The Game Plan (Neighbor from Hell 5)

“Your choice,” Danny said, shooting her that grin that did funny things to her and a wink.

“That sounds nice,” she said, trying to bite back a smile, failing and not really caring all that much for one simple reason.

She was on a date, a real date. Not that she’d never gone out with a man before, obviously she had, but she’d never been treated like a real date before. Danny wasn’t treating her with indifference, constantly checking the time, or even checking out the really beautiful woman walking in front of the truck. Instead, all of his attention was on her and it was nice.

Before she could open her door he was there, opening it for her and helping her out of the truck. He took her hand into his and together they walked towards the diner that was giving off the most delicious aroma. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until that moment, which of course made sense since she’d spent the last three hours building an appetite by hunting down a bunch of big babies in the woods.

“Welcome to Henry’s. How can I……….,” the hostess started to say with a big smile as they walked through the door only to let her words trail off with a frown when her gaze landed on Danny.

“We’d like a table for two,” Danny said, seemingly oblivious of the waitress’s weird greeting.

“Umm,” the waitress mumbled, licking her lips nervously as she stepped away from her station, “I-I’ll go see if we have any tables available.”

“It smells good in here,” Danny said, drawing her attention back up to him.

“It really does,” she murmured with a frown as she watched the hostess run across the diner, around tables and finally slam through the kitchen’s swinging double doors.

“Is something going on?” she asked, returning her attention to Danny to find him gazing around the diner, looking innocent……a little too innocent.

“He’s one of them!” somebody suddenly shouted.

“I’m not going out there!”

“Neither am I!”

“Oh my God!” another scream came from the vicinity of the kitchen. “You promised us that they were never coming back!”

“He’s a Bradford!”

“Oh….shit,” the softly muttered oath drew her attention back to Danny to find him shaking his head in disgust as he pulled out his phone.

“What is going on?” she asked, ending on a gasp when Danny suddenly yanked her back and out of the way as several women wearing matching uniforms suddenly came charging towards them. The panicked staff kept as far away from them as possible as they shoved each other out of the way in attempt to get through the door first.

“I’m not serving him!” a short elderly woman with curly gray hair yelled, grabbing a redhead by her ponytail and yanking her out of the way.

“Why don’t we go somewhere else? This place looks busy,” Danny said as she watched several more women and two men join the group desperately trying to escape the otherwise peaceful diner.

“How about the burger joint across the street,” she suggested absently, unable to look away as the little old lady reached up and grabbed another woman by the back of shirt and yanked her out of the way.

Danny cleared his throat. “That might not be a good idea.”

“What might be a bad idea?” she asked, wincing in sympathy when the old lady kicked out one of the waitress’s legs.

“Going to the burger joint across the street.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, watching as the little old lady managed to slam an elbow into the cook’s stomach and shoved her way to freedom.

Sighing heavily, he said, “Because I’m banned.”

Chapter 17

“You don’t need to do this,” Danny said, handing her the pot she’d asked for.

“It’s fine,” she said as she took the pot from him with a smile.

No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to being fine, but thanks to his asshole cousins and uncles, he’d discovered the extent of the damage those bastards had done over the years. Every restaurant they’d tried to go to had either turned them away, run screaming for the fire exits or had a mental breakdown when he came walking through the door. When he’d tried to avoid a potentially embarrassing situation by calling ahead, it had ended with some hysterical manager sobbing as they threw around the words police, restraining order and “Please, God, no!”

After coming to the conclusion that his asshole relatives had gotten the family banned from every restaurant within a ten-mile radius of the movie theatre, he’d given up and headed to the movies. He’d planned on ordering a few ten-dollar hot dogs, and fifteen-dollar bags of popcorn from the concession stand to hold them over until later, but his little Tinkerbelle had taken one look at the prices and professed up and down that she wasn’t hungry.

When he’d told her not to worry about it, she’d offered to make him dinner instead. He’d tried talking her out of it, but the stubborn woman had simply shook her head, grabbed his hand and yanked him towards the exit, leaving him with no choice but to accept the fact that he’d failed in his first attempt to woo her.

Now, as he stood in her kitchen watching her throw together a quick dinner, he decided that he was going to have to reevaluate his game plan. Originally he’d planned on wooing her with casual dates, a romantic meal here and there and his natural charm, but so far, none of that was working for him.

Well, at least the romantic meal portion of his plan wasn’t working. The next time he took her out, and there would be a next time, he was going to have to do a little research in advance. He’d show up at her door with roses, chocolates and take her out to the most romantic restaurant that he could find. For now, he’d have to work with what he had, which admittedly wasn’t a hell of lot, but he’d make it work.

“Do you need any help?” he asked, running several possibilities through his head.

“No,” Tinkerbelle said with a shy little smile that had him rethinking his plans to take this slowly.

But, he had a plan and he was going to stick with it even if it killed him.

“How long before it’s done?” he asked offhandedly.

“About an hour,” she said, shooting him another small smile over her shoulder as she filled a large pot with water.

Perfect.

“I’ll be back in time,” he promised with a satisfied sigh as he walked out of her apartment, quickly making plans to salvage this date.