ate. Rice, sauce. Meat, perhaps.

Sighing, I look up, right into the eyes of Brylee.

The girl I can’t stop thinking about.

The girl who’s starring in my night-time fantasies.