They’d continued the conversation over beers and tequila shots at a bar up the street, and then at her place, where they’d had marathon sex until well after the sun came up. It wasn’t his normal MO at all, but that night, he’d figured what the hell. She was hot and funny and she’d been all over him as soon as they’d reached his truck at the bar. Fond memories.
Too bad those from last night and this morning were tainted from Candace’s subsequent freak out. He could’ve still been drifting on the euphoria of it all. Even now, he could still smell the scent of her skin, still taste her on the back of his tongue. Still feel her wrapped tight and wet around his fingers. He’d been walking around all day at half-mast from that memory alone, and it was beginning to wear him down. When he went back up front, someone had turned up the tunes, but the sounds of Static-X were doing nothing to soothe his savage beast. He got the next person in line—who wanted a tat, thankfully, because it
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was his favorite thing to do to mellow him out—and got her prepped and under the needle in no time. She wanted a fairy on her shoulder blade, and it would probably take a good hour or so. Plenty of time to clear his head.
Until Starla stuck the phone under his face, totally destroying his already feeble concentration. “Here. It’s your brother.”
He frowned and leaned away from the offending instrument. “He can get me on my cell later.”
Starla rolled her eyes and brought the phone back to her ear. “Evan, he’s tied up, can you call him later?” She listened for a second and then held it back to him, laughing. “He says you need to learn how to multitask.” Even the girl he was working on giggled.
“Dammit.” He grabbed the phone, crammed it between his ear and shoulder, and picked up the line he’d left off on her skin. “We’re swamped, brother. I don’t call for you and tell them to drag your ass out of court, do I?”
Evan cut right to the chase. He and their mom were alike in that regard, at least when it came to Brian.
“Why is Sylvia Andrews calling me out of court asking me to help her keep you away from her daughter?”
“The hell. Are you shitting me?”
“What have you done now?”
“Man, I ain’t done nothing. I can’t even begin to tell you how much nothing I did.” Well, okay, he’d done a little, but that was no one’s business but his and Candace’s.
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t believe that for a second, but because it’s Candace we’re talking about, you might be telling the truth.”
Did everyone know this girl was a virgin except for him? Did other guys have some kind of built-in hymen alert mechanism he was lacking? He never would have taken Candace for someone who took frequent trips around the block, but hell, at least once or twice. She was in college and she was hot, for fuck’s sake. How had she managed to keep that smokin’ body under wraps all this time? Were the guys over there blind?
I’d still want to wait for you.
Shit.
“Why do you say that?”
“Her parents guard her like she’s Fort Knox. If they had snipers stationed around her place to take out anyone who dared approach her door, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Then they must have fucking surveillance cameras mounted somewhere across the street. Or spies. “I kinda get that now,” he muttered. “I’d already heard, but Jesus, I thought Michelle was always exaggerating at least a little whenever she talked about it.” Damn, it must have been hard for Candace growing up. Guys probably ran screaming from her at the very thought of facing down her parents. Well, he wouldn’t have. He’d have proven it to her this morning, if she’d given him a shot. 80
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“She wasn’t, trust me. I didn’t even know you were hanging out with Candace.”
“I’m really not. And I doubt I ever will be. So ease your mind.”
Evan paused for a second, and lost the sharp prosecutorial edge to his voice when he spoke next.
“You don’t sound too happy about that.”
“Look, does it matter?”
“I was already itching to tell the woman to take a flying leap. I would’ve done it, but I didn’t have the details. She didn’t like what I did tell her.”
“And that was?”
“I said I wasn’t aware of the situation with you and her daughter, but if she had a problem with it, she needed to take it up with you and Candace. Not me.”
Brian blew out the breath he’d been holding. Just when he thought he had his brother pegged, Evan surprised him. Evan could’ve shown the same outrage as Mrs. Andrews and trashed him on the phone to her for half an hour and promised her he wouldn’t let his evil thug of a brother near the poor defenseless maiden again. He could have, but he hadn’t. “Bless you.”
“They have to start letting her live her life sometime. But I have to say, if you’re trying to add a notch to your belt, then she really is better off without you.”
There was the Evan he knew. No matter what, he was always hiding in there somewhere. “Hey, just drop it now. All right? I appreciate what you said to her, but I can handle it from here without your input on who I should or shouldn’t hang out with. What the fuck am I, fourteen again?”
Evan sighed. “Sometimes you act like it.”
He bit down on a crude, juvenile comment that would only have proven his brother’s point, something like I got your fourteen right here, but suddenly, he was utterly exhausted. Spent. He didn’t want to deal with it anymore, just wanted to get through tonight and post up at home. For days.
“I gotta go. I do work, believe it or not.”
“I know you do, Brian. And believe it or not, I’m proud of you.”
He nearly choked. It was the first time he could ever remember hearing those words out of anyone’s mouth in his family. Focus, dude, he told himself, struggling to stay in the purple line on his client’s skin. Any second now it was going to start to blur, and how uncool would that be? Christ Almighty, he was a sap lately.
“Damn, for once I’ve stunned you into silence.” Evan laughed. “Hey, don’t be a stranger, okay? I dread to see you walk in the door, but Kelsey likes for you to come around, for some reason.”
“How’s the baby?”
His brother seemed taken aback that he would ask. “He’s great. He’s amazing. Come see him anytime you want, all right?”
“I will soon. See you.”
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He clicked off the phone and tossed it back to Starla behind the front desk before things could become any gooier. He had a girl fully lodged under his skin and his brother trying to make him cry. What the everloving hell. Who did Candace’s mother think she was? The Andrews family might be affluent, but the Rosses could buy and sell every one of their asses. Did they think he’d paid for this establishment by standing out on the street slinging rocks? That old shrew had no clue who she was dealing with. And as far as moms getting dragged into this thing…
His outraged line of thinking derailed, and he stopped before he could screw up the tattoo. He put up the pretense of straightening his cap and popping another stick of gum in his mouth while the wheels spun in his head.
Seriously, how had Sylvia Andrews known? Had Candace told her? Surely not. Not after the way she’d reacted. Some PI wearing dark glasses and sitting crouched in a car across the street taking notes seemed more feasible than her fessing up to hanging out with him. Candace probably mentioned it to a friend, who took it upon themselves to report her bad behavior to her parents. Something like that. He had to believe it. Because the thought of her biting the bullet and facing down a mother who obviously terrified her started a melting in his chest that he didn’t want to examine right now.
“Hey, B,” Ghost called out to him as he was leaning down to get back to work. “You did know that Korn is coming to Dallas in a couple of weeks, right? Big rock festival up there.”
“Yeah, I’d heard.”
“Kara called earlier today while you were out and said they have tickets and want us to come up. Said we could crash at their place.”
“Man, I’ve already seen Korn eight times.” But he mulled it over. The “Freak on a Leash” video was playing on the HD flats, one of his favorite songs of all time, and the lyrics sank in at that moment more than they ever had before.
When he’d first heard about the concert, he’d been tempted, but figured there was too much stuff to do around here to take off for a day. The show was on a Saturday, their busiest day.
“Come on. You can never see Korn too often.”
True. Maybe it was exactly what he needed. To get lost in the pit, work out some of this anger, do permanent damage to his hearing, and quite possibly get shitfaced drunk. Old habits were threatening to rear their ugly heads and wreak havoc.
“Is it on, dude?” Ghost asked.
How would Sylvia fucking Andrews feel about that?
“It’s on.”
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If he could see her right now, he would think she was a crazed stalker. She’d reached new lows of wretchedness, sitting outside his parlor like this, but in her own defense, she’d come here hoping to grab him as he left and try to explain. Not to spy on him. The longer she sat, though, the more her courage ebbed. It really was shaping up to be a spying session, after all.