Page 1 of Candy Hearts
Chapter One
Everything was bleak. The icy, gray morning. The wind off the murky lake. The dark windows of the lake house.
Benji’s love life.
And nothing was worse than having a bleak love life on Valentine’s Day.
Benji stared up at the A-frame lake house through the windshield of his truck. There was one other vehicle here—a fucking Alfa Romeo, and damn did Benji hate working on Alfas—but the house looked deserted. None of the lights were on. There was supposed to be a hopping Valentine’s Day party here. He pulled out his phone to check the email invite from his sister.
From: Sasha Holiday
To: Benji Holiday
Subject: V-Day Sucks Weekend House Party
Ready for your best V-Day ever? Join us, little bro. You deserve a Valentine’s Day away from the bullshit. The whole gang will be staying at 40 Lakeshore Drive on Copper Lake. Get there anytime on Thursday after 10 A.M. House has a pink door.
Smell you later,
Sasha
Well, this house did have a tacky pink door, which Benji loved because he loved tacky things, not because he was excited about hanging out with the owner of an Alfa Romeo Giulia at an ugly lake.
Best V-Day ever. Not. Sasha had a habit of overselling, but Benji had needed a weekend away, so he’d been willing to give this house party a chance.
You couldn’t escape the disaster that was your singledom when everything about a holiday was created to remind you that life sucked when you were alone. Benji was over it. Over the dating scene. Over unsatisfying sex. Over the romantic-industrial complex called Valentine’s Day.
Well, actually, he wasn’t over it at all, but he was trying to be. He was trying very hard.
He grabbed his duffle bag from the seat beside him. It was stuffed with what he was lovingly calling hisSelf-Love Boring Weekend with Sasha’s Friends and New Fiancékit. He planned to spend the long weekend drinking, eating too much candy, and spoiling himself. He didn’t need no man. He had a bag of pretty underthings and sex toys. And those sex toys didn’t cheat on him. Or wear crappy cologne. Or roll their eyes at his reality TV obsession. Or make him feel dumb and young and wrong.
He knocked on the candy-pink door. After a gazillion years, the door swung open and revealed a white man in flannel pajama pants, a ratty college sweatshirt, and intellectual-Daddy glasses.
They stared at each other. Benji had never seen this man in his life, which was odd. He thought he knew all of Sasha’s friends.
Benji pinned him at thirty-five to forty years old. A streak of silvery white washed through the hair pushed back from his high forehead, very Cruella de Vil realness, but the rest of his hair was a rich brown and wavy. He had a dramatic nose—a high arch and a prominent bump—that lent his otherwise blandly handsome face some character. Plus, his tortoise-shell glasses made him look like a stern librarian wet dream.
“Who are you?” the guy asked.
“Uh. Hi!” Benji held out his hand to shake. “I’m Benji Holiday. I’m here for the anti-Valentine’s Day weekend.”
The guy frowned and didn’t take Benji’s hand, which wasembarrassing. “The plans changed. No one was supposed to get here until tomorrow.”
Heat flushed from the top of Benji’s head down his face and neck. “Well, you’re here.” This was Sasha’s fault.
“I own the house.”
“Why did the plans change?”
“I don’t have any power. They’re doing scheduled maintenance and updates to the substations in the area. It was publicized a few weeks ago out here, but I missed the memo since I live in the city most of the time. Didn’t find out until last night. Did Sasha not tell you?”
“No. Shit. I shouldn’t be here.”
Bleak, bleak, bleak. Benji’s body suddenly felt too awkward and too slow and too hot. But not like theheyyyykind of hot. More like the he-could-definitely-smell-his-own-sweat kind of hot.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His emotions were right on the surface. Had been for months, ever since his last breakup.
Damn, he wasn’t in the mood for awkward small talk. He could have stayed home and done the club circuit with his friends. Gone to places named Splat and Verve and Blue. Or their newest fave—Mount. Bars with one-syllable names to show they were hip and fun. Hell, he could have contacted his ex for a booty call and the consequent tanking of his self-esteem. Actually, that was probably why Sasha had bullied him into coming—to prevent ill-advised ex sex. But all those options would have been better than the blank stare in front of him.
