100 Proof Stud (The Darcy Walker Series) (21 page)

“Do you really want to date around?” he asked softly.

“No” was in my mind, but “maybe” came out of my mouth. “I don’t even like you,” I lied as I
still
rubbed his chest. “In fact, I hope you rot in the Land Down Under. And I don’t mean where baby kangaroos frolic happily.”

Dylan gave me the full weight of his gaze. Deep emotions resided there along with truths he longed to utter. Not even a sigh on his part. “You more than like me, sweetheart. Therein lies your problem.”

“I would agree that you’re a problem.”

A teeny-tiny grin. “Then explore it, Darcy. Date me too.”

I had to take a moment. We both did because he appeared to have unleashed something that’d finally set him free. Dylan had never considered himself a pinch hitter, so this was completely out of character and bizarre on a level that had no name. But a date with him would be tantamount to holy matrimony. It would mean forever—but the inevitable divorce would come, and then who would there be to pick up the pieces?

“I’ve had other dates, Darc,” he said. “I’ve told you as much, but as I’ve lain here with you—
anytime
I’m with you—I feel more intimate than I ever have with anyone else. I know our relationship has always crossed the normal boundaries of best friends, but give me a chance. Give me a chance to show you it can be something more. Something that’s getting harder and harder for me to deny.”

The moron in me asked, “Is that allowed?” Dylan had stuck by me when a lesser man would’ve run: through puking, PMS, crying so fierce I either needed a sedative or shot of whiskey. For some reason, he kept coming back. But come on—was it wise to navigate the choppy waters of friends dating friends? We were polar opposites. He was a morning person; I was a night owl. He ate healthy; I didn’t give a crap. He knew important people; I knew the gutter trash. And even bigger than the differences, I had the overwhelming fear he’d rip my heart out of my chest, shove it in a blender, and hit shred.

And if he did? Would the best friendship end as fallout?

Let me play devil’s advocate here—um, yeah.

Dylan’s face was as pure and honest as I’d ever seen. “It’s our lives,” was his answer. “Anything is allowed we agree upon.”

“You’d do that?” I said in awe.

“Darcy, I want to give you what you want, but I won’t let you leave my life altogether.”

My chin trembled. I scrunched up my eyes…ears…heart. Dylan’s words usually cut through the noise, but my chest tightened up in a panic attack.

He leaned his forehead into mine, angling his lips to my ear. “Shh,” he murmured, “I feel your panic. If this is the only way for us to end up together, then I want you to do what you have to do in order to get to that place.”

Unfortunately—or rather,
fortunately
for my libido—Dylan didn’t stop there. He slowly trailed his mouth down my throat, making the circuit under my chin until his lips hovered at my other ear. “Can you do that?” he asked.

I pulled on my feline and purred…
purred, for Pete’s sake!

Time dragged at a snail’s pace before I crawled out of the Dylan lovin’ and found my voice. “I must admit you have nice…jeans,” I said, meaning his rear. “And a nice…shirt,” I added, hinting of his muscled torso. “But I don’t think that’s enough to pull me away from this glorious life of a wallflower.” He met my eyes with a deep grin. “This is not the competitive Dylan I know,” I whispered, wondering where my best friend had gone.

“I asked for this, Darc, so I’m down with your decision, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Dylan’s straight talk was sometimes hard to stomach. Here’s the crux of the problem. If I followed through and dated someone else, I’d hurt him. If I didn’t and jumped right into a relationship with my best friend, then that meant I’d be opening my heart up for a hurt too big to handle. I’d loved and lost before and barely made it out alive. I needed to call this off…but oddly a veto didn’t materialize from my mouth.

“All right,” I sighed.

Dylan grasped me by the shoulders, his fingernails digging deep into my flesh. The amber in his eyes lit up to glowing, a gaze full of triumph and swagger. “Yeah?” he grinned.

“Yeah,” I grinned back.

Sweet God on the Great White Throne. My head nodded enthusiastically in agreement. We were going to date—well, as soon as I got said hypothetical boys out of my system—but I couldn’t shake the feeling we were finito before anything even started.

Dylan remained undeterred. “Okay, if we do this, I have one rule. It’s complete honesty. At all times.”

“Even where Brynn is concerned?” I surprisingly asked.

His brows furrowed, almost as if he’d been shocked Brynn even popped in my mind. “Absolutely,” he reiterated. “The rules between us don’t change. I pray they never change.”

Dylan switched gears, something else now on his mind. “That being said, I’m gonna slip on my best friend hat. You go on this date, and if you ever feel uncomfortable—even in the slightest—you call me, and I’ll come to get you? Yeah?”

It felt like someone parked the Smoky Mountains on my chest.

It was one thing to say I’d date other people. It was something else to talk about it so openly with Dylan, let alone execute. Dylan acted as if our “future relationship” was a fait accompli. Right now, I wasn’t sure what to do with that, so I did the usual…nothing.

His hand slid under my head, tunneling his fingers in the hair at the base of my neck. When he parted his lips to speak, I cut him off. “I’m trouble,” I whispered.

“I know,” he grinned cockily.

“I might hurt you.”

“You won’t.” The voltage between us piped up a notch, and his smug grin grew wider. Wicked. Dylan knew the effect he had on me, and as much as I tried to act nonchalant, my heart beat out of my chest. A fact I’m pretty sure he felt against his. “I’ve never lost anything, sweetheart, and I don’t intend on starting now.” I knew this to be true. “So you can go on these experimental dates. You can even have a soul baring and enriching conversation for all I care, but in the end…
I win
. But the moment I hear anyone lays a hand on you, we’ve got a problem.”

I hitched my chin up a notch, suddenly wanting to push his buttons. “What if I want them to lay a hand on me?”

His voice turned low, lethal. And what hair he’d captured in his hand was now held firmly in his fist. “Surely to God you aren’t that stupid.” With that statement, he kissed the top of my head and pushed off the couch, stalking right out the door. Not even a GTG face.

And dang, if his butt didn’t look good strutting away.

12. The Island of Misfit Toys

D
etention came quicker than a
forest fire in the dead of a California summer. Detention usually held a shroud of secrecy if you were on the outside looking in. But since Coach Wallace was close to Grumpy and me, he gave us a heads up that our punishment—or rehabilitation—was to do homework and paint a section of the cafeteria that needed a face-lift. Can I get a what-what??!! If anyone would gripe about how this painting job wasn’t as fun as their last gig (translation: Coach’s car), my guess was I’d found the proper venue.

Murphy referred to detention as The Island of Misfit Toys. How fitting that one of my brothers was stranded here with me.

Where I was stoked for the entire detention experience, Grumpy seemed petrified of the possibilities. Even though his fate wasn’t technically at my hands, I’d searched all week for an act of atonement. I eventually told him I’d help him land Clementine as a date for our Winter Formal. This at least produced a smile, and on some weird plane I think he believed detention would make him look like a bad-boy.

Maybe Clementine was the bad-boy type.

At seven forty, he puttered up the driveway in his clunker Ford pick-up truck. It was at least two decades old and at one time had been navy. The passenger side door had been T-boned; the silver bumper hung by not enough bolts. Both of us dressed in old sweatshirts—mine white, his gray—with ratty jeans that looked like a werewolf had slashed into shreds. I’d added a baby blue crocheted beanie, going for a hipster look. Grumpy added—heck, nothing.

“This feels like a date, Grumpy,” I told him as I sat down. Coupledom wasn’t a category I’d ever place him in. Out of all my brothers, he was the closest one to blood…as dysfunctional as that sounded.

He shot over a dark look. “Shut up, Walker. This will be the
last time
I wind up on the wrong side of the law with you.” Funny, I had a feeling we’d be dodging the wrong side of the law for the rest of our lives.

My iPhone rang, and a peek at the number showed my best friend’s gorgeous smile. “Crap,” I muttered, shoving the screen in Grumpy’s face. He shook his head, calling Dylan an enabler.

“I’m cuffed and in the back of the squad car,” was my greeting.

Silence for a beat. “Darcy,” he started, and then I registered he was scarily formal.

“Yes, Master?”

“Do exactly as you’re told, sweetheart. Don’t make waves, and do
not
,” he repeated sternly, “crack an off-color joke. The guys running the show might not have a sense of humor. Just shut up and take the punishment. Yeah?”

Dylan acted as though he’d be leaving a nuclear bunker unsecure. Seriously, that felt about right. “I’ll try,” I answered, “but when I’m nervous I say stupid things.”

There was a moment when Dylan probably debated how to keep that from happening. But it was a given, like death and taxes. “Darcy,” he pleaded again. “I’m here to talk to if there’s something that’s bothering you. Let me share some of the burden.”

Sheesh, that’s
like a please-let-me-have-your-baby chat. What sixteen-year-old guy says ‘share the burden?’ I’ll tell you who: the guy who’s headlining every girl’s naughty dreams at night, that’s who.

“There’s nothing to share,” I muttered.

“Then please conform. Just this once.”

Dylan had a great morning voice: husky, raspy, and sex hopped up on sex. If I could bottle it and sell it to the terrorists, it just might be the answer to world peace. I could do without his running commentary on my life, though. In fact, I woke in a total mind squeeze when I remembered what we’d spoken of earlier. The we’re-dating-once-you-conduct-a-science-experiment convo. Dylan had stripped his soul bare, and it wasn’t a hey-let’s-hook-up conversation. He said I meant more to him than anyone
ever
had and honestly wasn’t intimidated by the prospect of other guys. In fact, his cocky self appeared humored when he claimed he’d already won. And even though I knew he genuinely cared—and we’d danced around this issue in the past—being direct had been so intense…

I seriously peed my pants a little.

I sighed, “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“One more thing. Swear to me you don’t have an ulterior motive here. I know you didn’t ask to be ambushed, but something smells wrong. You’re unusually quiet—at least with me. Swear to me you aren’t working one of your little schemes because nothing makes sense…except
that
. Pinky swear,” he growled.

All my ventures were filtered through the how-not-to-get-caught paradigm. Dylan was the main obstacle. Problem was, I’d rather chew a kill-pill than deal with broody Dylan, but I wouldn’t lie and pinky swear. I didn’t have many standards, but that one I’d never manipulate.

“Call you later,” I whispered, hurrying up and cutting the call.

“How was the conversation with Taylor?” Grumpy asked.

I gnawed on my pinky nail. “Rainbows and roses,” I joked.

“I gathered that. Talk,” he demanded. “Sounds to me like you’re up to something, and he’s already figured it out.”

I gave him my if-I-tell-you-I’m-going-to-have-to-kill-you face. He wasn’t buying it. I spit my decimated pinky nail in his direction. He tried to dodge, but it stuck to his right arm. Yeah, take that, ponkey. “Okay,” I mumbled, “but what I tell you is under the brotherhood clause.”

“Right,” he muttered, rolling his eyes, flicking off the nail. “Blah, blah, blah, chicken dance stupid stuff; yada, yada, yada, I’m a damn idiot.”

I held back nothing…

Just went from A to Z and let it all hang out.

Grumpy muttered, “You’re not joking.”

“No,” I confirmed and explained I was after the reward Tito swore was coming. Unfortunately, he had an entrepreneurial side I wasn’t aware of. He narrowed his eyes, countering, “If I help find this ghost guy, I want twenty-five percent.”

Probably fair, and my nervously beating heart said I may need some muscle in my corner anyway. Grumpy turned off Valley Lane and slowly drove into the school parking lot, pulling his clunker into a spot close to the entrance. The warm front we’d been hearing about moved in last night, and by all predictions, the high today would be low-to-mid 40s, practically a heat wave. Snow still covered the ground, but it wouldn’t last for long. As a result, the air smelled like a big fishbowl. We held hands across the melting slush, neither of us uncomfortable by the unnatural show of affection. Now that we were here, it’s like we wanted to hang onto something familiar.

And let’s face it. We’d been marked.

A big, white placard had been posted at the front of the building that said “Detention” with a black arrow underneath. It brought to mind one of those fancy dinners where a prominent sign, seen upon arrival, pointed you to the desired destination.

You know, detention…an A-list affair for a D-list crowd.

We’d been banished to one of the classrooms teaching sophomore geometry. Chairs were arranged in four lines, five seats to a row. The room had a sterile, antiseptic feeling, with a sickening Lysol smell wafting in the air. Then again, that could’ve been a flashback to failure; I didn’t have one good memory regarding geometry. I’d been sick in there the whole dang year.

“Hola, amigos,” I laughed when I strode through the door.

AP Unger and Coach Wallace were onsite. Both stared daggers sharp enough to nick skin and didn’t find the greeting creative or remotely funny.

“Hello, sirs,” I amended grinning.

“Walker, this is where you’re supposed to act offended to be here,” Coach Wallace frowned.

Now it was my turn to stare. “Why should I act offended?” I asked. “Principal Ward is the screwup, not me.”

Down, mouth, down.

Coach Wallace opened his jaw…shut it.

AP Unger did the same.

AP Unger stood a little taller than me. His gray, wiry hair reminded me of an Irish Wolfhound, especially beside his black, piercing eyes. His nose and cheekbones were sharp, like they’d been chiseled from flint. And as usual, he was in a navy suit. Why he insisted on a navy suit was beyond me, but half the time he looked like he should be on the President’s security detail or a pallbearer at a funeral.