The Game Plan (Neighbor from Hell #5)(36)

“I thought we’d grab lunch before the movie,” he said, pulling into the parking lot of a fifties era diner.

“We’re seeing a movie?” she asked, suddenly perking up, not only because it had been a while since she’d been to the movies, or could afford to, but because she’d thought after her……..ummm, little meltdown, that he’d want to end things early. Most guys that she’d gone out with would have ditched her by now. Even Greg would have dropped her off at her house, shaken his head in disbelief and walked off.

“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 * 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 * 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.