Page 3 of Need a Hand?
Damian knew he was turning a crazy color, his whole face going as red as a tomato. Fuck, he hated his crimson blushes and the nickname that came with it.
The maybe-twins both stared at him, the guy’s mouth hanging open and his sister’s twitching with what might have been a suppressed laugh and might have been rage. Damian wouldn’t have been surprised by either or both. Since he was the idiot who’d run over her brother and was now standing here making an ass of himself, fair enough.
Peter spoke first. “Damian Rosetti? Wait a minute,you’rethe one who—” He stopped abruptly, his ears turning pink. “From the SRFD, uh-huh. Way to underplay the whole hitting me with a fire truck thing.”
“Wait, this is him? The guy who was driving?” Girl-twin took a menacing step forward, her small fists clenched at her sides.
Damian had at least ten inches and seventy pounds on her, but damn, even if he would ever hit a woman half his size, he wasn’t sure he’d win. He’d seen that look in the eyes of ex-cons hustling pool in biker bars.
He fell back a step, hands raised flat out in front of him. Don’t run from the angry bear. Try to look non-threatening. Or were you supposed to look bigger? Fuck. “I’m here to apologize!”
“Apologize?Apologize?” If her voice went any higher the windows would shatter. “You could havekilledhim!”
“It was an accident—”
“That’s enough, Mar,” Peter put in, a lot more firmly than Damian would’ve expected. He had a bossy big sister himself, and he knew better. This guy seriously had no sense of self-preservation at all. “It was an accident. I jumped in front of the truck, and he probably didn’t even see me.”
It took Damian a second to process that the guy he’d run over was defending him, but Mar—and that had to be short for something, because surely her parents wouldn’t have named her after a female horse—whirled on her brother instantly. Damian made a mental note to thank the guy for drawing her fire away from him, if Peter survived to be thanked.
“I can’t believe you’re defending him. They’re supposed to protect and serve—”
“Um, I think that’s the police,” Peter ventured, eyes wide. Looked like it was starting to sink in how foolhardy it was to disagree with a sister on a rampage.
“Who fucking cares! Who fucking cares what their fucking motto is, but I know it’s not ‘Hit with a truck and then show up with a lame apology’!” She rounded on Damian again. “Seriously. You can’t just walk in here and apologize and expect that to make everything okay!”
“I don’t think it’ll make everything okay,” Damian snapped, his temper finally getting the upper hand. “But would you rather Ididn’tcome and say I was sorry? I mean, what exactly do you want from me? I fu—screwed up. The driveway sloped up. He wasn’t there when I made the turn, but I lost visibility of the ground for a second, and that’s when he must have ended up right in front of me. I’m sorry, okay?” He took his eyes off of Mar and looked over at Peter, meeting that clear, innocent gaze. Peter seemed to be looking right into him, not just at him, and his anger drained away. Fuck, those were some seriously pretty eyes. “I’m really sorry,” he said, a lot more sincerely. “The second I saw you I hit the brakes as hard as I could. Those rigs have a lot of momentum. I’m so sorry you got hurt.”
Peter’s expression softened with every word, and Damian slumped a little as the tension drained out of him. Thank fucking God, because if Peter didn’t forgive him, his career was over. It might be over anyway.
“It’s all right,” Peter said. “I get it. I ran in front of the truck—rig, whatever, and I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?” Mar looked ready to explode, her hands on her hips and her feet planted like she’d braced herself to go a few rounds in a boxing ring. “Don’t admit fault. Any lawyer would take you apart for that.”
“I’m not suing!” Peter yelled. “I already told you I’m not. Can you just—I don’t know, back the heck off for five seconds?”
“Heck?” Damian and Mar said in unison, and then glared at each other.
“So sueme,” Peter said, with venom. “I don’t curse every other word. I havemanners.”
Damian could almost see heat waves rising off of Mar’s head. “Peter Lee Parks,” she hissed, “don’t you dare get fucking self-righteous with me—”
“See? You can’t even get throughone single sentencewithout—”
“—because I’m not the one too fucking stupid to not jump in front of a fire truck—”
“—using completely excessive profanity—”
Damian had been swiveling back and forth between the two of them as their voices got higher and higher, but finally, well…he had enough.
He put his fingers between his lips and whistled loud enough to pierce his own eardrums. Both twins jumped and fell silent, staring at him with identical expressions of startled annoyance. Damian fought down a laugh. The last thing he needed was for both of them to start screaming at him instead of each other.
“Mar, right?” he said, when he was pretty sure he had their full attention. “Can you maybe give us a minute alone?”
“Yes,” Peter said. “Yes, definitely, you should go get coffee. Somewhere else.” He muttered a few more words, and Damian was almost sure they were “Somewhere really far away.”
By the way her eyes narrowed, she heard the same thing. “Fine,” she said after a tense little pause, and tossed her head. “And it’s Mary Jane,” she hissed through her teeth, turning her piercing glare on Damian. “If you have to speak to me at all.”
Mary Jane. And then it hit him. Damian bit down hard on his lip, holding in an explosion of laughter through sheer force of will. He hardly noticed Mary Jane saying, “Have it your way, see if I try to help you again.”
