Candy Hearts, Vol. 2

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

HENRY

This was shaping up to be the best Valentine’s Day of my entire life.

Before that fateful phone call, I’d been on my couch eating cookies and cream out of the carton, bummed out about another year of being single since I’d been dumped on Valentine’s Day three years ago. I’d been on the apps and gone on dates, trying and all that shit, but it was rough out there for a nerdy, shy-ish, picky romantic who had been burned a few painful times.

Then my phone rang and I had looked down absently, expecting it to say Spam Risk.

But it had shown Rozen Blum .

For the first ring, I’d panicked, wondering what sort of work emergency there could possibly be at twelve-ten on a Saturday night for philanthropic trust advisors at a nonprofit.

But for the second ring, my heart thumped in wishful thinking. There was no way this was a work related call, so why was my coworker who hated my guts for no reason calling me? He’d decided he hated me from the get-go and I still had no idea why. It had always rattled me because I wasn’t the type of person people disliked. Mostly he ignored me, but our occasional interactions had been him sniping at me sarcastically. Offended by his bad attitude toward me, literally his only unattractive quality, I’d always matched his energy.

Curiosity had overtaken my silly wishful thinking in a millisecond though.

As soon as I’d answered, it was clear that he was drunk out somewhere loud. And he thought I was someone else because… yeah, we’d definitely never had sex.

I absolutely should have told him it was me, not whoever he’d meant to call, and hung up. So this childish part of me had thought it would be pretty funny to see how horrified he was going to be when I showed up and not some other Henry he’d apparently had sex with. Maybe we’d even laugh and bond over it and he’d get over his problem with me. When he wasn’t sniping at me, he was cool, the kind of person everyone wanted to be around and who made meetings and company events fun. He seemed like the kind of man I’d wanted to be friends with when I was in high school and college, when I was a shy nerd who wished the jocks thought I was cool.

Snorting, I put on my shoes and grabbed my keys. I’d never actually wanted to hang out with jocks—and Rozen was the admittedly gorgeous elf prince type, lithe and graceful with big eyes, not a jock—I’d just wished I had more confidence when I wasn’t in my comfort zone.

Luckily Buckle was only twenty minutes away and I found a parking spot down the block.

I’d always been more of a coffee shop, game store type, and even when I was in college it had practically taken a miracle to make me go to so much as a house party. Buckle was crammed between a row of other bars, but it was the only place still open and the only place with a big rainbow flag next to the doors. There were groups of men waiting for rides and smoking and… oh shit, making out. My eyes bugged out and I looked away, flushing at their… enthusiasm. I wasn’t a prude, but I was never the type who made out with his boyfriend in public.

Since it was so late, there wasn’t a line, but the bouncer eyed my sweatpants and hoodie before he checked my ID, gave me a wrist bracelet, and collected the cover charge.

Once I was through the doors, I stopped abruptly and swallowed hard.

The music was overwhelming, pounding loudly and insistently, and there were a lot of people crowded around the few bars and on the dance floor in front of a deejay. It was mostly men and some people whose genders weren’t easily identified, and there was a lot of skin. Was stripping off your shirt and making out indiscriminately and dancing so close it looked like you were trying to fuck through your clothes normal? I hadn’t even thought about how the atmosphere could get to me, when I hadn’t so much as kissed anyone in months. But it wasn’t like I was going to be here for long, so I tried to shake off the horniness soaking the air around me.

I edged in, trying to guess where I might find Rozen in all the chaos.

“Looking for something?” someone purred, and I looked down to find a pint-sized man covered in glittery makeup and wearing Cupid wings and shorts that were really tight.

When our eyes met, he bit his lip and ran his hand down my sleeve.

I stepped back and said, “N-no, thank you.”

He pouted .

Okay, yeah, I was officially way the fuck out of my depth.

I needed to get it together before I found Rozen. If he caught even a whiff of discomfort or uncertainty on me, he would be like a shark smelling blood and my fun would be ruined.

Channeling my work self, where I was in my comfort zone, confident in my abilities and experience, I straightened my shoulders and took my hands out of where I’d stuffed them into my hoodie pockets. I made my way methodically through the club, looking for Rozen. He was about six foot like me with dark hair that he styled kind of back off his face, and was on the slender side. On the surface, he looked like half the men in here. I had no idea what he wore outside of his put-together work looks. So I had to stare at anyone who had a resemblance to him and there was a lot more weird, intense eye contact than I was used to.

God, it had been too long since I went out. First thing tomorrow, I’d think about that.

But then, as I got close to the last bar, I heard his laugh. It was loud and distinct, looser and happier with his drunkenness, without the disdainful note in it when he laughed at me.

I followed it, pushing through some drunk people, until I saw him.

Whaaaat…

Shiny pointy-toed loafers, skintight pants, belt with a big buckle, and no shirt. He was so fucking pale, he looked like a TV vampire. His hair was wild and disheveled. He was waving one hand around, his big flashy watch twirling around his wrist, talking to an older man in a suit. It matched the diamond stud in his ear lobe which I had never seen him wear before.

A flash of heat went through me, the same hungry attraction that had gripped me the first time I met him at work, not just his physical looks but his whole demeanor. Before I’d even gotten used to how he made me feel, let alone screwed up the courage to try to befriend him or maybe even ask him out, something had happened and he’d started sniping at me. Asking him to explain had only made it worse. That had killed his attractiveness to me immediately.

Suddenly my discomfort fell away and I was in my element.

I was here to see Rozen drunk and have a good laugh when he freaked out when he saw me. Snickering, I walked toward him, but I caught the older man’s attention first.

He raised an eyebrow at me, eyes trailing down my outfit like the bouncer had, except there was a lot more… appreciation. Maybe I’d been looking for dates in the wrong places and should reconsider my stance on clubs? That was still a tomorrow thought, so I let it lie for now.

I turned my attention to Rozen and said, “Hey, Rozen.”

Rozen’s head practically bobbled as he turned to look at me. It was so fucking satisfying to watch his expression fly from drunkenly happy to completely confused to totally shocked.

“ Saunders? What the fuck are you doing here ?” he shouted, tossing his hands up and thrashing them all over like an angry octopus. “And dressed like a jock for some reason?”

Ignoring the jock thing, I gave him my best shit-eating grin and told him, “You called me and asked me to come pick you up. I told you that you didn’t want me to come get you.”

I’d never seen him less than sharp as a knife, so it was pretty hilarious to watch him try to figure out what had happened through the many drinks he’d obviously had tonight.

Taking evil mercy on him, I decided to help him figure it out. Even though I had never said something like this in my life, I deadpanned, “I’m ready to have my—how did you put it—back blown out.”

He turned red in outrage and actually growled at me. He tried to lunge at me, but the older man hooked an arm around his waist and yanked him back. “Let go, you daddy,” he cried.

“This is your dad ?” I blurted out in shock.

The older man corrected, “No, I’ve been keeping an eye on him. I’m Deston.”

“Thank you so much for calling me,” I told Rozen cheerfully, my grin back and stretching even wider when he seethed, visibly gritting his teeth. “This is the greatest night of my life.”

Rozen, still flushed red and half-naked, wriggled out of Deston’s hold and rounded on him, wobbling, as he shouted loudly in a super betrayed tone, “You called the wrong Henry !”

A beast of a dude shoved between Rozen and Deston, putting his hand on Rozen’s chest to hold him back, and locked eyes with Deston. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” he asked gently.

“Gross, you do love abs!” Rozen shouted in frustration, making no sense to me.

“Just stopping Rozen from slapping the wrong Henry,” Deston explained with a soft smile, his eyes lit up. He reached up to cup the beast’s face before they kissed, slow and sweet.

I gulped and my stomach twisted in jealousy at their obvious big love, averting my eyes and accidentally looking at Rozen, who was squinting at me with an angry look.

“Ready to go?” the beast asked Deston.

“Are you good?” Deston asked Rozen.

He rolled his eyes and kissed both men on their cheeks. “Always. Go enjoy your night.”

“Drink more water,” Deston ordered as they walked away.

A chorus of, “Okay, daddy!” went up from most of the other men around us.

Oh . Suddenly it clicked. I was too vanilla to have put it together right away.

“There you go,” Rozen said with an impressive level of condescension.

Quickly twisting my face into a giant grin, I crossed my arms. “Ready to go?”

He scoffed. “In your dreams, Saunders.” He pulled out his phone, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on navigating to his texts. “You can go now.”

“Texting the right Henry?” I asked slyly.

He looked up from his phone, frowning at me, and then he lit up with swagger and said, “Obviously. My night’s nowhere near done. So thanks for coming all this way to try to fuck with me, but, sorry, not sorry, it takes way more than an accidental proposition to embarrass me.”

The dismissal and the snark didn’t surprise me or hurt my feelings like it probably should have, and I laughed. I might have come here for some harmless yet well-deserved entertainment at his expense, but there was no way that I would leave him here, alone and drunk, whoever he’d come here with long gone. Besides, this was the longest conversation we’d ever had and maybe this was an opportunity to show him that I was pretty great.

I knew he wouldn’t like it if I told him any of that, and drunk people couldn’t process emotional complexity anyway, so I kept it simple. “No way. I haven’t gotten my blackmail yet.”

His swagger morphed into deviousness as he looked judgmentally at my clothes, then said, “Okay, Saunders. You obviously don’t belong here, but I’m not the boss of you, so you do you.”

I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

With a pout, he flicked his fingers at me and walked off toward the dance floor using a lot more hip action than he ever did at work, so I indulged in the sight of his ass swaying.

Of course, he was a great dancer, his drunkenness barely detectable in his moves, only in his eyes, and men flocked to him right away. But I didn’t want to get caught just staring at him, so I snagged a sliver of free space at the bar and ordered an energy drink. I was a night owl, but I was usually just gaming online on my couch, so I needed the boost.

“Excuse me,” someone asked, and I looked over to find a pretty boy in a crop top. “Are you waiting for someone or trying to find someone, sweetie? I know everyone, I can help.”

“Thanks, but I’m just keeping an eye out on my friend,” I said, keeping it simple.

“So nice,” he sighed, fluttering his eyelashes, then twirled off.

I got asked a variation of that a bunch of times, and I tried to figure out if everyone was always this helpful at clubs, since that didn’t seem like it could be true based on what I’d heard.

“What brings you here tonight?” the bartender asked when there was a brief lull of customers at this bar, clearing all the empties off the area around me. I gave my answer again and he said, “Wow, I don’t have any straight friends who’d be willing to babysit me like that.”

Blinking, I said in surprise, “Oh, well, I’m gay, but… thank you?”

He blinked back in equal surprise. “Really?” I got yet another judgmental sweep of my clothes and grinned at me. “Sorry, honey, you’re just not giving off the gay vibe.”

Since I never spent time in spaces like this, since they weren’t my style and I had always met people to date naturally if I was looking, I was more curious than offended. I might not love it, but I knew what a gay vibe was when I sensed it too. So I leaned in and asked, “Is that what’s going on? People keep asking me why I’m here.”

“You’re still wearing your hoodie,” he pointed out.

That made me grin and say, “No wonder I’m overheated. I didn’t even notice.” I peeled it off and tugged down my tee shirt, then used the mirror behind the bar to tidy up my hair as best as I could. “Would you mind stashing this behind the bar? Is that something you do here?”

“For you? Sure,” he said with a flirty look, taking my hoodie and tucking it away.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, a little flustered at the sudden way he’d turned on the charm.

Looking away, I checked on Rozen, who was gawking at me for some reason, before he snapped his mouth shut and twirled away to find a new partner like his ass was on fire.

“Hey, sexy,” someone said, and this time it was a gym bro type, except he had thick rimmed glasses on that made him look really smart too. “Looking for some fun tonight?”

Hugging the energy drink can against my chest, I glanced out to the dance floor and found Rozen glaring at me, his glare bouncing over to the gym bro and then back to me. For some reason, it eased my nerves, so I chuckled lightly and said, “I’m all set, but good luck out there.”

In the last move I’d expect, the gym bro looked relieved. “No offense, but thank fuck. Do you mind if we just chat for a while? It’s not a line, I swear. My friends are all out to get laid tonight, but hit it and quit it isn’t really my style, you know? There’s no telling them that.”

“No offense right back to you, but they don’t sound like great friends,” I said, scooting back enough to give him space to settle next to me against the bar too. He nodded forlornly like a sad puppy, so I changed the subject, “I’ve never been to a club like this. But a… friend of mine is out there drunk and needs someone to keep an eye on him. He’s all about one night stands too.”

“But you’re not?” he asked, looking excited at the prospect of us being in the same boat.

It was nice to just chat, like he’d promised, even though people in various stages of drunkenness and horniness came in and out of our orbit, flirting and trying to buy us drinks. We turned it into a game, saying no thank you but then redirecting them to someone else who looked like their type. “Damn, it’s like we’re playing Cupid for these guys,” he said happily.