“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.