I sigh. “It’s not a pretty story.”
“Those are the best kind.” She pats my feet, and I scoot them out of her way so she can curl onto the couch next to me. It feels good, having her close, feeling her body heat. Comforting.
I was never the girl with a bunch of friends in school. I got moved around too much for that, foster home to foster home, wearing clothes that didn’t match and didn’t fit. I learned early on that if a boy liked me—if the toughest, meanest boy in the school liked me—then no one else could touch me.
So I learned to make that boy like me however I could. Until Blue.
“He was in one of my homes. My foster homes.”
Candy says nothing, just strokes my ankle lightly, her gaze on the empty dressing room we can see from the sofa. Maybe she knows it’s easier to talk if she isn’t looking at me. I wonder what secrets she’d have to tell if I stopped looking at her.
My throat gets tight as I think about those first days when Blue showed up. I’d been scared of him. Turned on by him. Confused by him. And by the end, he’d made me the happiest I’d ever felt then or since.
“I got him in trouble,” I whisper.
“What, like you told on him?” Candy’s words are challenging, almost mocking, but her voice is soft—like she knows. She knows that whatever happened between us, it was more than pulling pranks and sibling rivalry. “Was he doing something bad and you told someone?”
“No, just the opposite,” I say, my voice thick. “He didn’t do anything wrong. But I said he did. That’s why he hates me. Because of me, because I lied, he got sent away. And one of these days, he’s going to pay me back.”
Chapter Three
I guess it’s an acquired taste because by the second glass of this stuff, I’m feeling really good. I’m almost floating; that’s how good it feels. Though maybe that’s because of whatever pill Candy gave me.
That stuff should just be…breakfast. I should have it every morning and go through the rest of my day like this, seeing beautiful things everywhere. Even the crack in the wallpaper in front of me looks beautiful. The corner of this sofa cushion with stuffing poking out looks beautiful.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell Candy.
She giggles. “And you’re drunk.”
That is probably true, but her laugh sounded very drunk too. I think we might both be drunk, and that seems like the greatest thing ever. Every day men are coming in here getting wasted while we work our asses off. Now it’s our turn to get drunk.
I sigh with total relaxation. “I never want this night to end.”
“We should just not end it,” she says seriously.
“God, that’s a good idea.” It’s actually the best idea I’ve ever heard. I never want to leave this couch, never want to stop floating, never want to crash. “Let’s just stay here.”
“It’ll be like a sleepover, except without the sleeping.”
I raise my glass, which is now sadly empty. “And with alcohol.”
She tilts her head. “Did your sleepovers not have alcohol?”
“I never had a sleepover,” I confess. “I also never had friends. Or, you know, a house where they could sleep at.” Not unless I wanted them getting pawed by whatever foster father or brother happened to live there. Which I did not.
“That’s sad,” she says, sounding like she’s about to cry.
Suddenly I feel like I’m about to cry. And then I am crying, tears wet and thick down my cheeks. God. I’m so drunk. “No, really,” I say, sniffling. “What the hell did we just drink?”
She just smiles with her eyes closed, head leaned back on the sofa like she’s sunning on the goddamn beach. “Happiness.”
Silence fills the small lounge for a brief moment before we both bust out laughing. I don’t even know what’s funny, except that it is. The dressing room is quiet and dark. All the girls have packed their shit and left. It must be late. Or early.
I squint toward the doorway as if I’ll somehow be able to see outside that way.
And then I can’t see anything. There’s just a broad chest filling the opening. A chest I did not want to see tonight.
Even if it is a very nice chest. Beautiful, even.
I want to cry again.
“Ivan wants to see you,” he says.
Candy stiffens beside me. We both know he’s talking to her. Ivan is the only person, man or woman, who intimidates her. And I think he might enjoy doing it.
She pouts. “We’re having a sleepover.”
Blue’s lips twitch. “Is that what I should tell him?”
“Of course not. That would only make him jealous.” She stands and crosses toward the door—somehow steady even though I can’t sit upright. Blue steps aside, and she turns back to wink at me. “Don’t wait up.”