Despite my bold resolution, I stay until Monday. I borrow Zane’s laptop—he gave me the green light some time ago—and I surf the net, looking for a job. My options are limited without a high school diploma. Waiting on tables. Cleaning offices. The usual.
I’ve done it plenty of times before. In fact, I’ve just lost one such job, because I had to lie low and lick my wounds for a few days. I didn’t come directly to Zane’s, but after two days on the streets, I called him and he immediately invited me over.
Zane has saved my ass too many times to count. I’ve been on the streets before, running away. Is that what I do best? Run?
The dream returns to torture me.
I rub my chest and call the numbers in the ads. Turns out the positions have already been filled. No big deal, at least that’s what I tell myself. I’ll try again tomorrow and the day after, again and again, until I find something. Another thing I’m good at: not giving up, no matter how lost the cause seems.
Except for Audrey. I gave up on her and now it’s too late to get her back.
Dammit.
Erin is a diminutive brunette, a pixie with large dark eyes and many silver hoops on her ears. My older brother, Tyler, used to hang out with her before he left never to return. Back then I thought she liked me, or at least didn’t mind me.
These days, though, hatred for me emanates from every pore of her being. Maybe it’s because she’s friends with Audrey and Dylan. Dylan certainly isn’t carrying a fucking banner for me.
Well, it’s that or she’s fed up with me hogging the sofa so often. I can understand that. I’m pretty much fed up with myself most of the time. For not fighting enough. For fighting too hard. For running away. For staying and taking it.
For not seeing the way out.
When she arrives and finds me in the apartment, she lifts her chin and frowns. “Hey, Ash,” she says in her most bored voice as she lugs her duffel bag to her room. “Didn’t know you’d still be here.”
Right. “I won’t be after today. I’m leaving in about an hour, in fact.”
A light flickers in her dark eyes. She’s pleased, is that it?
That makes me angry, but what right do I have to be? It’s her apartment. She pays for it. I’m a squatter, and she hasn’t agreed to an impromptu sofa hugger.
All of a sudden feeling tired, I gather my few things—my change of clothes, my toothbrush and toothpaste, my socks, and stuff them in my beaten rucksack.
I have to go back home. I don’t have money to rent a place. My temporary jigs don’t pay much and all I earn goes into Dad’s pockets for his drinking debts. I have to stick it out, get my shit together, find a better job.
Maybe Zane can help me. I should talk to him; open up, tell him the whole story, the whole problem—not just the bits and pieces he’s gathered. Maybe he’s got better ideas than I can come up with.
But I’m not sure I want to open up. Or that I can move out of Dad’s house. Who will take care of him when he passes out drinking? He’s the only family I have left. He’s still my dad when he’s sober.
Meanwhile, I take my leave from Zane’s apartment. I am, once more, on my own.
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Candy Boys (SAMPLE)
Hot Candy 1
Part One
When life gives you bananas, make a smoothie
Chapter One
Candy
Post title: You Won’t Believe This
From Candy Boys (Blog Serial)
J-One licks his lips suggestively and pulls me onto his lap. “Ready for this, baby?”
Is this a trick question? I’m always ready for him and he knows it.
For them.
J-Two nuzzles my neck from behind, leaving a trail of goosebumps on my skin. “Just get on with it, J,” he grumbles. “You’re wasting time.”
“Use your mouth for something else, will you?” J-One slides his hands up my body, eyes heavy-lidded.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Let’s talk about bananas…”
Hm. Sure.
Why not, right?
You know how there are people who hang out in bookshops, browsing books and secretly sniffing the musty odor of their pages? How they are often nerdy, with glasses and Star Wars hoodies, giving you that nervous sideways glance when they catch you looking? The real bookworms? The archetypal readers?
Well, the guy who just walked through the door is nothing like that.
Let’s back up a little. This day didn’t start out promising at all. Cloudy and dark, with a chilly wind, and I realized too late I had run out of coffee.
Candace Amanda Riley, I told myself sternly, you got this.
But then my car wouldn’t start. And when I arrived at the shop, it was only to find out Annie, the other girl working here, quit. Chris from the coffee shop next door says she eloped to Vegas with a guy she just met.
Let me note here that today it’s Thursday. I mean, come on. Things can’t go that bad on a Thursday. There’s Mondays for that!
So this guy walks in and the day is getting better already. The clouds clear, the sun come out, and he’s standing there, backlit like an angel, a radiance forming a halo around his dark hair, lighting up his face—and his body.
I adjust my glasses for a better look and let out a shuddery breath.
Oh God, he’s tall. And those shoulders. They seem to fill the shop from side to side. Those narrow hips. Those spectacular biceps, bulging when he lifts a hand to push his hair out of his blue eyes.
Wait a minute. I know those eyes.
The beautiful stranger walks up to me, and I take a step back, because he’s not really a stranger. I know him, very well. As much as it is possible without actually sleeping with him, that is.
J-One. J the runner. J the Powerhouse.
Joel Kingsley.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I blurt, gesturing at the shelves filled with comics and fantasy books and posters.
Because, come on. I may have been in lust with Joel since my first day in college, an infatuation and a crush that didn’t end with this graduation, but can we please address the elephant in the room?
Joel Kingsley is an athlete and a business major. He doesn’t like fiction. He doesn’t like novels. He doesn’t like books. In short, he doesn’t like any of the things I care for. He hangs out in noisy places, flirts with anything in a skirt, and all in all, his trajectory never touches mine.
Never has touched, until now. Not in real life, anyway, no matter what I claim on my blog.
“Hi there,” he says in his smooth, deep voice, and smirks. I bet he didn’t even hear my question. It’s a confident, I-melt-girls’-panties-for-breakfast sort of smirk—and God, it works. I wonder if I brought spares with me. “I bet you’re the right person to help me.”
I can’t reply. My voice will come out all squeaky.
Help him. Sure. Help him undress, maybe. Help combat stress with a deep-tissue massage. Orgasms are known to relax men, aren’t they? I could do that.
“Never been here before. Didn’t know what I was missing,” he says, still looking at me, and oh crap.