Chapter 29
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Probably,” Darrin admitted easily, keeping his back to the room as Danny grabbed the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around his waist.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Danny asked even though he had a sneaking suspicion that his mother was somehow involved.
“The hotel that we were supposed to stay at was overbooked, so we came here,” his brother explained with a sigh before he added, “I didn’t mean to, umm,” he cleared his throat, “interrupt.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Danny asked, glancing around the bed to find his little Tinkerbelle curled up in the fetal position, cowering beneath a blanket. He considered telling her that it was okay to get up but reconsidered it and decided to leave her there for the time being.
“Marybeth and me,” Darrin said, raking his hands through his hair.
“Then why are you in my room?” Danny snapped, praying for his brother’s sake that he had a damn good reason for barging in on them.
His brother shook his head. “I fucked up and she isn’t talking to me right now.”
“I see,” Danny murmured, glancing back at the bed where Tinkerbelle had been seconds away from screaming his name.
“Anyway, I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind switching with me. I figured the girls could share a room and I could bunk here with you,” Darrin said, sounding hopeful.
“She’s been pissed at you before,” Danny pointed out.
Darrin chuckled without humor as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Never like this.”
“I see,” Danny murmured thoughtfully as he looked from his brother to the woman curled up on the floor, trying to hide.
Sharing a bed with his brother or with the woman that he planned on doing a hundred different naughty things to during this trip…
“Yeah, that’s just not going to happen,” Danny said with a sad shake of his head as he reached out and grabbed his brother by the back of the neck.
“Wait!” Darrin said, trying to reach back and slap his hand away, but Danny just ignored him as he steered his brother towards the door. “I’m your brother, you asshole!”
“Uh-huh, that’s nice,” Danny said, reaching over and opening the door. He swung the door open and shoved his brother out of the room.
“Where the hell am I supposed to go?” Darrin demanded with a murderous glare.
“Go beg for forgiveness,” Danny suggested with a shrug, not really caring enough to get involved in his brother’s weird-ass relationship.
“I already did!” Darrin snapped. “The stubborn woman won’t listen to reason and-”
“Yeah, you have fun with that,” Danny said, cutting his brother off. “I’m going to go spend the night with my girlfriend.”
“But-”
He closed the door on his brother’s face and threw the lock with a satisfied sigh that ended on a groan when he turned around to find Tinkerbelle stumbling around the room, yanking on her clothes.
“What are you doing?” Danny asked after a minute of watching her wrestle with her pants.
“Getting dressed,” Jodi said with a grunt as she yanked her socks on.
“I can see that,” Danny murmured. “Why exactly are you getting dressed?”
“Because I’m going home,” she said, roughly pulling on her shirt.
“I see…”
“I’m sorry to have to do this, but we’re gonna have to break up,” Jodi said, sighing heavily as she grabbed her bag and placed it on the edge of the bed.
“Why exactly are we breaking up?” Danny asked with a frown as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned back to watch as Jodi continued to stumble around the room, grabbing her stuff and shoving it in her bag.
The glare she sent him was just so damn cute, he decided, biting back a smile that would probably get his balls kicked in. “Because he saw us!”
“Darrin?”
“Yes!” Jodi hissed, dropping to her knees to crawl on the floor, frantically looking under the bed and coffee table.
“He didn’t see much,” Danny said with a shrug.
She stopped mid-search to send him a homicidal glare. “He saw plenty!”
“He won’t say anything,” Danny said, knowing his brother well enough to know that he would have absolutely no problem keeping his mouth shut. The men in his family might be assholes, but they were assholes that didn’t believe in humiliating women.
“It doesn’t matter!” she snarled, returning to her search.
“Why is that?” Danny asked, tilting his head to the side to get a better view of that beautiful ass that he loved so much as it swayed back and forth with her efforts to reach something beneath the bed.
“Because it doesn’t!”
“I see…” Danny mumbled absently as he reached down and dropped the sheet to the floor as he grabbed his boxers. “Would it make you feel better if I beat the shit out of him?”
She stopped mid-search and her shoulders slumped with relief as she said, “Yes, yes, it would.”
“You do realize that there was a buffet right next to the hotel, right?” Jodi asked as he pulled open the door to the restaurant for her.
“We’ll hit that the day before we leave,” Danny said, holding the door for her as she walked inside.
“Why exactly are we doing that?” Jodi asked, waiting for him by the door.
“Because I have a strategy,” he announced as he took her hand in his and walked with her down the corridor.
“You have a strategy for buffets?” Jodi asked, sure, hell, hoping, that she’d misheard him.
“Yes.”
“I see,” she murmured, suddenly having a bad feeling about this. “Maybe we should-”
“That bastard!” Danny bit out as they turned down the small hallway and spotted Darrin standing in line.
“I think I saw a pizza place down the street,” Jodi said, tugging on his hand almost desperately to get him to stop.
She really didn’t feel like facing his brother after he’d caught her with her mouth on-
“I was here first,” Darrin said with a glare that was thankfully aimed at his brother because, at the moment, she really wasn’t sure that she could make eye contact with him or handle having him acknowledge her in any way.
“Too bad,” Danny said, ignoring her attempts to escape and pulling her in line right behind Darrin.
“You know the rules.”
“Yes, I do, but since you haven’t paid yet, this buffet is still up for grabs,” Danny said, getting in his brother’s face.
“There are plenty of buffets in this city,” Darrin said, standing his ground, “why don’t you go to one of them?”
“We’re not going anywhere.”
“Umm, I don’t mind grabbing pizza,” Jodi offered, not at all surprised when the men ignored her.
“When you fuck this up, and you will, you better not take me down with you,” Darrin bit out, staring his brother down.
“I’m not the one who’s going to fuck this up,” Danny said, almost nose to nose with his brother now.
Sighing, she glanced over her shoulder, calculating the cost of a taxi ride back to the hotel, when a throat cleared. “How many?”
She looked back to find the cashier eying the two large brothers nervously.
“One,” Darrin said tightly just as Danny bit out, “Two.”
Sighing, Jodi rubbed her temples as she resigned herself to the long night ahead.
“Tinkerbelle?”
No response.
“Sweetheart?”
She shook her head, but at least it was a sign of life. “Sweetheart, we have to leave. They’re closing up now.”
Squeezing her eyes shut tighter, Jodi shook her head. He sighed as he knelt down in front of the booth and reached for her, only to have her back away from him. He sighed heavily as he dropped his hand.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” Danny said, having absolutely no idea what to say to make this right for her.
“J-Just give me a minute,” Jodi said, licking her lips as she hugged her knees tightly against her chest.
“Sir? We’re closing up,” the waitress, one of the few waitresses who hadn’t run screaming when the shit hit the fan, said, shifting nervously next to him.
“We’re leaving,” Danny promised her with a smile that he hoped would reassure her that he wasn’t about to lose it like his brother and-
“Please, leave now,” the waitress whispered, shifting back away from him.
Sighing because there was nothing that he could say or do to fix this, he nodded as he reached for Jodi, who thankfully didn’t put up a fight when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her towards the door.
She grabbed onto his shirt and held on for dear life as she buried her face against his chest and released a shaky breath.
“Promise me something, Danny,” Jodi whispered against his chest as her grip on his shirt tightened.
“What’s that, Tinkerbelle?” he asked, kissing the top of her head as he walked down the sidewalk towards a line of waiting taxis.
“Promise me that it was all just a bad dream.”
“Of course, it was, Tinkerbelle,” Danny said against the top of her head, wondering if a few shots of tequila would help her suppress the memory of what happened here tonight.