The Game Plan (Neighbor from Hell 5)

Because apparently Danny had ditched her ass again this morning so that he could go out without her. Not that she would begrudge him some time alone with his family if that’s what he wanted. She would absolutely understand if he wanted to spend time alone with his family. In fact, she’d encouraged him to spend some time alone with his family more than once.

But, he wasn’t doing that.

Apparently last night she’d bruised his ego, but instead of admitting that, he’d given her some piss poor excuse that he had something to do and left her stranded with his family at the reptile farm. She’d been pissed, but she’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, figuring that he needed some time to himself. When he wasn’t at the hotel when they got back, answered her calls, returned her texts, or even returned to the hotel until after two in the morning, exhausted and distracted, she’d decided that perhaps they should have a talk in the morning. He’d apparently decided that wasn’t necessary.

Now as she sat there on the bed in the room that she’d decided to rent after she’d found out from Darrin, who’d been buying Advil, ice packs and an insane amount of snacks from the hotel store where she’d run into him two hours ago, that Danny had ditched the family to go out on his own, she was counting down the hours until she had to leave for the airport in the morning.

It was over.

Of course, Danny probably didn’t know that she’d dumped his lying ass yet. But, that was okay, because he’d know soon enough. She’d left him a note in his room along with an IOU note promising to pay him back for the airline ticket as well as one for his father for the credit card he’d taken upon himself to pay off. She’d also called Zoe and informed her that she was moving out effective immediately. When Trevor grabbed the phone away from his wife and tried to argue with her, she’d informed him that she was more than happy to pay whatever it took to break her lease.

When he asked why she needed to break her lease and she informed him that his cousin was a lying bastard whose ego couldn’t handle it when a woman refused to marry him, he’d sighed heavily and wished her luck. Once that was done she’d made a phone call that she’d been putting off for quite some time.

Her father had been understanding, more than understanding actually and had even offered to come down to Florida to get her and bring her home. She promised him that she was fine right now, but she needed a place to crash while she paid Dr. Bradford back and got her life back together. She’d also called Greg and asked him if he could get a couple of the guys together and move her stuff to her dad’s house.

After promising to kick Danny’s ass and then promptly ignoring her when she’d told him that she didn’t want his ass kicked, he asked her the one thing that almost broke her. He’d asked her if she was in love with Danny and she’d lied since the last thing that she needed was Greg worrying about her. He’d seen enough of her humiliation over the past year and he didn’t need to see anymore.

Chapter 40

“Danny-”

“I’m busy,” he said, not bothering to look up from his phone as he headed towards his room.

“I need to tell you something,” Darrin said, quickening his pace to catch up with him.

“Tell me later,” he said, pulling out his keycard.

“But-”

“Later,” he said, opening his door and stepping inside only to come to a halt when he spotted his father sitting on the edge of the bed.

“She’s left the hotel,” Darrin said, unnecessarily it would seem since the note Tinkerbelle left for him on the mirror said it all.

“When?” he asked, trying not to panic.

“A little after ten this morning,” his father said, standing up.

He glanced around the room and noted that all her stuff was gone. Nodding, he turned around to go after her, but he barely managed to turn around before his father stopped him by saying the one thing that he’d been waiting for his father to say for the past eight years, but never thought he would.

“You fucked up,” his father said, stopping him in his tracks.

“Dad,” Darrin said, shaking his head, but his father wasn’t listening.

“You fucked up and then you ran away like a coward.”

Jaw clenched, he met his brother’s shocked gaze and slowly, so fucking slowly, turned around so that his father could call him a coward to his face.

“I made a mistake,” he said evenly. “I was a kid and I made a mistake.”

“No,” his father said, shaking his head as he moved closer, sounding furious. “You didn’t make a mistake. You fucked up. You fucked up your life and instead of being a man and fixing it, you ran off like a fucking coward!”

Without thinking, he swung. He swung and he hit his father and he kept on hitting his father, not caring that his father was just taking it or that his brother was trying to pull him off. He didn’t fucking care. There were too many goddamn years, too much pain and anger to ignore a comment like that. His father had ignored him for years. Fucking years! And the first time that he really acknowledges him it was to call him a fucking coward?

“Get off him!” he heard Aidan scream, but he couldn’t stop.

This was his father and he loved him. He loved him so goddamn much and his father had abandoned him when he’d needed him the most. He’d turned his back on him and made him feel like shit, like he was fucking worthless and a failure and like his fuck up couldn’t be fixed. That was bad enough, but when he’d joined the Marines he’d waited for word from his father, waited for his father to call him, to visit him, to send him a letter telling him that he’d fucked up but that everything would be okay, anything, but there had been nothing.

The message had come through crystal clear. His father had washed his hands of him. Nothing could have been clearer than the moment he woke up and found his father standing in his doorway, watching him with a detached expression. Then his father had turned his back on him and walked away while he’d laid there in that fucking bed struggling not to scream from the pain. That had been the worst fucking moment of his life and now…

He couldn’t stop.

He just couldn’t and God, how he wanted to stop swinging his arms, but he couldn’t. There was just too much pain and he couldn’t stop. So, when he felt his brothers grab him and pull him away from his father, he was unbelievably grateful. But as they pulled him back and took him to the ground that gratitude turned to pure agony.