No Brainer ( The Darcy Walker Series #2) (22 page)

“Nice shot,” he groaned.

I did a face-rubbing victory dance. “First question,” I said. “Do you love Mary?”

He answered easily with a nod. “Yes.”
Huh, funny way to show love
, I thought. “Question number two,” I added. “What do you want from
me
?”

Kyd drew in a sharp breath, dropping his eyes to his feet. “That’s the burning question,” he sighed.

I narrowed my eyes, wondering why the boy acted more confused than me. “Line it up,” I said.

Kyd sank the ten-foot putt like his life depended on it. Except, he didn’t immediately come up with a question. His eyes narrowed then softened, tightened again, and I got the feeling he’d insert more psychobabble. “Love can be a confusing emotion, Legs. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between friendship versus attraction versus out-of-this-world.” He paused to sigh, his eyes drowning with emotion. “Do you understand?”

Sounded simple enough. “Yeah,” I answered.

“Are you
in love
with Taylor?”

Boy, he went for the mother of all mothers, didn’t he? I laughed and held up two fingers. “That’s two questions, Kyd.”

I wasn’t sure I even knew the differences between the two anyway. The gist of it, I suppose, settled around whether you’d like to make-out with someone. I thought about that for a while and figured if I made-out with anyone, Dylan would definitely be my first choice. Trouble was, I didn’t understand “making out,” either.

Kyd balled his fists, and I almost heard him count to ten. “How is that two questions?” he barked.

Whoa, strung out to die, he was. “You asked if I understood, and I answered yes,” I explained.

Kyd gurgled some strange sounds, acting as if I’d just kicked him between the legs. “I’m guessing you can haggle well because you’re constantly working things to your advantage. Your turn,” he said in a clinical voice. “Twelve feet. If you miss, just remember you have to answer.”

I walked off twelve feet, lined the ball up, flexed my knees, and carefully tapped it toward the empty cup. The ball took the lip and rolled down the hill into the lake.

It was a little past the witching hour.

Earlier, Grandma Alexandra and I took a stroll outside attempting to right the things that were wrong in our lives. She wanted Willow home; I wanted Cisco Medina home. Neither of us possessed the immediate power to make those things happen.

Like always, when the physical exercise didn’t tame the beast in my brain, another option was to read. Right now, I lay on my stomach with my chin propped in my hands, reading
Atlas of the Stars
on the couch. For the last few hours, I’d missed Dylan terribly, and my mind worked double time questioning: one, why he’d left without so much as a note; and two, how many hearts he’d broken in the span of a few hours.

Sure, we’d spoken briefly, but let me emphasize
briefly
. It was more a recap of what I’d seen regarding Cisco and him responding, “I see.”

And let me ask … what in the mother did “I see” mean??

I longed to regurgitate the day, first starting with Kyd. Kyd was all over me like white on rice. He’d tried to kiss me three times and—gasp—I kinda-sorta almost let him. No, I didn’t answer his question about being “in love” with Dylan. I hoodwinked him into thinking I’d tell him later when I better understood myself. Just thinking that statement made me laugh because a huge possibility existed that might mean never.

“Hey,” Dylan murmured, swaggering through the door on cue. My eyeballs stuck on pause, as muscled leg after muscled leg elegantly strut its way toward me. Who was I kidding? Kyd could have his rice. One of Dylan’s killer grins shot me right back into desperation. His dimples were deep, and when they were accompanied with sleepy, bedroom eyes, well, let’s just say I understood why good girls sometimes had bad thoughts.

“Hey, yourself,” I grinned back. I swung my feet happily back and forth like I was looking at Santa Claus.

Dylan touched his heart with a wink. “Hey, hey to you, too. I didn’t expect you to be up, but I’m happy that you are.”

Susan and Alexandra fell asleep hours ago, Sydney was connecting with her newest victim, and Zander snored underneath the pool table, holding the eight ball in his right hand. Honestly, I couldn’t explain how my eyes remained open. I was operating on three hour’s worth of sleep, but couple that with my Cisco-high, and I might not sleep tonight anyway.

Dylan wore royal blue athletic shorts and a new Florida Gators t-shirt carrying what I knew—without asking—was a duplicate one for me. The color was gray with a big, green, smiling gator in the center.

I moved my plate of cookies and chocolate milk out of the way, making room for him to settle down.

“I missed you and wanted to talk to you,” I explained. Dylan collapsed next to me with a sigh, and I automatically slid over to hug his neck.

“Ah, honey, I missed you, too,” he squeezed. “You’ve been behaving?” Not really. There was still no word from Troy, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It didn’t bother me in the least to wear him down until he listened. I couldn’t do that with Cisco, however. I had no idea which rock to turn over first.

Dylan dragged his BlackBerry and wallet out of his pocket, laying them on the glass end table beside us. Although, he planted a quick peck on my cheek, darkness settled over me, and I was reminded of the sense of foreboding I had this morning—the sense that the day wouldn’t end well.

Sheesh, it felt like a break-up was coming.

15. FASTARD MAGNET

D
YLAN SIGHED, BRIEFLY CLOSING HIS
eyes. “Darcy, we need to…”

Right then, his BlackBerry vibrated, and as I leaned over to retrieve it, the picture of an unbelievably cute blonde flashed with each ring. She had big blue eyes, a smile even bigger, and my guess was the rest of her attributes were bigger still. At the end of the day, Dylan was a guy. Guys liked boobs. Guys liked butts. It was a law of the universe.

“She’s pretty,” I whispered, reluctantly placing it in his palm. He declined the call, but not even ten seconds later his cell jingled again. Another girl. Redheaded. And by the flirty look in her eyes, she had an attitude (and the skills) that knew how to make a guy smile.

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
fast
ard Liam Woods to the mix. Liam, however, was out of the picture, and unfortunately, my
fast
ard 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!”