His Virgin Candy 4 (A BBW Hood Romance)

A MONTH LATER

Monty was leaned back in his leather chair with his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling of his office like a man who had everything going right and knew it.

Business was moving.

A month in and the realty company was already turning heads.

He'd just wrapped a conference call with two heavy hitters who liked what they heard — not what he hoped to do, but what he was already doing.

Numbers that made men in suits sit up straight.

He gave them his six-month projections and watched the silence on the other end turn into interest. Real interest.

Yeah. This thing is here to stay.

He let himself have that for a minute. Just sat there in the satisfaction of it.

Then his mind drifted, the way it always did lately when things got quiet, and Candy's face came to him easy and warm.

She had been looking different to him lately.

Better different. Fuller in all the right places, softer in her energy, more settled in her spirit — like a woman who had finally made peace with something she'd been wrestling with for a long time.

She knew how to love him in a way nobody else ever had.

He knew that. Felt that. His family was everything to him, and she and Twin —— they were without a doubt, his family.

She's all I need.

He believed that.

He did.

Except.

Zuri was still there. Not physically — not in a way he could touch or see — but she was there.

In the back of his mind. Behind a door he kept trying to close all the way that wouldn't quite latch.

What she had told him that night was still sitting with him like something he'd swallowed and couldn't digest. The fiancé. The baby. All of it. He had hurt her then had to walk away. He didn’t regret choosing Candy—

But did she eat today?

Is she okay?

He couldn’t stop himself from wanting to know how Zuri was doing, especially after seeing her stop by briefly and leaving without even trying to speak with him.

He pushed forward in his chair and pressed his fingers to his forehead.

She still worked for him. Technically. But she had gone to great lengths to make sure she never had to see or hear from him directly.

Everything went through Rico or Maurice.

If Monty needed something put in the paper, he faxed it over.

If she had updates, Rico relayed them. She had built a wall between them so clean and professional that from the outside it probably looked like they'd never been anything at all.

He deserved that.

He knew he did.

But it didn't stop the pulling.

He told himself he just wanted to know she was alright.

That he cared about her as a person — not as something he was trying to get back, not out of guilt, not to stir anything up.

Just wanted to know she was good. That she was taking care of herself.

That she wasn't sitting in that condo drowning in everything she'd finally let herself say out loud that night.

Is that the truth though, nigga?

He stood up before he could answer that honestly.

Grabbed his keys off the desk.

Headed out of the office in a hurry before the rational part of his brain could catch up with the rest of him.

Across town, Candy was cross-legged on Coco's bed folding sweaters while Coco moved through the room like a woman on a mission — pulling things off hangers, rolling jeans, debating out loud about shoes like she was packing for a whole year.

"Girl, you going for three weeks, not three months." Candy held up a fourth pair of boots. "Where you think you going?"

"Back home to Texas, bitch. You know how them streets be. I gotta be right at all times." Coco snatched the boots back.

Candy laughed and shook her head.

She was happy for Coco, honestly. She'd missed Thanksgiving with her mama this year — working, always working — and now that Christmas was a week out, she was finally going home.

Maurice couldn't make the trip. Work had him stuck, and whatever was or wasn't happening between them had been in that gray zone for long enough that neither one was making demands.

Coco didn't seem devastated about it, which told Candy everything she needed to know. But she kept that to herself.

"Three weeks though," Candy said. "You know I'm gon' be bored."

"Call your man." Coco side-eyed her.

"He got his own life."

"Then get one, too." She tossed a hoodie at her. "Fold that."

Candy folded it but quickly noticed something in Coco’s suitcase that wasn’t supposed to be there.

“Oh, bitch—”

“Whet?!” Coco frowned.

“You ain’t takin’ my damn oils with you!”

Coco laughed. “Gurl, order some more.”

“Why you didn’t order ‘em?”

“‘Cause they wouldn’t have made it here in time before I left—”

“So, you thought you’d just take my shit?” Candy playfully asked but was dead serious at the same time.

“Listen hoe. I need this Access Denied ‘cause bitch I ain’t playin’ no games with that damn ex of mine. And I need this Clear the Line ‘cause I gotta keep that negative energy up off me—”

Candy just shook her head as Coco continued.

“And you know I’m in love with this damn SbyS—”

“Aren’t we all.”

“So, yeah… I figured I’d just give you the money to order some more, and I take these with me.”

Candy popped her lips. “Well, run me my coins bitch and stay outta my shit!”

“You need to let me take that damn Signature Lady—”

“No, bitch, you doing too much!”

They laughed out loud.

Candy kept folding, glancing up slightly. "So, when you fly out?”

"Day after tomorrow." Coco paused with a pair of jeans in her hand and got a look on her face. A very specific look. The look that meant she was about to say something she'd been sitting on.

"What?" Candy narrowed her eyes.

"Nothing." Too casual.

"Coco."

"I said nothing, girl—"

“Bitch, don’t do me.”

Coco dropped the jeans in the suitcase and turned around with her arms crossed and a grin she was clearly fighting. “I saw that hoe yesterday.”

Candy cut her eyes at her. “Zuri?”

“Yep, but—” she dramatically paused. “She only stopped by to show Maurice some ads, and he signed some paperwork and after that, she was out.”

“Where was Monty?”

“Upstairs in his office. I don’t even think he knew she was there.”

“Maybe,” Candy shrugged. “He got those cameras on deck, and he keeps that screen on so he can see shit. But then again, unless he was busy it probably slipped by him.”

“Listen, homegirl got that heart broken and she ain’t tryna see that nigga.”

“Yeah, well— A woman with a broken heart that ain’t tryna see the nigga who broke it wouldn’t be showing up at his place of business. I mean, she could easily email a lot of that shit.”

“I thought the same thing, but Maurice said it was something they had to personally approve, so—”

“Mm,” Candy softly let out. Clearly, she was deep in thought about it.

“They ain’t fuckin’ ‘round though, Cuz. I’m telling you. I know.”

“I can believe it, but I can tell he’s not fully himself after dealing with her. It’s gotten better, of course, but—”

Coco frowned, “But what?”

“I don’t know. I think he really had a thing for her.”

“I believe he did, too. But hey—”

“It’s over and hopefully it stays that way.”

“What if it don’t?” Coco asked with a serious expression.

“Then I’m leaving him, point blank period.

If he goes back to her then that means that she means way more to him than we all know,” she admitted.

“Meaning, I’m not competing for no man. I don’t care who the hell he is and I’m not into throuples.

Will the shit hurt? Hell, yeah, but it wouldn’t be the first. However, it would be the last… with his ass.”

“I feel you,” Coco nodded.

“Oh, yeah— Mina called and suggested that we should go on a girl’s trip.”

Coco smiled. “Yeah, I talked to her last night. She’s thinking somewhere like Jamaica.”

“I think it’ll be good for all of us. Cousins spending time together— Plus, Mona… ‘Cause I did mention that we’ll have to wait until she’s ready to catch a flight, too.”

“Right, ‘cause with everything Rico got going on, I know my gurl gon’ need a vacation, real bad.”

“And is!” Candy agreed. “We all need one.”

“And do!”

They laughed as small talk continued.

“So, you and Maurice? Y’all still good?”

“About as good as we’ll get. I’m liking him more each day, but I’m still very cautious. Meaning, I ain’t giving him my whole heart unless I know for a fact it’s real.”

“Shit, I can’t blame you.”

But as the conversation still lingered around Maurice and Coco, Candy couldn’t shake a distant feeling about Monty…

I wonder what you’re up to? She thought.

Monty stood on Zuri's porch with the cold wind cutting straight through his leather jacket like it had something personal against him. He knocked. Waited. Rang the doorbell. Waited some more.

Come on.

He hadn't thought this all the way through — that much was clear.

He had just grabbed his keys and moved on pure impulse, and now here he was standing outside a woman's door like he had a right to be here when he most definitely did not.

He knew that. The rational part of his brain had been saying that the entire drive over.

He'd ignored it like it didn’t matter.

But it did.

He could hear movement on the other side of the door. Slow. Unhurried. Somebody taking their sweet time. He shifted his weight against the cold and waited.

The door swung open.

The girl on the other side didn't even look at him. She was walking away from the door before it was fully open, rubbing a towel through her wet hair, already talking.

"Why you ain't use your key? I thought you said you wasn't coming for another hour—" She disappeared around the corner toward the kitchen. "I was literally in the middle of washing my hair, Z—"

"It ain't Zuri."

The towel stopped moving.

Silence.

Then she came back around the corner slow and looked at him standing in the doorway. Her eyes widened for half a second before she caught herself, pressing her free hand against her chest.

"Boy.” She exhaled hard. "You scared the hell outta me." She took a breath. "I thought you was Z."