Tastes Like Candy

Twenty-Seven

 

Twenty-Seven

Walsh

"I'll get you boys some tea," Bea said, hands fluttering near her face in a show of ecstatic good cheer. She smiled, touched her fingers to her mouth, giggled – God, Mum, Walsh thought – and ducked out of the dining room, humming to herself as she whisked into the kitchen.

"How could someone possibly be so happy to see the bastard children of her bastard ex?" Miles wondered aloud.

Walsh cleared his throat.

"Right. So."

"Not that I'm not happy to see you," Walsh said, and lifted his brows.

Tommy made a face. "Yeah, well. This is my idea. Miles just tagged along."

"That makes me sound like your sidekick, mate."

"You're perfect sidekick material," Shane said.

"Says the sidekickiest asshole to ever walk the earth," Miles shot back.

"Children," Walsh said, and his three brothers groaned. "You still say that?" Tommy asked.

"When I'm around children, yes."

They groaned again.

"Why are you here?" Walsh asked, and gave them his sternest, most vice presidential look.

They weren't impressed, the little shits.

"I'm worried about Chelle," Tommy said. "She was upset last I talked to her, and I've got a bad feeling about the way things are going in Texas." He said it firmly, with a newfound sense of mannish defiance.

Walsh was proud – his little brother finally growing up – but he thought the guy was an idiot, too. "So you're just going to show up in Texas?"

"That was the plan, yeah."

"I'm here for moral support," Miles offered.

"You're here because you had nothing better to do," Tommy said, scowling at him. He turned back to Walsh. "I'm going to Amarillo. So fucking sue me. I don't have a mother, and I don't have a wife, but I've got a niece who's like my sister, and I'm not going to let her get beat to hell by some bloke named Candyman."

Walsh couldn't help it; he had to smile a little. "You're gonna need bikes then, I guess."

~*~

Candy

"I'm sorry."

Michelle looked like a little water nymph beside him on the bed, body curved at a sinuous angle, half-turned toward him, hair a rippling, shining blonde mass haloing around her head.

Her eyes flicked up to his. "You keep saying that." She smiled, tiredly. "Sorry for what this time?"

"Everything."

She moved toward him, rolling onto her side, bringing their faces in close. This was a raw, unguarded moment, he knew. He felt stripped down in every way, completely exposed, and he wasn't going to be the big man here. Whatever she wanted to know, whatever she wanted, period, she could have. He owed her that. Not just because he'd nearly broken her hand again...but because he loved her. It was a cool blessing to be able to think it, finally. To know how he felt. Yes, he loved her. She was it for him. The end of the line.

Her eyes glittered, bright as jewels. "You shouldn't be sorry for everything, darling. Some things have been wonderful. Some things have been better than I ever could have imagined."