by Raven, Jo
I stretch out on my back beside him and wrestle him around until his head is resting on my shoulder and his arm is draped over my middle.
If his eyes get any wider, they’ll pop out of their sockets.
“All right, fucker?” Damn, he’s still shivering. I rub his back. “Comfortable?”
He nods and some of that chilling blankness leaves his gaze. “Yeah.” Even his voice sounds creaky and rusty.
“Try to get some sleep.” I let my eyes drift closed. “I’m right here.”
“Everyone leaves, J,” he whispers. “Everyone.”
He doesn’t sound angry, or sad. He sounds… defeated. That wakes me up again, and I pet his back, then his hair.
“No, they don’t. I won’t. Is this about Candy?” When he says nothing, I forge on. “Candy will come back. We won’t let her go, all right? I don’t know why she left like that, but I’m sure there’s an explanation. Hell, if she really wanted to be with us for so long, she won’t just walk out now.”
His hair is silky soft under my fingers, and I twine them in the dark locks. He swallows hard, his eyes drifting closed. “She won’t?”
“She won’t.” I tug a little on his hair, and he produces a tiny moan that goes straight to my dick. Dammit. Not the time for this. “We’ll talk to her tomorrow morning.”
Jet hums in response and curls up closer, throwing a leg over mine. He’s warming up, too, and he’s real and solid against me, his musky smell familiar and pleasant. Eventually his breathing evens out, and he falls asleep, his fist planted on my chest.
Right on top of my heart.
***
Only tomorrow morning Candy’s not at work.
I know because I drive Jet there. He did sleep after I joined him on the sofa, but fitfully, and he barely picked at the breakfast I made him before we left home. Normally it’s a short bus ride for him, but today I said to hell with it.
I need to fix this, whatever it is, to get Candy back. We need to fix this. Jet is happy when she’s around, and I… Yeah, I’m happy, too. Can’t deny it. She makes me smile. I like her nerdy moments, and her sleepy moments, and her sexy moments. I mean, the girl’s hot.
But I also appreciate how she takes care of us, how she touches both of us, hugs us, kisses us, holds us. How she takes the time to talk with me about books, and tease Jet until he relaxes. How she cares for him. How well she fits in our lives.
“She’s not here,” Donna says. “Didn’t come in today. She texted me to let me know she isn’t feeling well.”
Jet and I exchange worried glances. She’s sick? Or she doesn’t want to see us? Either option is a stone hanging around my neck.
Worse still, Jet looks like he might punch someone, and Donna is his boss. Not a good idea. So I get in front of him to catch any errant punches.
“Look, we need to speak with her,” I tell Donna. “It’s important. Can you perhaps give us her landline number, or her address?”
She shakes her head. “You guys seem like good boys, but if you want that information, you’d better ask her yourselves.”
Damn. “She forgot her cell phone at our place.”
She tsks. “That explains why she texted me from her roommate’s phone. Sorry, guys. No can do.”
She’s right. She shouldn’t hand out Candy’s info to random strangers. Only… we’re not random strangers anymore, are we?
I pull Jet aside. “We have Candy’s cell phone. We can call her roommate later on. What was her name?”
“Bry,” Jet mutters, hope lighting up his eyes.
I have her cell tucked in the pocket of my suit jacket. I turn it on. The background on her screen is a grainy photo of her with… two guys. I squint at it.
Me and Jet? I don’t remember this pic.
Anyway, I scroll through her contacts, feeling like a douche for doing that but hoping she’ll forgive me. We have to talk.
She has to explain.
“Hello?” a chirpy voice answers. “Who’s there?”
“Brylee?” I say.
“Can’t be. I’m Brylee. Who are you?”
I pull the phone from my ear, stare at it incredulously, return it to my ear. “Yeah, you are Brylee. I am Joel. I’m looking for Candy.”
“Then try a candy shop.” She hangs up.
What. The. Hell.
Jet is frowning at me. I shrug and call again.
“Look, Joel…” Brylee says. “She doesn’t want to see you right now. Especially you.”
Okay, I didn’t expect this. “Why?”
“She knows of the photo. You know the one, with you and Ellen and another woman? Naked? Doing the thing?”
My insides go cold. My lungs stutter. “What do you mean she knows of the photo? How?”
“Ha, so you’re not denying it.”
“Did you see it? Where?”
“That’s your concern? Well, let me tell you, Mr. I’m-too-much-for-one-girl Joel, your first concern should be that you lied to Candy about being with that woman, and that now she doesn’t want to even hear your name spoken and— Hey, give me back that phone!”
“Joel.” Candy’s voice filters down the line, and I lean against the nearest shelf, my knees weak with relief.
“Girl, thank God. Why did you—?”
“Is it true? You were with Ellen? Are you… Are you still with her? That first day I met you, you came to the bookstore to find her, and I…”
Ah fuck. “I can explain all this.” Jet is glaring daggers at me, and I take a step back. “I’ve never been with Ellen that way—”
“There is a photo proving you a liar, Joel Kingsley,” she whispers into the phone, and then the line goes dead.
Oh shit. Shit!
“What have you done?” Jet is advancing on me, fists curled at his sides.
“Nothing. Listen, buddy…”
“Don’t buddy me. You are the reason Candy left?”
“No! I mean… I don’t think so. It makes no sense. She found out about the scandal, but last night… Last night she wasn’t upset. She didn’t mention it.”
“Hell.” Jet runs a hand through his hair. “You think her very helpful roommate found out about it? Has she seen the picture?”
“I don’t think so.” But my relief that my picture with my dick hanging out is not splashed all over the internet again is not enough. Not when Candy doesn’t want to see me.
“She thinks you lied to her.” Jet points a finger at me, anger flashing in his eyes. “That you’ve had something going on with Ellen. Am I right?”
I nod, miserable.
“You have to explain to her what happened. Tell her about your…” He waves a hand. “Your problem and why you were with Ellen. That Ellen likes pussy. That you didn’t lie.”
He’s right. I have to. But the thought of telling Candy I can’t get it up for a girl alone, that watching gets me off… “Won’t she run away for good if she knows? Won’t she think that’s why I want us to have sex together?”
Something passes over Jet’s face, and it’s gone before I can analyze it. “Isn’t it?”
Fuck. I don’t know. It started out like that, but now?
Jet turns away. “I have to work.”
“Shit, me too. I’m late already.” And we still don’t have Candy’s number or address. “I’ll try reasoning with this Brylee. Beg her if I have to. She has to let us see Candy.”
“I’ll ask Donna again. Goddammit.” Jet scrubs his face with both hands, and the memory of him so terrified and pale last night has me reaching for him.
He steps out of reach.
He’s never refused my touch before. And I never thought how used I am to this closeness between us. How painful it would be if he denied me. That I’d be the one craving to touch him, to hold him.
Turning on my heel, without another word, I step out of the shop, slamming the door behind me.
***
By late afternoon, I’m two seconds short of pulling my hair out. Brylee won’t answer. Je
t said Donna won’t crack, and Candy still hasn’t called. Christa, my coworker, is getting on my nerves, giggling every time I pass with her friends, bent over their phones. I’m itching to barge in and see what’s on their goddamn phone screens.
Don’t be paranoid, I tell myself. You’d know if they’d seen the picture.
Right?
After some internal debate during which I call myself all sorts of names, I call Ellen to ask her if her girlfriend reposted that damn picture on the internet. She doesn’t sound that pleased to hear from me—or maybe it’s the news that the pic is circulating again?—but she is incensed that I’d think so lowly of her girlfriend.
Moot point.
A guy whose name I don’t know grins as I pass in front of him, on my way to piss. Another one lifts a brow as I come back out, his phone in his hand.
What the fuck? I glower at him, my skin crawling. This day sucks.
Then it literally goes to hell when Donna calls me—well, calls Candy’s phone that’s still in my pocket—to ask me if I’d go pick Jet up because he doesn’t look so good.
Shit. “What’s wrong with him?”
Donna hesitates. “He’s been distracted, and clumsy. Quiet. When I pressed, he said he’s fine, but then he dropped a stack of books on a customer’s foot, and she left in a rage.”
“Okay…” I rub at the crease between my brows. “Accidents happen, right?”
“Look, Joel. I’m not thrilled about sending home my one remaining employee, okay? But since that phone call he received he hasn’t been himself. He keeps rubbing at his temples as if he has a headache, and he looks pale, and uncoordinated. I don’t want him falling on his face, and I’m not only thinking about how the customers would react. He looks sick. He’s your friend. What will you do?”
Fuck. “Did he say who called him?”
“Nope.”
“He may be stressed because Candy isn’t there. He gets headaches from stress. If I could talk to her…”
“I can’t give you her number or address, Joel. I told you already.”
“Yeah, yeah, so you have.” I glance at the pile of work waiting for me on my desk, at the emails I need to answer and the letters I need to write, and sigh. “I’m on my way to pick him up.”
“Also, you should give me her cell phone. I’ll make sure she gets it back.”
Damn.
***
“Told you, I’m fine,” Jet grumbles for the tenth time, and I shake my head in frustration. He won’t tell me what the phone call was about, won’t admit to feeling unwell, and won’t come with me. “And I have work to do.”
“Jethry boy, your boss called me, all right? If she’s concerned about you, how the fuck do you think I feel, huh?”
He looks up from where he’s been stuffing old bookmarks into a recycling bag, his eyes wide and damn vulnerable. “How, then?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything, express these wild thoughts spinning inside my head. “Concerned. If your cousin has trouble at home, why won’t you tell me? Is it a money problem? Is it something worse? Maybe I could help.”
His eyes shutter, and he looks back down at the bag. “You can’t help, mate. Told you that before.” He pauses, hands gripping the plastic bag so hard it’s a miracle he hasn’t torn it apart. “What about Candy? Any news?”
“Nope. Nada.”
“Jesus fuck. What if something happened to her? Her running away like that, and not showing up, not talking to us…”
“Listen, Jet.” I pry the bag from his white-knuckled grip, set it down. “She hasn’t left and moved to another city. She’ll be back to work tomorrow. We’ll see her.”
He gives a jerky nod. If there’s one thing I know about Jet it’s that he’s scared of people leaving. Since he won’t tell me anything about his past, I don’t know why that is, but it’s pretty clear that between Candy’s vanishing act and that damn phone call he received, he’s freaking out.
“We’ll get her back.” I pat his shoulder. It’s like patting a piece of rock, he’s so damn tense. “I’ll explain to her about Ellen, about the scandal. I’ll tell her everything, man, I swear. I don’t fucking care anymore. If nothing else, she’ll come back to you.”
Even if the thought sends a strange pain through my chest, I want this for him. To have someone who cares in his life. Even if the thought of admitting my issues, the paths of my twisted mind, the reason I was caught in the scandal in the first place is laid out bare.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Jet grabs the bag, tries to wrestle it from me. “That’s not what I want, you doofus. Goddammit, some days, I swear…”
I blink. “Then what…?”
But Jet tugs harder on the bag, and it splits down the middle, spilling old papers between us. Jet swears, and I huff in annoyance—not because of this mess, but because Jet is obviously determined not to talk to me today. Or maybe ever.
“I thought,” I mutter as I kneel down in my dark slacks and polished shoes, not caring that I’m getting everything dirty, “that you’d trust me by now, fucker. Enough to tell me what’s on your mind. Enough to come to me if there is a problem. I’m not a mind reader. Hell, I’m thick when it comes to reading clues and hints and piecing it all together, and I’m the first to admit it. Trust me, goddammit. Let me help you.”
He closes his hands around the scraps of paper, scrunching them up. “You’re not listening. You can’t help. So drop it, okay?”
“Jet…”
He abruptly gets up and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Fuck.”
My stomach is a knot of worry. “Come on, Jet, let’s go home.”
“I trust you,” he whispers. “I do trust you, dammit.”
“Okay.” That’s good, but it does nothing to allay my concern. “Come on, then.”
He lets his hands drop to his sides. “What about Candy?”
“I’ll find a way. I’ll crawl and fucking beg if I have to. I promise.”
***
I leave Jet in bed, curled up on his side, an arm thrown over his face, and wander into the kitchen to pour myself some water.
At least I managed to get some painkillers down his throat. Of course he didn’t eat all day. He forgets to eat if I’m not around to remind him.
Or Candy. Apparently Candy also made him eat. She made him smile.
I breathe out, rub the back of my neck. She makes me smile, too. She makes me hard, and makes me happy. That feeling when I’m with her and Jet? Yeah, I figured it out in the end.
I feel accepted. At peace. In the right place in my life.
How can I find her? A search on her social media hasn’t given me any clues. I also found out we’re friends on Facebook—have been, for the past year. I don’t fucking remember how that happened.
One more question that needs to be answered.
It’s pretty warm inside the apartment, and I’m lounging around in my black briefs with a tension headache of my own.
How did I fuck this up so thoroughly before it really began?
Tomorrow. I’ll fix things tomorrow. Can’t think clearly right now. I think I’ll hit those painkillers myself and hope that come morning I’ll have an answer and a solution.
Before I make my way to the bathroom to find the pills, the doorbell rings. Knowing how light Jet’s sleep is, I curse under my breath as I run to get the door, my bare feet skidding on the floor. The bell rings again, and I groan.
I throw the door open, not even bothering to check through the peephole to see who it is.
“What do you want?” I snarl.
Candy is standing there, a flush splashed over her cheeks, her hair caught back in a ponytail, her wire-frame glasses in place. I can’t stop staring at her, my heart hammering.
She clears her throat. “Donna said Jet was sick, and she sent him home. Can I see him? Is he okay?”
Speechless, hope clawing through my chest, I open the door wider and step aside to let her in.
Chapter Twenty Fo
ur
JETHRO
Everyone leaves. Only the bloodied memories and the nightmares remain.
He’s not coming back, I tell myself. He’s gone. My dad is gone. The violence is gone.
But bad things always come back.
There are voices nearby, familiar voices, meshing with the noise in my dreams.
“We need to talk,” Joel says.
“You can start.” Candy. Candy is here. “You can tell me why you lied about not being with Ellen.”
“I’m not with Ellen. Never was.”
“And the picture where you’re naked with her? What was that?”
There is blood in my dreams. Always. I cling to the voices, hoping to escape, but the tension seeping into the words has me gritting my teeth and the dreams keep me under.
“Did you see that picture?” Joel asks.
“No, but Brylee told me—”
“That I was naked with Ellen and another woman.” Joel sighs. “Listen, this may sound fucking crazy to you, but you have to believe me, girl. I’ve never been with Ellen. Never even kissed her. Never had sex with her. I’ve never gone down on her or had her go down on me, never touched her anywhere else, never even touched a fucking inch of her bare skin. Ever.”
Joel is angry. It makes my muscles clench. My fingers claw into the pillow.
“Then what’s that picture? Was it a set up? Was it Photoshopped? What?”
“No, I… I was really there.” Joel groans. “Damn, here goes. The thing is, Ellen isn’t into guys. She likes girls. And she had a girlfriend at the time who didn’t mind if I watched them get each other off. We tried it twice.”
“You watched them get each other off.” Candy’s voice is flat. “Awesome.”
“Look, it wasn’t because I felt something for her. For them. I never cared for her. Not like I do for you. I just couldn’t…” Joel struggles for words, and I struggle to wake up completely. “I had some trouble getting off. I didn’t know why, but I’d realized that watching others get off helped.” Another pause. “It’s why I flaked that one time I took you out. I was scared I wouldn’t get it up, or wouldn’t come, and you’d think it was because of you.”