No Brainer ( The Darcy Walker Series #2)

by A. J. Lape

  The moment I molded myself to his body … all bets were off.

  I forgot my name, my address, even what I’d had for breakfast. I couldn’t form a complete coherent thought. Dylan was jaw-dropping man candy … a cruel punctuation mark to a girl who felt nothing but average (or close).

  I could do one of two things: back off to a respectable distance or hold on for dear life. Without another thought, I inched myself so close that one step more would’ve practically had me in front.

  Dylan immediately sensed my mood had changed. He murmured, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

  All I thought was, Mother may I. “She’d say no,” I mumbled. “No matter how much I’d beg, I can assure you she’d say ‘no, you’re a bad girl, and lay off the shamma lamma, ding-dong.’ ”

  “…What?”

  “I now understand,” I croaked with despair. Burying the side of my face into his shoulders, I swallowed down the realization.

  Our relationship was doomed.

  He angled his right ear toward me. “I didn’t hear you, sweetheart.”

  “N-n-nothing.”

  “Just a little further, Darc,” he encouraged, squeezing my hand reassuringly. “Almost there.”

  A quick scan of the crowd netted a few hundred people in attendance, ranging from high school age to early 20s, with a good number of middle-aged has-beens intermixed throughout the several thousand square foot space. The ceiling stood high, and the dark ambiance painted a seriously sexy atmosphere that burned even brighter on the shiny hardwood floor. Pub tables were scattered all over the joint with short skirts and high heel and cowboy boot legs, ripe for the taking.

  Then there was me: the hoochie momma.

  I certainly got some looks, but I imagined myself as Buffy and tried to look even dumber than normal. I did your basic “bar” stuff. I checked out the DJ, the servers, the patrons—trying to act nonchalant—yet the universe had the unspoken rule that your eyes fell on the best looking guy around … no matter what the distractions. An invisible spotlight bounced off a group of attractive females, canoodling around one lucky guy during the Harlem Shake. When the crowd parted, it showed—big gasp!—a smiling Kyd Knoblecker.

  Well, well, well, I said to myself. No Mary … probably why he was smiling.

  I nervously tugged on Dylan’s hand. “Do you see—”

  Dylan inhaled, exhaling deeper. “Yes, go on with the evening as planned. I’ll intercept if need be.”

  In khaki shorts, designer loafers, and a white shirt unbuttoned to his chest, Kyd schmoozed and gesticulated wildly. He had that captain of the sports team persona in every pronounced movement. Unless my best friend stepped onto the scene, then Dylan Taylor outranked him.

  Like piranhas on thrashing legs, the quartet of girls shifted their attention to Dylan as soon as we hit the dance floor. Once they shoved their eyes back in their heads, they narrowed their stare, perusing me—homing in on my hair, my boots, and my clothing to detect a weakness. They only stopped when Dylan strutted around, placing both hands on my hips with a territorial grin. The Harlem Shake didn’t call for him to be in my personal space, but Dylan decided to improvise … his “Harlem” right up against mine.

  Devastated … all four were devastated with his actions. You couldn’t blame them; tonight I sported sluttitude. Even I knew sluttitude would always win.

  “Show me what you’ve got,” he flirted, pulling me closer.

  I can dance. Okay, really dance. We line-danced for a while, then I bumped hips with someone in a yellow chicken suit, while passing a naked blow-up doll over my head that was crowd surfing. Once the song ended, the music transitioned into Blake Shelton’s Footloose. Throwing both arms around Dylan’s neck, I foxed one knee between his and pitched a taunting smile in Kyd’s direction.

  Kyd ran a hand through his thick hair, took one look at my lack of clothing, blinked hard twice, then mouthed, “We need to talk.”

  “Later,” I mouthed back. He twisted the white shell choker around his neck, seconds from snapping it in two. I didn’t plan on giving Kyd anything, but I couldn’t deny the head rush for someone to find me attractive. Or, in this case—easy.

  After three more tunes, the groove wound down and Dylan drew me into his arms during Hunter Hayes’ Wanted. Still no sign of Elmer, and the clock ticked at twelve-thirty.

  “He’s going to stand me up,” I whispered in Dylan’s ear, my tongue licking off the rest of my lipstick.

  “Shhh, it’s a good sign. Something must be going down.”

  Dylan splayed his large hand across my bare lower back—and all rational thought went into Code Blue. It practically waylaid me into forgetting why we came here. I loved Dylan, and being close to him like this—in this setting—didn’t do anything good for my overactive hormonal imagination. This happened to be a prime example of all of those confusing feelings between us. Dylan was the best friend. I was supposed to think he had cooties. But for some reason, the first thought that materialized in my mind was our kiss.

  Real or not real, that kiss packed some major G-force … and I wanted a repeat.

  I boldly looked up, staring into his lips. “I can’t think when you do that,” I whispered. “It actually feels good.”

  “Sweetheart, do you want to kiss me?” he flirted in a giggle.

  “No!” Maybe, I thought. My eyes went wide, issuing a firm (I think) denial.

  “Well, you’re standing extremely close to someone that’s only your best friend.”

  Dylan’s chuckle reverberated so low my insides turned into mush. Against my better wishes, I sidled even closer, moving my hands slowly down the planes of his shoulders, resting on the hard curves of his deltoid muscles … gripping them. It hit me then that my body said one thing while my mouth said another. I growled through bared teeth, “I’m on the job. Aren’t you supposed to stand close when you’re slow dancing on the job? I can’t help it that I have a standard of excellence.”

  “Mmm,” he murmured in my ear. “I’m all about excellence.”

  We were clustered together like sardines, swaying and gyrating in synchronicity. Whoever said you could have too much of a good thing, obviously hadn’t danced with Dylan. As I played the part, it became crystal clear I wasn’t actually playing. Being intimate with him came as easy as breathing. I didn’t ever want to share him but had a sick feeling the day would come too soon.

  Dylan dropped a soft kiss on my forehead then moved around behind me, one arm circled around my waist. After some really dirty dancing, I thread my arms back to lock around his head … except it wasn’t Dylan ... I felt a permed mullet. A quick and panicked pivot to my right showed me now boogieing down with Elmer Herschel.

  God. Help. Me. Not. To. Laugh.

  Elmer had dressed in a tuxedo shirt, black bow tie, wearing too short tuxedo pants and patent leather shoes with white tube socks. Totally fitting, since watching him dance was like seeing a crippled penguin do the jitterbug. He bounced and flapped all over the place. I didn’t know whether to laugh or take a drug for motion sickness.

  “What’s shakin’, Buffy?” he smiled. A whole lot of penguin.

  “You can really bust a move, Elmer,” I bragged. I didn’t want to bumble through this; still, I almost tossed my cookies and evacuated my bowels. Elmer’s aftershave mixed with his body odor suggested he was way past the sell-by-date.

  Take a deep breath, Darcy, I told myself. Take a deep breath and act like you’ve been here before.

  I gave him a relieved smile, mixed with a little bit of a pout. “I was afraid you’d forgotten about me,” I pouted.

  “Nah,” he said. “Elmer had something come up.”

  So far, so good, I heard Detective Battle say.

  Cowboys had a big, black mechanical bull—a new attraction Dylan had heard about through his Orlando-based grapevine. Guys and girls took turns bucking to and fro like fools. It didn’t look particularly scary. In truth, it seemed rather fun until Elmer decided, “Buffy needs to take a ri
de.”

  Holy. Bull. Gods.

  I had no idea how to ride a freaking bull.

  If you asked me how I’d come to sit on the bull, I’d say it was Divine Intervention because next thing I knew, I was sitting in a pit as a man in jeans and a cowboy hat flipped the “start” button. My hands sweat like a greasy pig as I gripped the reins and tentatively slid my boots inside the leather stirrups. At first, it was a piece of cake. The bull rocked slowly back and forth, but the moment I adjusted to the movement, the vibration began sending shock waves to my face. Vibrate. Pitch forward. Pulsate again. Pitch backwards. I flopped around like a fish out of water, but when the crowd erupted into cheers, my inner attention-getter threw her left arm in the air and YOLO’d it up.

  Right on cue, Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy hit the airwaves, and the group grew even rowdier. I bucked. Rolled. Whipped my hair back and forth in a 360-degree circle. I looked like a freaking superstar. When I erroneously grinned at the operator, he took that as confirmation to give me the full rodeo treatment. Before I could scream “No,” he activated the buck-and-spin speed, and the shaking intensified. Starting at my butt bone, it traveled the length of my spine and stopped at the base of my chin, then unexpectedly dropped down to my girl parts. I moaned like a porn star—well, what I thought a porn star might sound like—but my guess was it was more like a wildebeest. My jean skirt rode up to the hoochie zone, and my Barely-Bs practically bounced up and hit me in the face.

  Somewhere in the crowd, my eyes found Elmer who was jumping up and down like a kid at the candy store. I’m not sure if I broke a record for staying on the longest, but the moment I got cocky, the bull bucked me into the air, and I landed facedown onto the padded flooring.

  My skirt was above my waist.

  My panties were … exposed.

  I didn’t sign on for this.

  And I really didn’t sign on to watch Dylan receive a lap dance from head-over-high-heels-in-lust Yankee Knoblecker. The moment Elmer pulled me back to the dance floor, I spotted Dylan about 40 feet away dirty dancing—no, let me clarify, filthy dancing—with Yankee. Wearing a skin-tight, white stretchy dress, her hands snaked deep down into his back pockets, his arms resting on her shoulders. Yankee stood vastly shorter than Dylan, and her batting blue eyes stared up into his face like he held the answers to all of life’s problems.

  Best case scenario? He was vying for a Golden Globe. Worst case? I’d perform hip and groin removal surgery later.

  Trying to regulate my breathing, I recalled Elmer’s and my last exchange before he forced the mechanical bull on me. He claimed he’d been late because something came up … what was the something?

  I blurted, “Elmer, was the ‘something’ that came up your girlfriend?”

  Elmer ignored the question, doing a full-spin. “I like to dance, Buffy.” Even though the tempo had slowed, Elmer now square danced. He hooked his arm in mine, and I morphed into his robotic version. Luckily, I’d been trained in the genre. Although, my father had a radically conservative bent, on the days the stress became too much, he’d blast the stereo and dance until exhausted. Thing was, Murphy had complete body control and could go boneless on command; Elmer was in full-blown rigor mortis and needed a coffin.

  The giggles and guffaws verified we looked like idiots.

  Three songs later, my creativity suddenly went AWOL. I twined my fingers through his hairy stubs and took the party to a vacant two-seat bistro. After we were situated, Elmer dunked his stubby fingers in the wooden nut bowl and proceeded to shove peanuts one-by-one inside my closed mouth. I didn’t consider myself a germaphobe, but everyone knew you shouldn’t eat nuts in a bar. I smiled, reluctantly gulping them down. Picking up another, he left his finger resting on my lower lip.

  Find a weakness and push, I told myself. Once I thought about it, my tactic wasn’t complex. Elmer was a lunkhead. His involvement—whether with Gertrude, Polly, or even Lola—no doubt, meant errand boy.

  Choking it down, I leaned over and gently placed my hand on his knee. “You’re a catch, Elmer.”

  “You understand me,” he grumbled.

  Tell him you do, Detective Battle coached in my ear.

  “Yes,” I swore, and as much as I hated to do it, I let my fingers swim in the bowl of nuts, grabbing a fingerful to feed him. “Doesn’t your girlfriend?”

  “She don’t get me,” he munched.

  “I’m sorry. Well, how’s your social life? Do you get out much?”

  “The world doesn’t see enough of Elmer Herschel.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He grunted loud, “I babysit my woman’s kid.”

  The verb in me started itching as I dumped the nuts onto the table, lining them up from biggest to smallest. “Boy or girl? I have a six-year-old little sister.”

  Elmer crossed his leg over his knee, repositioning his tube socks. “Boy,” he answered in a frown. “He’s a five-year-old little brat.”

  “My sister can be a handful, too,” I giggled.

  Elmer flashed an impressive bucktoothed grin. “You look good tonight. My woman always looks good.”

  “Your girlfriend? What does she look like?”

  “Good,” he repeated.

  “What’s her name?” I asked, hoping he’d let it slip.

  “We have nicknames.”

  “Oh, yeah? What are they?”

  “That’s a secret, Buffy. Elmer wants to hold you.” I didn’t want to sit on Elmer’s lap, but a sting meant I’d pretty much signed on for anything.

  When I’d halfway scooted onto his lap, he surprised me by turning the tables and crawling onto mine. My lap collapsed in protest but surprisingly held up the weight. “What does her little boy look like?” I choked out.

  “Your normal little boy except this one’s too smart.”

  The conversation felt like an exercise in futility. I glanced around for Dylan, merely to get a nod of encouragement, but he appeared too busy dipping Yankee to the ground amidst a quintet of girls waiting their turns. I frowned to myself. Wow, we needed to have a talk, but that was so totally on the backburner.

  Keep it rolling, I heard in my ear. “Comfy?” I asked.

  “Are you going to tell Elmer why you came to the Saturday night game? We saw you there. And why were you at our apartment building?”

  If I were crossing the street, let’s just say a cab nailed me.

  I would’ve sworn he hadn’t recognized me. With my heart now beating louder than the music, I decided to be unbelievably and perhaps stupidly blunt.

  “What’s the name of the little boy, Elmer?” I whispered.

  He hesitated, as his body grew stiffer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “Somebody’s making you keep him. You took him. You framed the grandparents by putting that dye in their home and scared them into thinking you’d throw their daughter in jail.” Be careful, I heard Battle growl.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You knew about Lola’s identity as Lynx, and for some reason, you wanted to keep her services. What better way to do that than to threaten her little boy?”

  “If the grandparents were innocent, why would they run?” Elmer asked slyly.

  “Perhaps they were more afraid of standing still.”

  In one blink, Elmer morphed from boneheaded errand boy, to cold, calculating, and not-to-be-messed with felon. “Buffy has a very active imagination,” he warned.

  Somehow, I kept my voice even-keel. “If it isn’t true, then why did you agree to meet me?”

  “Elmer was curious. Plus, Elmer’s an exceptional dancer.”

  I didn’t know what to do next. I practically had a confession, but to close the book on the case, I needed a name. “Is Cisco okay?”

  “That’s not his name no more,” he muttered. “We changed it.”

  Sweet mercy … whoa … wow. Sonovagun.

  Detective Battle gasped in my ear. We’ve got him! he shouted. Get his location, a
nd give me her name.

  “Who does Lola play for, Elmer?” I pushed. “Who’s X?”

  Elmer buried his face in my neck, tightening his arms like a child not wanting to let go. “Elmer doesn’t want to answer that.”

  “Does your girlfriend hold you?” I asked, trying another angle.

  “Not a lot. I think she’s using Elmer.”

  “But you love her?” I whispered. Elmer nodded. I honestly think I was conversing with multiple people the way he eased in and out of first and third person speech. “You’re in love with a woman that makes you do things you don’t necessarily want to do.”

  He jumped to another personality, his voice dripping with cynicism. “Nah, Elmer doesn’t care to do them. We just wanted to know what Buffy knows.”

  Even though he was a flaming fruitcake, I was guardedly optimistic I could close this deal. My gut said to keep up the surrogate mommy routine. As Elmer nestled in tighter, a tentative yet determined hand latched onto my shoulder. I glanced back into the eyes of a confused, agitated, and totally abhorred Kyd. By the expression on his face, he was one sentence away from blowing the lid off of everything.

  Bloody hell…

  “Hey,” he frowned, jerking his head toward Elmer. “Who’s the date?” Kyd yanked Elmer off of my lap, holding him down in his seat, one hand angrily glued to his shoulder.

  “This is Elmer,” I explained. Keep Elmer talking, Detective Battle warned in my ear.

  “Elmer,” Kyd repeated, suspiciously eying him. “Does Taylor know about Elmer?”

  We both immediately scanned the dance floor and spotted Dylan savagely fighting his way through a crowd that was within inches of fire code violation. He didn’t just fight the crowd. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea and then smiling when the bad guys drowned. A glance behind him, leaning up against the bar, unveiled a smiling Grizzly chatting up a brunette. Say what?? I might as well have seen a geyser in the Sahara Desert. I didn’t do anything for a beat. No breaths in. No breaths out. Just stood there and realized I was totally out of my league. The girl accompanying him was string bean skinny and model-tall. Bubbly. Trendy. Wearing a smile that promised dumber-than-dirt. Detective Battle was dead-on. This girl looked right around my age. If Gertrude still held the title of Grizzly’s significant other, trouble definitely brewed in botox paradise.