Candy Ever After (Hot Candy 2)

What I need is more. More pain.

I ball my hands. If I head out to a bar, I’ll drink, and I’ll fight. I’ve been trying to stop that vicious cycle. Been doing better. Haven’t needed that outlet in a while.

Since Candy came into our lives, changing everything.

Fuck. Bullshit. Fuck-all has changed. I’m right back where I used to be—a loser, with no real prospects, with no one who will take me as I am. No one to need me.

So I grab my jacket and head out. Yeah, I need a drink, and a fight, not necessarily in that order, to set my head straight. And there’s nobody left here to stop me.

***

The bar is packed for a weekday night. Miraculously I find a free stool and park my ass there to drink.

And I drink. The bartender gives me the side-eye as he slams yet another whiskey shot on the bar in front of me. I look younger than my age, but he knows me. I’ve been here plenty of times, and he doesn’t ask for my ID.

Good thing, too. I’m itching to punch something, or someone, and he’d do in a pinch. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me.

Suits me just fine. I don’t need anyone to like me, except Candy and Joel. And the thought hits me square in the chest, letting fresh pain well.

Dammit, I came here to forget. Forget Candy, forget Joel, and forget my paranoid thoughts about dear old dad before I’m shut in a madhouse with pills shoved down my throat.

I managed to escape the straitjacket the first time. Maybe I can do it again. I just need enough booze to drown out the voices in my head, and the itch in my fists.

The next shot goes down smooth and warm, relaxing the stiff muscles in my back. The one after that is even better. I grin at the bartender and lift my glass. He scowls, and I salute him with my middle finger.

One good thing about getting so shitfaced you can’t remember your own name? The fear is gone. All fear.

Nothing matters but my next shot and the blissful mindlessness of this moment.

When a guy stumbles into my stool, I grab him and shove him against the bar. When he snarls something I can’t hear at me, I shove him back harder.

Then I release him, step off my stool and open my arms wide.

“Come to daddy,” I yell at him, but inside what I’m thinking is, Give me pain, cut me down, knock me out.

Set me free.

***

I’m being pulled away from the brawl, protesting and struggling because it wasn’t enough, hell, and I’m still conscious—when I see her.

Not Candy. No, that would have been something good, and good isn’t in the cards tonight. No, it’s a random girl, a girl I’ve never seen before. She has her hand over her mouth, her eyes are wide, and she’s staring right at me with horror.

Shit, I have to look real bad. My face is a giant bruise, and one of my eyes is swelling shut already.

“Get out of here,” the bouncer grumbles at me as he drags me out of the bar. “And don’t come back. It’s the third time you started a fight in the past two months.”

Yeah, yeah. Like a guy fights alone. It takes at least two to make a fight, but I’m the one who’s getting kicked out.

The bouncer propels me into the dark alley behind the bar and I stagger, catching my balance with a hand against the brick wall.

Goddammit.

I straighten, my head spinning, my jaw throbbing, and I find her at the emergency exit, staring at me.

“What do you want?” I slur, squinting at her. “Look, you’re pretty, but there’s only one girl I want and she’s not here right now.”

“Candy.” She nods. “You want Candy. You’re Jethro.” When I stare at her, uncomprehending, she says, “I’m Brylee. Candy’s roommate. I’ve seen you in photos.”