Chapter Two Danny
Jesus. Taryn wore me out with her long, tanned legs in her ass-hugging shorts. The way her well-worn T-shirt lovingly draped her curves left me jealous of a piece of cloth. Sitting there in the dappled sunlight of a summer’s afternoon, she was effortlessly radiant, even more stunning than she had been when I’d come home on leave for Christmas. Of course, then she was all starry-eyed over that douchebag boyfriend I thought I’d lost her to.
Even with the shadows edging her electric-blue eyes, Taryn Hamilton stole my breath away.
First thing after I hit town following my EAOS from the Air Force, I’d crashed at the captain’s place. My dad—a.k.a. “the captain” as he insisted on being called—was off on some fishing trip in the mountains, but I had my key. Not seeing him didn’t constitute a hardship—we didn’t have that kind of relationship. Plus, I’d pissed him off when I told him I’d decided not to re-up after briefly toying with the idea early in the spring. He’d spent thirty years in the Air Force and thought I should follow in his footsteps. Like I said, we didn’t have that kind of relationship.
Aside from the past four years of military service, I hadn’t done one damn thing in the same way as my old man. That in itself should have given him a clue I planned to live my life on my own terms. College, football, and time with a certain girl featured prominently in my immediate plans—plans that made no sense whatsoever to the captain. But I’d given up on trying to please him a long time ago.
I didn’t intend to sleep for a day and a half when I returned home, But after a week of jumping through discharge hoops, followed by ten hours on the road driving home, exhaustion had claimed me. Though I’d let Taryn know my EAOS—end of active obligated service—date, I didn’t know if I’d see her on the Fourth of July, or maybe not until after I reported to Mountain State College for fall football camp. Finding her sitting on her parents’ front deck when I pulled up to their house had lit up my entire summer.
Dinner with the Hamiltons was a good time, as always. The way they bantered and teased each other—damn. Since Taryn had first invited me to their home, I’d wanted to be a part of their tight-knit, loving family. That they included me as her best friend both warmed my heart and left me feeling like a fraud. After all, I’d conned all of them into believing the only thing I wanted from her was friendship. Her parents saw me as nonthreatening. Her older sister, Tally, treated me like a stray she needed to show kindness to (she was closest to the mark). Little sister Tina treated me like a big brother—one she needed to pester on a regular basis—and that was exactly what I wanted to be to her.
“So you’re walking on to the Wildcats this fall? Bold move, son,” Mr.Hamilton said as he passed me some hot sauce.
“I’ve watched film from some of their games last year. From what I saw, they could use my skills at receiver.” I dumped hot sauce liberally over the enchiladas on my plate. “Their quarterback graduated this past spring, so with a new guy under center, now seems like a perfect time to join the team.”
“But you haven’t played for four years. You’re going to be rusty.”
Leave it to Tina to state the obvious.
“You don’t know that.” I smirked around a bite of heavenly dinner. Mrs.Hamilton’s pork chops were my all-time favorite meal, but her chicken enchiladas came a close second. Not that I’d ever let on to Taryn who regularly accused me of having a boring palate. “We played a lot of pickup games and flag football on base. You’d be surprised at how well I’ve kept up my mad skills.” I waggled my brows for emphasis.
Tina wrinkled her nose. “I’d definitely be surprised.” The teasing snark in her tone said she was messing with me.
“Tina, be nice. Danny just arrived home from serving in the military,” Mrs.Hamilton admonished her.
“Yeah, Tina. Show some respect.” Taryn’s eyes danced over the rim of her iced tea.
“You’ll be singing a different tune on Saturdays this fall,” I said before downing another to-die-for bite of Mexican dinner. “Mmm, mmm, mmm. I’ve missed your cooking like crazy, Mrs.H. They don’t serve anything like this in the mess hall.”
“Huh. I thought the Air Force was the cushiest branch of the military—best food, best living quarters, easiest jobs...” Tina batted her lashes, a pretense of innocence.
Beside me, Taryn snorted while trying to hold in a laugh.
Determined not to rise to the bait, I said, “Nobody can cook like your mama. If anyone is spoiled, it’s you, Tina.”
“You’re right, son,” Mr.Hamilton interjected. “Ginny spoils all of us, and I for one am eternally grateful.”
The loving look he gave his wife stuck a knife in my chest. All I could remember of my parents’ marriage was shouting (the captain) and crying (my mother). In the end, he’d kicked her out, and I’d learned fast how to clean the house and cook basic meals. Which gave me even greater appreciation for the gourmet fare I’d been enjoying at the Hamiltons’ ever since Taryn and I became friends. Meeting this family, being welcomed into it, was the best part of the move to Billings following the captain’s honorable discharge from the Air Force.
“Does that mean you also made sopapillas with hot fudge for dessert?” Taryn kind of bounced in her chair.
This girl. So damn adorable.
“With this being the first time you’ve been home since Easter, the occasion called for it.” Though she smiled at Taryn, something censorious flashed in Mrs.Hamilton’s eyes.
Wait. Taryn hadn’t been home since Easter? Mountain State was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. While her Honda didn’t rock like my Mustang, she still had reliable wheels. Turning my head, I caught her turtling down in her chair.
“Mom. I’ve been putting in as many hours at the coffee shop as I can. You know that. With my schedule, I need to bank hours now so I’m not strapped this fall.” Though she didn’t say it, I heard her unspoken words all the same: I don’t want to have to ask you guys for money .
That was one of the beautiful things about Taryn. She appreciated her parents’ hard work to put three kids through college simultaneously, and she showed that appreciation by carrying as much of her weight as she could. We’d discussed her need to help several times over the past three years since she’d started at Mountain State. But her not coming home even once in almost three months? That didn’t sound like my T.
Fuck . Had she gone back to that dipshit boyfriend who dumped her last March?
Shooting her the big eyes, I asked, “How have you gone this long without your mom’s cooking?”
Her arms shielded her chest. “I can cook too, you know.”
“Yeah, but it’s so good when your mom cooks.” I smiled at Mrs.Hamilton. “You can taste the love she puts into it.”
“What a sweet thing to say, Danny.” Mrs.Hamilton beamed.
Tina snorted. “Trust me, being friends with Taryn is enough. You don’t have to butter Mom up to get invited to eat.”
Deliberately keeping my tone light, I said, “You have no idea how much I appreciate Taryn’s friendship and your mom’s cooking.”
Fortunately for me, I’d managed to stick my feet under Mrs.Hamilton’s table once or twice a week starting October of my senior year of high school. Making sure I partnered up with Taryn for science projects had ensured those invitations. After I graduated, whenever I was home on leave even when Taryn was away at college—I had a standing invite to dinner. Hanging out at the Hamiltons’ only emphasized what I’d missed growing up in a military family without a home base. Growing up without a mom to make a home wherever we landed.
Because of how I zeroed in on her whenever we were together, I caught the way Taryn stiffened at my words. Before I could fully process that stiffening, she stood and reached a hand across the table for Tina’s plate, stacking it on top of hers.
“Are you finished, Dad?”
With a nod, he passed her his plate.
“Danny?”
I sopped up the last bite of saucy enchilada then handed her my plate as I enjoyed that last taste.
“Mom?”
“Thanks, sweetie.” Though Mrs.Hamilton passed Taryn her plate, she, too, stood from the table. “Excuse me while I warm up the hot fudge sauce... and one or two other things I found to complement sopapillas.” Her sly smile put all of us on the edge of our seats in anticipation of dessert.
Though I wanted to catch the low conversation coming from the kitchen, Mr.Hamilton had other ideas.
“Besides football, what do you plan to study at MSC?” he asked with a grin.
“Girls.” Tina stretched the word out in a silly singsong voice.
Baring my teeth at her, I said, “Engineering.” With a shrug, I added, “I’ve always liked taking things apart to see how they work, so I thought it might be fun to be on the creating end of that.”
Resting his forearms on the table, Taryn’s dad asked, “Any particular discipline catching your eye?”
“Civil or mechanical—something that involves problem-solving for construction.”
He sat back in his chair with a grin. “Good man. The civil engineers we’ve been working with to build the new city loop are top-notch. Whenever one of us on the road team points out a potential problem with their design, they listen. I appreciate working with them.”
The expression accompanying his words implied he expected I’d be like those “top-notch” guys working with him and the rest of his crew in the city road department. I had to admit having the professional respect of someone like Mr.Hamilton would mean the world. Especially since the captain’s deliberate absence on my return home from the service had blared the message that I’d lost his.
Right as thoughts of my dad and his piss-poor acceptance of my plans for my life threatened to sour my mood, Mrs.Hamilton walked back into the dining room carrying a platter mounded with powdered-sugar-covered confections I knew from experience would melt in my mouth. Behind her Taryn carried another platter with a series of small bowls on it. The aroma of deep-fried sugary dough wafted through the dining room to make my mouth water.
Rubbing his hands together, Mr.Hamilton said with undisguised delight, “What have we here?”
“Hot fudge, hot caramel, hot butterscotch, and raspberry,” Mrs.Hamilton said as she set four small bowls of dipping sauces on the table before heading back into the kitchen. A second later, she returned with a stack of dessert plates.
A memory of Taryn gently educating me about dessert plates during one of my first dinners at the Hamiltons’ unexpectedly floated up. In the captain’s house we had four plates: two for each of us, and all of them the same size. The distinction was dirty or clean. Dessert was for softies—or people who couldn’t see how a shot of whiskey, neat, took care of any cravings for sweets at the end of a meal.
As usual, Tina pounced on the sauces, spooning about half the hot fudge onto her plate before sliding the dipping sauces down the table toward her dad.
Mrs.H. shot her a glare. “Tina—”
“What?” Tina feigned innocence with her big-eyed expression as she snagged the tongs and loaded three hot sopapillas onto her plate. “You brought out four dipping sauces, practically giving each of us our own sauce.”
A long, exasperated sigh and a shake of her head met Mrs.H.’s youngest daughter’s comment. “That is not what I did, as you very well know.” With another long stare at the opposite end of the table, she said, “I thought the people in this house were raised with manners.”
Mr.H. glanced up mid-reach for the tray of sauces and blinked hard at his wife. Then he let go a chuckle. “Ginny, Danny isn’t a guest.” He grinned. “He’s practically family.”
When she didn’t relent, he shook his head at her and slid the tray of sauces in my direction.
Beside me Taryn remained unnaturally quiet. Did she not want her family to think of me as part of them? Fisting my hand beneath the table, I answered my own question. Of course you’re not part of her family. You saw to that, dumbass.
Nodding to the dessert, I said, “Please. Help yourself.” Smirking across the table at Tina, I added, “If there’s not enough hot fudge left, I know distraction techniques.”
“As if.” She wrinkled her nose at me and swirled sopapilla through a lake of hot fudge on her plate. When a drop of sauce escaped on the way to her mouth and landed in her lap, she made a ceremony of lifting her napkin to her lips to lick off what she could.
“Tina!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a slight twitch of Taryn’s lips at her mom’s scandalized tone.
“Can’t waste perfectly delicious hot fudge.” Tina’s matter-of-fact tone didn’t hold a single note of apology.
Tina cracked me up.
I took two sopapillas and automatically offered two more to Taryn. When the sauce came to me, I spooned butterscotch and raspberry onto my plate before passing the bowls on to T. As anticipated, she swirled hot caramel and hot fudge onto her deep-fried dessert before taking a dainty bite of the hot-fudge-covered one.
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I studiously kept my focus on my own plate to stop myself from doing something I desperately wanted to do—like lick delicious dessert remnants from the roses of Taryn’s plump lips. A move like that would definitely earn me a slap in the face and would likely get me kicked out of the Hamilton house for eternity.
After suffering through listening to Taryn’s moans of delight while she enjoyed her favorite dessert, I headed back out onto the front deck with her while the rest of the family gathered in the kitchen to clean up dinner. We’d offered to help, but since T had already taken care of the dinner dishes, Mrs.Hamilton sent us outside to “catch up.”
We’d barely sat down with our iced teas when I asked the question I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Did you and that Aaron guy get back together? Is that why you haven’t been home all spring?”
Several rapid blinks met my question before she scrunched her brows together. “What are you talking about?”
“You heard me. Your mom’s upset because you haven’t been home since Easter. When she mentioned it, you made some lame excuse about needing to work. I want the truth.”