Them "Can't Do Right" Blues

Lacey patted down her hair and body in a self-conscious once-over. "How do I look again?" she queried nervously, "This skirt isn't too short, is it?" It was the fifth time she had asked the question in the last ten minutes. By that point, she knew she was being more than a little obsessive but she could hardly help herself. In Lacey's opinion, she had ample reason to feel ill at ease considering she and Danny were facing the looming prospect of telling his grandparents about their impending marriage...and baby.

Danny paused in the act of ringing his grandparents' doorbell to appraise Lacey with an exasperated sideways glance. "Would you relax? I've told you fifty times already that you look perfect!"

"Yes, but do I look pregnant?" she emphasized a little wildly, "Will your grandmother be able to take one look at me and just know the truth?"

Her irrational fear caused Danny to smile a bit. He looped his arm around her shoulder and brought her close to his side so that he could nuzzle a reassuring kiss to her temple. "It's going to be fine," he murmured in a surprisingly confident tone, "You know that, right?"

"It doesn't feel like it's going to be fine," Lacey muttered miserably, "I gotta pee like every two minutes. I've been nauseated all day. My boobs are aching. And, to top it all off," she finished in a dour tone, "apparently, your entire family is going to be in attendance tonight!" She hitched her thumb in the direction of the various cars presently crowded into the Kincaid driveway with a sour expression before spearing Danny with an accusing glower. "I thought this dinner was supposed to be just us and your grandparents. You couldn't give me a little warning first?"

Danny threw up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Hey, don't look at me like that! I was just as in the dark about this as you were. Though I'm not completely surprised," he added in a mildly irritated mutter, "This does fit my Mimi's m.o. to a tee."

Lacey shook her head in growing panic, clutching reflexively at her engagement ring which currently hung from a simple, silver chain around her neck. She and Danny had agreed that they wouldn't flaunt the news of their official engagement to anyone until after his grandparents were made aware. That was the very reason they had agreed to Mimi's dinner invitation that night, even though they had more than enough to get accomplished that weekend. This night would likely be their last opportunity for a long while to give the Kincaids the news face to face. However, just because Lacey knew their timeframe was limited that didn't mean she was in any way eager to deliver the news.

"I can't go through with it, Danny. It's too many people here!" She snagged hold of his forearm and began tugging him down from the porch and back towards the car, clearly determined to leave before anyone had been alerted to their arrival. "Let's come back tomorrow afternoon and tell them then! Better yet, let's write them a letter after we're back in Green Grove!"

Much to her frustration, Danny hesitated and stubbornly dragged his feet behind her. "Lacey, stop this. We're adults," he reasoned mildly, "What's the worst that can happen? For crying out loud, we're telling them that we're getting married not that we're living a secret life as drug kingpins! It won't be that bad!"

Lacey rounded on him with a dubious scowl. "Oh yeah? Tell that to my mom! I'm not looking forward to a repeat performance of that, Danny!"

"It won't go down like that," he reassured her mildly, "Your mom has all of these expectations for you, hopes that she's had your entire life. Of course, she feels like she's watching you flush your dreams down the toilet. But my grandparents barely know me. There are no expectations there. They'll probably be shocked but that's about it."

"You're oversimplifying."

"I don't think I am."

From the look on her face, it was clear that Lacey wasn't buying his argument in the slightest. She waved her hand at him in unequivocal refusal. "Nope. Sorry. I'm not going in there."

"We have to tell them tonight, Lacey, because tomorrow I'm moving back to Green Grove, remember? They deserve better than to have me drop them a line after the fact!"

He thought that reminder would be enough to convince her but when he tried to coax her back onto the porch so that they could proceed into the house, Lacey scuttled out of his reach. He bit out a frustrated curse. "Are you kidding me right now?" To his dumbfounded surprise, his pragmatic and usually poised fiancée began to break down into fitful tears. Danny stumbled back a step.

"You don't understand! I cannot face your grandmother, Danny!" she wailed, "She thinks I'm a nice girl!"

He blinked at her in rising concern as he carefully tried to close the distance between them, as if he were approaching a cornered animal that might bolt at any given second. "You are a nice girl."

"No, I mean a nice girl who doesn't agree to marry her traumatized and emotionally fragile grandson, forcing him to move back to a place filled with horrible memories for him and making him a father and husband way before he's ready!" Danny froze in place at that unflattering assessment of him, his expression evidently betraying some measure of affront because Lacey quickly added, "I'm not saying that's what I think but that's what she'll think!"

"She's not going to think that," Danny refuted, not realizing right then that he was worsening Lacey's fears by failing to validate them, "You're being irrational."

"I am not being irrational! Why shouldn't she think that, Danny?" Lacey posited a little frantically, "Why shouldn't they all think that? I'm the same girl who left you alone in a hospital for months when you had no one else! I'm the same girl who hurt you so badly that you shut down emotionally! Do you think that's she's forgotten that? Because I haven't!"

Danny moved forward to take hold of her before she could go off the rails any further. "Lacey, listen to me," he whispered fiercely, framing her face in his hands so that she had no other choice than to meet his eyes. He brushed away the tears falling on her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. "My grandmother loves you. She has wanted us to be together since the very beginning. You know that."

"There's a big difference between wanting us to date and wanting you to marry me," she sniffled.

"I doubt Mimi will see it that way."

She pressed her face into his shirtfront to weep softly. "I don't want her to hate me like my mom hates you," she sobbed.

Left with very little recourse in the matter, Danny gathered Lacey against him tightly and simply allowed her to cry it out, gently stroking her hair and murmuring, "It's okay...it's okay, baby..." against her temple again and again as she did. When she had finally expended herself and her sobs became little more than intermittent hiccups, Danny tipped his head down to regard her in tentative expectation. "Better now?"

Lacey cleared her throat and shrugged from his loosened embrace with a chagrined scowl, belatedly realizing how foolish she must have seemed to him in the last few minutes. Although he didn't say it, she was pretty sure he thought she was a lunatic. The possibility alone was enough to compel her into a quick recoup of her composure.

"Uh...I'm sorry about that," she managed with all the dignity she could muster, "I don't really know where that came from just now. I guess I've been feeling a little hormonal lately."

"Yeah...I can tell."

She squared her shoulders and whisked away the remaining remnants of her tears. "Do I look okay? Has my makeup run?" she asked Danny, "The last thing I want to do is go in there looking like a deranged raccoon."

He inspected her closely. "No, your makeup is fine. Your eyes are a little red and puffy but, other than that, you look beautiful."

"Good. I'm ready to go in now."

"Are you sure?" he pressed tentatively, "If you need some more time, that's okay with me."

"Danny, you can't spend the entire night chasing me around your grandparents' circle driveway," Lacey reasoned in a practical tone, "Let's just go in there and get this over with."

He started to argue further that perhaps she should take a few minutes more to get herself together when the front door of the house was abruptly flung open wide. "Danny? Lacey?" his grandmother called in exasperation from the doorway, "What are you two just standing out here? Come on into the house!"

After exchanging a dread filled glance with Lacey, Danny dutifully took hold of her hand and walked with her slowly back towards the house. "Sorry, Mimi. We were just about to come inside."

"Good. The family is all here." As they drew closer she began to take notice of the tension lining both of their faces, particularly Lacey's. It also didn't escape Mimi's attention that the young woman seemed to have difficulty meeting her eyes. "Is everything alright?" she asked Danny before they could pass her to go on into the house.

"Everything is fine," he replied in a deceptively mild tone, "Lacey only got into town an hour ago and then we came straight here."

Mimi followed them into the foyer with a concerned frown. "You should have said something if tonight was going to be an inconvenience for you, Danny."

Lacey was already voicing a reply to that before Danny even had an opportunity to open his mouth. "It's not an inconvenience at all, Mrs. Kincaid. Thank you for inviting me tonight. I'm just a little tired after six hours in the car. That's all."

"Of course, dear," Mimi acknowledged with a warm smile, "Why don't you go into the den and let our housekeeper Agnes fix you something cool to drink?" She furtively snagged hold of Danny's shirt sleeve when he would have followed Lacey. "What's going on?" she pressed him in an urgent whisper, "Are you two having a fight?"

Danny swallowed back an exasperated laugh over her unrepentant nosiness. "No, Mimi. We're fine." Her expression remained unconvinced, prompting him to add a little defensively, "I promise!"

"She looks like she's been crying," Mimi observed quietly, "I'm only asking out of concern."

Unable to divulge the true reason Lacey was upset to her just yet and also reluctant to lie to her, Danny settled on giving Mimi a half truth instead. "She's going through a rough time with her mom right now. I think it's starting to wear on her."

"Oh no. I'm so sorry to hear that. Lacey seems like such a sweet girl. It pains me to think of her being at odds with her mother, especially after all they've suffered as a family this past year."

Danny averted his eyes with the bitter sensation of guilt that unfurled in his gut. He had already been kicking himself plenty for inadvertently causing a wedge between Lacey and her mother, whose relationship had always been close and uncontested until recently. Mimi, with her well meaning words, had only managed to make him feel even worse.

"Yeah," he agreed in a self-deprecating grunt, "It pains me too."

Mimi took a deep breath and put on her most dazzling smile, hoping to dispel any lingering gloom, and linked her arm with Danny's. "Well, we won't think about any of that tonight," she determined brightly, "I'll personally see to it that Lacey has a good time while she's here."

When Danny and Mimi entered the den together a few moments later, they found Lacey seated on the sofa with a soda can pressed between her hands. She was also wedged between Rico and Charlie as the twins excitedly showed her the latest apps on their cell phones. Lacey was making quite an effort to appear engaged in the subject matter but it clear from the uneasy look on her face that she felt a bit out of place. Seemingly unaware of that unease, however, Rico scooted closer to her and murmured something in her ear that caused Lacey to rear back from him with a startled scowl. Danny cleared his throat to alert the three to his and Mimi's presence.

Rico left his head to favor Danny with a careless smile. "Hey, cuz! I was just trying to convince Lacey to become my Facebook friend." He wiggled his eyebrows at her suggestively. "But she's playing hard to get."

"Roderick James Kincaid!" Mimi admonished sharply, "Will you please stop flirting with your cousin's girlfriend? It's bad manners." Danny groaned her name in mortification. "My apologies, sweetheart, I forgot," Mimi amended in an obliging tone, "You and Lacey are 'just friends.' You are absolutely not dating even though that is exactly how it looks." She appraised him with a deadpan look. "Really, I must tell you that no one actually believes that you and Lacey are only friends, dear."

Charlie raised his hand in agreement. "I know I don't."

Rico then piped in with, "But I'd really like to believe it. She's hot."

"Too bad," Danny replied dryly, "Because she's taken."

His determined cousin then bounced a look over at Lacey for confirmation. "Is it true? Are you really with this guy?"

Lacey inclined her head in an amused nod. "I'm afraid so."

Rico slumped forward dramatically and expelled a gusty sigh of disappointment. "Well, scratch what I just said to you then," he told her, "But, if you guys break up, I reserve the right to revisit the subject."

His grandmother threw up her hands in exasperation. "Rico, get out of here and let Agnes know that we're ready for dinner."

As he obediently shuffled from the room, his twin brother joined him, chiding him over his audacity. While Rico was the bolder of the two, Charlie tended to be more cautious and spent a good majority of his time trying to reign in his brother's wildness. Consequently, the last thing Lacey, Mimi and Danny heard from Rico before he and his brother exited, despite Charlie's frantic attempts to shush him, was, "What can I say, bro? She really is hot!"

Mimi favored both Lacey and Danny with an apologetic smile. "He's much too much like his father," she mumbled, "Not even eighteen years old yet and already he thinks he's God's gift to women."

"That must be a family trait," Lacey interjected with a meaningful glance over at Danny, "He was the same way when we met."

Surprised to learn that, especially because the image seemed so incongruent with the quiet, introverted and solemn young man she had come to know, Mimi regarded Danny, who was managing to endure Lacey's ribbing with tolerant grace, with an affectionate smile. "Really? So the tabloids weren't exaggerating after all. You were a ladies' man."

"Please don't say it like that, Mimi," Danny whimpered in horrified response, "When it comes out of your mouth, it just sounds wrong."

"Yup. He definitely had a way with women," Lacey confirmed with a laugh, "Actually, he was worse. You should have heard the line he used on me when we first met."

"You'll have to tell me the story sometime. I'd like to hear it." A profound moment of silence passed between them before Mimi, sensing that Lacey and Danny might want sometime alone together before dinner, politely excused herself.

After she was gone, Danny settled down on the sofa next to Lacey. "Feeling better now?" he asked softly.

Lacey showcased the half empty soda can in her hand. "Sipping on this helped a lot with the nausea."

"What about the other thing?"

She dropped her eyes at the tacit reminder of her earlier breakdown. "I'm still working out the other thing," she mumbled before adding somewhat reluctantly, "So what took you so long with Mimi? Did you tell her about me?"

"Relax. Everything is okay. She saw that you had been crying and she thought we'd had a fight."

"Oh, okay then," Lacey replied, wilting with relief, "What did you tell her?"

"I told her that you were having problems with your mom."

"And she believed you?"

Danny shrugged. "It's the truth, isn't it?"

Lacey traced the edge of the soda can with her fingernail. "I don't really want to think about that right now," she sighed dejectedly.

"Well, what do you want to do?"

She ventured an ironic glance up at him. "Hiding in a corner sounds like a pretty good idea."

That reply wrung a short, stunned laugh from Danny. "What about after that?"

"I guess we need to find a private moment to sit your grandparents down to tell them they're going to be great grandparents."

Danny reached over to take hold of her hand. He gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. "No matter what happens tonight, you and I have each other's backs," he told her, "As long as that's true, we can get through anything. Right?"

"Right."

As they shifted to their feet together in preparation to join the rest of the family for dinner, Danny asked, "So what was Rico whispering to you when Mimi and I walked in earlier? You looked shocked."

Lacey found herself giggling at the memory. "He told me that he didn't mind that I was older than him," she laughed, "That he liked his women mature. He actually said those exact words!"

"Seriously?" Danny snorted, "That was his line? Come on! I was never that cheesy!"

"You were close, Desai," Lacey told him as they walked out together, "You were very close."

Dinner was a predictably raucous affair. The Kincaids exchanged boisterous conversation at the table and it seemed that no subject at all was ever off limits. There was nothing taboo among them and it seemed that everyone knew everyone else's business. The particular topic of discussion that seemed to interest most everyone at the particular moments seemed to be Danny and his immediate plans for his future and there wasn't a single person at the table who wasn't ready to throw in their two cents about it. The close knit kinship that existed between the Kincaid family members still felt wholly foreign to Danny and, therefore, left him feeling ill at ease when he found himself the focus of conversation.

He dropped his head forward with a longsuffering groan. "Oh God, not this again," he muttered under his breath, "Can we please talk about something else tonight?"

"No, we cannot," his grandfather countered smoothly, "because you can't work at a hardware store for the rest of your life, Danny. You're wasting your potential."

"And what potential is that exactly?" Danny scoffed dryly after taking a sip of water, "I'm not some wunderkind destined for greatness. I have no marketable skills whatsoever and I've completed exactly half a semester of college."

"The fact that you use a phrase like 'wunderkind' fairly proves my point."

Danny rolled his eyes. "So I have a diverse vocabulary," he scoffed, "Big deal! The point is, I'm actually lucky that Grady's Hardware was willing to hire me without any job experience or even a reference to my name."

"Well, good for Grady," Cam muttered dryly, "But I happen to think you can do better than hawking screwdrivers, son."

Next to Danny, Lacey cleared her throat demurely and murmured, "He's right, you know. You can." Danny's eyes fairly burned into her skull following that statement. She picked up her dinner roll from her plate and took a bite, pretending not to notice the withering glare he was directing her way. "I'm just saying."

"You're supposed to be on my side," he muttered to her in an aggravated under-breath.

"I am on your side."

Despite her sincere reassurance, however, Danny well knew that the floodgates had been ripped open with her offhand comment. His grandmother, unsurprisingly, used the opportunity to speak exactly what was on her mind at that moment. Danny knew not to expect anything good when Mimi set aside her knife and fork and regarded him with solemn, blue eyes.

"You know, not that you've asked my opinion at all, Danny-,"

"-which has somehow never stopped you from giving it," Danny inserted crossly. His uncle mumbled a sardonic "ain't that the truth" under his breath agreement directly after. "So, please, say what's on your mind, Mimi."

"Thank you," Mimi replied smartly after a warning glare leveled at both her son and grandson, "I still maintain my original position. I think you should move back in here and re-enroll in college. There are plenty of schools in the area for you to chose from."

"College isn't for everyone, Mimi," Danny argued stubbornly, "I don't think I'm cut out for it. I don't even really know what I want to do with my life yet."

"College can help you figure that out, sweetheart. What are you interested in?"

Danny moodily contemplated the embroidered pattern of the tablecloth and muttered to himself, "Hell if I know."

"Well, in the meantime, while you're figuring it out," his grandfather interjected, "You could finally quit that godforsaken hardware job and focus on what's really important! Take the opportunity to find yourself and discover what you want and who you want to be."

"What if what I want is to work in a hardware store?" Danny challenged.

His grandfather leveled him with a deadpan expression. "Bullshit."

"Cameron!" his wife gasped in dismay, "Not at the table!"

While Cam murmured his apologies for offending his wife's tender sensibilities, Danny found himself momentarily distracted from the argument by the sudden loss of color to Lacey experienced to her rich, brown skin. The expression on her face was also very telling. She looked as if she was concentrating extremely hard on not throwing up. Danny's irritation with his grandparents quickly gave way to concern over Lacey.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously, "Do you feel sick?"

Lacey clenched her jaw tightly against the urge to vomit, inwardly cursing God and the random bouts of nausea that continued to plague her. It was several seconds before she was able to answer Danny's question because she was too afraid that she would get sick if she even attempted to open her mouth. Finally, she swallowed several times and managed from between gritted teeth, "I'm just a little queasy. It'll pass."

The assurance wasn't enough for Danny. He hovered over her solicitously. "Do you need some crackers or more Gingerale? Tell me what you need."

"Danny, I'm fine," she insisted with some measure of self-consciousness, acutely aware of the curious stares they were receiving from his family, most particularly from his Uncle Chase's wife Dana. She was looking at them with an almost knowing expression. Lacey lowered her eyes from under the other woman's speculative stare and murmured, "I promise everything is okay. Don't make a big deal about it."

From her spot adjacent to her husband on the opposite end of the dining table, Mimi noted their exchange, despite not having heard the majority of it, with a curious and concerned frown. "Did something not agree with you, sweetheart?"

Lacey forced a feeble smile. "No, ma'am. Everything is delicious. I'm just feeling a little tired."

Not at all mollified by her reassurance, Danny politely folded his napkin and set it aside. His next words were expressed to his grandparents in apology. "I think maybe I should take her home."

Far from amenable to that idea, Lacey shook her head wildly and caught hold of his wrist before he could scrape back his chair and shift to his feet. "Danny, no," she protested in a low whisper, "Don't do that. I don't want you to cut your time with your family short on my account. I'd feel horrible."

He leaned in closer to her, so that his words could not be overheard by those at the table when he said, "You don't feel well. I think this day has been too much stress for you."

"Then I'm really going to have a tough road ahead of me if driving in the car is too much stress for me," Lacey hissed back sarcastically. She added in a louder tone, "I'm fine and I want to stay."

"Are you sure?" Danny pressed anxiously.

Across the table, Cam Kincaid boomed a shrewd laugh. "Be careful how you answer, Lacey," he told her, "You might be providing my grandson with the perfect excuse to continue his avoidance dance."

"Stop it. I'm not avoiding anything," Danny denied crossly.

"Oh, bullshit," his uncle Chase coughed none too discreetly behind his hand.

While his sons and father snickered under their breaths at his antics, his mother was far from amused. She shot her husband a dark frown. "You see what you've started?" she snapped before leveling her only son with a quelling glare. "Now, Chase, you know better than to use that kind of language in my presence! What kind of example are you setting for the boys?"

"Danny just said 'hell' and you never said a word!" Chase sputtered in protest.

Mimi folded her hands primly and said, "That's different. 'Hell' is in the Bible."

Chase threw up his hands over the clear display of favoritism. "Unbelievable!"

"Ha, ha! Dad got told," Rico crowed to his twin rather triumphantly in the wake of his father's scolding, "Not so fun to be on the receiving end of things, is it, Pop?"

"First of all, how many times have I asked you to stop calling me 'Pop?'" Chase demanded of his eldest twin irritably, "And second of all, I'd be careful if I were you. Remember who's giving you a ride home tonight. It's a long, lonely walk, Rico."

"Mom won't let you leave me stranded," Rico declared with a confident air.

"I think it's best that you leave 'Mom' out of it," Dana replied demurely.

Quickly ascertaining that he wasn't going to garner much support on that front, Rico threw a hopeful glance towards his cousin instead. "That's okay. Danny would be happy to take me home," he decided presumptuously only to add in afterthought, "You wouldn't leave me hanging, right bro?"

"Only if you're planning to leave in the next two minutes," Danny replied dryly, "Lacey and I are going to get going now."

While Danny still felt largely unfamiliar with the intimate camaraderie that existed between his family members, Lacey was clearly enjoying the exchange and felt quite at home. She approved greatly of the warm, loving and albeit prying family environment for her reticent fiancé. If anything she was convinced that the Kincaids would teach him the meaning of what a true family could be. Unfortunately, she knew that Danny would never fully benefit from their influence if he kept seeking out ways to isolate himself. Cameron Kincaid had been right about that indeed. Danny was using her as a means of avoidance but Lacey was determined not to make it that easy for him.

"I already told you I was okay," she whispered to him, "Besides, we still haven't done what we came here to do."

"That can wait if you're not feeling well," Danny argued in a discreet tone, "I don't want you to sit here feeling miserable."

"I don't feel miserable," Lacey said in a louder tone, "Do you?"

"I'd say he does," Chase reasoned intuitively, "This is probably the longest he's stuck around after the subject of his future is mentioned. He's usually out the door in five seconds flat."

"Two seconds if he puts his mind to it," Charlie added in a snicker.

Lacey smiled in commiseration. "Yeah, I know all too well how quickly Danny can shut down when it comes to a topic he doesn't want to talk about."

"Does anybody care that I'm sitting right here while you discuss me like I'm not in the room?"

Chase dismissed Danny's aggravated query with a short laugh. "If you think this is something, Lacey, you should have seen how quickly Danny cut out of here after Dad offered him a job," he chuckled, "I think he actually left skid marks in his wake that day."

While almost everyone at the table laughed at his joke, Danny immediately ducked his head with a longsuffering groan when Lacey whipped around to face him with a stunned double-take. "What is he talking about, Danny?" she demanded in a mildly accusing whisper, "What job?"

"Uh-oh," Charlie muttered under his breath, "Somebody's in trouble..."

Cam cleared his throat awkwardly. "You didn't tell her, Danny?"

"No," Lacey answered curtly, her words clipped and precise when she spoke, "He did not. What job?"

Danny ventured a careful glance around at his family's faces in unhappy confirmation that he and Lacey currently had their undivided attention. He scooted closer to Lacey in the hope of maintaining a somewhat discreet exchange. "Can we go someplace else so I can explain to you?" he whispered.

Lacey crossed her arms mutinously, the sudden churning anger in her belly only worsening her nausea. For the moment, she clamped down against it to face off with Danny, her scowl blazing. "No. Explain it to me now. What job, Danny?"

Chase attempted to backpedal at that point in a vain effort to save his nephew from the severe tongue lashing he suspected was coming Danny's way. "It wasn't that big of a deal, Lacey," he explained, "Just a crummy entry level assistant job with even crummier pay. I don't blame Danny for turning it down." He paused to wink at his father playfully. "The old man was being a cheapskate."

Unfortunately, Lacey's anger wasn't the least bit diffused by Chase Kincaid's humor. She stared at Danny with hurt, disbelieving eyes. "Why didn't you say anything to me about it?"

"Because I wasn't going to take the job! It was a moot point."

"But we should have discussed it, at least, explored your options as a couple before you just turned it down! And then you didn't even mention it to me!"

"Why did I need to mention it?" Danny flung back in exasperation, "It wouldn't have changed my decision so there was no point in talking about it!"

Lacey tightened her jaw. "Right. I guess I just don't factor into your personal decisions at all!"

"That is not fair! The whole reason I said no was because it would have required me to stay here and that wasn't the plan we had!" Painfully aware that they were airing their grievances publicly at his grandparents' dinner table, Danny softened his tone and requested humbly, "Can we please finish this in private?"

"I don't think I have anything else to say to you right now," Lacey determined with a haughty lift of her chin, "What's done is done."

She straightened in her chair and took hold of her fork and knife, as if she planned to resume eating dinner as if nothing had happened, seemingly impervious to the resounding silence at the dinner table. However, just as soon as she had taken the silverware in her hands, she set them back down again and abruptly pushed back her chair. "If you'll excuse me," she announced with all the dignity she could muster, "I have to go throw up now." The last thing she did before she went sprinting from the dining room was to furiously wave away Danny's helpless attempt to follow her.

The silence that followed in her wake was even more deafening than the first time. Not a single person at the table could meet Danny's eyes directly, which was a good thing because he couldn't meet their eyes either. No one moved or breathed or said much of anything for several seconds until Dana Kincaid finally broke the silence with one, simple question.

"So how far along is she?"

Five pairs of eyes ricocheted to Danny's face with varying degrees of astonishment, surprise and speechlessness. Danny was sure that his face registered shock, guilt and fear all in rapid succession but, despite that, he didn't immediately give away the truth. "Excuse me?"

"How far along is Lacey's pregnancy?" Dana reiterated quietly, "Danny, I've been a doula and a lactation consultant for fifteen years. I know when a woman is pregnant."

Danny hunched forward in his chair with a dejected sigh. "Three months."

His confirmation served as the impetus Cam Kincaid needed to regain his voice. He stood up from the table and ordered, "Okay, everybody out. It seems that Mimi and I have some things to discuss with Danny and Lacey."

As the family obediently filed from the dining room amidst various degrees of grumbling, Danny said to his grandparents, "Before you enumerate all the many ways I've screwed up, can I please go check on her and make sure she's okay?"

Mimi inclined her head in a solemn nod. "Go ahead. Meet us back in here when you're done."

It was fairly easy to determine that Lacey had sought refuge in the downstairs guest bathroom since Danny found Agnes on her knees in the hallway, cleaning up the spot where Lacey had obviously expelled the remnants of her dinner. Danny mouthed a mortified apology to her as he carefully stepped around the gloppy mess and scuttled aside so that he could knock discreetly on the bathroom door. Unsurprisingly, Lacey didn't answer at first. He knocked again.

"Lacey, come on," he cajoled softly, "You can't stay locked in there all night."

Her muffled reply reached his ears through the thick door. "Watch me. I'm too humiliated to face your family again."

"You don't have to feel humiliated."

"Yes, I do! And that's your fault."

Danny sighed in consternation and dropped his head forward so that it thumped against the bathroom door. "I told my grandparents about the baby," he said, giving her a moment to absorb that reality before adding, "They want to talk to us."

Seconds later, he heard the lock slip and the door opened a crack to reveal one of Lacey's eyes. "You just came right out and told them?" she huffed, "Really, Danny? What about everything we talked about? I thought we were going to do it together."

"Well, you made that a little impossible when you ran from the room to vomit!" Danny retorted shortly.

"Are you blaming me?"

"I'm not saying that," he soothed, "I'm saying that they know and now they want to discuss it."

Lacey swung the door open wide with a reticent grunt. "Fine."

Danny loosely caught hold of her wrist when she would have walked past him. "Wait," he entreated, "I want make things right between us before we go in there."

Far from being in a reasonable mood, Lacey snatched her hand back from his grasp. "Oh now you want to talk?"

"If I had told you that my grandfather had offered me a job, then what, Lacey?"

"Maybe we could have found some way to make it work together," she said, "Or maybe we would have decided it was better for you to turn it down after all. The point is, we would have decided instead of just you."

"So now I have to run every little thing by you before I make a decision?" Danny demanded testily.

"That's what couples do!" Lacey flared, "Especially couples who are planning to get married, Danny!"

Although he managed to suppress his answering eye roll, Danny wasn't quite as successful at dispelling the sarcasm from his tone when he asked, "Are you sure this isn't you being hormonal again?"

It was the wrong thing to say and he knew that even before Lacey responded with a frosty, "Go to hell!"

By the time they rejoined his grandparents in the living room, the tension between Danny and Lacey had increased exponentially and he was now unfairly angry with her for her being angry with him. It was childish and petty but he couldn't grasp why she was upset with him in the first place when he had done nothing wrong. As a result of their inability to see each other's individual point of view, Danny and Lacey ended up sitting two chairs apart when they took their places at the dining room table with Cam and Mimi. It wasn't the most stellar way to begin a conversation about getting married.

Because the young couple remained mulishly silent, Cam had no choice but to be the first one to address the situation. "So you two are having a baby," he said in opening, "What are you planning to do about that?"

"Well, first of all we're having it," Danny informed him rather tersely, "And second of all, we're getting married." The last of that statement seemed particularly ironic due to the fact he and Lacey seemed quite adverse to one another's company right then. In fact, at present, they couldn't even look at one another.

Mimi blinked at him in surprise. "You're getting married?" she echoed aloud after exchanging a concerned glance with Cam, "When did this happen?"

"Last week."

"And you're doing it for the baby, I assume," she pressed further.

"We're doing it because we love each other," Danny countered brusquely.

Yet another darting look passed between Cam and Mimi before Cam said, "It was our understanding that you and Lacey were trying to build a friendship this entire time. That's what you've been telling us, Danny. That you and Lacey were only friends. Now, tonight, we find out that she's three months pregnant, which means that the two of you have been involved this entire time. Why not just say so?"

"Because we haven't been involved," Danny maintained, "We were trying to be friends but something happened between us before all of that and that's when Lacey got pregnant."

"So you weren't together when Lacey conceived?" Mimi surmised.

"No."

"When did you get back together?"

Danny recognized their line of reasoning immediately following that question. Mimi had already implied what she was thinking early on and now he realized that both she and Cam clearly thought the theory held some merit. "It's not like that," he denied heatedly, "I didn't propose to Lacey because she's pregnant! I love her! I've always loved her!"

"We're not saying that you don't love her, Danny," his grandmother murmured soothingly, "Even with the two of you at odds right now, that is blindingly apparent. But marriage is a serious step and a serious responsibility. And if you weren't considering that step prior to learning about Lacey's pregnancy, that is a bit concerning for us."

"You're wrong. I spent months fighting my feelings for her. But when I found out about the baby..." He trailed off with a rough swallow. "I just didn't want to deny what I felt for her anymore."

Mimi appraised Lacey with a piercing stare. "What about you, sweetheart?" she asked softly, "You've been quiet this entire time. What are your feelings about all of this?"

"I agree with everything that Danny has said so far," she whispered, "We love each other. We want to be together."

"Do you think you're ready for marriage?" Mimi challenged, "Do you think he's ready?"

Lacey darted a helpless look at Danny, whose features were steadily tightening with mounting anger and frustration. "I...I don't know really," she answered as honestly as she could, "I know that Danny and I will probably have a lot of hurdles ahead of us but...I can't think of anyone else I'd rather jump them with than him." For the corner of her eye, she saw Danny respond to that with a glimmering smile.

"That's a very sweet sentiment," Mimi commended, "and I appreciate your willingness to support my grandson and I'm grateful for how fiercely you love him but I'm afraid for you both. As I'm sure you know, Danny is still very, very fragile emotionally. He still has great difficulty communicating his feelings and marriage is primarily about communication. That's going to be a huge obstacle to overcome."

"Stop it right now," Danny bit out before she could take her argument any further, "Don't try and undermine my relationship with her! Lacey and I came here tonight to tell you about our plans as a courtesy, not to obtain your blessing! I'm not asking for your permission!"

Cam palmed his forehead wearily with Danny's angry rejoinder. "My God, you sound just like your mother. It's Karen all over again."

"The situations aren't remotely the same!" Danny retorted furiously, "My mother made the unfortunate mistake of marrying a degenerate abuser! That is not the kind of relationship that Lacey and I have! She's good for me! She makes me happy! You don't get to turn that into something ugly!"

Mimi held out her hand for calm before the two men could sink further into a verbal pissing match. "That is not our intention, Danny," she reassured her grandson mildly, "What Cam and I are trying to do is provide you and Lacey with another option."

Lacey squinted at her wording. "What kind of option?"

"We want Danny to come back home to live with us," Mimi said, "We want him to enroll in school and figure out what he wants to do with his life because he's going to need to provide that baby with some financial stability when he or she is born. And, in the meantime, we'll make sure that all of your medical expenses are taken care of. Everything you need. You will lack for nothing, Lacey."

Danny narrowed his eyes in growing suspicion. "What's the catch? What's supposed to happen between Lacey and me in the meantime?"

"You two can continue to date just as you have been," his grandfather replied, "All we ask is that you wait until after you're finished with college to get married. Wait until you're a little more mature before taking such a weighty step."

"And having a kid together isn't a weighty step?" Danny snorted.

"Of course it is," Mimi agreed, "But eventually your child will grow up and get married. Children move away and make families of their own. The person who stays with you through all of that is your spouse. That is a lifelong commitment. You have to be certain you're making the right decision. Your mother rushed into it without thinking when she wasn't much older than you. I don't want to see you make the same mistake."

"I'm not my mother."

"Well, you sure as hell are doing a good impression of her!" Cam bit out gruffly, "You're damned stubborn and short-sighted just like she was, that's for sure!"

It was at that point that Danny shifted to his feet, a clear indication that he was ending the conversation. "That's enough," he said, "Listen, we may share blood, but you don't know the first thing about me! You've barely been in my life for a year so don't pretend like you know what motivates me or what I need! You're strangers with whom I happen to share DNA! That doesn't mean you get a say in my life!"

Cam and Mimi weren't the only ones left stricken in the wake of Danny's harsh words. Lacey was staggered as well. She stared up at him in disbelief. "I can't believe you just said that to them," she gasped, "That was uncalled for, Danny!"

His features flickered with guilt before his expression closed off altogether. "That doesn't make it any less true," he murmured. He turned away from the table then and started from the room, adding to Lacey over his shoulder before he left, "I'll be waiting in the car when you're ready."

After he was gone, Lacey was left alone to face his devastated grandparents. She stammered out remorseful apologies on his behalf. "I don't know what that was just now," she said, "That's not Danny."

"Yes, it is," Mimi murmured with thick resignation, "And don't worry about us, sweetheart. It's not anything we haven't heard before. Trust me. His mother said worse. Our Karen definitely had a mouth on her when she was irate."

"Is he really like her?" Lacey asked after rising from her chair.

Mimi smiled sadly. "Exactly like her. Why do you think we're so worried about him?"

When Lacey finally joined Danny in the car, she didn't even have the opportunity to broach the subject of his behavior before he was cutting her off before she could begin. "Don't say a word," he snapped tersely without even looking at her when he threw the car into drive, "I don't want to talk about it."

They rode back to his apartment in painful silence with Lacey stewing the entire way. By the time they crossed the threshold of the front door, she was unable to contain it any longer. She rounded on him just as he tossed his car keys onto the living room coffee table.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she fired, "You owe your grandparents an apology!"

"For what?"

"For being an ungrateful ass for starters!"

"Didn't you hear what they were saying? They were comparing our relationship to Karen and Vikram, of all people! It was condescending, not to mention insulting!"

"That's not what they were doing!" Lacey argued, "They were questioning whether or not we were being rash in our decision to get married and I have to admit that they might have a point about that!"

Danny snapped to attention, reacting as if she had just smacked him hard across the face. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That you do have a problem with communication. That it is a problem."

"So what? Are you saying you don't want to get married now?"

Lacey faltered a bit because that was certainly not what she wanted but, at the same time, she was fearful of making a mistake. When she answered her indecision was reflected in her tone. "I'm saying that maybe we have some stuff to work out between us first."

His countenance gradually became a glacial mask, concealing the abject pain her words caused him. "You know what, Lacey?" he said, bending forward to sweep up his car keys, "Fuck you."

"Danny, don't be this way-,"

"No, fuck you!" He stabbed an accusing finger at her. "This is exactly why I didn't want to do this shit with you!" he grated, "As soon as things get a little tough, you go running just like always! Not a damned thing has changed! I should have listened to my instincts and stayed the hell away from you!"

"Danny, no, don't walk out! Where are you going?" she cried as he stormed from the apartment, "Danny, wait! Stay and talk to me! You can't just end the conversation like this!" But he didn't even spare her a backwards glance as he jumped in his car and sped off into the night.

Lacey retreated back inside with a mournful cry. In hindsight, she wondered if she had pushed him too much or if she hadn't been patient enough before she veered mercurially towards blame and anger because Danny had been too quick to think the worst of her, to lose faith in her. He talked a very good game about how she was always the one to run but, he did his fair share of running as well. However, no matter whose fault it had been, the end result was still the same. She was alone. Filled to the brim with frustration, her heart numb, her throat aching with unshed tears and feeling more lonely than she ever had in her entire life, Lacey curled up onto the futon and fitfully cried herself to sleep.

Hours later, her next awareness was of nibbling kisses against her lips. She opened her bleary eyes to find Danny's glassy stare reflected back at her. He kissed her again, more deeply this time. The heady aroma of alcohol rolled off of him in waves and filled her mouth as he kissed her. The disappointing knowledge that he had been drinking definitely concerned her but the contrition reflected in the stormy depths of his eyes was enough to dispel her lingering anger and hurt.

He nuzzled his nose to hers. "I'm sorry," he slurred in sweet penitence, "I didn't mean what I said before. Please don't be mad at me, Lace. Don't leave me. I love you so much, baby."

"I'm not going to leave you, Danny," she reassured him fervidly, shifting a bit so that she could gather his head against her breasts, "We had a fight. That's all." She sifted her fingers lightly through his tousled hair in a soothing, circular caress. "Where did you go drinking tonight?"

"Just some bar across town. Don't worry. I didn't drive. I took a cab home."

"That's not the point. You worked really hard to get sober. Now you have to start all over again."

Danny rolled a desolate glance up at her. "I messed up. I know." He groped for her hand and pressed a drunken kiss to the back of it. "I honestly wasn't trying to shut you out when I didn't tell you about that job," he mumbled in a remorseful tone, "I was just thinking about our plan."

"I believe you," she whispered, "I still wish you had talked to me about it first." She traced the back of his hand with her index finger. "Maybe I'm a little sensitive about it because I know your first instinct is still to shut me out."

"That's not true."

"It is true," she insisted but her tone was free of accusation, "And that's okay. For now. That's understandable after everything you've gone through. Trust is a difficult thing to give and I know that you're trying. But," she added meaningfully in preface, "you can't always be so quick to reject somebody just because you're afraid they're going to reject you," she advised him softly, "You did it to your grandparents tonight and then you did it to me."

"I'm so afraid you guys are going to decide I'm not worth it, Lace," he confessed in a gruff tone, "And if that happens I don't know how I'm going to make it."

She leaned forward to kiss him, tracing the seam of his lips with her tongue sweetly before pulling back to whisper, "That's not going to happen. Your grandparents love you. I love you. I'm committed to you. I'm going to say it over and over until you finally believe it."

He pulled her closer for more kisses, his tears mingling with the taste of beer on his tongue as he deepened his exploration of her mouth. "I'm sorry about tonight," he whispered as he rose up on his knees to slip his hands beneath her skirt, "I'm so sorry. Let me make it up to you."

Lacey pressed a restraining hand to the center of his chest when he would have dragged her panties down her hips. "Not this time," she refused him in a firm but gentle tone, "Not like that. You don't get to use sex as a distraction, Danny. You need to deal with what happened tonight. You have to apologize to your grandparents. They didn't deserve how you treated them."

Not surprised by her rejection and fully understanding the reason for it as well, Danny dropped his head forward with a dejected sigh. "I hear what you're saying but...the stuff I said to them tonight..." He shuddered with the memory of how he had reacted. "Lacey, I took every act of kindness they ever showed me and threw it back in their faces," he recounted sadly, "I don't think 'I'm sorry' is going to cover that."