Candy Man (17 page)

He wanted that for them, but he didn’t doubt they would have it. He’d seen it. Pixy Stix never lied.

“Hey, boss,” Joni said, coming up to greet him with a hug. “Did you hear about Miguel?”

“Yes—he finally took that internship instead of hanging around here, didn’t he?”

Joni rolled her eyes. “I should have known you’d know. Are we going to need to hire anybody else?”

Darrin thought about it. “Probably not. At least not until June.”

Unbidden, even without the Pixy Stix, he saw her. Feral, hair butchered and dyed too many colors, more piercings than was probably comfortable, flat eyes, and a real attitude.

She’d be perfect, he thought, looking at Joni. Joni’s loneliness wasn’t palpable yet, but by June she’d be in the perfect mood to maybe tame their new employee.

And in the meantime, Darrin’s little store, his sweet little world, was happy, and so were the people in it.

He looked at Adam and Finn again, liking how Finn looked away at the last minute, because Adam’s obvious worship made him blush.

It was a great way to make a living, overlooking the banks of the Sacramento River. You never knew what life’s current would bring you, and never knew from whence it would come.

About the Author

A
MY
L
ANE
is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

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