Dirty Princes (Hot Candy 3)

Right. Hence the Disney theme, the princess, the Spid

erman costume.

That’s okay. I don’t regret it. I’d have torn through the city again in a heartbeat if I thought she was hurt.

“Why?” I ask, not sure why I’m asking. Why wouldn’t she do this? Not everyone is as self-centered as I am.

But she shivers.

“I was very sick as a kid,” she says softly. “Cancer. My father left us. Too much trouble and expenses, I guess.” She shrugs, a small, sad gesture. “A lady used to come, read us stories. It made a world of difference in my life back then.”

Cancer. Jesus Christ. “Bry…”

“I’ve been perfectly healthy for the past ten years. Not a trace of the cancer. Looks like I beat it. Coming to give the kids here hope is the least I can do.”

Bile rises in my throat, familiar panic.

She’s fine, Ryan, I tell myself. She’s trusting you with this tidbit of her past. Old past. She was a kid. She’s a woman now.

A woman I care about.

So much kinder than I ever gave her credit for.

“Thank fuck you’re all right,” I say with feeling, my voice shaky. “Now, and ten years ago, and always, Bry.”

She smiles at me, and a wave of warmth washes through me.

Everything’s fine, and I’m too tired to move, or think. Too comfortable on the bare, cold floor, as long as those arms are around me, and her hand rests on my face.

It’s too easy to give in and consequences be damned. Too easy to let down my last defenses.

So when she says, “Let us drive you home,” I say yes.

***

Riddick is driving, and I’m worried about his back, but I don’t have yet the energy to ask questions. Brylee is riding shotgun, fiddling with the radio, her tiara sparkling.

I’m in the backseat, buckled in and numb. I’m also still soaking wet, and I’m sporting a bandage around my hand, put there by a nurse who wasn’t very happy about fishing shards of glass out of my palm.

Lifting my hand, I stare at the bandage. The pain is distant.

Am I in shock? It could explain why I’m not freaking out yet. Why I’m sitting in Brylee’s car, my thoughts jammed and my heart tripping, but in a good way.

Like a kid going to a carnival.

I guess. Can’t remember ever going to a carnival, but I remember Christmas time with Mom. Like a kid on Christmas day, then. That’s how I feel.

And it makes no fucking sense, because for all I know, Riddick will park on my street, and they will both wave goodbye as they drive away.

I pushed them away. I pushed them together.

I have no place in their lives.

But they don’t. Wave goodbye and leave, that is. In fact, Riddick gets out and opens my door before I even unbuckle myself and hauls me out.

I open my mouth to tell him he shouldn’t strain his back, but his arm slips around me, and Brylee appears on my other side, doing the same, and I let them pull me along in silence, like a warm tide.

Riddick asks for my key, and I hand it over without a question. We enter the building, ride up to my floor, and he opens the door. We step inside, and Brylee closes the door behind us.