Page 32 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
“I’m just going to get her into bed,” Jannie said. “Sorry about this. I’ll stay with her; you don’t have to bother.”
Laurin shook his head. “No bother at all. I’ll take care of her from here. Why don’t you ladies all head out? I’m thinking social hour’s about up.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Zara protested, her eyes wide enough that Laurin could tell she’d never been around somebody who was drunk before, at least not someone who had gone this sloppy. “What if she . . .?” She looked around and dropped her voice really low to say, “She already threatened to accuse you of rape! You need us as witnesses.”
Laurin was about to scoff at that when Jannie jumped in for him. “That’s my fault,” she admitted. “I may have given her some bad advice that took flight of its own. Or, not bad advice, but poorly timed. She’s just not thinking clearly.”
“You can’t touch me,” Candace mumbled. “No one can touch me. No one . . . no one wants to touch me.”
“Now you’re not even making sense,” Jannie clucked. She squatted down in front of Candace to brush the girl’s bangs back but cast her eyes up to Laurin. “Maybe I should stay. Or, do you think you could help me get her back to my trailer? She can sleep it off there.”
Laurin shooed her away. “I’m fine. You guys get out of here.” He scooped up Candace, now entirely limp, and nodded to the door. “There’s loads of nasty critters running around at this hour. Take the flashlight and stick together. Please.”
The trio nodded and headed out. Laurin leaned to watch the light as it bobbed toward a golf cart sitting on the path; a moment later, the engine revved up and the cart sped off.
Candace was feather-light in his arms. She’d curled into herself some, no doubt cold in the same lace dress she’d worn all day. Her legs were speckled in goosebumps, and she’d tucked her hands into a ball under her chin, reduced to a child in her sleep.
Laurin chuckled softly as he headed down the hall to her room, slowly opening the door he already knew squeaked badly and peeking in. She was fastidious about keeping that door closed, so he hadn’t yet gotten a chance to look inside. He’d suspected a whirlwind within.
Instead, it was neat as a pin, the bed made and all the clothes put away. She had the angel from the tree sitting on her desk next to two stacks of books, the taller of which was comprised of at least half a dozen books with pages heavily marked by evenly staggered flags. There were some personal effects, including an ornate jewelry box and a hand-stitched quilt, but Laurin saw no photos.
As soon as he laid Candace out on the bed, she startled herself upright, mumbling about being okay again.
“It’s late,” Laurin told her. “You can go to sleep now.”
“I’m not tired,” she argued through yawns.
“Everyone’s gone home. Nothing to do but go to bed.”
She frowned and flopped face down into the pillow. Laurin rolled her onto her side to keep her from suffocating as she grumbled, “Everyone hates me anyway.”
“You don’t make yourself easy to like.”
She stuck her tongue out. “People don’t like me no matter what I do, Mister Man.”
“Mister Man? That wounds me.” He got to work on her shoes, untying the bows of the ribbons that wrapped halfway up the calves and unwinding them, taking care not to tug too hard on her foot as he shimmied the shoe loose. He supposed this could be misread as him undressing her, but he had a young daughter who passed out in everything but pajamas, as most children did. Removing Candace’s shoes was practically reflexive.
On one leg, he noticed a streak of something and tried to wipe it away, but the streak widened. He rubbed it a bit more to reveal a secret bit of art, a small piece of something that must have been much larger for how indecipherable this chunk was. “You covering up tattoos?”
“Why don’t you . . .?” she started before hiccupping roughly enough that Laurin thought he'd better get a trash can. She propped herself up on her elbow so she could shake her head free of cobwebs and pat her chest before taking another shot at it. “Don’t you see for yourself?”
Laurin grinned. “I’m sure I’ll see it eventually.” He patted her leg and stood, but Candace grabbed his arm.
“Do you want to see me?”
“I see you just fine.”
“No, I mean na—”
“I know what you mean.” Yeah, after the adrenaline of today and after seeing the sweet, sensitive Candace beneath her prickly shell, he’d wasted a lot of brain space thinking of her soft, warm body against his, but not tonight. When he undressed her, it would be because she was drunk on kisses, not vodka.
“A lot of people want to see me like that,” she said, the words tumbling out until she was breathless. “After . . . after Summer Bakes . . . Lucas posted some photos of me. They’re all over now. They’re phono . . . phro . . . phurtoshuff?”
“Photoshop?” Laurin knew about the photos. He hadn’t seen them himself, but supposedly they were just nudes, nothing more graphic. He’d assumed they were real, the sort of photos a girl sent her boyfriend when she thought this was forever and he’d never use them to shame her. The more she let slip about what happened with Lucas, the less he believed the photos were authentic.
“Yup.” She popped the p with a burst of air that blew a raspberry across her lips. “So you didn’t really see me naked, just my head on a naked lady. Nobody’s seen me naked in . . .” Her brows furrowed as she processed some serious math. “In five years.”
“Nobody’s going to see you naked tonight, either,” he said, holding back his chuckle over that clearly incorrect math. “Do you want me to tuck you in?”
