Tastes Like Candy

Forty

Forty

Michelle

She slid onto the stool next to Albie, skirt catching at her legs in an unfamiliar way. Her scalp ached and she pulled the pins from her hair, let the heavy mass tumble down her back, and sighed in relief. "Package delivered to Inspector Lehigh," she reported, slumping forward with her elbows on the bar.

"Data," Albie said to the prospect with the nose ring. "Whiskey rocks for the lady."

"Yessir."

It felt like it took years to get her drink, but really it was only a matter of efficient seconds. Michelle nodded her thanks to the prospect and curled her hand around the glass, feeling the body-warmth of the whiskey and the bite of the ice.

"He's dead," she said, and didn't need to clarify.

Albie drained his glass – he was drinking his whiskey neat – and reached over the top of the bar for the bottle Data had left within easy reach. "Vaporized, more like." The mouth of the bottle clinked against the glass as he poured, his arm unsteady.

Michelle closed her free hand over his elbow and squeezed. "I'm sorry, Uncle Albie. So sorry."

He raised his glass to his lips. "You shouldn't be sorry. I'm the one who was horrid to him."

She wanted to press, but didn't, as he turned toward her, blue eyes haunted. She just patted his elbow.

~*~

"So this is your place."

Early sunlight fell in pale panels through the windows, landing on the hardwood, gilding Candy around the edges as he surveyed her tiny lounge and its mismatched furniture. Her flat was always shitty, she knew, but it had never looked as pale and sad as it did now, with Candy huge and hot-blooded standing in the middle of it.

"Rather pitiful, isn't it?" she said with a wry smile. "Anyway, it isn't going to be mine any longer. Raven said she could find someone to take over the rent for me."

She hadn't told him that part yet, and his brows lifted. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything left that I wanted to take back home."

He smiled, a small, quiet, intensely happy smile that made her heart flutter.

She needed to focus. They were meeting Raven and Cassandra for brunch, and there was no reason to drag this out.

Candy's heavy footfalls followed her into the bedroom, but she didn't turn around, afraid his smile would stall her out all over again.

There were some clothes in the wardrobe that she crammed into a rucksack. A few books. And then the jewelry box, sitting by her bedside.

Her hand shook as she picked it up; her mother's rings were inside it. "They're yours," Phillip had told her. "I love her still, but she isn't in those rings. You take them. Get married with them. Carry her with you like that."

She pushed the box carefully into the rucksack and then knotted the cords.

"That's it?" Candy asked.

"Yeah." She took a shaky breath. "That's it."

When she straightened, she realized her eyes were misty, and she dashed at them with the back of her hand. "It's stupid. I don't want to stay, that's not the problem. And I won't miss this place at all." She waved an arm to indicate the flat. "It's only...I left so quickly last time. In a panic. And when you leave slowly, it's..."

"It's like you're making a decision," he filled in. "And that's harder."

She sent him a wavering, grateful smile. "Exactly."