Coming Home(103)

You free this weekend? We’re hitting up Dave and Buster’s for my birthday.

He hit send and exhaled, putting the phone on the table before he picked up his pizza.

A minute later his phone vibrated with her response, and he stopped chewing as he swiped the screen with the side of his finger.

Happy birthday! And definitely. Call me later.

He smiled, clearing the screen before sliding the phone back in his pocket.

No more wasting time you don’t have.



“I’m not going in that thing,” Leah said as she took a sip of her beer, and Jake scoffed.

“Oh come on. It’s a game!”

“Yes, it’s a game. A 4D game where you lock yourself in a confined space and not only see and hear but also feel the monsters attacking you if you don’t kill them fast enough. No thanks.”

“What are you, eight?” Jake said. “It’s not real.”

“Then you go in!” Leah said through a laugh.

Jake smirked, resting his elbows on the table as he leaned across it toward Leah. “Care to make this interesting?”

She put her beer down and mirrored his position, leaning toward him. “Always.”

Danny grinned as he brought his drink to his lips, his arm resting on the back of the booth behind her.

“Okay,” Jake said, sitting up and looking around the table. “Okay, so…”

“He’s got nothing,” Tommy said with a laugh, and Danny chuckled as Leah sat back against the booth, turning her head to look up at him. He looked down at her, a smile curving his lips, and she shifted in her seat, closing the small distance between them so that their bodies were touching from shoulder to knee.

His arm came down from the back of the booth, wrapping around her shoulders, and she brought her hand to his knee under the table.

From the second he had picked her up that night, he could tell something was different. Not only was the awkwardness between them gone, but any hesitation, any sense of restriction, had completely vanished as well. On the ride down, she had reached over the console and held his hand. And several times throughout dinner, she had found an excuse to touch him. A playful slap here, a shoulder rub there, and now her hand on his leg.

On the surface Danny was completely calm and collected, but underneath, his adrenaline was racing with every touch, with what it could mean, with the awareness that each one heated his veins and made his heart beat faster and his breathing grow shallow.

“Got it!” Jake finally said, grinning triumphantly. He reached across the table to the remnants of their appetizers and pulled two buffalo bites off the plate. He put one in front of Leah, and the other in front of himself before grabbing the hot sauce from the side of the table and shaking an excessive amount on each one.

“Dude, those are f*cking Firehouse wings,” Tommy said. “What are you doing?”

“Upping the ante,” he said before he reached into Tommy’s plate of nachos, pulling two jalepeno peppers out of the cheese and placing them on the top of each piece of chicken, like a cherry on top of a sundae.

“Is he gonna make me eat that?” Leah said in Danny’s ear, and he leaned down to her, reveling in the scent of her hair.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Tell him to f*ck off.”

“Swear jar,” she said, and Danny grinned as she sat up to face Jake. “Alright, what are we doing?”

“We each eat this. Whole thing. One bite. Whoever drinks first, loses. And if you lose, your ass goes in Dark Escape.”