He was yelling now, and Leah stood there, her eyes pooling with tears. Because they weren’t talking about Scott anymore.

And all at once, she realized what had happened tonight was so much bigger than him.

On some level Danny had been a powder keg for the last year of his life. That phone call today was the strike of a match.

And Scott had tossed it in.

Danny cursed under his breath, dropping his head back and covering his face. “It’s not your fault,” he said from behind his hands. “You didn’t deserve what happened tonight. I shouldn’t have left you with him. I fucked up.”

“You were just doing what I asked,” she said, her voice trembling, and Danny’s hands fell from his face at the sound of it. “I put you in a position where you felt like you had to protect me. And that was so stupid of me, because I don’t want you to leave me for any longer than you have to—”

Her words cut off suddenly as she burst into tears, and she cupped her hand over her mouth.

Saying those words out loud had completely demolished her, because it wasn’t hypothetical anymore. It wasn’t something that might happen someday. That phone call made it real. The date was set. It was so close.

He was in front of her immediately, pulling her into his arms, and she covered her face with her hands as she sobbed into his chest.

“Please don’t cry,” he crooned softly, running his hand over the back of her hair. “I’m so sorry for yelling like that. I’m not mad at you. You know I’m not mad at you.”

Leah’s breath hitched as another sob fell from her lips, stifled by his shirt.

Danny pulled back and ducked down, bringing his eyes to her level as he removed her hands from her face and replaced them with his own. “Don’t cry, sweet girl,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I’m so sorry. For all of it. I just…I can’t stand the idea of anyone hurting you. It makes me crazy.”

His voice was dejected, cracked into a million pieces, and she hiccupped repeatedly, trying to calm down. Danny brushed his thumbs under her eyes, pressing his forehead to hers. “And I know that I’m the one hurting you now, and I don’t know how to fix it, and it’s killing me. Because I love you, Leah,” he said, brushing his lips over hers.

Everything stopped.

Her tears. Her breathing. Her heart.

Danny pulled back slightly, his hands still on her face as he met her eyes. “I love you,” he repeated softly.

Her heart came back alive in her chest, pumping wildly, every beat sending those magnificent words coursing through her body, repairing her from the inside out. And for that one moment, all the guilt and anxiety and fear and frustration vanished. The only thing that existed for her was the immeasurable connection she felt to him, fortified by his words—the intense satisfaction of knowing that the person she loved with her entire being loved her in return.

“I love you too,” she whispered, her breath hitching as the tears slipped over her lashes.

He closed his eyes and exhaled, and for a moment, his face relaxed, and everything was gone for him too.

Leah lifted her chin, closing the distance between their mouths, and Danny released her face, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist.

“So much,” she whispered in between kisses, and Leah felt his lips curve into a smile against hers.

She brought her arms up around his neck, and he tightened his hold on her, lifting her off the floor. Leah wrapped her legs around his hips, and he walked them back to her bedroom, their lips never breaking contact.

As soon as her back hit the bed, she arched up, pulling her sweater over her head, and when she tossed it across the room, she could see that Danny was already undoing the buckle of his belt. She sat up quickly, taking over the task so that he could remove his shirt, and once it was off, he slipped his fingers under the cups of her bra and pulled it up over her head, completely bypassing the clasp.

There was urgency in their movements, earnestness in their kisses, fueled by the phone call, the fight, their declarations. Within two minutes of entering the bedroom, their bodies were already joined, and they clung to each other, clutching and clawing and gasping and still needing more. It was like they couldn’t get close enough, and the desperation left them zealous and feral.

The unrelenting movement of Danny’s hips gradually pushed her across the bed so that by the time it was over, her head was hanging off the other side, and his hand was on the opposite wall, bracing them.

The intensity of it left them both gasping and shaking, and they held each other, kissing and whispering until their hearts finally slowed and their breathing evened out.

Eventually, Danny moved them to a more comfortable position, and Leah lay with her head on his chest and her leg thrown over his thigh as he gently pulled her hair through his fingers.

“I have a favor to ask you,” he said softly.

“Anything.”

Danny inhaled deeply. “I have to go to Brooklyn next week to meet with my lawyer, and I’m bringing Gram. He needs to interview her, but the thing is, he’s gotta go over some shit with me too, and I don’t want her in the room for that. She doesn’t need to know the specifics of things,” he said, running a hand over his eyes.

“Why does he want to talk to her?”

“He’s already spoken to her a few times, but they’re finalizing everything now. He’s trying to establish the relationship I had with Bryan. If the judge recognizes that this was about family, and not some college bar brawl, he might be more understanding.”

“So he wants to talk to her about your childhood?”

“Yeah. Our childhood, right up through when it happened.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

“The thing is, I’m not sure how long this meeting with me is gonna take now that…” He exhaled. “Now that the wheels are in motion. And I don’t want to leave her alone in the lobby while I’m in there. She gets really emotional every time we have to do this, and I just—”

“I’ll take care of her,” Leah promised softly. “We’ll go get a cup of tea somewhere. Have some girl time.”

“It’s on a weekday, though.”

“So I’ll take the day off.”

Danny brought his lips to the crown of her head. “Thank you,” he said before kissing her there. “And I just want you to know that…I won’t do that again,” he added softly.

“Do what again?” she asked, trailing her fingertips over his waist, and she felt his stomach muscles twitch in response.

“I won’t lose it like that again. Tonight was…” He shook his head. “It’s out of my system.”

Leah lifted her head, resting her chin on his chest as she looked at him. “No, it’s not,” she said softly. “And you can’t expect it to be.”

Danny blinked up at the ceiling.

“I know what you meant before,” she said, laying her head back down on his chest as she played with his fingers. “That you don’t want to live the next two months under a cloud of dread. And I agree. We should try to enjoy as much of it as we can. But there will be days when we can’t ignore it. And that’s okay, Danny. It’s okay to need a time-out.” She pressed her lips to his chest. “Tonight was just one of those nights.”

Danny slid his hands under her arms and pulled her up the front of his body so that she was lying on top of him. He reached up, scooping her hair back into a ponytail and holding it there with one hand as he brought the other to her face.

“You are incredible,” he said tenderly, running his thumb over her lips, and she kissed the pad of it. “You are beautiful, and smart, and thoughtful, and perfect, and I don’t deserve you.”

“Well, that’s too bad, because you’re stuck with me,” she said, and he smiled up at her, using his hand in her hair to pull her mouth down to his.

The sound of her phone beeping with a text message interrupted the silence, and Leah lifted her head, breaking their kiss.