Christmas from Hell

When they’d finally released Danny, Duncan had just enough time to get home, help Danny get back in bed, changed into his uniform and headed to the station to work a twenty-four hour shift on the night of a full moon, which meant that every fucking psycho within a thirty-mile radius had decided that it had been the perfect night to listen to the fucking voices in their heads and make his life a living hell. He hadn’t gotten a single minute of sleep during that shift, which had been bad enough, but as soon as he came home it was time to help take care of Danny, run to the grocery store, the bank and a dozen other places that had helped push him past the point of exhaustion and nearly landed him in a hospital bed of his own.

Thankfully he’d managed to get to bed early that night, but unfortunately for him, so had Danny and Jodi. They’d kept him up for the next four hours with moans and groans of pleasure and what had sounded suspiciously like the headboard banging against the wall. At that point he’d seriously considered telling one of his asshole brothers or cousins to take his place, but then Jodi had brought him breakfast in bed the next morning with a sweet kiss on the cheek and a thank you for helping them.

After that he just kept his fucking mouth shut and sucked it up.

“What happened?” he asked, rubbing his hands roughly down his face while he prayed that this wasn’t going to lead to another night spent in the emergency room.

“Umm,” she mumbled, clearing her throat as she shifted her gaze away just as a rather interesting blush crept up her neck and cheeks. “Nothing really,” she whispered as that blush deepened into a fiery crimson red.

“I see,” he murmured thoughtfully, wondering about that blush.

Fortunately, or rather unfortunately for him, he didn’t have to wonder for very long as he followed Jodi into her bedroom and-

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he said before he could stop himself, and judging by the homicidal glare that his brother was shooting him, he probably should have kept his fucking mouth shut.

“I lost the key,” Jodi admitted, sounding absolutely mortified as Duncan stood there, staring at his brother in disbelief.

Those couldn’t be handcuffs…

Yet, they were, he mused as he reached for the cell phone on the bureau.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Danny growled, yanking on the cuffs keeping his arms locked in place.

Sighing heavily, because they both knew that he didn’t have a choice in the matter, he unlocked his brother’s phone, selected the camera app and did what every self-respecting Bradford would do in this situation.

“Oh my God,” Jodi muttered, burying her face in her hands even as he heard a little snort of amusement coming from her.

“I. Will. Kick. Your. Fucking ass,” the cranky bastard locked to the headboard snarled, giving him a look that promised all sorts of violence when he got free, but of course, Duncan ignored those threats and did what was expected of him.

“Say cheese.”

*-*-*-*

Two days and three speeding tickets later…

“Oh, my God,” Necie said on the verge of a panic attack as she sat there in her grandfather’s driveway, gripping the steering wheel tightly as it finally hit her.

She’d actually told her boss to go fuck herself.

Okay, so she hadn’t actually used those exact words, but she might as well have. After five years of her boss stealing her recipes and passing them off as her own, making her work double shifts, denying her raises and some time off so that she could have some semblance of a life, Necie had finally had enough. So, this morning when she’d showed up for work, she’d marched right up to her bitch of a boss, Kathleen, and flat out told her that she’d had enough and that she was quitting.

Unfortunately for Necie, the horrible excuse for a human being hadn’t heard one word she’d said, instead telling her that she was fired because she was five minutes late. At first she’d been a little shocked and even opened her mouth to beg the evil woman to give her another chance, but then common sense kicked in. She took her last meager paycheck, marched back to her car, slammed the car door shut behind her and promptly groaned when the action caused all the bags that she’d strapped to the top of her car to fall off and land in the street.

That was also around the time that the long line of eighteen-wheelers decided to speed down the street, destroying everything that she owned and leaving her sitting there shaking her head with a sigh, because really, she should have seen that one coming. After observing a moment of silence for her favorite tee shirt from college, the one that had been super soft and was now nothing more than a shredded mass, she decided that it was time to move onto the next stage of her life.

While most people would consider moving back in with their grandfather and working for him a major step back, she didn’t. She loved her grandfather. He was her best friend, the man in her life and the only person who truly understand and accepted her klutzy ways. He always had a ready smile and a wink for her when something went bad…

Which unfortunately for her and everyone around her happened quite a lot.

Coming home for her wasn’t admitting defeat. It meant that she finally felt that she was ready to work for her grandfather as head baker and train so that one day she could take over the family business, something that had terrified her for years, because she never believed that she’d ever be good enough to fill his shoes. Ten years ago when she’d left for culinary school, her grandfather had promised to personally train her and show her how to run the shop, but she hadn’t been read yet and he’d known her well enough to know that she needed to do this her way.

Now, she was back for good and suddenly terrified that she’d made a huge mistake. Maybe she should go back to Boston, scrape her clothes off the road, ask her landlord to let her move back into her apartment and go beg for her old job back. Not that she had a chance in hell of getting her old job or apartment back, she mused unhappily as she continued to sit in her car, staring blindly at the pile of old snow where her grandfather’s truck should be.