LOVE ‘EM(65)
“Yup, it has.” I tap her case with my toe. “All right. I think you’re ready. You want to ask Danny to haul these downstairs?”
She heads out, but stops at the door. “About Danny…”
I twist my fingers behind my back. “Yeah?”
“Look, I know you two don’t really get along, but—well, he doesn’t have many friends here during the summers. Could you please hang out with him some? It’s the first break he and I won’t spend together.”
My gaze darts around the room, avoiding her pleading eyes. “I don’t know, Rach. He doesn’t like me. And honestly, I—”
“It’s not that he doesn’t like you, Mo. He’s just—you know, awkward with girls.”
“Awkward? With girls?” Is she blind? Can she not hear him through the walls when he’s entertaining company? “Really, Rach. He’s anything but. How have you not noticed the string of girls he’s paraded through the house since he came home?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve seen them. But those girls are simple. Okay, so I guess you could say he’s awkward with real girls, not those plastic types who don’t have a thought in their head or any substance to their character. It’s easy for him with them because he doesn’t have to think about it.”
Yeah, I bet he wasn’t thinking all that much two days ago while he screwed one of those girls in the downstairs hallway.
I roll my shoulders trying to rid them of the tension bunching my muscles. “It probably doesn’t matter. I don’t imagine he’s going to have a lot of free time.”
“But you’ll hang out with him if he’s alone, right? I don’t want him to be lonely.”
I shrug and lie to my best friend. “Sure. Whatever. Let’s get you to the airport.”
* * *
I hug Rachel for the third time since we unloaded her cases from the trunk. “I can’t believe you’ll be gone until the end of August.”
She squeezes me for a second, and then pushes away, rubbing her finger under her eye. “Summer never lasts all that long anyway. I’ll be home before you know it.”
I have to get out of here before I cry in front of Danny. “Okay then, we don’t want to make you late. Be careful and don’t catch malaria or some other crazy disease.”
Lush, sandy brown hair falls over her shoulder. “I had all the vaccinations. All of them. If they’d have jabbed me once more, I’d enter myself into the world record book as the first human pin cushion.”
She turns to Danny. I inspect my fingernails, trying not to stare as he wraps her in a bear hug. Seems for the last three summers all I’ve done is try not to gawk at him. And failed.
Forever. Failing.
He’s always been good looking. Growing up, he had nice skin, good coloring, and beautiful eyes. But when he came home two summers ago, his back covered with tats and his entire body ripped like an MMA fighter, he’d changed. Now, all I can do is stare.
Thank heaven for sunglasses; they hide a multitude of sin. That’s what David, Rach’s dad, would call this sick attraction I have for his son. Sins of the flesh.
My flesh flushes just looking at Danny’s long fingers and the veins crisscrossing the backs of his hands and trailing up his muscular arms, much less his abs or his back—those little dimples above his waistband. The scene in the hallway pops into my mind and I shake off the goose bumps prickling my arms.
I have to stop this. It’s ridiculous.
When Danny sets Rachel on her feet, he grabs her backpack and helps her put it over her shoulders. “Got your ticket?”
She nods.
“Passport?”
She gives him her are-you-kidding-me look. “Really? You don’t think I can remember my passport?”
He ignores her question. “Ear buds?”
Rach cringes. “Aw, man. I knew I was forgetting something.”
He digs into his pocket and pulls out a wad of white, tucking it into her hand. “Take these. It’s a helluva long flight to get stuck listening to someone’s kid scream or some guy snoring his ass off.”
Rachel frowns. “Language.”
Language. Yeah. That’s gonna work.
Danny grins at her and winks at me. “You’re right. Dad probably heard me all the way from Cancun.”
“Mom’s in recovery; Dad went to support her. Stop already. It wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more compassionate.”
“My ass. This is Mom’s fourth trip to rehab in two years. They’re vacationing and it’s a medical write off. Open your eyes, Sis.”
He runs his fingers through his hair. It’s weird how they have the same color hair, the same glass green eyes, and yet they’re so completely opposite. If they didn’t look alike, I’d barely think they were related, much less twins.