Danny Doormat, page 14
He hung up.
Danny stared at his phone for a couple of seconds in concern. Was Asa drunk-dialing on a weeknight?
He did a quick circuit of the few tables he had left, fetched the refills the customers wanted, and then scurried into the bathroom. He hid in one of the stalls and called Asa back.
“Hullo?”
“It’s Danny. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
“Danny!”
He could almost see the dopey smile that accompanied Asa’s tone, and he couldn’t help but smile too.
“That’s me. What’s going on, Asa?”
“It’s nothing.” Asa’s breath hitched slightly. If Danny had been out in the hall, he wouldn’t have been able to hear it.
“Obviously it’s not nothing. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Asa was quiet for a while before he said, “I’m sorry I called you at work. I’m fine. I’ll call you tomorrow, ’kay?”
He hung up for a second time, leaving Danny even more worried. He bit his lip and stared at his phone for a few seconds before he reluctantly tucked it into his pocket and pushed out of the stall. In the hallway, he literally ran into Chuck, one of his fellow brew slingers.
“You okay?” Chuck asked as he grabbed Danny’s upper arms to steady both of them.
“Yeah… no… I don’t know.”
“Ooookay.”
Danny threw Chuck a rueful smile. “Sorry. I just got a call from a friend, and I’m worried about him. That’s all.”
Chuck pursed his lips and glanced over his shoulder before he said, “The place is emptying out, and we close in less than an hour. You have what, three tables left? I can cover if you need to get out of here.”
“Yeah?” Danny asked hopefully.
“No worries. I’m splitting your tips, though.”
“That’s fine. Thanks so much!”
“I’ll tell the bossman you weren’t feeling well and you had to go home.”
“You’re awesome.”
“I know.”
Danny laughed and gave Chuck’s shoulder a quick pat in gratitude before he turned and hurried to the back door. His hand shook as he tried to get the key in the Jeep’s ignition, and he had to take a couple of breaths to calm down. By the time he made it to Asa’s driveway, he was a jittery mess. He’d wanted to floor the accelerator, but he had to keep reminding himself Asa and Lane—and probably Derek and everyone else—would kill him if he wrecked Sean’s baby.
He hopped out of the Jeep and hurried to the front door. He could hear Minion barking at his knocking and ringing the bell, but Asa never came, and the door was locked. Another spike of worry shot through him, and Danny went to the garage and punched in the code. Luckily, the door into the house from the garage was unlocked. Minion stood behind it, barking at him until Danny called to him.
“It’s okay. It’s just me. Where’s your daddy?”
He patted Minion’s head and received a moist tongue in return as he pushed his way past him and moved toward the great room.
“Asa? It’s Danny. Are you here?”
Music echoed up from the basement stairs so he headed that way.
“Asa?”
He found Asa stretched out on the sectional with Puddle of Mudd blasting out of the sound system. A bottle of 1800 sat on the table next to a tumbler with a few dregs in the bottom. A laptop stood open on the table as well, and a slideshow of photos of Asa and Sean at what appeared to be the Grand Canyon scrolled across the screen.
Danny’s heart broke a little as he gazed at Asa’s slack face and tried to decide if he should wake him or not. Minion made that decision moot by dragging the full length of his enormous tongue up Asa’s face from chin to eyebrows.
“Agh!” Asa spluttered awake, shoving Minion away. He dragged a hand down his face, grumbling at Minion the whole time, until he caught sight of Danny standing over him.
“Danny!”
He blinked a couple of times as if he wasn’t quite certain he was seeing right, though his grin was broad and dopey. Danny pushed his glasses up and shuffled his feet nervously.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. You sounded a little weird on the phone.”
Asa sat up slowly and wavered a little. He swallowed and gave Danny a wobbly smile. “You came to check up on me?”
“Of course.”
Asa sniffed and his smile collapsed completely as his eyes misted over. “That’s—” He cleared his throat. “That’s really sweet. Thanks.”
Asa dropped his gaze to the coffee table and took a couple of breaths. Danny ached to hug him or stroke his hair or something, anything that would help, but he had no idea what Asa needed that he could possibly provide.
After taking a second to turn the music down, he moved to the cushion next to Asa and sat as close as he dared. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
He wasn’t an idiot. Judging by the photos and the music—one of Sean’s favorite bands—he had a pretty good idea why Asa was drunk and crying on a Tuesday night. But he didn’t know if anything specific had happened to trigger it.
Asa was quiet for a little while before he whispered brokenly, “I just miss him.”
Danny’s throat tightened, and he nodded. “I miss him too.”
After giving Danny a watery smile, Asa took a long breath and blew it out. “It’s not usually this bad. I’m sorry. This one hit me out of nowhere.”
He swayed a little as he reached for his glass and downed the last bit of tequila in the bottom.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Danny murmured. “I only want to help, if there’s anything I can do.”
While Danny cringed in worry, Asa lifted the tequila bottle and poured another couple of fingers into the tumbler. He splashed a little on the coffee table and had trouble setting the bottle back down until Danny took it from him and set it a safer distance away.
Asa chuckled and gave him a sloppy half smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
After taking a quick swig from his glass, Asa settled back into the cushions on the sectional and closed his eyes.
“It’s the anniversary of our first date,” Asa murmured after a time. “This is stupid.”
He sounded so hurt and tired, Danny ached to take the glass from him and tuck him up under a blanket to sleep it off. He didn’t know how that would go over, though, so he sat and waited.
There was another long pause before Asa chuckled. “Our first date was a disaster. Did you know that?”
He opened bleary hazel eyes and sort of focused on Danny.
“No.”
Asa’s smile widened to a grin. “We so did not hit it off. Sean was loud and crass and way too over-the-top for me. We went to this super industrial-looking bar where I could barely hear half of what he said, and guys he knew kept coming up to the table and interrupting us. It was one of his favorite hangouts, and apparently, everyone knew him and/or had probably slept with him. God, it was terrible.”
Danny winced as Asa took another pull from his glass.
“Can I have some of that?” Danny asked, reaching for it.
Asa frowned at him in confusion for a second until he seemed to finally figure out what Danny was talking about. He handed it over with a smile. Danny took a small sip and held on to the glass, but Asa didn’t seem to notice. He stared blankly across the room instead.
“Obviously, things improved on your second date, though,” Danny prodded.
With a loud snort, Asa sat unsteadily back up again and fixed his slightly unfocused gaze on Danny. “When I wouldn’t return his calls, he tracked me down at the gym where we’d met and handed me this enormous bouquet of flowers while I was still on the treadmill. I was surprised enough that I agreed to a second date.” He waved a hand in the air, almost smacking Danny in the nose with it. “And the rest is history.”
Another long silence fell, and Danny was struggling to think of something to say or do that might help when Asa sighed and flopped back against the cushions again.
“I’m cold,” he said, wrapping his arms around himself.
Danny set the tumbler on the coffee table out of reach and dragged the throw off the back of the sectional. He draped it over Asa’s prone form, then leaned close to tuck it around him. Asa opened his eyes and smiled up at him.
“Thanks, Danny. For everything.”
Now Danny really wanted to cry. Asa was so close, warm and vulnerable, giving Danny a smile that would melt stone. Danny’s hands trembled as he finished fussing with the blanket, and he had to clear his throat before he could answer. “Anytime. I mean it.”
“You’re pretty great. You know that?”
Before Danny had to think of an appropriate response, Asa’s eyelids fell closed again, and Danny gingerly climbed off the couch to hunt down a bottle of water and the Tylenol he’d seen in one of the kitchen drawers. Asa would want that later and he needed some space to clear his head.
Once he’d set the supplies on the coffee table, he was kind of at a loss. Tomorrow was his usual day off, but he’d agreed to pick up a fill-in morning/afternoon shift at the sandwich place two doors down from Caught in a Lye. He’d subbed there before, so it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but he needed to get some sleep. He gazed down at Asa’s now-snoring form, and his heart melted. He couldn’t leave him, not like this.
After letting Minion out into the yard for a pee break and turning off the music, Danny searched out another blanket and piled a couple of throw pillows in the corner of the sectional. He turned off all the lights except the ones behind the bar and set his phone alarm to wake him in time to get to work. He put that and his glasses on the coffee table before curling up on the couch and closing his eyes.
Sometime later, Danny woke to the sound of Asa drawing in sobbing breaths.
“Asa?”
Asa only moaned and tossed and turned. Danny awkwardly clasped Asa’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he murmured, but Asa only continued to draw in those painful-sounding breaths as he shook.
In the middle of the night, in the dim light from the bar, Danny was a lot braver than he otherwise might have been. He pulled Asa into his arms and rocked him, murmuring useless platitudes because he didn’t know what else to say. Asa was drunk enough he probably wouldn’t remember any of it anyway.
“I’ve got you,” Danny whispered. “I won’t let go. I promise.”
Chapter Twelve
ASA WAS warm… too warm. He was sticky with sweat, and, worse than that, his cheek was damp with what was most likely his own drool. A burst of moist, dog breath-scented air made him grimace and open his eyes. Minion’s gaping pink maw filled his vision, which didn’t seem quite right. Did the dog somehow grow a foot? Plus, whatever Asa was lying on was harder than a pillow and moving.
Frowning, he lifted his head and glanced up to find Danny out cold with his mouth hanging open. Asa had somehow fallen asleep draped across Danny’s chest, and he’d left an incriminating wet spot of drool on Danny’s shirt. He didn’t have time to try to sort through the implications of that realization before a knife of pain lanced through his skull and he moaned. He put a hand to his forehead and pushed himself upright as gingerly as he could manage. His stomach roiled and the knife in his brain changed into a bass drum, keeping time with his heartbeat.
He moaned again and reached for the bottle of water some angel had left on the coffee table. Something had died in his mouth, and if he didn’t get rid of the taste soon, whatever was in his stomach threatened to make a reappearance. The thought of having to rush to the bathroom in his current state did not appeal, and he swallowed thickly.
He took a few deep breaths and drank half the bottle of water before he could manage the childproof cap on the Tylenol the aforementioned angel—probably Danny—had also left on the table. Once he’d downed a couple of pills, he followed Minion’s persistent summons and shuffled over to the sliding glass doors to let him out. A cool, damp breeze wafted over him from outside, and he sighed in relief as he leaned on the doorjamb and squinted against the morning sunlight. After a few more deep breaths, he was feeling slightly more human, even if the throbbing in his head hadn’t subsided yet.
He glanced over his shoulder at Danny’s sleeping form and tried to make sense of the jumble in his head. His current hangover and the open bottle of tequila on the coffee table helped fill in some of the blanks.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He’d had a bad night.
It hadn’t started off too bad. He’d put on some music, pulled up some pictures, and decided to toast Sean’s memory with his favorite tequila. That had been the plan anyway. But obviously, things had gone south from there… probably around the third or fourth “toast” to Sean.
With dawning embarrassment, he remembered drunk-dialing Danny at work, even if he didn’t recall exactly what he’d said. After a bit of a search, he found his phone on the floor by the sectional. He glanced at the history and was relieved that he hadn’t drunk-dialed anyone else. He lowered himself back onto the cushions, grabbed the bottle of water again, and downed the rest of it. He’d barely set it back on the coffee table when Danny groaned and rolled onto his side. Asa froze and held his breath. After probably keeping Danny up way too late last night, the least he could do was let him sleep in as much as possible on his day off.
When Danny seemed to settle again without opening his eyes, Asa blew out the breath he’d been holding and relaxed. Minion had flopped onto the ground outside in the shade so Asa thought maybe they’d all sleep in just a little longer. All he had to do was send off an email to one of his team to let them know he’d be taking a personal day, and then he could curl up and nurse his hangover. His phone said it was nine thirty already, so someone at his office would probably be expecting something of the kind anyway.
Maybe after he’d had a little more sleep and given the painkillers some time to do their job, he’d be able to process the fact that he’d slept on top of Danny. But he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that yet. He cracked an eyelid and glanced over at his sleeping companion again, curled up in the corner of the sectional. Despite the hangover, waking up wrapped around another human being had been really nice. He would’ve had to have been dead not to notice the play of lean muscle under his cheek, even if he hadn’t registered it immediately on waking. He closed his eyes again as the desire to take a little more of that physical comfort nearly overwhelmed him. Danny was definitely not hard to look at, all cozied up and rumpled from sleep. If Asa had to guess only from what he’d learned over the last few weeks of getting to know him better, Danny was probably a world-class cuddler, but….
It’s complicated.
Too complicated for him to give in to needy impulses the morning after the first really bad night he’d had in more than six months, no matter how inviting Danny looked. Asa closed his eyes with a sigh and settled into his cushions a decent distance from temptation.
“Shit! What time is it?”
Danny’s voice jolted Asa out of his doze, and he winced as the sound echoed through his skull.
“Almost ten,” he croaked. His voice sounded like a cement mixer and he squinted at the coffee table, hoping another bottle of water would have magically appeared there, but no dice.
Danny flung himself off the couch so fast Asa’s world spun as he tried to follow the movement.
“I’m late! Dammit, my phone died.”
The Tylenol had finally started to kick in, so Asa’s headache was only a dull throb now instead of the death metal drumming it had been earlier. He pulled himself upright as Danny frantically started tugging on his shoes.
“I thought you were off Wednesdays.”
“I picked up an extra shift this morning.”
“Oh.”
His mind was still foggy enough that he couldn’t come up with anything more brilliant. Danny paused his frenzied shoelace tying and lifted his head. He studied Asa for a second before his face softened into a different kind of concern.
“I’m sorry. Are you feeling better this morning?”
Asa could feel the blood rush to his face. His brain was only providing flashes from the night before, but he had a pretty good idea how pathetic he must have been.
“I’m really sorry, Danny. Tequila got the better of me last night. I’m fine now… well, hungover, but fine.”
Danny bit his lower lip and eyed him skeptically, so Asa dredged up smile.
“Don’t let me make you any later for work than I already have. We can talk tonight.”
“Okay.”
Danny finished tying his shoes, grabbed his glasses, and stood up, combing at his hair with his other hand. “I wish I had time to go home for a change of clothes.”
“We’re not that different in size. I think, after all you’ve done for me, I can spare you a pair of clean boxers and a shirt, at least. My pants might be a little big, though.”
Danny’s lips curved wryly. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again and cleared his throat. “The shirt and boxers would be great. Thanks.”
Asa led the way upstairs. By the time they’d reached the top of the second flight up to the bedrooms, Asa was ready to curl up on his bed and go back to sleep, but he pressed on.
“You’re welcome to take a shower before you go,” Asa said as he dug through his drawers to find something for Danny to wear.
“I’d love that, but I’m already late. My shift is only a few hours. I’ll just shower when I get home.”
“Okay.” Asa handed over a shirt and boxers and Danny smiled.
“Thanks.”
Danny disappeared into the guest bathroom, and Asa slumped onto his mattress with a sigh of relief. He was getting too old to drink that much in one sitting.
Danny poked his head through the door a couple of minutes later.
“I’m sorry to have to run off like this, but thanks for the clean clothes.” Asa made to get up, but Danny waved him back. “You don’t have to see me out. Get some sleep. I’ll let Minion back in before I go.”
“You’re an angel. Do you know that?”
