involved in what was happening to me and the girls,” I admitted. “I didn’t think about what you were going through.”
“Babe, I didn’t tell you that to get your sympathy. I told you that to explain why, since I saw you in Fortnum’s, I was acting like a dick.”
“Now that I know, it doesn’t seem like you’ve been a dick. Just…venting.”
“Right,” he muttered, giving my fingers a squeeze.
I squeezed his back.
And there we were.
My uncertainty washed away, and I was back on the fast track with Mag.
Because Mag was ticked, he worked it out with the guys, he shared with me, we worked it out.
And we ended all that holding hands.
“I can get you in to see your dad if you want,” he offered.
No.
I did not want.
“It could have been over for me. Easy,” I declared. “I had that bag to hand off to Snag and then I was out. Mick dragged me in, but Dad kept me in, and it’s a miracle that things turned out the way they did. It wasn’t fun, and you got hurt, but we can all move on, only by a miracle. Anything changed, like today, a stray bullet hit Ryn, or Axl took one, or Cisco didn’t like me, or those calls I made to you or Dad didn’t go as I’d hoped and that guy shot Pepper, and then Juno wouldn’t have a mom. The alternate scenarios are too frightening to even contemplate. And my fucking brother and father put me and people I care about in those scenarios.”
I looked to him.
And I then asked, “With all of that, what do you say to someone who did that to you? Who knowingly, for their own ends, put you in that spot? That someone, or those someones being your very own blood?”
“I don’t know, honey,” he whispered, his fingers tightening on my hand.
“Nothing,” I said. “There’s nothing to say.” I turned forward again. “And the funny thing is, I also feel nothing. Not about that. But I’m pissed because what I do feel is like I’m mourning the death of someone I should care about. And I’m doing that even though they never gave me the people they were supposed to be for me. I’ve lost a brother and a father that I never really had in the first place.”
I looked to him when I had to shift his way because he lifted my hand to press it against his heart.
And I watched when he lifted it again, to touch his lips to my fingers.
Then he set it back down on his thigh and spoke.
“Only thing I got to give you is, it’s over.”
For long moments, I stared at his long, strong fingers threaded through mine, still feeling the soft touch of his lips, before I closed my eyes and again turned forward.
I opened them and muttered, “Yeah.”
We fell silent.
We were close to his complex when I broke it to say, “Smithie knows I’m quitting.”
“Well, shit,” he said gently, “that means my girl really had a bad day.”
That made me smile because he was right with what he was saying without actually saying it.
Everyone was okay.
But Smithie didn’t want to lose me, he now knew he was losing me, it upset him, and Smithie mattered.
So upsetting him, even if we knew he’d get over it, even with all we’d been through that day, was what really made it a bad day.
“Do you like the movie 300?” I asked.
“Fucking kickass,” he said as answer.
And that made me smile, this time doing it big.
Because yet again, we agreed.
He pulled into his underground parking and we were parked, out, Mag had the Nordstrom bag, I had my purse hanging cross body, and we were holding hands and standing in front of the elevator after Mag tagged the button, when I broached it.
“Why is it so important to you that you’re Danny to me?”
He looked down at me and did not hesitate to lay it out, and in doing so, lay me out.
But in a totally, freaking awesome way.
He started this by saying, “That guy was dead, until you.”
I stared up at him. “What?”
“I used to be Danny. Danny the football stud. Danny the overprotective big brother. Danny the master at beer pong. Life was good with no indication it wouldn’t always be that way. I had no idea how shit life could be for so many people. Entire countries filled with people living complete nightmares. And when I learned that, beer pong lost its meaning. Fun