LAST NIGHT I STOOD AT the other side of her door and fought every instinct I have in my body to not break that door down while I listened to her sob. I waited until I heard her tears stop. Then I waited even longer while the lights through her house turned off one by one. It wasn’t until I could uncoil my body from its position outside her front door that I was able to leave. Pulling each of the palms that I had resting against the wood of her front door to stand up straight and force my legs to take me to my truck.
Even then it was another ten or so minutes before I was able to turn the key and pull out of her drive. Leaving her tonight, knowing she was in pain, is even harder than it was to walk away from her in the club owner’s private bathroom.
I make a mental note before pulling out of her drive that her grass is about a week past the point of really needing to be cut.
When I turn out of her neighborhood I press the button on my steering wheel that will allow me to make a phone call. Wincing slightly when I see it’s almost past ten.
“Call Dani home,” I say into the silence around me.
“Calling Dani home,” I hear before the sound of ringing comes from the speakers.
“Hey,” she says softly into the phone.
“That . . . God, Dani,” I say in lieu of a greeting.
I don’t need to say anything else. Dani has been my best friend since before we were out of diapers. She knows me better than I know myself sometimes. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her and the same goes with her.
“That bad?” she asks.
“I knew I would be in for a fight. I knew it, but it still doesn’t make it easier to leave when I know she needs me. Do you know how hard it was to wait a full fucking day to come over here?”
“Lee.”
“Don’t Dani. Don’t tell me I might not be the one she needs. I didn’t give you that shit when you were fighting for Cohen to see you.”
“That’s not fair,” she gasps.
“How is it not?”
“Cohen and me are completely different and you know it, Lee. Megs is . . . she’s been through a lot.”
“It’s Megan.” I say harshly. The look in her face coming back like a physical slap when I saw how much pain that nickname brings her. The nickname her dead husband called her.
“What?” Dani demands, clearly confused with my anger.
“I used to think it was cute how she always corrected me when I called her that. Well, it wasn’t cute tonight, Dani. Jack called her that. I have enough against me here, I don’t need to be bringing that pain to her every time I call her that. So just don’t okay?”
She doesn’t say anything for a second. “I didn’t know.” I can hear her shifting through the line and she tells Cohen she’ll be right back before I hear her moving through her house. “She never told me Jack called her Megs, Lee. Hell, I call her that all the time. She’s never once corrected me.”
“That’s because she’s locked up tight, Dani. She doesn’t tell anyone anything that might cause her to feel a thing.”
“She’s been through a lot, Lee. Do you think . . . I don’t know, maybe this won’t end how you are hoping it will.”
My fingers curl around the wheel and I let out a deep breath. “That isn’t something I can accept, Dani.”
“I’ve never seen you like this Lee. I don’t know how to help you when I’m not sure that this is best for you.”
“What did you feel when you were without Cohen? When he went overseas that last time? What did you really feel like?” I ask, clearly confusing her yet again with my change of subject because she’s silent for a few minutes.
“I felt nothing, Lee. You know that. I felt nothing but pain.”
“Yeah? And you knew he was coming back. You were scared for him, understandably, but you knew he would be back. Take that feeling out of the equation and then add three years of locking yourself tight, then tell me what you have left.”
She lets out a shaky breath. I hate bringing up when Cohen was gone. I know it was the hardest time Dani ever had. But in order to understand Megan, to understand my fight for Megan, she has to go back there.
“I felt nothing, Lee,” she sighs, her breath choppy. “I felt like I was living half a life with him gone. Half a life that I knew wouldn’t get better without him.”
“Yeah, and thank fuck it didn’t happen, but if he hadn’t come back to you? Then what would you have felt?”
“Nothing, Lee.” She stops and I know this is costing her. “I wouldn’t have felt alive.”
“Bingo, Dani. Bingo.”
“She feels, Lee. She has Molly.”
“She feels, but she’s forgotten what it feels like to be alive.”
Dani gasps and I hear Cohen ask her if she’s okay in the background. “I’m fine, baby, I’ll be just another second, okay?”
“Yeah, Dani-girl. You tell Lee if you’re still crying in five minutes I’m going to come kick his ass though.”
“Noted, Dani.” I tell her and she laughs softly and I hear her give Cohen a kiss.
“What can I do?” she asks after a beat.
“Help me show her that she’s alive.”
“I’m not sure that’s something that can be shown so easily, Lee.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I tell her and feel that flicker of hope start to burn a little brighter when my plan starts to take form. “Tomorrow, meet me at the house for lunch? I’ve got something I need to take care of in the morning, then . . . then we plan.”
She laughs and agrees, not before telling me I’m crazy. When we get off the phone I take a deep breath and let the surge of excitement that this plan gives me, to douse that flicker of hope until it’s a full on burning inferno.
Luckily I have the day off. Last night I had been coming off a two-day run of ten-hour shifts, giving me the next two days free. When I pull up to my house at eleven thirty, Dani’s SUV was sitting in the drive. My sweaty skin sticks to the leather seat when I pull my body out of my truck. I reach in and grab my sweat-drenched shirt that I had tossed on the floor earlier and make my way up the walkway to the front door.
“Dani?” I yell into the house.
“Back here in the kitchen. I think something’s dead in here.”
I smile at her words and make my way toward her voice.
“Yeah, might be last week’s Chinese. Or maybe that was two weeks ago.”
I turn the corner into my kitchen and see her with half her body in the fridge and two full garbage bags at her feet.
“Christ, how long have you been here?”
“You’re lucky I’m not your mom. She would kick your ass for letting things get this gross.”
She pulls herself out of the fridge and turns toward me right when I’m about to give her a hug. “Don’t you dare come near me when you’re wet with sweat, Liam Beckett!” She backs up when I smile and go to do just that. “Hell no, you nasty pig!” She laughs and jumps over the trash bag she had been working on filling up and holds her hands up. “Do it and I tell Cohen you touched my boob!”
That stops me in my tracks.
“First, uh no. Second, not funny. The last time you pulled that shit I had a black eye for two weeks. And I’ll add that I didn’t even touch your tit, my shoulder brushed against it when we were stuck playing drunk twister.”
“Whatever,” she smiles.
“Yeah, whatever my ass. You didn’t get the black eye AND you spent an hour after it laughing your ass off.”
I reach past her and grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. Turning to look at her again.
“Why is there only water in here?”
“You should be thankful I considered that was safe enough to stay. I figured with them being in sealed bottles they could stick around. I thought about calling the CDC in to make sure there wasn’t something dangerous living in that fridge!” She throws the towel she had been wiping the fridge out with and I just barely move out of the way.
“So, I’ve been busy.”
“You work too much,” she says, changing the subject and grabbing a water of her own before heading to the sink to wash her hands.
“So you’ve told me, Mom.” I sigh.
She sticks her tongue out at me, same old Dani, when she can’t think of an insult back, out comes the tongue.
“I have my mom’s lasagna cooking and it should be ready by the time you hose your nasty smelling ass off. Then you can clue me in to why I left my family to come over here.” She smiles and I know she doesn’t mean it, but I feel guilty for pulling her away.
“Sorry, Dani. I could have waited a day or two.”
“Don’t be sorry, Lee. You know I’m joking. Plus, when I left my boys were watching a baseball game. They probably won’t even notice that I’m gone.”
I tip up the water and down the whole bottle in one go. I should have thought to bring water with me earlier, but I was in a hurry to get everything done.
“Where have you been anyway?” Dani asks before lifting her own water to her lips.
“Megan’s. Mowed her yard, weeded the flowerbeds and fixed up a few boards that had started to warp on her fence. Stuff like that.”
I turn and walk out of the room leaving a shocked face Dani with water dribbling out of her open mouth.
“Jumping in the shower!” I call over my shoulder and head off to get cleaned up.
Twenty minutes later I walk back in to my now sparkling kitchen to find Dani impatiently tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Tell me all of it. Now.” She demands with a smile.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, pretending I have no idea what she wants.
“You can’t drop a bomb like that and just walk away, Lee!”
“I told you everything. I went to her house this morning, did some work and came home.”
“Uh uh,” she nods, her smile growing. “And? Did you see Megan? Talk to her? Anything?!”
“Good Christ, calm down.” I shake my head and walk over to the table and sit down. “Where’s my mail?” I look up and see Dani hasn’t moved and now she looks like she’s about to come out of her skin if I don’t give her something.
“Junks in the trash, bills are over there,” she says with a point over her shoulder, “Now speak.”
“Impatient much?”
“Lee!”
“You act like I’ve never been interested in a woman before, Dani.”
“Well, you haven’t. Not like this.”
I pause and think, God she might be right. I dated through high school and college. I had a few serious girlfriends, but no one that I’ve had to work for it with. And definitely no one that I could see myself bringing home to meet my parents. Megan on the other hand, I can’t wait to bring her and Molly home.
“She’s different, Dani.” I wait for her to sit down before I continue. “You know how it is, you have it with Cohen. It’s not something I can describe, I just know. I felt the same way back when she first started coming around. Every time she walks into a room it’s like I can feel her. Fuck, I sound like a sappy Lifetime movie.”
She sighs and rests her cheek on her hand. I just shake my head and laugh under my breath.
“It is pretty fucking sappy.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Remember when we got drunk a few years ago and I went on and on about how one day I would find her? Well, I did. I found that person that is worth fighting for. The one that makes me excited to just be around her.”
“Damn, Lee. How long have you felt this way?”
“I’m not sure. A few months before Owen was born. But I don’t think I really understood what I was feeling until your accident.” I stop to make sure she isn’t having any issues at the mention of the accident that almost took her and Owen from us. “I remember when she got to the hospital she was exhausted from running around all day with Molly with the added panic of rushing to find a sitter. She was a mess. Emotionally holding on by a thread. She sat in the corner and wouldn’t move her eyes from Cohen. The whole time she just looked at him with nothing but fear and worry.”
I look over from where I had been looking off in the distance of the back yard when I hear Dani sniff.
“She was so alone, Dani. I couldn’t just see it, I felt it. I could feel her pain and even then it killed me. After Mom and Dad got there, I moved from them to sit with Megan. She didn’t speak, hell I’m not even sure she knew it was me she was holding on to, but I held her hand until they came out to tell us what was going on. When the doctor was talking to Cohen I thought she was going to break my hand, she held on so tight. That woman has so much love in her, she’s just afraid to give it.”
“God, you’re gonna make me cry, Lee.”
“Anyway, I felt the attraction to her before then, but sitting there in the hospital with her, I just knew. I’ve spoken to her a bunch of times before then, but at that moment, when I wanted nothing more than to reach inside her and pull her pain away, I knew there was more to it. I’ve tried to take it further a few times since then. Made my attraction known. Waited for her to take the bait. I didn’t have my chance until your reception.”
She opens her mouth and her eyes get huge. “You took advantage of her when she was drunk?” she screams.
“Are you serious?” Of all the reactions, didn’t think I would get that one from my closest friend. “Tell me you aren’t fucking serious.”
“Lee, I was there, she had been drinking.”
“Yeah, drinking, she wasn’t drunk. I see drunk almost daily at work. I know the difference between enjoying the party with a few drinks with a good buzz and shit faced. She was one hundred percent herself when I was with her.”
“With her?”
Jesus, this girl.
“What is it that you think would happen, Dani? I practically fucked her on your parents’ back lawn!” I boom, getting frustrated.
“Oh, well that was hard to miss.” She rolls her eyes and leans back in her seat. “So, you guys went somewhere and hooked up, got it. Have you not seen her since then?”
“She’s been avoiding me.”
She laughs and I give her a hard look.
“Well, okay.”
“I told her last night I was done with the games.”
She slaps my arm. “You did that after everything she went through?” she asks shocked.
“No. I did that when I could tell she needed a distraction to keep her mind from going into self-preservation mode. I did that because when I got that call, I thought that I was going to go out of my mind with worry. I pulled that shit because I’ll be fucking God dammed if I let a day go past that I’m not there to make sure shit like that doesn’t happen again.”
I take a deep breath and remind myself that my anger shouldn’t be directed toward Dani.
“Oh. Well. Okay. Now what?”
“Now I figure out how many hoops I have to jump through before she can see past her fear. I understand, she lost her husband and I’m not looking to take his place, but I’m fighting to win here, Dani. I want her.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I know Dani. She’s working out what she wants to say. I stand from the table and grab another water, waiting her out.
“Okay. I think I get it. I mean, I know all about finding that one person and having to fight for it, but I guess I’m worried. Not just for you getting hurt, because as much as I hate to say it, there is a lot of room for you to get hurt here. But, I’m also worried for her and I’m worried for Molly. What happens if Molly gets attached to you, Lee? She’s already lost her father and I know Megan hasn’t dated since Jack.”
“I know. Fuck, Dani, I know. The last thing I want to do is hurt either one of them.”
“Then it’s time to plan. Let me call Cohen and let him know I’m going to be awhile.” She stands up and walks to her purse. I laugh when she gets on the phone and starts to tell Cohen why his wife isn’t going to be home until after dinner. I have a feeling the next time I hit the gym with Cohen he’s going to try to kick my ass for this unintentional cock block.
“Dani, you should go home.” I tell her when she hangs up with a smirk.
“Nope. Trust me, he got what he wanted out of that.”
I laugh and try not think about how Cohen is going to win here.
“So . . . what’s the first plan?” she all but screams when she sits back down, rubbing her hands together with a weird grin on her face.
“You’re way too excited about this.”
“It’s not every day your best friend—the all but confirmed bachelor—falls in love.”
“Do what?” I question.
“Huh? Where are you confused?”
“The love part.”
“Such a guy,” she gripes. “What the hell do you think is happening here? Awe, I’m so proud. My big boy is growing up! Wait until your mom hears about this.”
That gets my attention real quick. “You will not tell my mom anything about Megan and me until there is a Megan and me, got it?”
“Whatever, Lee. Let’s go. Come on. Time to plan.”
“I’m not in love, Dani.” Fuck. It is love.
She gets that stupidly weird grin back on her face and nods her head, “All right, Lee. Not in love, got it. So, let’s talk game plan.”
Choosing it’s better to ignore her than continue fighting her on something she’s made her mind up about, I move on, but now that she’s mentioned it, I know deep down that the feelings I have for Megan are teetering on the edge of love. One thing is for sure; I wouldn’t admit it to Dani first. When I say those words out loud, Megan will be the first one to hear them. Love? It’s close, so fucking close.
With a big smile on my face, I spend the next thirty minutes explaining everything I know about Megan, how she’s been living half a life, and how she is consumed with fear to let more people in. In the end, I think Dani is more confused than she was when we started.
“Dani, she’s afraid to feel. Don’t you get it? She lost her husband and you and I both know that’s the biggest issue here. She was alone long before Cohen and Chance dragged her into our group and even then she was alone until she let you in. Tell me, has she let any of the other girls in?” I wait until Dani gives me a sad smile. “I didn’t think so. She might talk to the girls, but you’re the only one that she’s let in.”
“That doesn’t mean much, Lee. She might have let me in, but she still won’t really talk to me. Not about anything major. I’ve tried. I know her and Jack were close, like we are close, they had a friendship long before they got married, but past that she doesn’t talk about him. I know she didn’t have a good childhood—or hell, life before her and Jack got married. No details though. Nothing past the basics.”
Jesus, this is going to be harder than I thought.
“One step at a time. First things first, she has to remember what it feels like to be alive, Dani.”
“What? What the hell does that mean?”
I smile and I know Dani can see my determination because she gives me one of her own. “Now I bring her back to life. One day at a time.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Nah, more like determined.”
“Well, what’s this grand plan entail?”
“What’s the best way to feel alive?”
“Lee, I don’t think you can just have sex with her every time you see her. Things might get sticky . . . no wait, that’s a bad word for it. Gross.” She makes a gagging noise and wrinkles her nose up.
“Shut it,” I laugh. “Not quite, however when that comes she definitely will remember how alive she is. No, I’m thinking more like doing things that make her heart pound. She needs to feel and as much as I can’t wait to have her in my bed again, that’s going to have to wait. Unfortunately.”
“You won’t last a week.”
“Dani, I’ll last a lot longer than a week. I had her one night, I know it’s worth the wait.”
She just smiles before pulling a piece of paper from her purse and a pen before turning back to me. I watch as she writes in her neat handwriting, Feeling Alive, and draws a line under it. “Let’s go, big boy. Let’s make a list of all the ways you can make Megan feel alive.”
I laugh and before I know it, we’ve filled up the whole damn sheet and Dani stands to leave. I look down at our list and smile.
“You’re going to have one hell of a fight on your hands here, Lee,” she says and wraps her arms around me in a hug of support.
“Yeah, but it’s one worth fighting.”
She gives me a squeeze and mumbles, “I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks for today, Dani. Go get home to your boys before Cohen comes kicking my door in.”
After walking Dani out, I head over to my cell and pull up an empty text screen. I send what I need and with a smile I head to the living room to catch up on Sports Center before bed.