And that made me smile, this time doing it big.

Because yet again, we agreed.

He pulled into his underground parking and we were parked, out, Mag had the Nordstrom bag, I had my purse hanging cross body, and we were holding hands and standing in front of the elevator after Mag tagged the button, when I broached it.

“Why is it so important to you that you’re Danny to me?”

He looked down at me and did not hesitate to lay it out, and in doing so, lay me out.

But in a totally, freaking awesome way.

He started this by saying, “That guy was dead, until you.”

I stared up at him. “What?”

“I used to be Danny. Danny the football stud. Danny the overprotective big brother. Danny the master at beer pong. Life was good with no indication it wouldn’t always be that way. I had no idea how shit life could be for so many people. Entire countries filled with people living complete nightmares. And when I learned that, beer pong lost its meaning. Fun never seemed fun because in my throat, I could still feel the dust, and remember what others endured, continued to endure, and that tinged everything with a thick coat of shit.”

“Danny,” I whispered, all the distress and helplessness I felt weighing heavy on his name.

The elevator doors opened.

We both ignored them.

“Then you kept calling me Danny,” he said. “And I didn’t give it time to process it, I just knew I liked it. I knew how it made me feel. Today, I realized, I need to be Danny for you. I need to remember I can’t make life okay for every being on this planet, and it sunk in that logically, that’s impossible. But what I can do is make it okay for you. I can be the overprotective boyfriend. I can get off on making my girl breakfast, and eating pancakes with her that, for the first time in years, don’t taste like sand, because I’m eating them at her side and life is good because I’m doing the only thing I have any control over doing. Playing my part in making it good for her, and for me.”

Oh God.

I was going to cry.

No, I was crying.

I felt the tear slide down my cheek, followed by another one.

“Baby,” he murmured, watching the wet fall.

“You wanted to rescue me today,” I guessed.

His gaze came to mine.

“No. I needed to rescue you today.”

Right, so maybe he was a little jealous of Brett.

And maybe he’d been tweaked, then freaked.

But mostly, he needed me to need him.

“I might have gotten the girls and me out of a jam today, honey,” I began. “But I’m always gonna need you to be Danny for me. Do you understand that?”

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

“And I’ll never call you anything but Danny,” I swore. “Not ever again.”

He grinned at me, let my hand go and framed my face at one side, his thumb sweeping through the wet.

“And next time I’m kidnapped, I’ll sit tight and let you rescue me.” I promised that but quickly added, “Though I reserve the right to make alternate arrangements should there be certain peril for you, or, say, it’s a group abduction, like today, and the majority vote is to try to escape. I wouldn’t want to be a bad team player.”

He frowned.

Again quickly, I continued, “And you can make breakfast for me every day until the end of time.”

He stopped frowning.

“Deal,” he said softly.

I swayed toward him.

His hand at my cheek slid into my hair, his other arm curled around me, the Nordstrom bag hit the back of my thigh, but I didn’t notice because his head came down to mine, and we started necking in front of the elevator.

We did this like we’d never done it before.

In other words, it didn’t get hot and heavy.

It was just about intimacy, sharing, closeness, and yes, I was going to think it even if I wasn’t ready to express it any other way.

Love.

We broke it when the elevator doors opened again, and a guy said, “Whoa. Sorry.”

Danny shuffled me to the side, murmuring, “No, we’re sorry.”

The guy gave us an assessing look, lips quirking, and headed off to his car.

Danny pulled me into the elevator.

“Mentioning 300, you wanna watch that tonight?” he asked when we were going up.

“Yeah. Maybe order Chinese?” I answered.

“You got it.”

“We have ice cream, right?”

“Always.”

Shit day.

But I was with Danny.

And we had ice cream and movies.

So it was going to be a good night.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, Danny took my hand and pulled me out, but halted almost immediately.

I did it too, looked up at him and then in the direction of his stare.

Sidney and Rob were loitering outside his door.

Shit, damn, hell.

“Hey,” I called.

“Hey?” Sidney asked irately. “You were kidnapped again today, and you say ‘hey’?”

“Elvira,” Danny murmured, my guess, as to the culprit of who spilled the beans to my family about today’s adventures, not to mention gave them details about where Danny lived.

“I’m fine, it’s all good, it’s all over,” I assured as I tugged on Danny’s hand and took him their way.

“We know. Elvira reported in,” Sidney shared.

Yep.

The elusive yet omnipresent Elvira.

“And Dad called me to see if I’d set up bail for him,” she went on as Danny and I stopped close to them. “By the by, I’m pretty proud of myself that I didn’t screech the word no in a pitch that was guaranteed to explode his eardrum, I just said it and then hung up on him.”

Danny cut in at this point, letting my hand go to stick his out to Rob and say, “You’re Rob, I’m Dan Magnusson.”

Dan Magnusson?

I got a gooey, happy feeling because maybe today Danny didn’t just realize why he needed to be Danny to me.

Maybe today he realized he could also give badass Mag a break, and let a cool, sweet, affectionate, handsome, amazing guy named Dan into his life.

And that was awesome.

“Dan, yeah, Rob,” Rob greeted, taking his hand, studying his face, and when neither man moved for one beat, two, three, four, I dropped my eyes and noted how firm a grip they had on each other.

Right, so, he’d introduced himself as Dan.

But Mag was never going to be far away.

That made me happy too.

Because, not a shocker, I’d fallen head over heels in love with a commando called Mag.

“Before you two break all the bones in the other’s hand,” Sidney started, “maybe we can go in and get the rundown on Evan’s latest abduction.”

They broke off, Danny’s mouth twitching, and he turned to the door.

“Again, I’m fine, everyone’s fine. It wasn’t a fun day, but at least it’s all over,” I assured, Danny having opened the door and claimed me again, so I spoke as he was tugging me inside.

My family, what was left of it, followed.

“I can see you’re fine, but how is this all over?” Sidney asked.

Danny had dumped the Nordstrom bag on the island and was turning on lights.

I was turning to face off with my sister.