Since he didn’t want the little pain in the ass showing up at his door, sobbing and bitching about her grandfather’s poor, weak heart, he decided to do what needed to be done.

For all their sakes, of course.

“Hand it over,” he said, holding out his hand and wiggled his fingers in demand.

To Mr. Dixon’s credit, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Fifty dollars.”

“Fifty dollars?” he repeated, sure that he’d misheard, because otherwise that would just be…

Sad.

“A hundred,” Mr. Dixon said, not missing a beat.

Shaking his head in disgust, because he really didn’t have time to play these games, he walked over, reached around the much smaller, yet intimidating man, and snatched the large bag of brownies away from him.

“Are you sure that you want to do that?” Mr. Dixon asked as he narrowed his eyes dangerously on him.

“Absolutely,” he said with a look that told Mr. Dixon that he should have known better.

“This isn’t going to win you any points with Necie,” the old man snapped as Duncan turned around and headed back down the short set of stairs with the bag of brownies, deciding that this bullshit wasn’t worth finally being allowed into the Fire & Brimstone.

“I think I’ll survive,” Duncan said dryly as he headed back towards his house, careful of the black ice since the last thing that he needed to was to break his fucking neck and have to depend on the little pain in the ass for help.

Speaking of the little pain in the ass that seemed to make every single one of his days, oh so special.

“What are you doing?” the woman that brought such joy to his life demanded as she stopped in front of him and-

Lost her footing on a miniscule patch of ice and grabbed onto him, forcing him to save the little brat from falling on her ass. Once he had her steadied, she mumbled a, “Thanks,” and quickly backed away from him with one of those blushes that normally irritated him, but tonight…

He had to actually admit that it made the little pain in the ass look adorable. She always blushed when she saw him. That was nothing new, but for some reason right now he couldn’t look away from those rosy cheeks, green eyes and messy wavy black hair pulled back into a messy bun. She just looked so damn adorable and that was his cue to get the hell out of there, grab an ice pack, pop another painkiller and call it a night, because if he was actually starting to think of her as anything other than a little pain in the ass then this fucking concussion was worse than he’d originally thought.

Deciding to outright ignore her, because that’s usually what he did when he was trying to avoid her, he stepped around her and-

“He was bringing me fudge brownies,” the son of a bitch that he was going to kill, said, fucking him over for absolutely no reason, which for a second made him wonder if it was possible that the man was part Bradford. He quickly dismissed it due to the fact that the man couldn’t handle his food, something every Bradford could do from birth.

He opened his mouth to tell Necie that her grandfather was full of shit, but she seemed to have forgotten that he was even there, because all of her attention seemed to be locked on the elderly man who’d fucked him over and was currently sneaking in through the back door.

“Get back here, old man!” Necie yelled, pushing past him as she stormed towards the back door. “I know they’re yours!”

“No, they’re not!” Mr. Dixon yelled back even as Duncan heard the unmistakable sounds of a deadbolt sliding locked.

Instead of getting upset or demanding that her grandfather open the door, the little terror narrowed her eyes on the back door, her little hands curled into fists and he would swear to his dying day that she snorted in disgust. “Because that’s really going to save you,” she said, shaking her head in disgust as she turned around and once again pushed past him, mumbling something about boiled chicken and steamed potatoes for a month while he stood there, holding a bag of brownies and wondering if his father and cousin had even bothered to check out the neighborhood before buying the house for Danny and Jodi.

Probably not, he thought with disgust as he decided to call it a night and head home to grab some milk so that he could devour the brownies that-

“Thanks,” Mr. Dixon said, right about the time that the bag was suddenly ripped from his hands.

“Hey!” he snapped as he turned around to retrieve his bag of brownies, but for an old man, Mr. Dixon was surprisingly fast. He was up the back stairs, inside the house and setting the lock before Duncan could blink.

For a minute, he stood there in shock as the loss of the brownies hit. His initial response was to go after the old man and demand his brownies back, but he knew that it was not only pointless, but would end with him spending more time than he wanted to with the little pain in the ass, which was the last goddamn thing that he wanted.

With a silent farewell to the brownies that were never meant to be, he headed back home and within minutes, regretted not going after those damn brownies.

*-*-*-*

“No, fucking way,” he said, shaking his head as he glared down at his small sister-in-law as she glared right back up at him, doing her best to intimidate him, but he was beyond intimidating and at some point she’d figure that out.

“Yes,” she said firmly, intensifying her glare as though that was going to somehow make him change his mind.

“Not happening,” he said with a shake of his head as he reached past her and grabbed a sandwich off the large tray that she’d made for what he liked to refer to as Phase Two when Phase One, that was the glaring, didn’t work. She’d try to butter him up with food.

“He won’t go,” Danny said from the other side of the table where he held a sleeping baby boy in his arms and was eating one of the sandwiches that Jodi had made to bribe Duncan.