Candy Kisses

Candy Kisses

Chapter Six

“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic”
-- The Police

Nicholas stepped to the center of the stage. No performance had been scheduled for tonight, so the auditorium stood empty, with rows of drowsy shadows forming his only audience. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was the song. Nicholas opened his mouth, prepared to test his voice. But, for a moment, he hesitated. For a moment, he was afraid -- afraid that he would find his singing unchanged, and know that he had been cheated. Or, far worse, afraid that he would find it improved, and know that he really had sold his soul.

However, one way or the other, he needed to determine the truth. Summoning his resolve, Nicholas began to shape the notes of a familiar song. He often used “Per Te” at auditions. Not because the lyrics meant anything special to him, but because the sweeping vocalizations allowed him to demonstrate his range. Tonight, the song came easily, smoothing away his nervousness.

Mille giorni di felcita
Mille notti di serenita
Faro quello che mi chiederai…

As always, Nicholas’s eyes slipped shut when he sang. Usually, he envisioned sheet music, with its straight lines and neatly arranged notes. But this time, he saw the curve of a smile on brightly painted lips. He saw graceful lashes sweeping up from eyes the color of caramel. He saw silky brown hair tied back with a red ribbon. And something shifted inside him.

Per te, per te vivro
L’amore vincera…

All his life, those words had only been words -- syllables to be carefully replicated, but nothing more. Tonight, for the first time, Nicholas really felt them. Tonight, he understood what it meant to care about someone so much that your entire life becomes a gift you want to give them.

With a shiver, Nicholas realized that all those judges had been right. There really had been something missing from his voice. But now he heard it, as he sang his passion to the empty auditorium, and he remembered what Raedeman had told him at their last meeting. I imagine that your voice is already developing some of what it lacked. Sure enough, the demon had kept his promise.

Andro sempre dovunque tu andrai
Daro tutto l’amore che ho
Per te

The song ended, and Nicholas opened his eyes. No applause. No roses tossed onto the stage. But Nicholas could hear the pounding of his heart, and to him, it sounded like the wildest ovation any audience had ever given. For the first time in his life, he’d been more than good. He’d been great.

Then, a familiar voice broke into his thoughts. “Hey. I thought I might find you here.”

Spinning around, Nicholas saw Pepper standing at the edge of the dimly lit backstage area. She wore the same red corset dress as the night she’d driven him home, but instead of a choker, a feathery red boa hid her throat, and tiny gold bells dangled from the ribbon which tied back her hair. Suddenly, all the emotions Nicholas had felt while singing welled up with renewed intensity. Unfortunately, at the same instant, the eloquence of the song abruptly deserted him.

“Um,” Nicholas answered, fumbling with his words as if they were a handful of greased marbles. “Yeah. That is, I didn’t know anyone was listening.”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

She smiled, and he didn’t mind. He wouldn’t have minded if she caught him singing Britney Spears songs in the shower. Except that seeing him in the shower meant seeing him naked, a thought which made the blood rush to Nicholas’s face. Desperately, he floundered around for some topic to distract his brain from the image that had just been burned into it. “No. I don’t mind at all. Um. Did you like it?”

“It was beautiful.” Pepper walked towards him, her movements so fluid and graceful that the bells tied in her hair remained silent. “There was one phrase you repeated a few times: l’amore vincera. What does that mean?”

“It’s Italian. It means ‘love will win’.”

“Love will win,” she echoed, caressing the words with her lips. “That’s a wonderful sentiment. But do you think it’s really true?”

Nicholas couldn’t stop staring at her, couldn’t make his brain think about the words before he spoke them. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before.”

“Before?” One of Pepper’s eyebrows lifted into a puzzled slant. “Before when?”

Before the first time I saw you. “Um. You know, I just meant I haven’t been in love. Not yet. Not that I know of.”

“Ah.”

Glancing away, Pepper twisted a strand of her brown hair around her finger. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. Nicholas strained his ears, as if he could steal inspiration from all the remnants of romantic speeches that had been spoken on this stage. But all he heard was rain hitting the auditorium roof, echoing the pitter-patter of his pulse. So, although they lacked poetry, he resorted to his own words. “There’s a bistro near here. It’s usually deserted at this time of night. We could go there and get something to drink. Or eat. Or whatever you want.”

She smiled again, like light breaking through the darkness. “I’d like that. Let me get my coat.”

Together, they walked backstage, to the chair where Pepper had hung her raincoat and umbrella. While she got back into the raincoat, Nicholas retrieved his own jacket. Then they made their way outside.

The rain still fell at a steady pace, so Pepper popped open her umbrella. And laughed when Nicholas failed to join her under it. “Come on,” she urged, pulling him beneath the umbrella’s shelter. Gently, she took his hand, and wrapped it around the umbrella handle, before placing her own hand over his. “There’s room enough for both of us.”

Nicholas nodded, momentarily unable to speak. His skin felt like a desert, and her touch was rain falling on the dry sand, awakening life from its long sleep. Again, blood rushed to his face, and he hoped that she wouldn’t notice that he was blushing -- hoped that she would just assume it was a tint cast by her red umbrella. “Um. The bistro. It’s this way.”

“Great.”

The sidewalk was nearly deserted as they strolled toward the bistro, and Pepper’s umbrella seemed like a tiny world, inhabited by them alone. For the first time, Nicholas noticed the winter trees, planted at regular intervals along the street. All their leaves had fallen months ago, but now droplets of water clung to their branches and reflected the lights of the city like thousands of glittering jewels. An enchanted forest, created just for them. Looking at the trees, Nicholas wondered if the world had always been this beautiful, and he’d just never noticed, or if it was the result of Pepper’s magic, radiating outward until trash turned to treasure.

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he explained, as if he needed to justify the time they had spent apart. “I asked Marzi for your phone number. But he said you didn’t have one. And when I asked him for your address, he said you didn’t have one of those, either.”

“Sometimes I’m hard to locate. But Marzi can usually get a message to me.” Pepper tilted her head, and gave him another shy, sideways glance. “How do you like working for my brother?”

“I like it a lot.” Confectioner had never been on Nicholas’s list of career plans. But he enjoyed working at Sugar Hearts. He enjoyed the surprises that each day offered, and Marzi’s wild, reckless enthusiasm. Most of all, he enjoyed how happy the candy made people. Even if they only paused to look in the window, the sight of Marzi’s fantastical creations always brought a smile to the saddest faces. “Your brother is quite something.”

Pepper laughed, and this time the bells in her hair did jingle slightly. “That’s a polite way to put it.”

“He seems to really enjoy life.”

“I think he does, in his way.” Pepper looked thoughtful. “When we were growing up, I envied my brother. Magic came easily to me. But people didn’t. I spent my time by myself, burying my heart in my work, while Marzi partied with an endless stream of friends and lovers. I didn’t exactly approve of his lifestyle, but I thought that it must be wonderful to be so surrounded by people that you never feel lonely.”

“It must be nice,” Nicholas agreed.

“But recently, my brother and I have gotten a lot closer. And I’ve realized something. If someone is the wrong person, you can spend the entire night in their bed, and still be lonely. But if someone is the right person, you can just look at them from across the room, and feel full. Feel complete.”

Briefly, her eyes met his, before hiding beneath hastily lowered lashes. And Nicholas wondered what she felt when she looked at him from across the room. He wondered what she felt right now.

The bistro was small, and bright, with pictures of a recent student ballet adorning the walls. After glancing around, Pepper chose a table near the dessert case. Nicholas watched as she shed her raincoat, and fluffed the feathers of her boa back to fullness, only remembering -- at the last moment -- to sit down across from her. And even then, he descended too hastily, banging his knee on the table’s edge.

“What do you recommend?” Pepper inquired, shooting a hungry glance at the assembled desserts.

Nicholas tried to think. But he couldn’t remember how food tasted, couldn’t remember anything except the flavor of her lips. “The tarts are good,” he advised, speaking the name of the first pastry that popped into his head.

“Great. I love sweets.”

The waitress wandered over and took their order. Nicholas reached for his wallet, intending to pay, but Pepper shook her head. “I’ll get it. You need all your money to afford that penthouse.”

Her mention of the penthouse reminded Nicholas of his deal with Raedeman. Suddenly uncomfortable, Nicholas dragged his finger through some sugar a previous patron had spilled on the tabletop, afraid that if he looked at Pepper, she’d see all his secrets. But Pepper seemed absorbed in the task of sorting through her purse, presumably searching for money. As she dug around, she knocked several items free of the purse’s confines, including a silver charm strung on a leather cord. For some reason, the necklace caught Nicholas’s attention. Lifting it, he examined the charm’s depiction of a winged man slaying a demon. “What’s this?”

“What?” Pepper glanced up from her excavation and smiled. “Oh, that. It’s a gift from an old friend. He hoped that it would protect me.”

“He?” The word had a bit more bite than Nicholas intended. He was accustomed to jealousy -- he felt it each time one of his classmates passed an audition, or got a recording deal. But this was different. He’d never wanted to throttle a complete stranger before. “Do you still see much of this old friend?”

“No.” Pepper took the charm from Nicholas, and rubbed it between her fingers, as if trying to summon a genie.

“Why not?”

Pepper shrugged. “I changed. I didn’t think he’d understand.”

“You changed into what? A werewolf? A vampire? A zombie?” Nicholas shook his head, genuinely unable to imagine anything she might become that would make a difference in the way he felt about her. “Well, whatever it was, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care about what you were. Or what you are.”

He had hoped that his declaration of loyalty would please her. But instead, a look of sadness spread across Pepper’s face, and she bowed her head. “I hope you mean that, Nicholas. I really hope you do.”

Gently, she kissed the charm, and placed it back in her purse, along with everything else that had spilled onto the table. Nicholas didn’t know what to say. He felt vaguely aware that a challenge had been issued, but as much as he wanted to prove himself to her, he didn’t understand the nature of the test. So it was a relief when the waitress returned, carrying their orders. Pepper seemed to enjoy her slice of pear tart, while Nicholas sipped his cup of herbal tea, and both of them let the topic get buried beneath other things.

By the time they left the bistro, the rain had turned into a downpour. Pepper stared dubiously at the myriad of droplets pounding against the sidewalk. “I guess maybe I should have driven us over here.”

“Is you car parked near the auditorium?”

“Yeah.”

Nicholas gazed at the storm. For once in his life, he felt bold, reckless, and invincible. Impulsively, he took Pepper’s hand, as she had taken his when she pulled him beneath her umbrella. “Let’s make a run for it.”

Laughing, they charged into the rain, throwing themselves against the curtains of water that blew down from the sky. Puddles shattered under their feet, and the headlights on passing cars streaked by like falling stars. Nicholas could feel his clothes growing cold and heavy as the rain soaked into them, making them cling to his body, but he ignored their weight. He ignored the water flooding into his eyes until he could hardly see. None of that mattered. All that mattered was Pepper’s hand in his, and the breathless exhilaration of their run. Despite all logic, it seemed to him as if each step might finally have enough force to push them off the ground and send them flying over the city. It wouldn’t have surprised him. With Pepper, all things were possible.

Eventually, however, they both needed a moment to catch their breath, and Nicholas pulled Pepper beneath the shelter of a store awning.

“Wow,” she gasped.

“Yeah,” Nicholas agreed. But he wasn’t thinking of the storm. He was looking at Pepper, covered with shimmering drops of rain, like one of her own pieces of sugarcoated candy. And he wanted so badly to taste her. Wanted to lick the pale underside of her throat, and have the flavor of her skin melt onto his tongue.

Pepper’s eyes met his, and she seemed to see into him with such clarity that Nicholas felt naked. But she didn’t turn away from his desire. Instead, she reached up and stroked his hair, gathering the drops of rain that had collected in its unruly curls. Nicholas thought he saw her tremble, but maybe she was only shivering in the February cold.

“L’amore vincera,” she whispered.

“Pepper,” Nicholas blurted. “When you asked me before, about that phrase, I lied. Or maybe I didn’t lie. Maybe I just wasn’t sure yet. But I was wrong.”

“It doesn’t mean ‘love will win’?”

“No. That is, yes, it does. But I said that I didn’t know if that was true. And now, looking at you, I do. You make me believe it.”

Pepper’s lips split into a grin, and she leaned against him, kissing his cheek. But that was no longer enough for Nicholas. Like a starving man, he seized her face with both hands, and brought their lips together, plunging his tongue into the soft, yielding warmth of her mouth. And Pepper returned his passion. Wrapping her arms around him, she kissed back, tugging their drenched bodies together. Again, Nicholas could feel her trembling. So he held her, and he kissed her, and he staked their entire future on the words of a song.

(The song that Nicholas sang in this chapter was "Per Te" by Josh Groban.)