“Because they’re hateful bastards?” he suggested, wondering how she’d managed to miss that over the years.
She gave him another hopeful smile as she asked, “You know that we’d still love you, don’t you?”
“We’re. Not. Gay,” they bit out, glaring down at the small woman who actually sighed heavily with disappointment.
“And I’m sure that you’d both be able to find wonderful men one day,” she continued explaining, apparently intent on ignoring them.
Reese opened his mouth, no doubt to argue with her some more when something in their mother’s tone caught Darrin’s attention.
“What do you mean that you’re sure that we’d be able to find wonderful men one day?” he demanded, highly offended that she was actually questioning their abilities to get a good man.
“We’re a fucking catch,” Reese said with a glare, shaking his head in disgust while Darrin stood up.
“Any man would be lucky to have us,” Darrin added, grabbing his carry-on bag before he stormed off in a huff, deciding that now was a good time to have a word with the wife-stealing son of a bitch.
Chapter 22
“Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or-oh, shit!” Aidan gasped, drawing her attention away from the “e-mail” that she’d been pretending to read for the past five minutes so that she wouldn’t end up doing something stupid like stare at Darrin like some love sick teenage girl.
She glanced up from her phone just in time to see Darrin grab Aidan by his shirt and yank him up and over the back of his chair without breaking his stride. It took her sex-deprived mind a few seconds to shake the image of Darrin’s large bicep flexing and the memories of how his muscles used to flex when he-
“Stop manhandling me, you violent son of a bitch!” Aidan snapped, thankfully pulling her thoughts away from just how good it used to feel when Darrin would settle between her legs and-
“Let’s go have ourselves a little talk, shall we?” Darrin announced, making her shake her head in disgust.
What the hell was wrong with her? she wondered with a groan as she returned her attention back to her phone. After a month without sex, you’d think that she’d be able to stop thinking about it so much, but all it took most days was hearing his name and-
Wait.
Did he just say…
“Damn it!” she snapped, getting out of her seat to go after them only to groan in defeat when she spotted them entering the men’s room, the one place that he knew she wouldn’t follow.
Panic soared through her as she looked around, searching for someone, anyone, to stop Darrin from making this worse. She spotted Arik and Garrett sitting next to their father and quickly dismissed them since there was no way that she was going to be able to get the boys to go save their brother before Darrin killed him without cluing Dr. Bradford into the fact that she was hiding something from him. Her attention moved to Reese, who was too busy glaring at his mother as she grabbed Kenzie and dragged her towards the ladies room where Danny’s girlfriend Jodi was heading.
She shifted her attention to Danny and quickly moved on, not wanting to drag the oldest Bradford brother into this. She spotted Duncan charming an elderly woman as he helped her with her portable oxygen tank and moved on. Sighing, she shifted her attention to the only Bradford brother left.
Lucifer.
Whimpering pathetically, because she already knew the jerk wouldn’t help her, she walked over to where he was leaning against the wall and-
“Not interested,” he said, not bothering to look up from his phone as she approached him.
“Good talking to you, Lucifer,” she said dryly as she turned around and headed back to her chair in defeat, praying that Aidan didn’t ruin everything before she could fix this.
*-*-*-*
“I’m telling!” Aidan snarled as he moved to step around him, but Darrin was done playing games.
“You can go cry and bitch as soon as you tell me what I want to know,” he said, shoving his brother back against the marbled bathroom wall.
Eyes narrowing, Aidan tried to stare him down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the bastard said, trying to play stupid.
Sighing, because he really didn’t have time for this shit, he decided to speed things up a bit.
“Ow! Let me go, you son of a bitch!” Aidan snarled as Darrin grabbed him and put him in a headlock.
“Now, where were we?” he asked conversationally as he stood there, holding his brother in a headlock as half a dozen men stopped mid-pee to gawk at them.
“I’m not telling you anything, you vicious bastard!”
“Really?” Darrin asked as he glanced around the large bathroom, ignoring the men staring at them as he looked for the one thing guaranteed to make his brother talk.
When he found it, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Why don’t we take this conversation somewhere private?” he suggested, heading for the handicap bathroom stall, dragging his brother right along with him.
“What? Wait! No, don’t do this!” Aidan snapped, struggling to break free, but unfortunately for him, Darrin had perfected this move when they were kids.
“Tell me what I want to know,” he said distractedly as he pushed the bathroom door open. No, this would never do, he mused with a shake of his head as he dragged his brother over to the next stall.
“Darrin!”
“You have something that you want to tell me?” he asked, shoving the next door open with his foot only to shake his head with a sigh and move on down the line of stalls.
“Don’t do this, Darrin! I’m serious!” Aidan begged, doubling his efforts to escape.
“Tell me what I want to know,” Darrin said, shoving the next door open and-
“Well, look what we have here,” he murmured thoughtfully as he finally found a stall worthy of a public bathroom.
Tightening his hold around his brother, he raised his foot to step inside the stall that was going to leave him with nightmares when his brother yelled, “Fine! I’ll tell you what you want to know!”
He paused mid-step. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
With a satisfied nod, he stepped away from the stall, more than happy to get away from the rancid odor and released his brother. With a glare, Aidan moved away from him, but he didn’t try running. He knew better than that after all.
“What do you want to know?” Aidan bit out acidly as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall.