No Brainer ( The Darcy Walker Series #2)

by A. J. Lape

  I heard grease splattering, a mixer growling, and the smell of eggs and bacon in the kitchen. The saliva in my mouth multiplied like guppies, but why hadn’t my normal alarm yanked me out of bed for his favorite meal of the day? Why??

  He was gone…

  After I drowned my sorrows in 3000 calories of farm animals, I got dressed for what Susan Taylor informed me was “Shopping Surgery,” the unspoken truth being, “Darcy Reassignment Surgery.” Evidently, she’d promised my father she’d help me purchase school clothing. I gave her one of those girly smiles that said, I just can’t wait, then zombie-walked into the bathroom, feeling it grow harder and harder to breathe.

  Once showered, I dressed in my I-don’t-care look that consisted of a wet ponytail and my glasses. To give the semblance that I cared a little, I rolled on bubblegum lip gloss. As I stuffed a red jawbreaker in my cheek, I dialed Murphy to say “Hey” and pulled on some jean shorts, coaxing a white tank over my head that had the phrase “Blonde Happens” in the center. Reaching inside Sydney’s closet, I stepped inside a pair of black leather flip-flops and shoved Dylan’s Ranger ball cap on my head.

  Hours ago, he, Colton, and Lincoln loaded into the Bentley to travel to the University of Florida to watch an open football practice. Dylan was the best athlete I’d ever seen. He lettered in all three sports and was named a First Team All-American in football our sophomore year. Football had always been his dream job, and traveling to U of F told me his dream might ultimately sever the “til death do we part” thing between us.

  “You didn’t want to go?” Sydney purred as we settled inside her mother’s Benz SUV.

  “I didn’t know,” I surprisingly admitted, and why exactly was that? Granted, he saw red when Kyd dropped by, but when I woke him in the middle of the night, he seemed extra touchy-feely. I should’ve made sure we were kosher then, but I tended to be of the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” camp.

  Evidently, it broke into a million little freaking pieces.

  Sydney legitimately seemed as confused as me, cocking her head to one side, thinking so hard it made my head hurt. I quickly added, “I’d be in the way.”

  She rasped huskily, “Those are probably the last words that would ever come out of my little brother’s mouth.”

  I leaned my head against the window as we backed out of the driveway. For some reason, I had a feeling of dark foreboding that I couldn’t shake. Like the day wouldn’t end well. “It’s probably for the best,” I added quickly. “He needs to do things without me.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to do things without you?” she countered, smoothing her red sundress. One could only wish, but it didn’t appear he’d had problems weaning himself away.

  Shoving that fear to the back of my mind, I tried to embrace the shopping mood. Problem was, I’d rather be chased by a chainsaw. After a fifteen-minute drive, we pulled into the Mall at Millennia. Well, more specifically, a bunch of clearance racks. Susan could shop-the-heck out of clearance racks. At Bloomingdale’s, I picked up two cotton polo shirts, sand-colored UGG boots, fur flip-flops, a pair of resurrected Nike Classic Cortez sneakers, brown suede Pumas, and a few perfume samples that threw me into a sneezing fit. Three hundred plus dollars later, we bought cinnamon pretzels at Auntie Anne’s then piled back into the Benz to hit one of my favorite outlet stores: The Gap.

  I stood in the dressing room, shorts at my ankles, shirt halfway over my head when my phone burst into Milli Vanilli’s lip-syncing train wreck, “Girl, you know it’s true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I love you.”

  A look at the caller ID: Kyd … ugh. Oh, boy, wasn’t this awkward.

  “Whassup?” I answered.

  “Hey, Legs, whassup with you?” he laughed.

  I thought about saying, “I’m tromping nude through The Gap,” but that felt kind of icky. “Just dillydallying around.”

  “Well, I’m being proactive.”

  “Proactive,” I repeated.

  “Yeah, I wanted you to know that we have a deep connection, and I plan on deepening it even further over the next two weeks.”

  I choked down a gulp. Kyd had his bad-boy on, and unfortunately the thought wasn’t totally repugnant. Looking in the mirror, I came to the conclusion I might be a lost cause. My fashion sense left little to be desired, but I knew things were supposed to match, even down to your underwear. But when everything fits you too short, even the idiots got the picture.

  “And FYI,” he continued, “I dropped over the last of the beignets earlier since I noticed you had a sweet tooth after your third. Dylan’s grandfather grunted a thank you, but he wasn’t exactly talkative.”

  More than likely, he was protecting his grandson’s turf. “He has a lot on his mind,” I offered as explanation. First off, Turkey Cardoza, followed by a close second of, Why did Darcy find a head? No one seemed to buy the fact that this was Darcyville, but it was.

  The crackle of papers rustling filled my ear as I pulled on the fifth pair of skinny jeans Sydney threw over the changing room door. I punched both legs through, pulling them to my waist. “What are you working on?” I asked.

  Kyd choked out a sigh, like the last breath exited his body. “I’m going over course catalogs for a dozen schools. I have no idea where to go, but I definitely want to be a psychiatrist.”

  A groan slid out. “A shrink?”

  “You have issues with psychiatrists?” he chuckled.

  I had tons of issues with psychiatrists, but I guess that’s because I had tons of issues myself. I did the talk-and-go gig for two years, but I’m not sure it accomplished anything other than reducing my father’s bank account.

  I tugged on a navy t-shirt that had a red and white bull’s eye in the middle of it … oh, the irony. I gave him a politically correct, vanilla response. “I think it’s an admirable career choice.”

  “Why do I feel like there’s something you need to talk about?”

  This conversation would fall under the category of There are No Words.

  When I zipped up the pants, once again they were too short, so I ripped them off and slinked on another pair. “Psychiatrists aren’t supposed to push, Kyd. Rule Number One.”

  “Ah, the smart patient.”

  I’d never thought of Kyd as a psychiatrist, probably because I always dodged what I felt were insincere proposals. Maybe I needed to take a step back. He definitely was careful with his words, tenacious, and unusually observant. I guess if you were going to be a shrink, the “Please, come again” factor would be to your benefit.

  “Why a shrink?”

  He stopped for a few breaths, and I knew he searched his soul. “Good question,” he said passionately. “I suppose I want people to reach their goals. Life is full of unfulfilled potential, Legs, and if I can help clear away some of the…”

  I crawled onto the bench and didn’t even hear the finish to his reasoning. There definitely was another side to Kyd those two weeks out of the year and the occasional card and phone call never unearthed. Frankly, if I were smart, I’d hook up with him just to unearth all the things that went down on a daily basis in my head. But Kyd had a girlfriend despite his good heart. Something was definitely awry between them, but at the end of the day, he’d contemplated cheating and had emotionally cheated already.

  Two words?

  Heartbreak hotel.

  “Wow,” I whistled. “You’re a fastard, but a part of you is like … umm … a good person.”

  He went breathless. “And you…”

  Sometimes feel alone in a room full of people, I sighed to myself.

  A light rap tapped on the door as the conversation headed to a raw place.

  “Gotta go,” I exhaled in relief. “Call you later.”

  I disconnected the moment Dylan’s mother peeked inside. “Let me see, Darcy,” she murmured. A glance down at my ankles showed the usual. Too short and floodwater ready.

  “Oh, dear,” she laughed, squatting down, attempting to pull them further south. “I love the shirt, b
ut that’s the longest inseam they have.”

  What-evvvs … I usually wore my aunt’s castaways, anyway. Problem was, she was a redhead with the sex appeal of a pin-up. I had the sex appeal of an onion.

  Susan picked up the t-shirts, shorts, and a few sweaters, then made her way to the checkout counter. I tried on one last pair of jeans, rolling them up as capris when Sydney stepped back inside.

  “That could work,” she purred. “And let me add, thank God.”

  “Maybe I should ask Dylan,” I shrugged.

  Sydney burst into laughter, her voice resonating in a growl. “My little brother thinks your derriere is divine. Trust me, his imagination is going to work overtime.”

  She fixed her hair in the mirror, looking more confident than I’d ever be. My aunt and uncle were attorneys and Sydney had interned with them since she was sixteen. Sydney had a plan: four years undergraduate then three years of law school. Find a husband then her first and only child at age 30. I didn’t have any sort of plan. I would be sixteen in October, had never kissed a boy, gone on a date, and was probably a bona fide fool because I didn’t have the gumption to venture out and do it.

  Perhaps that’s why I obsessed over a child who time seemed to have forgotten. Right now, he didn’t have anything, and any ambition he’d had hopefully hadn’t been snuffed out permanently.

  Slipping back in my clothes, I followed Sydney outside, spotting her mother who held up four hoodie sweatshirts in various colors. I gave her an emphatic thumbs up. As she filed into the line half a store long, I grabbed a dozen ultra-low girl shorts underwear and moved on to accessories. Somewhere between throwing three scarves around my neck and a hound’s tooth bucket hat on my head, … I saw (big gulp) Cisco Medina.

  No lie. Cisco Medina.

  I’m numb. Shocked. Afraid I’m going to die on the spot.

  Thank the Dear, Sweet Lord, I thought … but now I didn’t know what to do.

  I glance east, west, north, and then south—all directions deluging me at once—because it’s almost like someone had slingshot him, and he landed next to me. A rational person would say it was your imagination; a crackpot would claim you were high. But for an idiot like me? I had to hand it to myself … every once in a while I hit paydirt.

  Cisco slumped over painfully at the shoulders, picking at his nails and pulling at his shorts—racked with nervous habits. His face shape was round like his father’s, housing inquisitive, bright brown eyes that appeared older than his biological age. To add to the shock, his hair had been dyed corn silk blond. So whoever abducted him did their homework because if the gist of the game was to assume a different persona, they’d attained success. He was dressed like a skateboarder, and Cisco was a nature buff. He wouldn’t be wearing Vans shoes, looking for a skate park.

  I took a tentative step closer and discovered his nose had freckles down the bridge with a black mole the size of a baby pea under his right eye. Those were characteristics too descript to be a coincidence.

  “Cisco?” I whispered. His eyes grew as large as saucers, with a little nod.

  Right when he opened his mouth, a woman rushed to his side and jerked him toward the front of the store by the elbow. I was positive she hadn’t heard me, but my idiot side emerged, and I froze in the revelation. I couldn’t move, scream, or do jack squat. Had she wanted a child so badly she stole someone else’s? She didn’t appear psychotic. She had brown hair ponytailed under a ball cap with a medium height and build, in your traditional mom clothing of jeans and a t-shirt. The only things appearing strange were her expensive Italian high heels. Almost like she’d been in such a hurry, she grabbed whatever she found closest to the door.

  Last night, I flipped a coin and left my course of action to the universe. Heads was a go; tails was a no-go. I didn’t have a coin at the time, and frankly, the universe and I weren’t always on good terms. But as I thought about it, it didn’t matter what a fifty-fifty chance dictated. Certain things in life you shouldn’t contemplate.

  Be a verb, Darcy, I said to myself. Be a verb even if it means you pee your pants.

  Like mosquitoes on water, the undergarment rack suddenly was a customer breeding ground. I stood elbow-to-elbow with tourists wanting the panty deal of the day. Taking a few vertical jumps to keep him in sight, the twist in my gut said time ran short. Knowing the best route was to cover ground fast, I shifted my body into fifth gear throwing my hat, scarves, and underwear at a horrified Susan Taylor.

  “Darcy!” she shrieked, catching part, watching the others flutter in the air. Big mistake! And I knew it as soon as my hand decided to throw them.

  My pink and white polka-dotted underwear launched like a rocket and touched down on an angry Muslim’s head. His left eye peeked through a leg hole, but anger’s one of those emotions identifiable on any continent. I didn’t know Sunni cleric but was pretty sure what he mouthed sounded like “Capitalist call-girl slut.”

  And that’s the rated G-version.

  To dodge a baby in a backpack, I bumped into a teenaged boy slurping a cherry Icee, causing it to fly like a bird. Slipping on the slush, I face-planted into the baby’s spit up. Covered in a slimy yellow film, I wiped away the snot and told myself it didn’t matter to verbs. Verbs kept moving. Verbs didn’t care. Verbs had a job to do. Trouble was, I didn’t have a plan once I caught up to them.

  Since I was already hugging the floor, I army-crawled past two teenaged girls and brushed against a southern gentleman who offered me a helping hand. After declining with a smile, I flipped the bill backwards on Dylan’s cap, focusing all my energy on Cisco’s puttering feet.

  “Darcy!” Mrs. Taylor shouted again. “Stop!”

  My mind was stuck on shuffle. I needed to think … and think fast. The good news was Cisco remained in town. Why keep him in town, though? If you merely wanted to nab a kid and fulfill your warped maternal desires, wouldn’t you move to another venue where it was safer? That fact alone made me think the woman operated under another agenda. The bad news was that if she were smart, she’d left her car somewhere close.

  Half my body hung out the door when a security guard parked his 200-pound, nightstick-packing frame in front of mine. A hurried glance up revealed a nametag that read, “Jim Bob.” Jim Bob looked like a Jim Bob. Or better yet, an angry weeble. He had no neck, his hair was balding, and his expression froze solid like an ice cube.

  “Hi, Jim Bob,” I mumbled. If I don’t get an E! True Hollywood Story out of this mess, I’m going to be one angry female.

  Jim Bob narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms across his navy mall cop uniform. “Quick getaway?” he muttered.

  “Not quick enough,” I sighed. I peered between his legs, and a cursory look down the hall produced no Cisco. What the freakity freak should I do now?

  “I believe you have something that belongs to me,” Jim Bob grumbled.

  My self-respect? “Excuse me?”

  He pointed to the neon-coral scarf dangling from my neck. Ah, shoot. It looked like I’d been practicing the five-finger discount.

  “You left the store with my merchandise around your neck,” he told me. Totally defeated, I begrudgingly pulled myself to my feet as Susan rushed to my side, looking like a momma bear when someone threatened her cub.

  “Is there a problem, Officer?” she smiled, laying a hand on my lower back.

  Jim Bob tightened his hand on his nightstick. “Your daughter has sticky fingers,” he grumbled. She didn’t cower one bit, but her expression said she wondered how she drew the short straw and had custody of me for the day. I frankly wondered that myself, but I didn’t plan these excursions. It’s just that when you’re a verb, the call to action takes you places.

  Sydney pushed through the crowd. “Why would she steal a scarf that has a hole in it?!”

  I should’ve known her inner fashionista would be the first line of defense. Sydney unwound the scarf from my neck, motioning to the cavern that had frayed at the bottom. A good chance existed that it happened mid-
crawl, but if it could get me out on parole, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

  “Thieves don’t always take the time to discriminate,” Jim Bob muttered.

  Sydney held her chin high, her black eyes daggers in his jiggly gut. “Well, we’re the discriminating type. She deserves a refund.”

  “A refund?” Jim Bob echoed in surprise.

  “A refund,” Sydney seethed, flipping her hair in a circular swish of PO’d.

  This was one of those situations where you were supposed to wax poetic—say things that made people think you had a good heart and intentions—Jim Bob, however, appeared to be inoculated against poetry.

  He said, “You didn’t pay for it.”

  Um, no kidding. Jim Bob pitched his head toward the manager ringing up a patron. No more than mid-twenties, he wore relaxed fit jeans and a navy short-sleeved polo, collar upturned, and untucked at the bottom. Preppy. VIP. Unfortunately, the keeper of my fate.

  The manager ambled over to join us as Susan fished out her black American Express Centurion credit card. It wasn’t only unlimited, it put a whole new spin on the term “no boundaries.” You could buy a freaking third-world country on that card’s clout alone.

  “Hello, I’m Susan Taylor,” she introduced herself, placing the card in his hand. “We were shopping when my daughter,” she tightly smiled, in my direction, “got distracted. We actually weren’t finished yet.”

  I heard the cash register “cha-ching” in his head.

  Susan Taylor had the gift of persuasion and could talk her way out of a jail sentence when she had 50 carats of stolen diamonds in her purse and the nuclear football under her arm. At the end of her two-minute montage, the manager was eating out of her hand.

  “I didn’t try to steal it,” I mumbled as we took a place at the head of the line.

  She found a smile but nonetheless said, “I believe you, but I’ll need an explanation.”

  I unloaded it now. “I was running after Cisco Medina.”