"No." Clamping on hand down on my hip, Daryl held me in place as he dialed Rourke's number and put the call on loudspeaker. "Stay."

"Dude." Rourke answered on the third ring, sounding like his usual asshole self. "So you are alive! Sending my calls to voicemail? What the actual fuck?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Daryl replied in a lazy tone as he drew small circles on my thigh with his finger. "What's up, man?"

"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary," came Rourke's sarcastic response. "Except that Daniel Westbrook and his band of merry pricks decided to goad me into fighting them at the homecoming dance last night."

"The fuck?" Daryl demanded, sounding furious.

"Meh, I rearranged the fucker's face before I got tossed out of the dance," Rourke continued. "Could have done with my best friend having my back, though. Where the hell were you, D?"

"Shit…" Closing his eyes, Daryl leaned back against the headboard and sighed. "I'm sorry, man. I skipped out early and went home."

"Alone?"

Daryl didn’t answer.

"Yeah, well, good for you," Rourke replied, sounding agitated. "Meanwhile, I need your help with a sticky situation that I'm after getting myself into."

"What did you do?"

"It's not what I did," Rourke shot back. "Hell, there wouldn’t be any damn problem if good old Gabe hadn't decided to cruise by my hotel room this morning and catch me buried to the damn hilt inside his stepdaughter!"

"Holy shit," Daryl gasped, at the same time as I mouthed the words.

Our eyes widened in unison and I clamped a hand over my mouth.

"Oh, but it gets better," Rourke growled in an acidic tone. "He brought the human incubator with him."

"Mercy's mom?" I mouthed in horror.

Daryl shrugged helplessly. "Cassidy?"

"The very one," Rourke growled. "Talk about a fucking train wreck of a woman. Dude, you would swear that I tried to stick my dick inside of her from the sheer level of screaming. Fucking drama queen."

"Where are you now?" Daryl demanded, choking back a laugh.

"At home," Rourke bit out. "Grounded, apparently. Like they can ground me under my own damn roof that I own – wait a minute. Are you laughing at me?"

Daryl shoved his fist in his mouth to hold in the laughter.

"Is my love life some sort of big joke to you now?" Rourke continued to accuse. "Do you find it humorous that my father caught me fucking his wife's daughter?"

"No, dude, of course I'm not," Daryl managed to wheeze out as tears of pure freaking laughter filled his eyes.

"Do you know what he called her? My father? He called Six my sister! Dad actually accused me of fucking my own damn sister!"

The laughter that Daryl had been desperately trying to hold back escaped him. "Fucking…your…sister!"

Daryl's laughter caused me to laugh uncontrollably right there with him.

"Step," Rourke corrected with a huff before hissing, "And fuck you both for laughing. Yeah, that's right. I can hear you in the background, Peterson."