“I wanted you to know she found out.”
“I’m okay if she knows. You don’t need to hide what happened from people.”
They sat in silence for several minutes until he decided to ask the question that had been burning a hole inside him for almost two decades.
“Do you hate me?”
Dani unfolded from the chair and sat next to him on the couch, resting her head on his shoulder. “Truthfully? I did.”
Tinker winced. Fuck, that hurt. He knew it was coming and he didn’t blame her. He could almost guarantee he hated himself more.
“For a long time. It took me a hell of a lot of therapy to understand you were just a kid yourself and had no idea what the fuck you were doing.” Dani paused. “I think the worst part was you never talked to me.”
“I talked to you,” he protested. “I called you all the time.”
“You talked at me. You told me Mom and Dad died. You told me you were going to join the Marines. You told me I was going to live with Dimitrii. You told me everything would be fine.
“You never asked me how I was doing or how I felt or what I wanted. Even after everything that happened, you never asked. And we didn’t ever talk about it, not really. We talked about the aftermath—what came next. You going to jail, me going into the system. We were so busy trying to survive it all, we never stopped to talk about how we got there.”
Tinker laid his head against the top of hers. “I’m sorry.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “I forgave you a long time ago. But Christian…you have to forgive yourself. What happened isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it? You said it yourself. I made decisions without really thinking about the consequences. If I hadn’t joined the Marines, you wouldn’t have had to live with Dimitrii, and?—”
“I didn’t want to leave Charleston, Christian. I didn’t want to give up dancing or lose training time or find a new teacher or give up my shot at getting my pro card. Back then, neither of us had any reason to think something like that would happen.”
Tinker lifted his head to shake it. “I could have?—”
“What? Shipped me off to great aunt what’s-her-face that we don’t actually have? Taken me with you? Put me into foster care?”
“You ended up there anyway,” he said dryly.
“Not the point.” She raised her head and shifted so she was facing him on the couch. “You were seventeen. Your parents had been killed, and you were suddenly responsible for a thirteen-year-old sister. You made the best decision you could at the time.”
Fuck. He needed another beer. Or whiskey.
“Look at me,” Dani demanded.
He turned his head. Apparently not enough, because she grabbed both sides of his face and turned his head fully to face her.
“I wanted him dead. More than you. I’ve done a lot of therapy and a lot of healing, and I still wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire. Our lives went sideways, but I’m happy now. I love my life. I love fighting. I love Angie and everyone at Leonidas. I love you. And I forgive you.”
There was a tight, stuttering feeling in his chest. Dani was right—they’d never talked about it. He threw an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a headlock like he used to do when they were kids.
She ended up half across him, but not fighting his hold.
“Too much emotion for you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
He took a shuddering breath and let her go. “I love you too, Squirt.”
She smiled. “I’m not done yet. You have to forgive yourself, Christian. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to move on from this. I know why you volunteer for VACA. It doesn’t matter how many kids you help protect if you can’t forgive yourself.”
He gave her a long, steady look. Dani was touching on things he’d never admitted to himself. Not really. He knew why he did what he did, but he’d never given voice to it. “You moonlighting as a therapist?”
She stood up from the couch and brushed her hair back from her face. “Years and years of therapy. I know all the tricks.”
