One Lucky Deal (22 page)

Candace went to stuff the helmet on her head, but Tad caught it abruptly. “
Do not
get on that bike.” Candace yanked free of his hold.

“Hey, I’m fine,” Keith told him. “She’ll be fine with me. Really.”

Chapter 17

Tad wanted to ignore Keith completely because he had no idea what was going on between the two of them, but he couldn’t ignore him right now. “Have you had anything to drink tonight? At all?”

“Yes.” Keith nodded. “I had a few but it was awhile ago and I’m fine to drive now. I am a doctor. I have a good idea about how alcohol affects the system and I’m safe to drive.”

Tad pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Candace. Frustrated, he shoved a hand through his hair, and then with his hands on his hips he took in a deep breath and exhaled. He shook his head. “No. No way.”

“Tad,” Candace drawled out. “You’re not my keeper.”

“No, I’m not!” Tad ground out; emotion hit him in his voice too quick for him to clear it away before she heard it. “Don’t get on that bike.” Candace’s drunkenness seemed to dim for just a moment. “Just get in the truck. If you don’t want to come home—if you don’t want to come with me, I’ll drive you to Keith’s or wherever you want to go, but please, for the love of God, Candace, don’t get on that bike.”

He hated pity but he watched as it came rushing to her foggy mind at a dizzying speed.

Tad’s brother Ricky. Motorcycle accident. Drunk driving.

Tad watched it all play out behind Candace’s eyes.

He watched as it took the edge off her buzz. It diminished her angry bravado. It stooped her shoulders and saddened her eyes.

“Thanks.” She smiled at Keith and handed him his helmet back.

“Yeah, no problem.” He nodded and fitted it on his own head instead. Candace calmly, with a little stumbling, walked to the truck. Tad opened the door for her and helped her climb in. Only then did Tad breathe a sigh of relief.

*

In the cab rumbling down the road, Candace’s stomach rolled. Not for the first time in her life she was wishing she hadn’t gotten drunk and acted like a fool. She closed her eyes and knew she was too drunk for the conversation she was about to have. “Tad—”

He cut her off with a shake of his head. “Don’t.”

She didn’t listen. She was tired of not saying what she wanted to. If she couldn’t blurt out her feelings for fear he was going to run, she decided that she would say just about everything else. “I know what you saw back there.”

Tad pulled into their driveway. “No, you don’t,” Tad said after he’d turned off the ignition and got out of the truck. He shut the door while Candace tried to get herself out of the cab but got tripped up on the seat belt. Tad came around to her side, unbuckled her, and eased her to the ground.

She held on to him for a minute as her head swam in dizzying circles. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was so watery. Her heart was racing, her stomach was clenching and unclenching, and she had to force herself to breathe.
Just breathe.

When she could she stood up straight, and Tad guided her up the walkway to their house. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Candace hid her face in her hands before forcing herself to look into his eyes, even if there were four of them, and even if doing so broke her heart. “I should have known, but I didn’t. I’m drunk, Tad—really drunk.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, obviously unimpressed. He reached for the doorknob, but she stepped in front of him and stopped him from progressing any farther.

“And I’m sorry.” She felt the tears stinging in her nose. She knew it was mostly the alcohol making her so emotional. “I just hate what we’re doing.”

“What are we doing?” Tad asked softly, and Candace pressed her forehead to his chest. She took three deep breaths and thought maybe she was finally steadying her stomach.

“Well, lately all we do is fight and yell and misunderstand each other. I don’t want to do that anymore. You get me, Tad. I didn’t want to lose that.”

“You won’t,” Tad said, sounding more than frustrated.

“But it feels like I already am.” Candace wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “And I should have been a better friend to you. I know back there I made you think of the accident. I know I made you think of losing Ricky—”

“No, you didn’t,” Tad said firmly, his jaw twitching.

Even drunk—or maybe especially drunk—she was turned on by the strength in just that small movement of his body. “Yes, I did.” Candace was adamant. “It’s okay—”

“I know it’s okay to think about my brother.” Tad shook his head. “But I wasn’t thinking about losing him back there, trust me.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I was thinking about losing you.”

Candace’s breath caught. Her heart somersaulted and it was too bad that right then her stomach decided to follow suit. She spun to one side and threw up all over their bushes.

Tad groaned, and when she was through he helped her inside. He took her to the bathroom, and told her to brush her teeth and get into the shower. Candace was pushing for assistance with the shower, but he declined. When she was out and wrapped up in a towel, Tad tucked her into bed, leaving a glass of water and an aspirin on her nightstand.

Candace’s head hit the pillow and she was out like a light.

Waking up with an anvil pounding in her brain and the room spinning in circles, she slipped a foot out from under the covers and touched it to the floor. It was a practiced move to slow the spinning to a manageable level so that she could sit up without getting sick—again, if her memory served her right.

She got herself around, but she skipped the morning walk because she felt like death. She also had a golf date to get herself to later in the day. She pulled herself up by the bootstraps and forced coffee into her system even though just the smell was off-putting.

She also drank straight from the orange juice carton and made herself a microwavable breakfast sandwich. She forced herself to finish all of it. She gagged a few times, but after getting some water and aspirin in her, and a scalding hot shower under her belt, of which she just stood under the spray for long minutes at a time, she didn’t quite feel like the walking dead.

She dressed in a pair of black pants and a green-and-white polo shirt with three little buttons at the top. The pants were loose and liked to fall on her hips. Her shirt was tight and liked to ride up, so about a half inch of her skin was perpetually showing. No matter how hard she tried to keep the shirt down and the pants up, it was unavoidable. It was just too bad this was about as golf appropriate as she got.

By the time she reemerged from her bedroom, she caught Tad in the kitchen. He must have come home for lunch, which wasn’t something he made a habit of doing, mostly because they rarely had much to eat. She suddenly felt nervous about facing him.

She didn’t know what it was about. Maybe it was that whole scene at Lucky’s; maybe it was throwing up in the bushes, fighting with him all week, or maybe it was mostly these feelings filling her up, but something had her going shy on him.

“Hey.” Tad looked up from his butter-and-jam sandwich. “How ya feeling?”

Candace lifted a shoulder and made a noncommittal noise. “Sorry about last night and all the shit before it.”

Tad squished his lunch together and took a bite out of the messy sandwich. “It’s cool.” He eyed her and motioned to her with his floppy pieces of bread. “What’s with the getup?”

“Golf.” That put a pause to the smile on his jam-covered lips. His chewing slowed and his skilled tongue darted out and scooped it all up.

She was missing his lips … his tongue. She found herself just missing him and he was right there in front of her. All she had to do was reach out and grab him up. Too bad it felt like a ravine had been dug between the two of them. She was frantically looking for a way back to his side.

“You’re still doing that then? Going out with Keith?” Tad sat his sandwich down on his paper plate.

A massively untimely honk came from out in front of the house. Candace shot a look outside. It was Keith. He was on the phone, looking at some paperwork in his hand, and had unbuckled. He was preparing to walk up the drive if need be.

“Yes, unless you can think of a reason why I shouldn’t.” Candace held her breath and waited for Tad to respond.

*

Tad’s lungs were tight as he let the air escape them. Yes. He had a million reasons she shouldn’t go, but he wanted it to be her choice. He wanted her to pick him. He didn’t want to pick himself for her. He felt foolish enough that he was so strung out about her. He didn’t need to feel even more foolish and pour his heart out to her for her to just walk out the door anyway.

“No.” Tad shook his head on a shrug.

“No?” Candace asked as she closed her eyes to the sound of Keith shutting his car door. He was still on the phone as the gravel crunched beneath his feet up the walkway. The dogs were stirring up a ruckus as Keith approached.

“No. Go. Have fun.” Tad laughed wryly as Candace moved to the front door. He followed her for a few steps. “What am I saying? It’s golf. No one has fun golfing.” He propped himself up in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.

“
I
have fun golfing.” Candace slipped into her shoes.

“Are you planning on drinking?” Tad asked her.

“Ugh, God, no.” Candace held her stomach at the thought.

“Then you’re not going to have fun golfing,” Tad joked, although what he was feeling was anything but light and easy.

“I’ll see you tonight?” Candace asked with a bite to her lip.

“Yeah.” Tad nodded. She stood there and stared at him, and Tad didn’t know what for. A knock came at the door and he nodded for her to answer it. “You’d better go. Don’t want to miss your tee time.”

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Candace asked, hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah.” Tad shrugged. “You said it yourself. I’m not your boyfriend. You’re free, white, and over twenty-one. You can pretty much do whatever you want.”

Candace furrowed her brow, but Keith knocked again. This time she pulled the door open, grabbed her clubs, and headed outside. When she shut the door Tad let his head sag back against the wall and let out a shaky breath of air.

He went to the kitchen and threw away the rest of his lunch. He suddenly wasn’t very hungry. But before he headed back to work he stopped at the fridge and on an impulse he rearranged the alphabet magnets.

* * * *

Keith and Candace had a good time. Tad was right, though; she did not have fun golfing. She had enjoyed it once and it had been part of what had gotten her in shape after being the fat kid at camp, but she didn’t enjoy it anymore, least of all hungover.

“I had such a good time with you today.” Keith laughed.

He was so good-looking. He had a wide bright smile, dark, evenly tanned skin, and that thick mess of hair that was a little longer than conventional as it brushed his ears and touched his collar. Keith would be so much easier to be with. He didn’t seem particularly ornery or jealous to a fault. He wasn’t her best friend. He also didn’t know exactly how to cheer her up or, for that matter, exactly what buttons to push to piss her off.

Keith must have mistaken her pensiveness for something other than the simple absentmindedness that it was, and he leaned in. He brushed his lips against hers unexpectedly. Her eyelids fluttered open and she realized it didn’t matter that his smile was bright, or that he was agreeable and easy on the eyes. It didn’t matter that he was brand-new and could have possibly been exciting.

The problem was simple.

He just wasn’t Tad.

“Keith—” Candace opened her mouth to let him down easy, but he was already nodding.

“Yeah.” He gave her a polite smile.

“It’s just—” She pointed at the door behind her even though Tad wasn’t inside yet and was probably just now leaving work.

“I’m pretty smart, Candace, although maybe a little slow. I suppose I should have seen it earlier, but I didn’t want to.”

Candace gave Keith a polite, apologetic smile. “I’m sure women are throwing themselves at the eligible Dr. Gorgeous.”

Keith smiled brightly. “Maybe.”

“I figured.” Candace grinned. “Either way, I had fun today.”

“Well…” Keith shrugged. “If things don’t work out…” Keith nodded at the door. “You’ve got my number.”

After saying good-bye to Keith, Candace came inside, kicking her shoes off and toeing her socks off. She tossed them into the overflowing laundry hamper in the hallway that she and Tad had started sharing at some point.

She went to the kitchen, looking for something nonalcoholic and ice-cold. She found a bottled water in the door of the refrigerator. When she closed the door she caught sight of the message that had not been there this morning. Tad must have left it for her on his lunch break.

This message wasn’t about what staples they were missing, or reminders about what they had going on that night. It wasn’t an apology or a dirty word that Tad had thought he was funny for spelling out. It wasn’t like any of those things; it wasn’t like anything he’d ever spelled out for her before.

It read: B NAKED WHEN I GET HOME.

Candace shivered with goose bumps. She wasn’t sure if he’d left that before or after she’d gone golfing with Keith. She didn’t know how she felt about being left a message like that. Glancing at her wristwatch, Candace caught the time. She had literally two minutes to make up her mind, give or take.

Candace paced in the living room. She stopped pacing and tore her shirt off. Looking down beside herself she watched Rudy cock his head to the side.

“Don’t judge me,” she said softly and then pulled her shirt back on—only to change her mind two seconds later and rip it back off over her head. Candace looked over at Rudy, who was lifting his paw up in the air and tapping it over his nose like he didn’t want to see Candace strutting around naked.

“Oh, come on,” Candace grumbled. “You have your weaknesses.” She couldn’t take Rudy’s scrutiny any longer, so she shooed all five dogs out to the backyard.

Coming back inside, Candace began working on her pants. She had them unbuttoned and unzipped when she thought she was nuts. They’d been at each other’s throats for days now. There were obviously unresolved issues between them, and Gail had told her slow…