No Brainer ( The Darcy Walker Series #2)

by A. J. Lape

  A nervous twitch settled in my left eye.

  “She’s even prettier,” I sighed lower, massaging my brow. “Jeezle, Dylan. How many girls did you meet today?”

  “A few,” he shrugged. You had to give props to the redhead because when he didn’t answer, she persistently dialed again.

  My mind was thinking it, and my mouth couldn’t help but say it. “I guess the end of our love affair is nearing.”

  Dylan jerked his head back like I’d just sucker punched him. “…What?” he barked surprised.

  “They’re calling already?” I tried to explain. He tilted his head in my direction with one arched eyebrow, curiosity his dominant expression.

  “Does that bother you?” he asked. Heck, yeah, I said to myself. I didn’t want to lose him.

  “I just didn’t expect it.”

  Dylan struck a key and sent the call straight to voicemail. “You had 1000 people on your Facebook page in a little less than a month, sweetheart. The people on my account and in the contact list on my cell phone I actually know.” True, I thought. The wonders of the Internet let you keep tabs on people you wouldn’t normally rub shoulders with. Hopefully, my good feelings about some of my “friends” weren’t unfounded, and they weren’t the axe murderers Dylan feared.

  “I know mine.” Sort of.

  Dylan bristled like a porcupine. “Not enough. There are about 500 people I’m going to delete personally. Men my father’s age have no good reason to be friends with a teenaged girl. That’s sick.” My body angled to touch his arm; he scooted away to keep it from happening.

  “Well, you just made friends with people you don’t know, and they’re already calling you, D. Take it from a girl, that’s far more chummy than my Facebook page.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes sarcastically. “You’re being a hypocrite.”

  “Why are you being so mean?” I asked exasperated.

  Anger flashed in his eyes, consuming him. This wasn’t good, people. Dylan didn’t get angry often, but when he did, I either laughed uncontrollably or ultimately wanted to cry. “I’m not being mean,” he snapped. “It’s just that you’re frustrating me, Darcy.”

  “D, I love you,” I swallowed. “Why are you doing this?”

  His eyes went wider than mine. “Don’t you get it, Darcy?” he said in a gentler tone. Heck, I didn’t get anything other than an ulcer.

  As I sat paralyzed like a moron, he went vertical and swiped a hand through his hair, angrily throwing the t-shirt into the corner by the TV. Almost like the purchase was a waste of time or an embarrassment. I pushed off the couch, my arms outstretched. He pulled back, denying physical contact.

  Shoot… Crap…

  I dropped my arms, confused. “I’m frustrating you? I don’t even know what I did wrong! All I did was comment about two beautiful girls, Dylan. Don’t I have a right to know?”

  Once again, he rolled his eyes so high they might as well have been stitched to his hairline. “Do you have Kyd’s number on your phone?” he barked.

  Headed south.

  Just pack your bags, the conversation’s headed south.

  Like the idiot that I am, I freeze. A fact I blame on being stoned on cookies.

  “No comeback?” Dylan snorted.

  “He’s my brother,” I whispered.

  Dylan paced over to the television, turned it on … turned it off … then pivoted and jutted his finger angrily in my face. “I’m sorry,” he sneered sarcastic. “I totally forgot that he had his hands all over his new sister’s behind yesterday. Her string-bikinied behind, I might add.”

  Wow. Wow. Wow.

  I thought I’d successfully dodged that conversation with the discovery of Howie’s head. Evidently, Dylan held a grudge. “He wasn’t successful,” I muttered.

  “Oh, he felt success,” Dylan grated out. His eyes darted out the window in the direction of Kyd’s home. Dear God, I prayed. He was ready for round two.

  I whispered, “It didn’t mean anything to me.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” he spat. “Honestly, Darcy, why can’t you see what he’s up to? It’s disrespectful to you, and frankly disrespectful to me.”

  “So you’re more worried about you?!”

  “No!” he screamed, adamantly shaking his head. “I’m just completing the thought!”

  My lips went numb. Dylan and I never fought—not like this—and this was our second blowout in the past four months. The first was over Brynn Hathaway—a girl who’d had him on her radar since junior high—who’d practically landed on top of his mouth and sucked out his soul. In all fairness, you could add fastard Liam Woods to the mix. Liam, however, was out of the picture, and unfortunately, my fastard magnet self had now attracted Kyd.

  “Well, here’s a thought for you,” I stated, feeling the beginnings of anger. “If it’s any consolation, he didn’t have his hands on my behind today. In fact, he was nice, encouraging, and extremely understanding.” Okay, so he tried to kiss me three times but backed off when I ultimately sprouted feathers and clucked like a bird.

  Dylan scrubbed a hand down his jaw, pointing to the floor angrily. “He was here? In my house? Why didn’t you tell me?” The climate in the room transformed from a sweet homecoming, to one of torqued-off teenage angst. He wanted to body-slam me; I wanted to ram his head through a glass table.

  I pointed a shaking finger in his face. “I didn’t have a chance to! Both girls called past midnight, Dylan, so talk of my day was usurped by the party you obviously had!”

  Dylan’s eyes flashed with an emotion I’d never seen. It wasn’t pain, it wasn’t anger, but it definitely contained a remnant of both. He ran a thumb under the strap of my tank top, tugging it, then releasing it in angered frustration. “Were you dressed like this?”

  Currently, I was dressed for bed, wearing ocean blue boxer shorts and a matching spaghetti-strapped tank. My hair was in a halfway down ponytail. My glasses were smudgy, and to top it all off, I had chocolate milk and cookie breath. Add a pair of blue wool socks, and you weren’t talking silver-screened siren; you were talking two-year-old kid.

  “No!” I answered confused. “I’m dressed for counting sheep!”

  I stepped backwards. Dylan immediately stepped forward, giving me a proprietary glance.

  “Exactly what did you do and how close did you get?” Dylan’s eyes raked across the floor looking for evidence of something. There was no drug paraphernalia, no movie ticket stubs from first-time dates, no nothing except a girl who’d been debating whether she had the energy to brush her teeth or boycott it altogether.

  “For God’s sake!” I now screamed. “We played video games and putted a golf ball!”

  He lowered his gaze with a no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy look. “He wants to do more than putt a golf ball, Darcy. He wants to be me.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Yes, he does,” he said louder.

  “Hold on, Attila the Hun. I offered a long time ago to make you my brother. It’s not my fault that you repeatedly refuse.”

  Dylan expelled a string of expletives, his voice coming out in a brutal growl. “The last thing I’ll ever be is your brother, Darcy. This whole situation is absurd. I warned you about his type, and if memory serves me correctly, you swore that you understood. That’s a lie, and I absolutely hate it when you lie to me.”

  I grabbed a handful of his shirt, squeezing it between my fist. “Listen, bud, you don’t own me, and I never swore to you that I wouldn’t talk to him again. Plus, it’s not like we don’t know what those girls are after. You just met them. Obviously, they thought it was okay to call, and why wouldn’t they? You told them to smile and say freaking cheese!!”

  I shouldn’t care what he did, who he did, whether it was Rated-G or hard-core porn. But dang it, why did I??

  All we did was demolish the other with our eyes. Dylan eyed a football that Zander had left on the floor. He gave it a swift boot, ricocheting it off the wall. It knocked over a lamp
that by guestimate cost close to a thousand dollars. When realization hit what he’d done, he thundered over, picked it up, and verified that it had shattered. One of two things was going to happen. Dylan would feel remorse and perch the lamp back on the end table, or Dylan would feel remorse and launch it again. After one long pause of deliberation, he torpedoed it up against the wall where it left a divot the size of a softball. Drywall and plaster crinkled to the ground like a bucket of spilled marbles.

  “Well, my phone calls aren’t dates!” he spat back. I flinched and jumped backwards like I’d stepped into a bear trap. “Do you want me to delete their information?”

  My face said yes, but my mouth said, “No.”

  “How magnanimous of you to concede like that,” he deadpanned sarcastically. “You usually only concede when you’re guilty of something, Darcy. Exactly what are you guilty of? Did he kiss you? Did you wait until I left to jump right in with both feet?” he marked in air quotations. “I know you’re remarkably clever, but honestly, this is a little low even by your standards.”

  Any residual hurt was now officially extinguished. I missed him today. So much so that I napped in his room to merely smell his sheets. My thoughts surprised me.

  “It wasn’t even a date!” I screamed. “I feel like you’re punishing me for something, Dylan. Tell me what I did, and I’ll apologize!”

  “Can you tell me why Kyd came over here last night?” he asked. “And I don’t buy the fact that he was checking on you after you found the head. You were the least affected.”

  Oh, the cluster conundrum I was in. Tell the truth, I’m busted that I used Kyd for information; don’t tell the truth, I’m deeper into an argument I don’t even understand. I’m amazed that what I thought was a tender moment last night meant nothing when he opened his eyes this morning. The answer was, he thought Kyd and I had some lurid, secret affair going on. Granted, it felt like that today, but a relationship with Kyd was the least of my concerns.

  “It’s not what you think,” I gulped.

  “Then give me a reason to think something else,” he said, his voice losing some of its edge. “If it was so innocent, couldn’t you have talked to me about it? We’re friends, sweetheart. Best friends. We talk … at least, we used to.”

  In the blink of an eye, Dylan’s anger suddenly abated. Just went way … poof, kaput, gone. His chin quivered, and he looked like he’d break in two with the vulnerability. I shook my head. Scratched the back of my neck. Dylan was nothing but raw passion, but this unusual display of emotion had surprised even me. He was up. He was down. His heart beating on the outside of his chest. My God, he had PMS.

  “You’re torturing me,” he whispered, “don’t you understand?”

  Duuuuuude. Still don’t really get it.

  I opened my mouth, closed it, and then realized whatever I said would probably make things worse. If I thought I understood the spectrum of emotions that could encompass an argument, I was sorely mistaken. I’d gone from shock, to anger, to desperately wanting to wipe the tears that now fell freely down his face.

  My words were gravel in my throat. “D, why are you crying?”

  “I’m not crying,” he refuted, frustration returning. Guys didn’t cry like this … especially not in front of girls. His chest heaved as if an elephant sat on it and smothered his last breath. Had I seen Dylan cry before? Sure, but it wasn’t to this extent nor something I’d ever advertise. Dylan’s expression was that his world was ending, and he’d fight to the bitter end to keep that from happening.

  His chin trembled more. “Tears are flowing down your cheeks, D,” I whispered.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but immediately a thought pummeled me that whatever he intended to say would be a half-truth. “Listen—” he said softly.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I dumbly interrupted.

  Dylan looked like I’d smacked him. “Wow,” he said with disbelief, “when did you get so cold?”

  Someone other than me started working my mouth. “Me, cold?” I retorted. “Well, you weren’t much into goodbyes this morning, now were you?”

  Dylan slowly lifted his chin, stubbornly. I’d lost the argument—or conversation—or whatever the heck it was that we were doing. I’d bated him back into debate, and nothing short of a zombie attack was going to stop him from making his point.

  He took another step toward me. “Evidently, I need to spell it out to you. Kyd’s after you, Darcy, and why wouldn’t he be? You fascinate people. You’re beautiful, unpredictable, and smart,” he said, pointing to Atlas of the Stars. “That’s not exactly what I’d call a beach read, but on this one, you’re being so dumb,” he emphasized, “I don’t even know what to say. He has a damn girlfriend. You did this with Liam Woods. You’re going for guys that are already taken. Don’t you think you deserve someone that considers you the ultimate catch?”

  “I don’t really want to be caught,” I mumbled.

  “So you just like the attention?” he asked wide-eyed.

  Whaaa...? Huh? No!!

  I was just using them, I wanted to scream, but Dylan would never understand that. That was the difference between us. I had no problem keeping secrets. Dylan, however, liked to live so honestly it was sometimes unpractical … at least in my world.

  I longed to touch him but balled my fingers into a fist to talk myself out of it. I could’ve shut him up a hundred different ways—tickle him, tackle him, shake him … kiss him. Strange, that the latter seemed the most enticing.

  Instead, I opened my big, fat mouth and took the argument to the highest level of stupid. “Is it time to move on?” I choked out. “Just say it, Dylan. We both knew this day would come.”

  Whatever I said, it wasn’t the explanation or dialogue Dylan had hoped for. Where he’d cried in frustration earlier, his eyes were now a teary mask of pure anger—anger that he intended on stoking until it blew the whole dang place up. He closed the gap between us, the air crackling with passion about to pop. One moment I thought he’d throw me to the floor and devour me; the other, I was convinced he’d bend me over his knee. Three words came to mind: Behavior. Never. Lies. Something was definitely boiling between us—outside of the argument—and it would never go away until we explored it or beat it out of one another. And I didn’t think that would include a hug or sweet, tender kissing, either. It would be a raging forest fire. One fire ignites, and you think you’ve got it under control, only for another to spring to life somewhere else. Trouble with passion like that, it either illuminates your world or burns itself out. When the last ember cracks, you open your eyes and wonder what happened to all of those pretty, little trees.

  “Darcy,” he started.

  The way he said my name, like a desperate prayer, turned my stomach … I’ve hurt him as much as he’s hurt me.

  “Don’t,” I begged, pushing both my hands against his chest. For once, I’m not the motormouth that won’t shut up. Where before I was struck with the feeling that whatever he said would be a lie, now I knew it would be the cold, hard truth. A truth that my churning gut said I wasn’t ready to hear.

  Dylan ignored my wishes, his tears resurrecting themselves in torrential waves. “Interpret this as you will, Darcy,” he finally seethed, staring down in my face. “The contacts I made today were players, one coach, cheerleaders, and a few girls rushing a sorority. But if you continue to make our relationship a threesome with people like Liam Woods or Kyd Knoblecker, then consider me moved on. Consider me so frigging moved on you can’t remember what I look like.”

  I tried not to let it sting, but it felt like a honeybee just zapped me with its tail. A cry strangled in my throat, and I quickly turned to view his grandfather leaning up against the wall who’d overheard part—if not all—of the entire exchange. Lincoln pressed his gaze over my shoulder, and if Dylan could’ve turned into stone, one blink from his grandfather would’ve left him fossilized. What the freak was that? Can someone tell me what the freak that was??

  “Take a walk,
son!” he growled, his brows creased and fists flexed.

  I didn’t have to turn around to see if Dylan walked away; my heart felt him leave the room.

  I needed an excuse to explain why I was currently a simpering, dimwitted idiot. Heck, maybe I needed an excuse for myself. The quickest thing that came to mind was Cisco who was probably crying more than me.

  “I s-s-s-saw him Lincoln,” I whispered, voice cracking with emotion, “I r-re-ally did.”

  He pulled me to his chest, curling a finger under my chin, tilting it upwards. “I believe you, kiddo. But is there anything else that we need to discuss?” I just shook my head, surrendering to the tears I’d been holding at bay.

  The crux of the matter? I was losing my best friend.

  After I did my thing in the bathroom, I curled up on the couch and eavesdropped on Lincoln talking to Paddy. The only thing good that came out of the day was I knew Cisco was alive and the name of the national crime database was NCIC. Come Hell or high water, I was going to get my hands on it. So while plans of mischief occupied one side of my brain, the other was plagued with the uncertainty with Dylan. What in the heckity heck had just happened? We’d never had a conversation with so many negative interjections.

  Lincoln terminated the call, looking at me. “Sit,” he murmured, motioning to the space on the couch next to him. Trudging over, I brought my blanket with me, leaving it to hang loose around my shoulders. My eyes slid to the clock on the wall: 2AM. Shoot, I was fried.

  “I made some calls for you today,” he murmured.

  My mood perked up. “You did?”

  Lincoln narrowed his eyes, almost offended. “You’re the sharpest kid I know, dear. If you said you saw him, you saw him.” Sharpest? Not really. Nosiest? No doubt about it.

  Pulling my legs up to my chest, I folded my arms around them and hunkered down, all ears. “Spill it.”