Double Dare (Neighbor from Hell #6)(15)

Well, what he’d caught them doing wasn’t important.

“He loves you,” Jake said, reaching over and taking her hand into his to give it a reassuring squeeze.

“I know,” she said, dropping the rest of her pizza on her plate and placed it on the box.

“You’ve been in love with this man for your whole life, Goose,” he said softly, using the nickname that her grandparent’s tribe had come up with for her after a rather unfortunate incident involving several geese, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and her determination to feed them when she was three years old.

She nodded, because he was right of course. She was in love with Darrin Bradford. For the longest time she’d fought it, tried to deny it, but at the end of the day, she knew that there was no denying that she loved him. He was the love of her life and always would be, which made things worse because she wasn’t good enough for him.

And she never would be.

“Tell him, Goose. It’s not going to change anything for him. He’s still going to want to marry you,” Jake said, placing his plate on the pizza box so that he could reach over and take her hand in his.

“I know it won’t,” she said, sniffling.

“So, tell him.”

“No.”

“Why not?” he asked, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Because I love him too much to do that to him,” she said, accepting the napkin that he was holding out to her and quickly wiped her mouth.

“He has the right to make that decision for himself.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “he doesn’t. I don’t want him giving up his dreams for me.”

For several minutes neither one of them said anything as they sat there, thinking things over until finally, Jake said, “Then it’s time that you let him go.”

“I know,” she reluctantly admitted, because what she was doing wasn’t fair to either one of them. She had to let him go.

She just wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Chapter 5

“It’s gotta be a trap,” his twin brother said as they stood there, staring down at the small stack of Black Jack’s pizza boxes that they’d discovered hiding in his normally barren refrigerator twenty minutes ago.

“I know,” Darrin said, staring down at the boxes and damning Marybeth to hell and back for teasing them like this.

“Didn’t you double dare her to go on all those rides?” Reese asked, swallowing nervously as he glanced around the large kitchen.

“Yes,” he admitted hollowly, wondering what kind of sick person could do something this.

“They’ve gotta be empty,” Reese said, shifting his attention back to the boxes.

“No,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “they were heavy.”

“What are you thinking?” Reese asked, poking the box with a butter knife. “A diuretic?”

“It could be anything,” he said, folding one arm over his chest while he cupped his chin in a thoughtful manner with his other hand.

“Maybe we should just throw them away,” Reese suggested, but they both knew that neither one of them would be able to do that.

There were just some things that you didn’t do, and throwing away Black Jack’s pizza was one of them.

“Just try it,” he said, hoping that his brother would man up and get it over with so that they could end this bullshit.

Reese shook his head, assuming a similar pose as he continued to study the box. “You first.”

“No f*cking way,” he said, having absolutely no desire to willingly accept Marybeth’s revenge.

“I double dare you to do it,” Reese said, which was really f*cking sad.

“That only works coming from Marybeth,” he reminded his brother.

“Why?” his brother asked, frowning as he tore his gaze away from the boxes to glare at him.

“Because you refused to play the game when it started.”

Reese snorted. “I wasn’t going to eat that f*cking shit. That was disgusting.”

Darrin chuckled as he returned his attention to the box. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“They admitted you to the ICU for a month!” Reese said, looking just as horrified as he had that fateful Sunday afternoon when Darrin had followed through with Marybeth’s first double dare and ate the entire bowl of penicillin covered worms.

“It was just a bad reaction to the worms,” he said, waving it off.

“Then this should be a walk in the park for you,” Reese said, gesturing towards the boxes.

“Eat a slice or get the hell out,” he told his brother, hoping to cut the shit and get this over with.

“No,” Reese simply said, using the butter knife to pop the cover open on the top box, revealing-

“Oh, f*ck no,” he said, swallowing hard when he realized what they had in front of them.

“A Monster,” Reese said, licking his lips hungrily as they stared down at the pizza in front of them.

“Four slices are missing,” he pointed out, moving closer to examine the pizza for any obvious signs of tampering.

“She did that to f*ck with our heads,” Reese said, coming closer to examine the pizza as well. They examined the pizza from every angle, looking for anything that would give away Marybeth’s sick and twisted plans for him.