A hard knock at the driver’s side window interrupted whatever he was going to say and had her groaning pathetically and whimpering a bit as she buried her face against his chest, struggling to catch her breath, and for the second time in her life, contemplating throttling someone with her bare hands.
Before she could move off Danny’s lap, not that she was really capable of doing that at the moment, the driver’s side door was thrown open and Greg, looking seriously pissed off, was standing there, glaring at them.
“You said you were coming right back,” Greg bit out evenly.
“Oh, umm, sorry, I just got distracted for a minute,” Jodi said, blinking.
“A minute?” Greg repeated back in disbelief. “You’ve been out here for over an hour!”
“Oh, ummm, well,” Jodi muttered, glancing at the clock on the dashboard and tried not to wince. “I was just on my way back inside,” she lied, shooting him a smile and not quite able to meet his eyes as she hastily climbed off Danny’s lap and-
Was pulled right back onto his lap and thoroughly kissed. “Come over after your friends call it a night?” Danny asked, teasingly brushing his lips against hers. “We’ll watch really bad 80’s horror flicks, devour a pint of ice cream and finish what we started?”
She rolled her eyes as she climbed off his lap, already knowing that they wouldn’t finish what they’d started and she wasn’t going to get more than a spoonful of ice cream before he devoured the entire pint. “I’m only coming over if I get my own pint of ice cream,” Jodi said, pretending that she just had a craving for ice cream and wasn’t planning on devouring an entire pint of ice cream with the hopes that all that sugar and yumminess would make her forget just how badly she wanted to jump him.
“I’ll see you later, Tinkerbelle,” Danny whispered softly against her lips.
“Have fun at dinner,” Jodi whispered right back, stepping away from him as she gave him one of those sweetly shy smiles that he loved before she turned around and headed towards the front door, leaving him with Greg, the bastard that was staring at Tinkerbelle’s ass like it was a delicious morsel that he couldn’t wait to take a bite out of. It was the same way that all her guy friends now looked at her.
“Not going to happen,” Danny said, leaning back against his seat as he regarded the man that up until a few months ago, had never looked at Tinkerbelle as anything more than a kid sister.
“You never know,” Greg murmured, his eyes still locked on Tinkerbelle’s retreating ass as it swayed slightly from side to side.
“I know,” Danny said, chuckling darkly as he sat back and clipped his seatbelt. He shut his door, turned the engine on and wasn’t surprised when the knock came at his window a minute later.
“I’ve known her longer,” Greg said before the window was all the way down.
Danny looked straight ahead, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s true, but that also means that your chance has come and gone.”
“Maybe,” Greg murmured, “maybe not.”
“You planning on finding out?” Danny asked, his humor quickly fading even as his respect for the man rose.
“Maybe,” Greg said, turning to shoot him a grin, “maybe not.”
Danny nodded slowly, reaching for his door handle. “You on duty?”
Greg’s grin grew bigger. “Nope.”
“Good to know.”
“But-”
“Not a word!” Jodi yelled, slapping an icepack against Greg’s face.
“Ow!”
“And stop being a baby!” Jodi snapped, grabbing the bloody paper towel and band-aid wrappers as she stormed across the kitchen, slammed her foot down on the trashcan pedestal a little harder than was probably necessary and threw the trash away. Shaking her head in disgust, she walked over to the sink and turned the hot water on.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Greg said, standing up from where she’d told him to sit down and shut the hell up a half-hour ago when she’d found him on the ground trying to fend off blows from the other man that she was no longer talking to.
“Jodi,” Greg said, sighing heavily as he walked up behind her and placed his bloodied hands on either side of her on the kitchen sink, boxing her in, “can we just talk about this?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jodi said, sighing heavily as she scrubbed her hands clean.
“There could be,” Greg said just as she felt his lips brush the top of her ear.
“Oh, my god!” Jodi gasped, quickly turning in his arms. She looked up at him, scanning all the cuts, bandages, and quickly darkening bruises, worry twisting her stomach as he stared deeply into her eyes.
