Page 83 of Candygrams

Aaron and Holms do a fist bump that looks hella complicated and Holms turns to me. “You make sure you stick with Rip, Miss Tandy. We wouldn’t want anything hurting you.”

The way he says it makes me wonder if Rip isn’t alone in looking at me like a little sister. Almost every one of the players comes up and tells me not to drink anything Rip hasn’t given me. Apparently, the whole damned team has adopted me.

Chapter Eight

Rip

I can tell by the second cup of rum and Coke, Tandy is feeling the effects. Instead of questioning everything she’s willing to let whatever happens to happen. And by her fourth cup, which I make sure she doesn’t finish, she’s sitting in my lap leaning her head against me. She doesn’t even try to stop me when I slip my fingers under her shirt so I can touch the bare skin of her side.

“This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

Wonder if she’s going to feel the same tomorrow when the hangover hits.

“I’m glad. I like having you here and so do the rest of the guys.”

“Maybe all football players aren’t assholes and jerks.”

Hopefully that’s growth and not the alcohol talking. “Why did you think that in the first place?”

Her eyes close and for a second I wonder if she’s fallen asleep but then her eyes pop back open and her eyes look…haunted.

“In high school, I was…a nerd. Shy. I had a major crush on a player. Roger Young. I thought he was beautiful and perfect and so…wonderful.”

Note to self, find this kid and kick his ass.

“He found out about my crush and…used it.”

“How?” I am not loving this story at all.

She shrugs, “He asked me to do his homework for him, and wrote all his stupid reports. Kept telling me he was going to leave his cheerleader girlfriend so he could be with me. I did his fucking work for better than a year.”

She goes from being sad to being mad. And I’m mad for her too.

“Anyway, at the end of the year when he was going to graduate, I confronted him. Not mean, but to ask him how we were going to work out a long-distance romance. And it was awful.”

She buries her face in my shoulder like she’s trying to hide from the memory.

“He told me I was stupid if I thought he was going to do anything with me. That I didn’t have a clue about anything concerning sex. I probably wouldn’t know a blow job from a lube job. He called all his friends over and his girlfriend, who all laughed like it was the funniest thing. Then he pushed me down and walked away. I had two more years to get through but he was done with me because I had outlived my usefulness to him. He just walked away, laughing with everyone.”

Yeah, upgrade that from kicking his ass to leaving him with more broken than not.

“You know what the awful thing was. I would have forgiven him for it all. I…thought I loved him so much I would have been his punching bag forever if he had asked me to. How pathetic is that?”

“Not pathetic at all, sweetheart. You aren’t the pathetic person in that situation. He was. He gave up something a lot of guys would give anything for -love and loyalty. Your love and loyalty.”

“A lot of guys,” she makes a noise that might be a laugh or a derisive snort, it’s hard to say. “That must be why guys are knocking down my door right? That’s why I’m still a virgin. Because all the guys are looking for…whatever we were talking about before.”

I cover her mouth when she says the ‘v’ word. The last fucking thing I need is a fucking riot on my hands because the guys on the team found out how innocent and sweet Tandy really is and tried to take her away from me. I pull her head down and her body closer -even though I shouldn’t do the latter since she’s bound to feel the result of what her truth bomb did to me.

“Let’s not say that out loud again. Okay, sweetheart.”

Fuck me! Her mouth is right there. So close I could kiss her with the barest effort. Just a little shift and I could have her lips…but never her trust. That thought has me shifting so her head is resting on my shoulder, and her lips are not temptingly in front of me.

“Sorry, I dumped on you like that. I shouldn’t have puked out that horrible little story when you and your friends are only trying to have fun.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I wanted to know. I’m glad you told me.”

We stay for another thirty minutes, then I walk Tandy around telling everyone bye before helping her into the passenger seat of my car. And by helping, I mean pretty much pouring her into it and buckling her seatbelt for her. She leans back against the seat and grins at me. How would it feel to be able to do this for all the parties? To leave with someone. I’ve never done it before.

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