Chapter 34
“So…” Ethan said, facing the small woman watching him curiously and having absolutely no idea what to say to the woman that his son was obviously head over heels in love with.
She blinked adorably up at him.
Just blinked.
“Have you ever been to Disneyworld before?” he asked, just to break the increasingly awkward silence.
Nothing.
“We brought Danny here when he was two, but shortly after that, the ban started,” Ethan said, expecting a comment or question about the ban, but instead, she simply stood there, blinking and starting to freak him out a little bit.
“When they finally lifted the ban a few months ago, Mary decided that it was time to bring the kids down here. We-”
“Why do you hate Danny so much?” Jodi suddenly asked, startling the hell out of him.
“I don’t hate him,” Ethan said, blinking down at the small woman.
“You don’t talk to him,” she said, blinking up at him curiously.
He rubbed his hands roughly down his face as he admitted, “I don’t know what to say to him.”
“You don’t look at him.”
He sighed heavily, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t put Aidan in a headlock and threatened to beat him within an inch of his life if he didn’t tell him where Danny was staying.
“I look at him,” Ethan said, wondering when the medicine was going to kick in and knock this small woman out and put him out of his misery.
“No, you don’t,” Jodi simply said, not sounding mad but curious. “Why?”
He chuckled without humor as he double-checked to make sure the door was locked and then walked past the small woman, pausing only long enough to pat her on the head simply because he couldn’t help himself, and sat on the couch. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Why?”
He rubbed his hands down his face and leaned back against the couch as he studied her. “Will you remember any of this in the morning?” Ethan asked, watching as the small woman walked over to the bed, sat down with a wince.
“Remember what in the morning?” Jodi asked, looking adorably confused.
Chuckling, Ethan asked, “Has Danny ever told you how he ended up a Marine?”
She shook her head, cringed, and flopped down onto her side with a little sigh.
“Danny was a cocky kid, but a good kid. I never had to ask him to help his mother or look after his brothers and sister. He always got good grades. Didn’t do drugs.
Never caused any real problems, and then…
” Ethan looked off, shaking his head, still unable to believe how badly he’d screwed everything up.
“Then, the first time he’d fucked up, seriously fucked up, I lost it.
He’d scared the hell out of me and I reacted poorly.
I was so determined to make sure that he never did anything that stupid ever again and I ended up making everything worse.
I dragged the poor kid out of the ER and made him take his SATs when he should have been taking it easy and getting an earful from his mother.
Instead, I pushed him and when he fucked up his SATs, I kept pushing him.
I was so goddamn angry that he did something so fucking stupid that could have cost him his life,” Ethan ground out, flexing his fists and wishing like hell that he could go back to that morning when he’d found his son barely breathing on the bathroom floor and do things differently.
“When he joined the Marines…” Ethan paused, taking a deep breath as he locked his trembling hands together, “I was terrified for him and that didn’t stop until he was brought home three years ago when they shipped his body back to the States.
Then my terror turned into something that there are no words to describe. ”
He looked up to find her worrying her bottom lip as she watched him. “Did you know that they’d shipped him home to die?”
She shook her head against the mattress.
“He got shot saving his unit as well as a medical unit along with a truck full of patients. He should have died in the shitty hospital they’d sent him to, but his CO called in some favors and once he was stable enough to travel, they sent him home to an even shittier hospital.”
“My son was dying, Jodi, because of me,” Ethan said, rubbing his hands down his face.
“I took him out of that hospital, brought him to mine, and for the next two months, I put his body through hell to make sure that he not only lived but walked again. I kept him in a coma so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the pain and to give him a better chance to survive what we had to do to him. ”
“The best moment of my life was when he opened his eyes, but it was also the worst because I knew that there was nothing that I could say to make up for what he’d been through.”
“You love him?” Jodi asked with a sad smile.
He met her gaze head-on as he said, “More than my own life.”
“I see,” she said seconds before things took a turn for the worse and the small little woman that made his son smile for the first time in years showed him what hell on earth really looked like.
“Stop crying! Please, stop crying!”
“What the hell?” Danny mumbled hollowly, ramming his keycard in the card reader as he struggled to hold all the bags of food in his other arm.
Terrified that she somehow managed to hurt herself while he was gone, Danny shoved the door open, walked into the room and nearly tripped over his own two feet when he spotted Jodi, bundled up in a blanket and curled up on his father’s lap, crying hysterically.
“What did you do to her?” Danny demanded, dropping the bags on the coffee table so that he could kneel in front of her. He ran shaky hands over her neck and arms, looking for a reason behind those tears.
“I didn’t do anything to her!” his father yelled, sounding a bit hysterical as he handed her over to him. Danny happily took her in his arms and stood up so that he could sit on the couch next to his father.
“Shhh, Tinkerbelle, it’s okay,” Danny said, throwing his father a questioning look only to find his father blindly stuffing french fries in his mouth.
“One minute she was fine,” his father said, between shoving food in his mouth, “and the next, she was crying hysterically and wouldn’t stop!”
“I-It…it was so…sweet!” Jodi said, sobbing hysterically against his chest. “It’s so sad!”
“What’s so sad?” Danny asked, looking back at his father to see him taking a big bite out of one of the burgers he’d bought.
His father paused to shoot Jodi a nervous glance as he muttered, “Nothing.”
“So,” sniffle, “sad,” she mumbled, clutching his shirt in her small fists as she once again buried her face against his chest.
He glanced back at his father to find him chugging one of the shakes down. His father shrugged and returned to finishing off the shake while he sat there, holding Jodi and wondering what the hell he’d missed.
“Is it your mom again?” Jodi asked, shifting on her stomach so that she could look back at Danny.
He sat against the headboard, staring down at the phone in his hand. “It’s fine.”
No, it really wasn’t.
He was supposed to be here with his family, but instead, he was here, spending his vacation trapped in this hotel room with her and rubbing antibiotics on her ass.
It was really sweet, but he shouldn’t be here.
He should be spending time with his family, making his mother happy and dealing with his father.
God, it was just so sad…
“Are you crying again?” Danny asked, tossing his phone aside and quickly moving to her side to take her hand.
“No!” Jodi rushed out, turning her head quickly to the side and discreetly wiping at her eyes before she turned back around and plastered a big smile on her face. “I’m fine.”
“Do you want to rent another movie?” Danny asked, shifting on the bed so that he was lying on his stomach next to her.
“No,” Jodi said, shaking her head and refraining from telling him that she was all movied-out for the moment.
“I thought I’d read a book or take a nap,” she said, deciding that a nap would probably be the best choice since reading a book in this position wasn’t very comfortable and well, there really wasn’t anything else that she could do thanks to the rugburn on her ass.
“A book sounds like a good idea,” Danny said, nodding approvingly. “Do you want me to go find you something to read?”
“I was actually thinking about taking a nap,” Jodi said, nibbling on her bottom lip as she looked over at him, a little terrified that he was going to bring up marriage again, but thankfully, he didn’t.
“A nap sounds good, too,” Danny said, nodding.
“Well,” Jodi said, clearing her throat uncomfortably, “I was thinking that while I took a nap that it would be a good time for you to go spend some time with your family.”
He shook his head as he laced their fingers together. “I’m fine where I am,” Danny said, smiling as he leaned down and brushed his lips teasingly against hers.
She nearly whimpered when he pulled away.
After finally knowing what it felt like to really be made love to by a man, she was back to hand holding and chaste kisses that lasted less than a second and she hated it.
She wanted to kiss him, to sit on his lap, to move on to all those sexual positions that she’d never tried.
She wanted to have sex in the bed, on the couch, in a car, against the wall, in the shower.
Basically, she wanted to have sex, lots of sex with her incredibly hot boyfriend but until her ass, back, and arms were rugburn-free that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“You’re not tired,” Jodi said, sighing as she pulled her hand away from his.
He shrugged, taking her hand back. “We’ll take a nap, watch a movie, have dinner, and maybe I’ll run out to get us a few new books later,” Danny said with that charming smile that she loved, but was adding to her frustration.
“Look,” Jodi said, licking her lips, “I really appreciate you staying with me for the last few days, but you don’t have to stay here. We’re in Florida with your family and you haven’t spent any time with them because you’ve been stuck babysitting me.”
“It’s not babysitting,” Danny said with a reassuring smile that she wasn’t buying, not at all.
Her eyes narrowed on him, studying that charming smile, the lazy way that he played with her fingers and what she saw had her pulling her hand free. With a glare, she did what needed to be done.