Chapter 15
TYLER
The heat from Eddie’s car blasted my face and I sighed in pleasure. I hated the cold, and it was snowing outside, flakes falling in droves that made me think we were on the precipice of a nor’easter. Or just a lot of damned snow.
We’d moved Warren’s body together, dumping it in the same spot as Mike—which had taken us at least an hour longer on our own, plus an exasperated phone call to Ari—and it was a lot more effort with only two of us.
Luckily, Eddie had a headlamp for each of us that he kept with the ski equipment in the back of a closet.
Considering his coordination, I didn’t even want to imagine him hurling himself down a snow-covered mountainside.
Warren had driven his car to Eddie’s, so we’d torched it and left the husk deep in a forest close to Seldom Seen, a small town far outside New Gothenburg.
Now we were driving back home, and Eddie was quiet.
Too quiet.
Had I upset him?
I snuck a look at him, and every time a streetlamp or headlights lit up his face, I took in his ruddy cheeks, burned by wind, and the way his mouth was pursed. He was lost in thought, half focused on the road. It was as though he was a million miles away. Could I reach him?
Did killing these men affect him? I’d never asked Eddie to do it, and while I wasn’t sorry they were gone, I didn’t want him to lose himself for me, either. He was gentle and kind, and yes, a klutzy mess, but he was my awkward chaos.
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” came on the radio, and I cheered as I spun up the volume knob. The poppy beat filled the car, and Eddie groaned, making me laugh.
“She’s unfrozen for the year and back in business, baby.
It’s really December when Mariah’s playing.
” To be honest, it was the only Mariah Carey song I knew.
I danced in my seat, arms flailing as I moved in time with the beat, jiggling my ass, even though I could barely move it with the seat belt on.
“It was playing at the mall. Didn’t you hear?”
“Nope, too busy concentrating on you,” I said, before I returned to my song.
Eddie watched me out of the corner of his eye, and while I couldn’t see his full expression in the darkness of the cab, I felt his smile because it was warmer than a thousand suns.
I sang along with the lyrics, swooping in to lay my head on his shoulder as I belted out the chorus. He tried to keep a straight face, but I didn’t miss his wince and choked chuckle.
“Don’t give up your future plans. You weren’t meant to be a singer,” he said over a particularly loud yell from me as I got into the groove of the song.
I didn’t let him get me down, pumping my arms up in the air as I continued to scream with the lyrics, not ashamed that I got a few words wrong or that I was very off-key.
It was the thought that counted, and by the end, I was panting in exhaustion.
Joy bubbled in my chest. When was the last time I’d let go this way? I couldn’t remember.
“How did I do?” I plopped a kiss on his cheek as we came to a red light, and he pulled the car to a stop. He gave me a look that said what he really thought, and I laughed, falling back against my seat. “Come on, you’re the one who has carols on at home.”
“Not Mariah Carey. Never Mariah Carey.” He shook his head very seriously.
I gasped. “Are you insulting the MC?” I gaped at him with all the dramatics I had in my lackluster acting skills, which were about as good as my singing. “I have to rethink this relationship. I’m not sure how I can look at your face anymore after hearing this.”
“Sorry, baby.” He sent me a grin.
I froze, the nickname ringing in my ears. Baby? No one had ever called me something so sweet, and my heart took off in a gallop. “Did you just call me baby?”
Eddie eyed me nervously. “Yeah. We’re together and I thought you wouldn’t mind.” His hands squeezed the steering wheel. “Is that silly? I don’t have to call you that—”
“No. You can call me that. I like it. A lot. I want to be your baby.”
“Deal. No one else is allowed to call you that. You’re officially my baby.” The corner of his mouth ticked up into a half smile and he winked at me.
I rolled my eyes. He was so sweet. If someone had asked me a few weeks ago if Eddie was the type of person to murder three men, I would’ve laughed and told them to go back to whatever insane asylum they’d escaped from. He would never.
Except, he had.
I shook the thoughts from my head as my attention was caught by a single-story brick building.
The sign over the door, surrounded by flashing yellow lights, declared the place to be Pyrrhic Victory Arcade.
I made an excited sound in the back of my throat.
I’d walked past the spot more than once, but I’d never had enough money to spend on the games inside.
I used to love them as a kid, begging Mom to take me there only for her to whine about the cost. Finally, she had given in, and she’d let me stay for a few hours while she shopped.
It was one of the few fond memories I had of her.
Eddie glanced around me to see what I was pointing at. “Do you want to go?”
“Do I?” I shouted, causing him to slam on the brake too hard as he was about to go.
The car behind us honked and sped around us, the driver’s arm out the window with a less than friendly gesture as he screamed something.
I gave him the finger right back. Fuck that guy.
“Some people’s kids,” Eddie mumbled.
I fluttered my lashes at him and placed my palms together in prayer. “Please, oh please, oh please. Can we? I’ll give you the best blowjob when we get home. I’ll shove your dick so far down my throat, you’ll come directly into my stomach.”
He coughed and swerved the car into the arcade parking lot, nearly taking out a trash can in the process. As soon as he found a spot near the back of the lot, he spun toward me and waved me out of the car. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
I whooped as I jumped out the door.
Eddie moved fast, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and dragging me toward the front of the arcade so we could get in. Snow drifted down, and as soon as we got through the doors, we were met with more heat.
I laughed as he nearly tugged me off my feet in excitement. “You want a blowjob that bad?”
“When you mention that kind of deep throating,” he whispered. “Then, hell yeah. Do you see any blood on me?”
“Nope. Me?”
He shook his head, then gestured to the room full of noisy machines, and I didn’t miss the gleam in his eyes.
He was as excited as me, and I didn’t think it was only about the blowjob, either.
His gaze was full of wonder as he perused the room, and I noticed the moment it landed on motorcycle racing machines.
“Beat you to it. Last one there is a loser.” I shot past him, slapping him on the arm, and laughed when he shouted, “Hey, not fair!” I rushed toward the yellow bike and hopped onto it.
“We need cards first. Hang on.” Eddie walked over to a machine and fed it cash before he took two cards that came out of the slot. Then, he was back, handing me one. “You tap it here—” He laid the card on a reader. “—and the game starts. Hurry up, I have ten seconds for someone else to join.”
I quickly slapped my card against the reader and it beeped, letting me know I was now part of the race.
I slipped the card into my pocket before placing my hands on the handlebars, ready to kick his ass.
Eddie was taking the game seriously, though, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and his feet firmly planted to take his weight every time he moved the bike from side to side.
The race started, and I bent forward, completely focused. I was competitive about this type of shit. Sexy or not, I wasn’t going to let Eddie win. I refused. This belonged to me.
The bike race was fun, especially when he tried to crash into me a few times, but I managed to escape his attacks.
I sent him a glare. “Cheater.”
He laughed loudly, poking his tongue out at me, and the small loss of attention on the game made him crash. “Fuck.”
This time, it was my turn to cackle as I took the lead, the end coming closer and closer.
I caught him out of the corner of my eye as he leaned to the side to turn.
He crashed off the bike onto the floor with a groan.
Game forgotten, concern spiked through me as I jumped off my bike and rushed around to him.
“Eddie, are you okay?”
He pushed me on the chest, and while it wasn’t hard enough to hurt, I fell on my ass. He jumped to his feet with the kind of grace I’d never seen Eddie have. Then, he was back on his bike and crossing the finish line before I realized what had happened.
He pumped his arms in the air. “Winner!”
I gaped at him as I got to my feet. I shoved his shoulder. “Oh my God, you are such a cheater!”
“I won.” He slid off the bike and did a little dance in front of me, and I shook my head, half amused and half irritated. Ugh. He was so . . . Eddie. “Whatever. I won’t fall for that in the next game.”
We moved on to basketball, and I was shit at it, so once again Eddie won.
This time we got tickets out of the machine.
The next game was a zombie one where we took a padded hammer and hit zombie heads each time they popped out.
It was easy and entertaining. We laughed like crazy every time one exploded from its hole with a scream.
One game after another, our laughter grew, and happiness expanded through my chest, making me feel floaty. It’d been so long since I’d had a good time.
We went to the attendant when we were finished.
He was around my age with bright highlighter pink hair and a pink lollipop that he switched between sucking and twirling between his fingers.
His silver name tag said “Candy.” What a weird name.
He smiled at us when he had a look at our cards on the computer.
“Add our tickets together,” Eddie said. “Ty can have mine, too.”
“Okay. You—” He pointed at me with his lollipop.
“—have two hundred and twelve. That’ll get you .
. . .” He glanced at the shelves behind him, and the prizes were lackluster for the amount of tickets I had.
I could get a teddy bear about the height of my thumb, a lollipop that resembled Candy’s, or a small chocolate bar. “Yeah. That.”
“The teddy bear, please. That one.” I pointed at the little blue fellow with a yellow bowtie.
Candy passed him over with a wink. “Give ’im a good name, sweetheart.”
“Thanks.”
We left the arcade, and I stuck Mr. Sunshine into the top pocket of my shirt, then zipped my coat. “There you go, buddy.”
Eddie shook his head, a rumble of laughter leaving his chest. He glued himself to my side, arm around my shoulders again, as the cold wind and snow came down around us. He was about to lead me to the car when I saw another sign that caught my eye.
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand and yanked him farther down the street to a sex shop with a neon rainbow sign. An Adult’s Hobby curved across the middle in multicolored letters. “I think that place is new.”
He raised his eyebrows at me but didn’t argue when I pulled him through the door.
The atmosphere was warm, and not just because of the heater.
Everything felt homey, with sturdy wooden pieces of furniture that seemed handmade.
Even the cashier’s counter was beautifully crafted with a personal touch.
The music that hummed from the speakers was a blues song that it was hard not to rock with.
“Hey there.” A man who looked exactly like Candy, the arcade attendant, stepped out from a curtain behind the counter.
I froze in surprise. He didn’t have the pink hair or lollipop, but everything about him was identical to Candy, from the pouty pink lips to the soothing green eyes.
His hair was brown, and while I loved Candy’s style, I imagined this was exactly what he looked like without all the .
. . extra. We’d entered the Twilight Zone.
“Um, hi?” I glanced at Eddie, and he blinked, appearing as confused as me. “Didn’t we just see you at the arcade?”
The man stared at us for a moment before his mouth curled into a smirk. “That’s my twin, Candy.”
“Oh, thank God.” I laughed. “I thought I’d finally gone insane. Wait. You work a few doors from each other?”
The guy shrugged. “It just happened. I started here first, though. You can call me Toffee.”
I had questions, and by Eddie’s expression, he did, too, but I wasn’t here to ask a stranger all about his life. Instead, I perused the shop. They had a ton of interesting things, and I was intrigued. I’d never had the money to even think about sex toys, and I didn’t know where to start.
“There’s so much.” I shook my head, aware of Eddie right beside me, his warmth teasing my side and his arm still around my shoulders, as if he was guarding me. My protector.
“Want somewhere to start?” Toffee asked.
I nodded eagerly and was surprised when he pulled out a big cardboard box. We wandered back over to him. The front of the box said it was An Adventurous Tart’s Twelve Day Advent Calendar: For Him and Him.
“It’s half price because it’s already December twelfth, but it has all kinds of fun ideas. You open the slot for the day and get something to help you play.” Toffee’s smirk widened. “And you could have one big, fun night.”
Exhilaration fired through my veins, heating up my blood until it was boiling. My dick waged war against my underwear and the zipper of my jeans, already fucking loving the idea of what games could come with it.
One look at Eddie’s flushed face and I knew he loved the idea, too.
“We’ll take it,” Eddie said, slapping his wallet on the counter.
“Oh, yes please!” I rubbed my hands together.
Toffee laughed.