100 Proof Stud (The Darcy Walker Series) (9 page)

I’d done something baaaaddd.

I left class a few minutes early and jogged to Coach Wallace’s office to return the file. Except when I arrived, the two students in here before were back again and all over each other. I. Mean. All. Over. Each. Other. Now I didn’t know a lot about making out—only what I’d read in romance novels I hid under my mattress—but when I saw the young girl’s tortured face, it was only by the Grace of God, I didn’t hurl the pork rinds I’d found in my locker. The guy was giving her stand-up CPR. Ahem, hands where the Good Lord didn’t intend for them to be for those that need a definition. I concluded pretty darn quickly he was the type who didn’t understand that no meant
no
.

I went coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs—wrenching my way between them, punching, pinching, and name-dropping that Dylan would kick his evil rat fastard butt. I even closed my eyes and lunged for the family jewels, but thankfully came up with air. He went tribal on both of us, grunting and pulling our hair, until he abruptly stopped and sprinted out of the room. By the time I caught my breath, my clothes were as askew as the girl’s. Shifting my undergarments back into place, the small brunette had the top of one boob showing. No lie. She stood there mouth agape, no move to cover her lady bits. I closed my eyes and did my best to shove her back in her bra, but when I squinted one eye open, she merely stared as though she tried to tell me something. Something, by the look on her face, was melodramatic and possibly an episode for
60 Minutes
.

When I said, “Just say it,” she grabbed her things and bolted for the door.

I thought that went pretty well…all things considered.

Now I was stuck with a real dilemma. As much as I tried, I couldn’t pry the file out of my own stinking hands. I decided to keep it. Anyway, a hot glue gun lay on Coach’s desk along with his wallet and stopwatch. The glue gun was still plugged in, still a fire hazard, and right there for me to abuse.

After a quick glance behind, I pumped out a stringy glob and glued his stopwatch to the desk. Surely it would come off, but then again, my impulses didn’t always afford me the luxury of thinking. Once I’d performed the deed, I boogied to the parking lot where Dylan was supposedly patiently waiting.

Except he wasn’t just waiting, now was he.

He was seated in his car, motor running, being entertained by Brynn Hathaway who’d pulled her black BMW convertible beside him. Heck, they practically had matching his-and-hers cars. Her car door slid open, and she bounced over to the driver’s side window like she was fueled by too much pep and sugar. Two things happened at once. My gag reflex kicked up a notch, but then I saw the distraction as opportunity. The opportunity? I could tell Brynn to her face I had a coffin with her name on it.

Let me take a little hop down memory freaking lane here. Called Brynn-baby by the guys who crushed on her, she’d had a thing for Dylan before his first whisker even made an appearance. She tried extra hard to make sure he noticed her too. Sporting dark jeans so tight it’s a wonder they didn’t rupture her butt, she’d paired them with thigh-high black leather boots and a black leather blazer. Not cold weather threads by definition, but Brynn dressed more for effect than practicality. Her build was fit and petite with wavy, chestnut-brown hair and bright blue eyes. And here’s her resume: cheer captain, Homecoming Queen, and nationally ranked gymnast.

That last one, I think, made guys fantasize about her flexibility.

Mere feet from his car, the unspeakable happened. She moved her upper body through Dylan’s window, her well-manicured nails touching his face…her lips dangerously close to his mouth. The tightness in my chest kicked up a notch.

(I do not like this. Not at all.)

I let out a belligerent, “D!” hotfooting it their way. But when I witnessed him give her The Dimples, my courage went down the rabbit hole. I stopped, mouth ajar. They were two beautiful people, laughing and enjoying life; it was a picture meant for a dang greeting card. Dylan didn’t appear overly exuberant, but Brynn was the girl-next-door—her family’s home within walking distance of his. Maybe this was something they’d pick up later. When she gripped his arm tighter, he was definitely Dylan: smooth, mannerly, with a body gifted by Jesus.

I called fate the b-word before being jarred from my thoughts with a screaming, “Walker!”

I swallowed and turned around.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you an overweight man can’t find a few moves when he is so inclined. Coach Wallace booked it toward me like a bank robber out of a blaring alarm.

Jeez, guess he figured out it was me. Shocking.

I smiled and blew him an air kiss as I darted for Dylan’s car like a cheetah with its fur on fire. Dylan and I always felt we were connected metaphysically. Perhaps he heard Coach yelling, or perhaps he felt my heart in his throat. Whatever the motivation, he blew Brynn off like yesterday’s news, cranked his door wide, and shot halfway up out of his car.

With a naughty giggle, I yelled, “Move out of the way, Romeo! Like
now
!”

He didn’t move fast enough.

With a huge leap, I dove headfirst into the driver’s side door, taking him with me, banging my head on the center console. Dylan caught all my weight with an “ugh.” Somehow my foot hit the chair release, and the door slammed beside us. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, as embarrassment would have it, my bum landed right smack in the middle of his face when we tumbled into the back seat.

My backpack slid off my shoulder with a bump-bump-bump.

I didn’t move.

I didn’t know what to do, really. But sometimes wisdom was out on a smoke break when you needed her. All I knew was outside wasn’t safe, and inside…well, it felt hotter than the devil’s pitchfork.

Dylan was vintage Dylan, letting out a flirty moan. “Sweetheart, I’ve wanted to get you in the backseat of my car for some time, but I would’ve preferred it being dark and a little more secluded.”

“Seriously,” I giggled, wriggling toward the front. “I thought your fantasies involved barnyard animals.”

“Like I said,” he chuckled.

The jackwagon…I walked right into that one.

Dylan ran his hands up and down my hips, treating my body like the happy hunting ground. I froze. Did. Not. Feel. A. Freaking. Twinge. Maybe I had a hormonal imbalance because most women would give their right ovary to sit where I was sitting. Did I need testosterone? Estrogen? I’d only recently discovered hormones, and now they’d shriveled up like a spider when it dies.

I crawled overtop his backpack to the opposite side but felt someone pull my UGG out the driver’s side window. My legs scissored in the splits.

“Crap,” I mumbled.

Dylan rose up in an ab curl. “Aw, sweetheart, I don’t have a dog in this fight,” he murmured.

Coach barked, “Walker, get out!” Only an idiot would get out. When I didn’t oblige, Coach turned his attention on Dylan.

“Taylor,” he bellowed, flailing his arm through the window, “you’re in more trouble than she is!”

Dylan giggled. “Holy Mother, what did you do?” he asked me.
Better yet, what did
you
do?
I thought. Brynn Hathaway was one step from needing a drool bib. A cursory glance showed her gone…smart girl.

I kept kicking at Coach while Dylan attempted to tug me back inside. Sometimes it was easier for me to talk about personal things when Dylan and I were otherwise occupied. And Brynn Hathaway was definitely on the
Must Address
List.

As Coach pulled my boot off, I spit out, “Brynn wants to go out with you.”
And by the way, I stole Coach’s file and impersonated my aunt this weekend
, I omitted.

Dylan slowly dropped my leg, lounging back in his chair, looking thoughtful. Turning me around, he pulled me onto his chest and literally put his mouth to mine…but he didn’t kiss me. He whispered into my lips, “I know. We’ve had this talk before, Darcy, but you know it means nothing to me…unless you
want
me to date her?” he finished as a question. Lips still on mine, he cocked a brow, waiting for my answer. Heck,
I
was waiting for my answer, but nothing came out but a tiny moan. I mean, his lips were still on mine!! I inhaled his scent mixed with the leather and knew I needed to find the exit.

And side note: I DID NOT NEED ANY FREAKING HORMONE REPLACEMENT.

“Gosh, your eyes are amazing,” I whispered.

His grin quirked up, showing me his dimples.
The
dimples. “Focus, sweetheart.” Frankly, my mind blew a few circuits, so tracking this conversation had proven rather difficult. Especially when his lips felt bizarre, scary, and life altering all at the same time. I remembered what kissing Dylan was like. It was wonderful, forbidden, and titillating to each cell in the body, but I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out if I was alive when it was over. My God, he might be capable of killing me. As tenderhearted as he was, I had a feeling that branching out and evolving our relationship into something else would be like the untrained playing with a Bunsen burner. But why did that burn sound so gosh-danged exciting? “Do you not know what’s going on here?” he whispered into my mouth.

As God as my witness, he then nipped my lower lip with his teeth!

What.

The. Freak.

Was.

That.

In my defense, I was ADHD. This whole thing would take some time for me to grasp. I blinked in morbid shock. Dylan and me? Let’s face it. He’d be slumming. When I readied to say,
No, it would kill me, and I don’t want to share you
, I was jerked so hard out of the car I popped the button on my pants.

“You’re grounded!” Coach shouted.

Wasn’t the first time I’d heard the phrase, but I have to say it was the first by a gym teacher. “What did I do?” I said, feigning ignorance. I reached underneath my silver down coat, resnapping my jeans, trying my best to look like a concerned citizen. Dylan slowly opened his car door, not even asking what’d happened as Coach dangled half the stopwatch in front of my face.

Holy cow, what did he do? Smash it with a crowbar?

After a few more phrases of me acting like I hadn’t a clue what’d upset him, all three of us realized how cold it had grown. A snow was expected tonight. Three to five inches. In Cincinnati, if you had a good nose, you could smell it in the air.

All at once, Coach looked as if he’d grown twenty years older. I had the distinct feeling whatever bothered him this morning had inflated tenfold.

“I’ll replace it,” I blurted out.

“Take me to my car,” he muttered to Dylan. When we circled around the side of the building, nothing could’ve prepared me for what we’d see. Your parents always warn you to not laugh at others’ misfortunes, but sometimes the joke is so hilarious your body can’t help but be a smartass.

I laughed so loud I snorted like a pig. Dylan did some sort of strangled cough and bit his lip. In tie-dyed letters on the back of Coach’s white Honda Civic was painted “Coach Wallace is a Wanker.” There was the start of a few expletives, but thankfully whoever the artist was either ran out of paint…or nerve.

“Maybe you should cut back on this wankering thing if it’s so upsetting to people,” I joked.

He and Dylan sat there, mouths agape. When I rambled on about the weather and how the rainbow of colors made a nice, whimsical pattern, Dylan reached back and flicked me on the top of the head.

Well,
he
wasn’t saying anything…

After a few more beats of nothing, Coach leaned his head back against the headrest like his life had officially ended. He let out an exhausted sigh. “Walker, find out who spray painted my car. Unless I can get the person to pay for their crime, I’ll have to drive the thing around until I can pay my thousand dollar deductible.”

My father was in the insurance business. I’d rather take a fork to the eye than follow in his footsteps, but Murphy spewed his travails so much, I could probably ace a training class.

“That’s a pretty high deductible,” I said.

He muttered, “This isn’t a first time occurrence.”

“Seriously?” Dylan added.

“Three times before and one of them was Vinnie Vecchione,” he grumbled. “Granted his was washable, but still.”

Ah, Vinnie…

Vinnie was a full-blooded Italian with a prominent nose and lamb chop sideburns. Never short on a girl, Vinnie was the type of guy who oozed that “something.” That “something” which made the most gorgeous girls imaginable fall for a guy about fifty pounds overweight…with moobies.

Dylan and I exchanged worried glances. As far as we knew, Vinnie still lived at Ohio State University. He played football with Dylan last year and received a college scholarship as an offensive lineman. I doubt Vinnie had anything to do with Coach’s car, but I owed him a phone call anyway. Vinnie was on retainer with me, so to say, and the association definitely upped my street cred. When I was abducted and thrown in the back of a car last spring, it was by a man in a Yellow Dodge Charger. When the man yanked me out of the trunk, I wasn’t met with a chainsaw. Instead, I received a lecture on how to stay alive doing the things that made me Darcy. Wow. Er, no other word to describe that kind of ripple effect. Problem was, I hadn’t seen the man since. Vinnie had a large net of informants across the city that’d been playing lookout. We had several confirmed sightings, but when we investigated (behind Dylan’s back), nothing ever panned out.

“Why me?” I giggled.

Coach finally laughed, although it might’ve been at my expense. “You cut your teeth on being nosy, dollface. God knows you roam the hall enough, and you did a fine job with that gang last spring.” Okay, I did roam a little, but the roaming helped bust up the Northside 12 from infiltrating our school. When all was said and done, the Northside 12 had a rap sheet of assault, drug trafficking, murder, and attempted murder. I learned something about myself then. Once I put my nose to the ground, my bloodhound instincts rarely led me wrong.