“Us?” Joel’s voice holds a trace of defensiveness. “Are we hurting you somehow?”
I shake my head, choking on more tears. God, how do I turn them off? “Not. You.”
“Then what?”
“I dunno.” My voice sounds awful, cracked and not like me. Jesus. But it’s relatively dark, their arms are around me, and I just can’t hold up the walls anymore, not tonight, even if I’ll regret it tomorrow. “I’m not good enough, you know. Dad used to tell me so. Riddick’s parents told me so. Couldn’t finish school. Couldn’t keep people around me. And now I… I’ll fuck it up again. What if I don’t get my GED? What if Donna loses patience with me for good and sends me packing? What if you leave me? What if… what if Dad is released and finishes the job. Fuck, it hurts…”
Candy pulls back a little. “Is it the scar?” Her hand slides down, over my pec, to touch it, and I shiver.
Everything hurts tonight. The uncertainty, the fear, the memories.
“I’m… I’m afraid,” I confess, and dammit all. “Everyone leaves.”
“I told you that’s not true. I’m not leaving. We’re not leaving, fucker.”
I shake my head and try to push them off me, to get up. Go hide. Lick my wounds. Convince myself nothing happened. That I didn’t fall apart and crack open, letting them both see how cold I feel. How weak I am.
Joel doesn’t let me go, though. He pulls me in tighter to him, and Candy drapes herself over me like a living blanket.
“We’re not letting you go,” she says and they drag me down to the mattress with them and pull the covers over us. “You’re who we want.”
Joel spoons me from behind and kisses the back of my head. “Go to sleep now. Tomorrow everything will be better.”
Or it will be over.
I lie awake as they fall asleep, their breathing evening out, staring at nothing.
Chapter Sixteen
Candy
“If you have J-One’s baby,” J-Two says, pulling me close, “I’ll bet she’ll have his eyes.”
“And my hang-ups? No, thanks,” J-One mutters. “Also, how do you know it will be a girl?”
“I like girls.” J
-Two tightens his arms around me and nuzzles my neck. “As you know.”
“But you also like boys.” J-One grins as he scoots behind J-Two and slides his hands over his shoulders. “Don’t you?”
“Yeah. Let’s have both.” J-Two brushes his mouth over mine. “A lot of both.”
(Candy’s Note: Or maybe one from each daddy? How many kids are we talking here?)
From Candy Ever After (Unpublished epilogue to the serial Candy Boys)
Early morning light is coloring the sky outside the kitchen window. Armed with strong coffee, loaded with sugar, I’m sitting at the table, my laptop open in front of me, my glasses perched high on my nose.
I’ve left my two boyfriends asleep in bed, their limbs twined together. That’s a rare sight for me. Jet is almost never in bed when I wake up, woken earlier by a nightmare or two, and Joel often gets up before me.
But today I woke up first and couldn’t go back to sleep. Not even the sight of their peaceful, handsome faces side by side in bed couldn’t keep me there any longer.
My stomach is in knots, and I’m not even sure why. I don’t want to face the why, since yes, deep inside I know the reason.
Not this early in the morning.
A bright morning, too, cloudless for now, the windows of the building across the street reflecting a blinding splash of sunlight.