“Because I’m not coming in today,” Danny snapped before his uncle could break out into a thirty-minute rant about how all his nephews were nothing more than insensitive cheap bastards.
There was a heavy pause before his uncle asked, “Are you sick?”
“No,” Danny said, biting back a curse as he closed his useless hand in a fist, determined to get through this phone conversation without losing his temper.
Another pause.
“If you’re not sick, then why aren’t you coming in to work?” his uncle demanded, clearly suspicious and most likely pulling out his personal cellphone at that very moment to send a group text to everyone in the family, putting them on alert.
“Because I spent the night with a woman and I’m exhausted,” Danny said, playing with the truth in order to save himself from an army of Bradfords descending on him to make sure that he wasn’t at death’s door.
There was another heavy pause before his uncle cleared his throat. “You spent the night with a woman?” he asked, trying to hide his relief, but he did a piss poor job and left Danny feeling guilty about lying to his uncle.
“Yeah,” Danny said, dropping his head back and sighing, wishing that he didn’t have to resort to doing this, but he was too fucking exhausted and needed some sleep and he wouldn’t get that if his uncle thought even for a second that something was wrong.
“Oh, well, ummmm, alright then. Just, umm, don’t make a habit out of this,” his uncle said, stumbling over his words and sounding relieved instead of pissed, which only confirmed his suspicions that his family was still terrified that something bad was going to happen to him.
“I won’t,” Danny promised because if there was one thing that he knew for certain, it was that he would never have the chance to hold a woman like Tinkerbelle in his arms again.
“This is not fucking happening,” Danny said, grabbing the pillow off his head and threw it against the wall as the pounding on his apartment door continued. He looked at his alarm clock and released a series of curses that he’d learned during his time in the Marines.
Only an hour had passed since he’d called his uncle. He’d thought he’d have more time before he was forced to deal with one of his well-meaning relatives. Apparently, he’d underestimated their level of concern as well as his ability to bullshit his uncle. That belief was confirmed less than thirty seconds later when the pounding suddenly stopped. He didn’t bother rolling out of bed. There was no point.
“You lying bastard,” Uncle Jared muttered, sighing heavily as he stepped into the room and leaned back against the wall, his worried gaze moving over him, pausing on his shoulder and hand before his uncle shot him a questioning look.
Danny returned his sigh as he threw his arm across his eyes. “What gave me away?”
“The fact that you’re a recluse,” the annoyingly familiar voice announced, forcing Danny to move his arm and open his eyes in time to see his brother walk into the room.
His gaze shifted from Aidan’s face, noting the poorly concealed concern to the black backpack thrown over his shoulder and muttered a curse. “I don’t need your help, Aidan,” he snapped, wishing that he’d just sucked it up like all those other times and went to work so that he could avoid bullshit like this.
“You want to tell me what happened to that shoulder and to your hand?” Aidan asked, sitting on the bed next to him as he placed his bag on the floor by his feet.
“Not really, no,” Danny said, grinding his teeth against the sharp pain as his brother reached over and gently traced his fingertips around the grotesque hive marring his shoulder and part of his upper arm.
After a minute of probing, Aidan sighed heavily and reached for his bag. “Zoe’s cooking?”
He looked up in time to catch his uncle’s wince. Somewhat horrified that his brother was able to identify the source of the hive with just a look, he nodded mutely.
With a grumbled curse and a sigh, Aidan opened his bag and pulled out a small vial holding a shimmering gold liquid and a hypodermic needle. “Her cooking usually isn’t dangerous unless it’s been exposed to air for more than two hours. Then,” Aidan shrugged, gesturing towards Danny’s shoulder with a tilt of his chin, “this happens.”
“What exactly is ‘this’?” Danny asked, looking down at the hive-like thing covering his shoulder.
“It’s a cross between a bacterial infection and an allergic reaction,” Aidan absently explained as he carefully measured out the medication. “We’ve tried to hit this from both sides, but we’ve found that it takes a combination of antihistamines, penicillin and several vaccinations to kill it.”
He felt his brows arch as he asked, “Vaccinations?”
Aidan shook his head sadly as he cleaned a patch of skin with an alcohol wipe just above the hive. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
No, he really didn’t.
“The good news is,” Aidan said, pausing as he injected the medicine into Danny’s shoulder, “that you should be immune to Zoe’s cooking now.”
“I wouldn’t chance it, though,” Uncle Jared said, sounding thoughtful.
“Neither would I,” Aidan murmured as he pulled the needle free. “But if it accidentally comes in contact with your skin again, your body should be able to fight the infection on its own the next time.”
Danny opened his mouth to…to…he couldn’t remember what he’d meant to say when a loud yawn broke free and his eyelids suddenly felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.
