No Brainer ( The Darcy Walker Series #2) (10 page)

My heart went atwitter, and I blinked back the haze of confusion. Why did I want to crawl inside my best friend’s eyes? Problem was, whenever he got bossy I found myself acting like the head of the class in canine school. All barky and sitting on command. A few blinks later, I decided to embrace the inevitable. Dylan didn’t want me to go … ergo, my spine became Jell-O.

“I’m sorry, Kyd,” I muttered. “The answer is no.”

Kyd turned smooth operator, echoing Dylan’s question. “Are you sure about that?”

My mind dropped anchor, all operations on standby. I didn’t possess the skills to even have this conversation because when I looked back at Dylan, every inch of my body started thrumming.

Huh … weird.

“I, um,” I scratched my head. “It’s just,” I said, gazing over toward Dylan. “Well, we
always
,” I started again. “It’s just one of those thingys, Kyd,” I blurted out.

“One of those thingys,” he laughed.

“Yeah, one of those thingys.”

Kyd’s face ripened with determination, his jaw setting high, while his blue-green eyes tempted you with everything immoral. “Let’s take this thing slowly,” he grinned. “Come over for Daddy’s annual crawfish boil tonight. Sevenish.”

A sound of pure bliss rolled out of Colton. “Crawfish boil?” he murmured with a smile. One thing about Colton, he’d eat anything you’d place in front of him. I’d seen him devour the gonads of a sea urchin.

“N’awlins style,” Kyd drawled out. “One hundred pounds of fresh crawfish arrived this morning. Plus, we’ll have all things deep-fried, Cajun, Creole, and jazz. My parents would love to entertain all of you, and once a year is not enough for Miss Legs, and it
is
,” he emphasized, nodding toward Dylan, “
Miss
.”

Dylan grunted, “I’m surprised you understand the term, Kyd. Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

And that, in itself, lit the fire to this conversation in the first place.

Your move, Kyd.

Kyd
did
have a girlfriend—an unbelievably pretty girlfriend. Best friend of his sister, Yankee, and notoriously jealous. But they were an on-again, off-again kind of thing, with loads of replacements in between. For her sake, I hoped it stayed in the off-again phase. In short, that made Kyd a
fast
ard—substitute a b if you’re the cursing type. See
fast
ards weren’t just bad-boys; they were bad-boys that had a Mrs.
Fast
ard on the sly. Dylan had been waiting for the perfect moment to point that out. I’m surprised it took him so long.

Kyd looked like he was trying to understand quantum physics when he barely understood basic math. “I’d never cheat on Darcy.”

SURE, YOU WOULDN’T.

Dylan stood up, forcing Kyd to do the same. “Well, she’s not on the market. Thanks for the invite, but we’re busy.”

Colton leaned over, placing a firm hand on the back of Dylan’s thigh. Obviously, he hoped to rein him in, but the resigned and defeated look in his eyes said he didn’t think that was possible.

“No, we’re
not
busy,” his father interrupted, “Thank your parents for the invitation, Kyd. We’re looking forward to it.”

“No, we’re not,” Dylan hissed.

“Oh, Good Lord, boys,” his father sighed, frowning at them both. “Play nice.”

“My brother doesn’t want to play nice,” Sydney laughed.

“Well, he can’t kill Kyd,” Colton grumbled. “Your mother doesn’t like dead teenagers by her pool. It’s the hospitable thing to do.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop. When the air thickened with an overabundance of testosterone, Colton pushed himself out of the seat, downing the last of his iced tea. He slapped Dylan on the back. “Come on, son. Run the neighborhood with me. That flight left me a little jittery.”

Dylan fumed, “I don’t need to run. I’m actually relaxed.” He wasn’t relaxed; he was wound tighter than a steel drum bouncing on a trampoline. You know, just this side of the insane asylum.

Colton cleared his throat, and after Dylan pitched one last murderous stare in Kyd’s direction, something unknown passed over his face that immediately snapped him out of the turmoil. He bent down into my space, tenderly cupping my face in his left hand. “Listen, sweetheart, block everyone out for a second. You’re your own person, and I’d never stand in the way of your happiness. It’s just that he makes my radar beep, and I…”

Dylan’s voice was so low and mesmerizing, it vibrated. He said something else, but by God, I was stuck in the vibration. After a slow blink, he leaned in even closer and brushed our cheeks together—our version of a kiss.

The hormonal floodgates opened.

I needed to find a backbone or I needed to…

Aww, crap, I don’t know what I needed.

Colton snagged his sneakers from under his chair, quickly laced them up, and took off at a full-sprint through the side entrance. Dylan casually strutted inside, presumably to scout around for his shoes.

Sydney’s voice graveled out, “Exactly what
is
your relationship, Darcy?”

I shrugged then curled to my side. I had nothing but baby kittens and moonbeams filling up my heart where Dylan was concerned. But I wasn’t a fool. I had a feeling dating someone like him would bring me to my knees—it was absurd, it wasn’t safe, it was illogical, and I’d have to seriously reevaluate my entire belief structure. Plus, we were too diametrically opposed. He was kind, dependable, and probably a knockout in the lovemaking department. That put him light-years ahead of me on the road to happily-ever-after.

“He’s my best friend,” I told them. And I just … loved him.

Kyd frowned, adding, “Maybe you need to define those terms to Dylan. He doesn’t seem to understand them. In fact, he acts like you’re dating.”

I suppose Dylan and I
did
act like we were dating. We had routines. He brought me coffee, I brought him the sports page; he gave me his dessert, I gave him my leftovers.

Come to think of it, we didn’t act like we were dating … we acted like we were married.

7. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

S
ERENDIPITY HAD SECRETS.

Probably why the coroner was parked across the street and detectives strung yellow crime scene tape through the yard. I didn’t see what had happened, but the setting was definitely the aftermath of something deadly and momentous. The fact that it occurred at Gertrude Burr’s home didn’t shock me, either. New to Serendipity, her reputation preceded her. She was a homewrecker and left her last neighborhood in Jupiter, Florida, because she not only wrecked a marriage but the six-figure car of her adulterous lover. Legend had it the bumper was left hanging from a street sign. Evidently, women could perform miraculous feats and don superhuman strength when they were so motivated.

Two men with “Coroner” on the backs of their black jackets wheeled a stuffed body bag out on a stretcher to place in the back of a black Suburban SUV. It bounced vertically twice when it hit the sidewalk, and an arm shot up out of the zipper at ninety degrees. I nearly wet myself and quickly grabbed the binoculars I’d snatched from the study earlier. Focusing on the body, one man rested a hip on the gurney, putting the full force of his weight on the arm, coaxing it to bend. The arm contrarily wouldn’t move, so the man opposite him leaned across the stretcher, attempting to angle the arm at the elbow. The victim—hand size insinuated male—had been dead for some time because it shouldn’t have been that difficult to get it to budge. When they finally got the victim zipped in the bag, Gertrude and a tall, stately man exited the house speaking with an officer who expeditiously took dictation on a notepad.

Gertrude’s face looked hollowed out, like a skeleton that’d been scared out of its own skin. The profile of her companion appeared unusually perturbed and not what the situation called for. He was both ruthless and apathetic or had almost expected this to happen. He held himself with an exorbitant amount of self-confidence—it lay in the strong curve of his spine, the elevation of his chin, the broad expanse of his shoulders. Even though he wasn’t law enforcement, it was apparent he steered and controlled the conversation.

My curiosity grew like a malignant cancer. Did I have time for this amidst Cisco Medina and whatever the heck it was Lincoln was into?

In a word, no … but I’d make time.

Situations like this were what made me expand the roster of whom I hypothetically employed on my staff. I couldn’t be everywhere at once, and since Murphy hadn’t been willing to part with any XY chromosomes—giving me brothers I could bully around—I developed a brotherhood of my own.

I was Darcy Walker, AKA, a Cincinnati mob boss.

My life, Grand Central Station for Freaks.

Inductees into my brotherhood had a certain swagger, with an undying loyalty to all future members—my discretion, of course. We had, for lack of a better phrase, a handshake. Not a high five or secret whisper in the air, it was the modified chicken dance. It consisted of two beaky hands, two flapping of your wings, two hip shakes, then a chest bump. We looked weird (okay, we looked like certifiable boneheads), but as long as I found people willing to be crazy, it was a no-brainer.

Currently, I had four brothers, and now Zander stood in the bathroom next to me begging to join the mob.

“Let me join the coalition, Darcy,” he smiled, staring into the mirror, attempting to style his tawny-colored hair. “It’s the least I can do since I bloodied your nose.”

Removing the binoculars from my neck, I pitched them in his direction and finished flat ironing my hair. Other than a few cowlicks, my hair hung poker straight, but stylists today claimed you had to flatiron your tresses to show the extra effort. By the smell, all I did was singe the ends.

“You’re doing this
for
me?”

A deviant grin curled the edges of his lips. “I’m doing it
for
you.”

Wearing only a pair of black nylon shorts, his chest was concave and totally devoid of testosterone. I hoped things gelled together, but it didn’t look like he’d headline the girls’ locker room talk anytime soon. “What do you have to offer?” I asked.

“A lifetime of eyes and ears, spying on anything Dylan does, and who he does it with. If it’s NC-17, you’ll get all the tawdry, raunchy details in 3D and high-def. And yeah,” he chuckled, jerking his head toward the window, “I noticed the excitement, and I’m all over that.”

Adrenaline spiked through me. Praise the Lord; this was a gift from Heaven.

Lifting my shirt, I drenched my underarms with Lady Speed Stick then applied a touch of blush, saturated my lashes, and rolled on two coats of pale pink lip gloss. “Do you love me?”

“100 percent.”

“Will you keep my secrets?”

He leaned up against the doorjamb, taking two fingers, symbolically locking his lips. “Until death,” he promised.

“My other brothers?”

“Family.”

“Deal,” I said. We did the modified chicken dance … twice for good measure.

Zander jumped up and down, acting as though he’d just seen his first naked girl. Puckering his lips, he sauntered three steps closer, aiming right for my mouth. Suddenly the room felt hotter than a bonfire. This boy might only be twelve, but he threw off enough hormonal heat to warm Poland. “Do we ever get to kiss?” he moaned flirtatiously.

I had to think about that. There was a four-year age gap, and I was two months shy of sixteen.
Nah
, I quickly decided. Dylan would de-ball him; plus, it was now officially incest. “Maybe if we travel to the mountains.”

“Run that by me again?” Kyd asked confused.

What-evvvs. I explained the benefits of joining the brotherhood for the third time. Frankly, there were no benefits other than bragging rights, and bragging rights existed in my own warped, little mind. Well, that wasn’t totally true. If he needed me to have his back, I’d have it and then some.

Thing was, Kyd wanted me to have something else…

“Repeat after me,” I laughed, “Darcy’s the boss.”

“Darcy’s the boss,” he echoed. I
sooooo
wanted to say Jester, but that identity needed to remain on the down-low. When we landed, Colton reminded me his laptop belonged to me all week. Feeling industrious, I typed and re-typed a “let me explain” letter to
troyoncrime
. When I realized there was nothing to explain, I deleted it, paced the floor, and banged my head against the wall until it bruised.

Time.

Give me time, people, and I’d rock Orlando’s world.

“You’re in,” I told him.

“Is this a secret?”

“Not really,” I shrugged, but if it were true to the mob, it should be.

“I like secrets,” he moaned. “Can we seal the secret with a kiss?”

“No!” I giggled. “That’s sort of creepy.” Both of my new brothers were incestuous. If I had bylaws, that’d be the first clause included: no making out with the family.

The whole concept totally flew over Kyd’s massively touchable, blond head. “What time are you coming over?”

Kyd was killing me. He’d called three times in three hours, and this new blood tie insinuated he could step it up even more frequently.
Maybe I should go over early
, I rationalized. If anyone knew the dirty laundry in town, it would be Herbie and Minda Sue Knoblecker. Good thing because I felt slightly dirty.