Thanks, That Was Fun... Ch. 02

Not as if he'd been a monk up 'til now – far from it. Ever since he'd figured out how to woo a girl, he'd not had a lot of trouble finding someone to spend some time with when he wanted. He was past his "screw everything that moves" phase, but it'd been years since some woman had this kind of pull over him.

It wasn't all together pleasant, feeling his pulse surge at the thought of her dark, golden blonde hair on her pillow, or remembering the perfect way her legs wrapped around his waist or the way she'd fallen into his arms smiling softly after they came together…

Danny groaned, rubbing another hand through his hair and shook his head, standing up. He just needed sleep. He wasn't about to spend any more time thinking about a girl who let half a bottle of Jim Beam put her into his arms, no matter how beautiful she was. Besides, by the sound of her and her scarily protective friends, some shit went down the day before. Judging from the assortment of razors, shaving cream and cologne that'd been in her bathroom, it sounded like he'd been exactly what they said – a rebound.

Which is just fine with me, he intoned to himself, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans and closing the office door behind him.

"Miss Trent," he said turning to his secretary, "Thanks for coming in this morning, enjoy the rest of your weekend."

Danny nodded to her and then turned down the hallway, rolling up the cuffs on his white and blue plaid shirt and trotting down the hall, his boots echoing off the ironwork stairs as he descended. A floor down, and he popped his head into an office that nearly mirror his own upstairs – instead of the antique guns that decorated his, this one featured prints and artists sketches of hunting dogs, pheasants in flight and wood ducks. Behind the desk sat something that also mirrored himself – Charlie, his younger brother, who stood only a few inches shorter, his hair a light brown as opposed to Danny's black, his eyes the same shade of light, light green. Charlie balanced a book in his hand, a phone cradled against his shoulder.

Danny walked in and fell into one of the leather seats in front of his brother's desk, waiting while Charlie finished the phone call. When he hung up, he started scribbling notes on a paper, then looked up.

"Didn't go like you wanted it to, huh?"

"What?" Danny asked, startled. He'd thought about mentioning Jane to his younger brother, but changed his mind after deciding it was a lack of sleep, not the woman, that kept her rattling around his brain.

"The meeting, with Mitch Franklin," Charlie said, looking up at his older brother with a confused look on his face. "Don't tell me you forgot."

Danny laughed and pushed fingers through his hair again.

"No, yeah, sorry," he said, "I meant to bring the proposal down. He'll up our units going out tremendously, but he wants to do partial assembly in Malaysia or somewhere."

Charlie frowned and shook his head. Danny knew his brother would agree with his desire to keep jobs that had always belonged to the local area here.

Danny stood up, "C'mon, let's go get some coffee downstairs. I slept like shit."

Charlie nodded, looked at his brother and laughed, closing the book in his hands and dropping it on to his desk.

"Yeah, I can tell," he said, eyeing Danny. "Did you go to that thing at Weaver's last night?"

Danny opened the door and walked out of the office, Charlie behind him as they descended the stairs and exited the administration building, then beelined for shops and cafes that stood across a large, tree lined courtyard.

"Uh, yeah," Danny said noncommittally, watching a couple of kids throwing a football back and forth. "It was alright. I never thought I'd see the day that Kirby Dennison had a bachelor party, but lo and behold…"

Charlie laughed as they approached the large, well-lit café.

"Well, he's our chief EDM tech, so it was good that one of us was able to be there," he said, shaking his head a little. "Katie is having hormonal shit fits like crazy. When I told her I planned on going last night, she nearly took off my head."

Danny grinned; chock up one more for just being the rebound guy – Charlie's wife Katie is about 7 months in on their first pregnancy. As a result, things for the couple went from dramatically wonderful to dramatically bad. Whatever happened to some pregnant women in their last term was plaguing Katie Wright in double doses – Charlie said things were constantly being blow out of proportion, and Katie went from expectant mother to drama queen in a flash. Either way, it seemed as if Charlie spent most of his time these days doing damage control or placating his wife. It wasn't a situation Danny intended to find himself in any time soon.

As they entered the café, Danny received another confirmation that he'd made the right decision in stating that Wright & Lewis was a family business and would stay that way – his mother, sister-in-law and sister Ella were working the counter, serving espressos, coffees and baked goods.

Katie smiled, came around the corner and hugged Charlie close over her distended stomach. Whatever pregnant craziness she'd displayed last night was evidently gone – she looked at Charlie with nothing but total love in her eyes.

Danny felt a slight tightening in his chest, as sometimes happened around couples that were evidently meant to be together. The point he'd marked for being the rebound guy suddenly didn't seem as attractive. He shuffled his feet a little and turned away from his brother, who was now in the grips of a serious lip lock.

"Hey, you," Ella said, giving the last lady in line her bag of what smelled like pumpkin-spice scones.

"Hey baby sister," he grinned, leaning against the counter. "How abouts a coffee for your favorite brother."

"Favorite brother here present, you mean," she said, wrinkling her nose in a laugh and reaching up to get a coffee mug, then turning back to the dispenser. As she handed it over, their mother came around the corner with a fresh batch of something, and slid it into the display case.

"Hey there, dumplin'," his mother intoned, walking over and wiping her hands on her apron.

"You're not working too hard, I hope," Danny said, looking at her over his the top of his coffee mug. She had a tendency to try and do everything at once, and watch out if you got in the way.

Bette leaned against the counter and put a hand on her hip. "Don't baby me, Daniel, it works the other way around," she said, a smile on her face. "Besides, I could say the same for you," she intoned, looking at his face. "When is the last time you went to bed at a decent hour?"

Danny rolled his eyes, unavoidably recalling the last bed he was in, the long, dark golden waves that he'd wrapped around his fingers as he moved back and forth, the woman that laid beneath him, biting her lip as she looked up at him, their eyes matching as evenly as their bodies, stroke for stroke.

"Danny?"

He blinked and looked up, realizing that he'd been staring at the display case while his head played on the sexual exploits of the night before. In front of his mother.

"Yeah?" he said, as if nothing strange had happened.

Bette stared at him with one eyebrow raised, while Ella's concerned face turned to the display case her older brother was staring at a moment ago.

"What is up with you? You look like you could eat a wolf," she said, looking at him strangely. "If you want something to eat, just say so."

Danny's jaw dropped slowly, then he forced himself to laugh and swallowed the rest of the hot coffee in the cup. It burned going down, but he managed to look at the two women with something he hoped bordered on normality.

This woman is turning me into a complete nutcase, he thought, tamping down the desire to hit himself in the head.

"No, I'm good," he said, putting the empty cup on the counter. "Sorry, I just had a…" Long night? Something inside him snickered. "…long week, I'm fried."

Ella nodded, but his mother looked unconvinced.

Digging into his pocket, he pulled out his keys.

"In fact, I think I'm going to head home," he said, twisting the key ring around his finger. By that point, Katie and Charlie walked over; it was evident that they'd made up for whatever transgressions happened the night before.

"You're not coming over to watch the game?" Ella asked, looking at him. Between the identical gazes of his mother and sister, Danny felt 15 again.

"Nah. I'll see y'all tomorrow, though," he grinned and leaned over the kiss Bette on the cheek then headed for the door as quick as he could go. It was hardly possible, but it felt like if he stayed there long enough, between the two of them they'd dip into his mind and pull out golden Jane and all the images of her body she'd imprinted into the backs of his eyelids.

Sliding into his Jeep, Danny fought the urge to knock his head against the steering wheel. He was 30 fucking years old, not a teenager that carried a hard-on for a girl all day long.

No, he was going to go home, go to sleep, and when he woke up in the morning, she'd be gone from his head.

As he revved up the truck and slid it into gear, a grin crept over his face.

If she's not gone in the morning, he thought, maybe I'll just have to go find her again. Suddenly, the idea of reliving every one of his memories, and then some, sounded like a better idea than sleeping it off.