Manny Get Your Guy (Dreamspun Desires Book 37) Page 9

  “What did you just say about my daughter?”

  Taylor absolutely positively had to do something. “Sir, he didn’t mean that. He’s… he’s got a morbid metaphor problem, that’s all. He just… he wasn’t interested in her, you know? She’s jailbait, and he’s not stupid.”

  The guy swung around, and Taylor heard his own audible swallow. “You, sir, are really big,” he said, remembering the last time he’d gotten in a fight at Simms. It had been his own damned fault for blowing two guys in the bathroom the same night, but he seemed to recall that Gordie was not fond of fights in his pool hall.

  Especially when breakage was involved.

  “Daddy, that really hurt,” Maureen said, struggling to her feet.

  Taylor watched her father—six foot six if he was an inch, with the square craggy face of a dockworker and hands to match—look at his darling little handful.

  And melt.

  And Taylor thought, Oh shit. This guy is going to kill us all.

  “Are you saying someone would have to be stupid to love my little girl?”

  “No, but I’m starting to think it would help,” Brandon muttered—but in the deadly stillness of the pool hall, everybody heard him.

  “What did you say?” Maureen’s father yelled, and Brandon grimaced like it was just starting to hit him that he could have dealt with this better.

  “Look, sir, my date didn’t mean any harm.” Taylor wondered what made him think he could make peace now. He’d been the equivalent of Maureen and her little friend and her father when he’d been a teenager—he of all people knew how this ended. “We were just trying to play a round of pool, and she and that Phillip kid were all over him. He’s a little frustrated, that’s all.”

  “Are you saying my little girl’s a slut?”

  One look at him clenching his hands and releasing them, gritting his teeth, shifting from foot to foot, and Taylor got it.

  This guy had probably thought his little girl was dead. His blood was up, his good sense was vapor, and there wasn’t a soul leaving this fine billiards establishment unless some violence went down.

  “Yes, sir. That’s what I’m saying. And I’d rather your slut kept her hands off my date.”

  Taylor dodged the heft of the blow because he was ready, but just the impact glancing off his cheekbone hurt like hell. Still, he remembered how to do this—he spun on his weak leg but recovered, throwing himself back at Maureen’s father with a few quick jabs to the stomach and a hook to the jaw.

  Dad stumbled back, looking surprised, and hit the pool table, which held firm. He bounced forward, barely keeping his feet, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at the blood that came away with interest.

  Then he looked up at Taylor and smiled. And made the time-honored Come at me, I’m ready to roll sign with both hands.

  Next to Taylor, Jacob said, “I hate you for this.”

  Taylor’s bloodlust was so hot his head swam. He sank to a crouch and nodded, beginning the dance. “You can go if you want.”

  “My wife would skin my balls with a potato peeler. Tell her I loved her so.”

  With a massive heave and a yell, Maureen’s father launched himself at the two of them like a freight train. Brandon leaped on his back, and the battle was on.

  TINO Robbins-Lowell surveyed the wreckage with raised eyebrows.

  “Really, Jakey? This was your idea of a night out?”

  “Wasn’t my fault,” Jacob mumbled through an ice pack held over half his face. “Blame Brandon.”

  “Me?” Brandon had his own ice pack, but from what Taylor had seen, he was holding it over his eye and nothing else.

  Taylor would have glared at him, but his one good eye was swollen halfway shut. “Yes, you!” he snapped. “Jesus bleeding Christ, kid, you called that man’s daughter a slut!”

  “No, Taylor,” Jacob said with no irony at all. “That was you. Brandon said you’d have to be stupid to love her and compared her to a cockroach.”

  “That’s fair.” Taylor was sitting on the now-broken pool table, and his leg was starting to cramp. “Either way, it’s not Jacob’s fault.”

  Surprisingly enough, Tino chuckled. “It never is. People don’t get mad at Jacob. I swear, he knocked up my sister, and my parents damned near bought him flowers.” He put his hands on his hips again and surveyed the damage. “So, Mr. Simms, how much do I owe you?”

  Gordon Simms, who had terrified Taylor for much of his raging youth, stood about five four and weighed maybe ninety pounds. He had a face like a boiled potato, and a constantly unlit cigar clenched tight beneath his brown teeth. Every so often during the night, he’d stick his head out the swinging door and spit, and God help anyone who was about to come in when he did it.

  Now he put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Well, insurance will take care of most of it. Haven’t had a fight in here since the last time this one”—he nodded at Taylor—“almost took the place apart. Wasn’t his fault this time.” Simms shrugged. “Much.”

  “Yes, well, it’s a good thing my husband wasn’t here, or he would have dived in with a prehistoric laptop and things really would have gotten dire. Do we even know the other guy’s name?”

  “Ran like the coward he was,” Simms said, and sure enough, a stream of chewed cigar arched away from the men in the center of the room and into the wreckage on the fringes. “His kid and her buddy were trailing after him too, whining about defending her honor. Twit.”

  Tino laughed until Jacob pounded him helpfully on the back. “True story,” Jacob said, and Taylor nodded in support, even though he couldn’t see Jacob’s expression. “He heard Simms yelling for the cops and left so fast, I think Brandon’s got a bruise on his ass from being dumped.”

  “Serves him right,” Taylor muttered, and that made Tino laugh some more.

  When he was finished wiping his eyes on the inside of his microfiber T-shirt, he managed to pull himself together enough to talk business. “Well, we’re grateful to you for not pressing charges. Are you sure we can’t help you with some of the damage?”

  Simms sighed and quirked his mouth almost apologetically at Taylor. “Help with the deductible would be most appreciated,” he admitted.

  Taylor groaned. “I’ve got—”

  “Done,” Tino said. “Jacob, you take Brandon home, and I’ll go talk numbers with our friend Simms here. Taylor, I can give you a lift when I’m through.”

  “I can help—”

  “Please don’t,” Tino said with a wink. “It’s all okay. Jacob needed a guys’ night out like no man in history. If this doesn’t make him happy to be home with my sister, we’ll have to ship him to a developing nation and have him nurse a village through cholera, because nothing else will.”

  “I don’t even know what I was doing here,” Jacob complained. He hauled himself to his feet from his crouch by the broken table and turned to shake Taylor’s hand. “But damn, Tino’s right. That was fun. Don’t want to do it again, but that was pretty awesome while it lasted.”

  Taylor laughed and shook his hand back. “Glad to help.”

  “Yeah, good. Nica will be by tomorrow with some more ice packs and food and stuff. Once I tell her the story, she’s going to greet you like a hero.”

  Taylor’s chest hurt, and he thought of how he’d fruitlessly tried to protect Brandon’s honor. And protect Brandon in general.

  “Aces,” he said, but the words lacked passion.

  Jacob sighed and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Wasn’t your fault, Tay—the guy was gonna cream one of us. He was just spoiling for a fight. You made yourself a target. It was like throwing yourself on the man-grenade.”

  “That he did,” Simms said, puffing with admiration. “I remember you, you know, when you were a hell-raising little shit. Who knew you were building up to greatness! I am impressed as hell, kid. You have no idea.”

  He shook Taylor’s hand with a gleefully hard grip, and then he and Tino turned back toward
the office for their weird voodoo money rites or whatever. Taylor didn’t even want to think about Tino picking up his bill.

  “Coming, Bran?” Jacob asked, taking a couple of steps toward the front door.

  “Naw,” Brandon said, and Taylor looked at him sharply. “If Nica’s coming over tomorrow, I’ll catch a ride back with her. I want to talk to Taylor tonight.”

  “And crash on his couch,” Jacob said, as though that was the only way it could possibly happen.

  Taylor looked at Brandon in time to see him batting those big green eyes at his cousin. “Sure, Jakey. I’ll sleep on Taylor’s couch.”

  Taylor’s mouth hung open, but no sound was coming out. “My place?” he said after Jacob had let himself out and the door shut behind him.

  “Yeah.” Brandon swung his legs under the edge of the table and pushed off. “Your apartment.”

  “Why?”

  Brandon walked into his space and gently put the ice pack back. “So we can finish our date.”

  Taylor must have been hit harder than he thought. “We’re going to—”

  “Talk,” Brandon said, trailing his fingers along the back of Taylor’s hand. “Believe me, Taylor, I don’t want to do anything more physical tonight. But we were going to have a date. You owe me.”

  “Defending your honor doesn’t count?” Taylor asked grumpily. God, had he even done dishes? Had he made his bed? Had the fat white thing recently defiled her sandbox?

  “What’s the matter, Taylor? Afraid you didn’t scrub the bowl until it gleamed?”

  Oh, this kid was karma—smug and cocksure and… and stroking the side of Taylor’s face with the scars, the side that hadn’t been beaten this night, the side that Taylor barely touched with a washcloth because he hated the roughness of the scars under his own fingers.

  The side that hungered for touch.

  “It’s not ready for company,” Taylor said with some belated dignity.

  “Well, I’ll have to make myself at home,” Brandon said softly, keeping up that mesmerizing stroke of Taylor’s damaged jaw.

  “Kid, what are ya doing to me?”

  “You jumped to my rescue. That’s knight-in-shining-armor shit, Taylor. How am I supposed to not want to get to know that better?”

  Taylor growled, trying to push him back one-handed. “You’re barely older than what’s-her-face—”

  “I’m twenty-two. I’ve told you that before. Tino and Channing are ten years apart—I don’t see you arguing about that!”

  “That’s because you weren’t there when I was trying to get into Tino’s pants,” Taylor growled, thinking this—this might be the thing to make him stop trying.

  “How old were you?” Augh! He was impossibly big, and he was all over Taylor’s space like the smell of sweat and something surprisingly dark and musky.

  “Eighteen,” Taylor admitted. “It was the summer Nica and Jakey got together and your cousin knocked up my best friend.”

  “And before Channing and Tino got together. So you weren’t trying to be a homewrecker, you were just trying to hit that.”

  Taylor groaned and jerked away from Brandon’s gentle hands. “He was cute,” he admitted.

  Brandon laughed throatily and lowered his lips to Taylor’s good ear. “Still is. But he’s off-limits. And I’m not.”

  “That’s not why I want you,” Taylor ground out and then wished for death.

  “Really?” Oh, he was obscenely excited. “Then why?”

  Taylor closed his eyes and shook his head. “Way too many reasons,” he confessed. “But kid, you’re still going to be staying on the couch tonight.”

  Brandon’s grin took out what was left of his eyesight. “But I am going to be staying the night. I’m not ruling anything out.”

  “Augh!”

  Brandon’s gentle chuckle only made the defeat worse.

  TINO drove them both to Taylor’s little apartment, no questions asked.

  Until he drove up to the ratty concrete apron and took in the flaking stucco and cracked driveway.

  “How in the hell did you find an apartment complex this shitty in Rocklin?”

  Taylor winced. “It took skill and bad judgment.” He closed his eye, glad he couldn’t see the place. “Really, really bad judgment.” He’d found the place online while he’d been in the hospital. The day of his release, Nica had met him at the doors in a borrowed truck hauling all his earthly possessions from storage.

  Tino came to a stop in front of the little complex, and Taylor had his hand on the door latch to get out when Tino stopped him with a sentence.

  “A month,” he said like he was figuring something out.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “When’s your rent due?”

  “Uh… twenty-five days.”

  “Good. Did you sign a lease?”

  “No….” Because the place really was that shitty.

  “Better. You have twenty-four days to have your stuff ready. Channing and I just renovated a complex that’s a mile from Nica’s. We’ll rent the truck and move you in.”

  Brandon chortled from the back seat. “Oh my God, Tino—you sound just like Channing. That’s amazing!”

  “Ten years—I’ve learned something.” Tino poked Taylor, making sure Taylor was giving him absolute attention. “I’m not messing around here, Taylor. Nica should have told us about this place. You’ve got three and a half weeks. You have everything packed and—”

  “My cat!” Taylor protested, mostly because it was the only objection he could think of.

  “Your cat is welcome. We’ll put you in a place that kept the old rug. Do you hear me?”

  “Tino, no. I mean, it’s my crappy apartment—”

  “Top or bottom floor?”

  “I live in the top—” But he hated the top floor. After a long day, those stairs about wrecked what was left of his calf and thigh.

  “We’ll put you in the bottom.”

  Brandon guffawed, and Tino rolled his eyes.

  “We’re talking apartments, Brandon—the rest of that is your own personal stuff. But no. You came and asked my mom for help, and now you’re family. We don’t let family live in death traps. This place should be condemned.”

  “But—”

  “Thanks, Tino,” Brandon piped from the back. “I’ll tell Nica when she comes to get me tomorrow. Jakey’ll want to help.”

  “Course.”

  Brandon opened his door. In spite of the fact that it was one in the morning at the Friday end of a very long week, he bounded out of the car like a big muscular jackrabbit. Taylor felt a little ill at the thought.

  While Taylor was still flailing at the idea of moving so soon, Brandon opened Taylor’s door and offered him a hand up. Taylor ignored it.

  “But, Tino, I just moved here—”

  “So you’re probably not even unpacked. Don’t.”

  “But it was furnished!” Taylor hadn’t had anything when he’d gotten out of the military. Well, some saved pay. And a crapton of scars.

  “As will this one be,” Tino said, pulling out his phone and making a notation. “Now I hate to complain, but it’s one in the morning, and you’ve seen my husband. I’d like to get back to him.” He looked at Taylor expectantly, and Brandon thrust his hand into Taylor’s line of vision again.

  This time Taylor took it.

  “Thanks for bailing us out,” he managed, right before Brandon shut the door and Tino drove off.

  Brandon still hadn’t let go of his hand.

  Taylor shook him off. “The couch is awful. I hope you wreck your back.”

  Brandon’s throaty laughter sounded obscene in the quiet of the cul-de-sac. With a grunt, Taylor led the way up the stairs.

  “MARILYN,” he called, and an indignant meow met him before he even cleared the door. “Come here, darlin’.” He bent stiffly and scooped the cat into his arms. He’d known he’d be gone that night, so he’d left her soft food that morning, but he had no doubt that had already been devour
ed and forgotten.

  But Marilyn apparently loved Taylor even more than her food bowl, because she went nose to nose with him for a good thirty seconds in an attempt to mark him thoroughly.

  Taylor obliged, ignoring Brandon, who was close enough to scratch the fluffy white thing behind the ears as Taylor made out with his cat.

  Finally—finally—she wiggled to be let down, and Taylor fed her, then hobbled to the living room, aware that Brandon was taking in everything: U-shaped kitchen, Formica table, cracked white tile, stretched beige carpeting. Even the miserable plaid couch. All of it screamed “broke” and “temporary,” and Taylor’s embarrassment was acute.

  But Brandon didn’t say anything. “Here—Taylor, sit down, at least. You’re not walking good.”

  Taylor grunted. “Aren’t you in college? It’s been a while, but I could swear there’s a grammar class somewhere in the first two years. I mean, seriously.”

  “Are you going to sit down or not?” Typical Brandon—unaffected by criticism. Maybe Taylor should stop offering it.

  “No, actually.” Taylor toed off his tennis shoes—they had special inserts in the soles—and began that stretching regimen he was so proud of. “Sorry. My bedroom doesn’t have a lot of room in it, so I’m going to do these here while I can still move.” His calves and thighs were feeling most of the strain at the moment, so Taylor moved into the lunge position, left leg in front, right leg in back, hands clasped in front of him. Ah, that was it. Raise the back heel, lower it. Raise his head, lower it. He breathed carefully, exhaling as he stretched, inhaling when the stretch released, and just the breathing relaxed the muscles strained from the fight and the long night.

  For once Brandon was blessedly quiet, and Taylor switched his legs, going into the lunge with his hands linked behind his back and raised off his ass so he could stretch his chest and shoulders.

  Ah… ah… ah….

  “Shit!”

  The spasm contorting his left leg was enormous and merciless.

  “What! What!” Brandon leaped off the couch, almost like he’d been napping as Taylor stretched.