Page 89 of Lovesick Gods

“Hey, Danny. I hope you listen to this. I hope you’re not so angry that you delete it. But if you do…I’ll just have to leave another one.

“Wherever you are tonight, whatever you think we’re feeling right now, please know that you can always come home. You are always welcome home, Danny.

“When you run out like that, you make me think I’m never going to see you again, and you…you don’t get to do that, okay? You don’t get to leave and never come back. Because youarefamily, and we love you so much. I love you so much…”

The tears present in her words made Danny’s own spring up again.

“We’ll give you time, Danny, we know you need time, some space, but please…please talk to me when you’re ready. I’m not giving up on you. I’ll never give up on you. I’m not letting you suffer again for six months, pretending you’re okay. You’re my best friend. You have a place in my heart that’s all yours, and it has nothing to do with obligation.

“This past year felt like I already lost you and I only just got you back. Please don’t make me lose you again. Please…”

He waited for her to say something else, for some obvious sign-off, but she just let her words trail, breathed out shakily, and hung up.

Sinking to the floor, Danny sat cross-legged against the wall of the corridor with his phone in his lap. Then he shifted, because something in his jeans pocket was poking him, and when he pulled it out to inspect it, he found the bottle of pills from Lynn.

She said to take one whenever he hit a low point; now definitely counted. Without any water to wash it down, he swallowed the pill thickly, then set the bottle aside and stared at his phone. Sitting there, alone in the hallway, he eventually summoned the nerve to hit redial on Stella’s number. She picked up after the first ring.

“Danny?”

“I’m so sorry, Stella.” It felt like that was all he’d been saying to everyone he cared about for weeks—months—but he had to say it again.

“Talk to me, Danny. Don’t shut me out. Let me help you.”

Stella did this for a living—helped people to find their place. Danny needed to remind himself that just because she was a professional didn’t mean she didn’t care or want to help him as a friend and sister. But he felt like such a burden. On her. On his father. On Joey with all the baggage he’d thrown at him. Danny didn’t know how to save himself from the muck he’d gotten stuck in.

“You’re not a burden, Danny. And you don’t have to save yourself alone. Even superheroes need to ask for help sometimes.”

He knew she was right, but he had trouble believing that most days.

They talked for what must have been hours before the crick in his back grew too bad to ignore and he felt the need for food and a shower. This time he’d told Stella everything—otherthan about Cho. That tidbit was just for him. And Andre, but Danny knew his secret was safe with his friend. Once he decided what to do about Cho, then he’d tell Stella. For now, it was enough to simply talk and to not try to hide any of the things that had erupted out of him at dinner.

Between his friends and family, no one knew every piece to the puzzle of Danny’s misery, but now Stella knew about the pills, about the chasm of pain and loneliness that had been growing inside of him since his mother died. SinceRickdied. Since he’d allowed himself to become a murderer.

“Danny, you’re not—”

“But that’s how I feel, no matter how dangerous Thanatos was or what he might have done to me if I hadn’t lashed out. I didn’t just kill him, Stella, Idestroyedhim.”

“Okay,” she’d said without judgement or further arguing.

What helped more than Danny expected was when she sharedherpain and loneliness in return. How hard it had been to go to work after losing a mother for the second time. How, when it happened, she’d wished she and Danny weren’t siblings so she could vent to him like she had when she was first welcomed into their family, but she couldn’t—he was grieving this time too. How her solace had finally come from helping Joey, both a reflection of her and of Danny. He was something Stella could fix, because of her job and her stubborn determination. Shecouldn’t bring his mother back, but she could give him a family like she’d been given one.

“We all have our own ways of coping, Danny. Helping Joey was mine. I hated seeing that yours kept being to tear him down.”

“I don’t want to tear him down.”

“I know that. But tearing yourself down isn’t any better.”

This time, when Danny promised he wouldn’t run anymore, he swore to himself that he’d do everything in his power to make sure he followed through.

He honestly couldn’t say if it was the pill he’d taken, Stella’s kind ear, the night he’d spent with Cho, or all of the above combined that did it, but when he finally ended the call and got up to leave the precinct, he felt lighter than he had since before he became Zeus.

Chapter21

“One more time,” Mal said, staring at the collection of gear laid out on the large table in the safe house. A few weeks ago, it had been covered in blueprints. Now those plans were ingrained in Mal’s mind, and the table was filled with everything they’d need to have the Winterheart Diamond gift-wrapped and in their possession by nightfall.

This was what everything had been leading up to since Mal and Danny first began their tryst, what Mal had once assumed would signal the end, yet now he had hope that the evening’s festivities would once again conclude with Zeus in his arms.

“Again?” Lucy groaned. “Mickey, you are such a slave driver. Can we break for dinner already? I’m wasting away over here, and the pizza’s getting cold.” She’d been bad-tempered all day, which was unusual for her with a heist looming.

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