Coming Home(55)

“McGillicuddy’s.”

“Okay, where is that?”

“Valhalla,” he said, and the despondency was gone from his voice, leaving him sounding oddly detached.

Leah dropped her head back, blinking up at the ceiling before she sighed heavily. “Alright, you need to go inside, okay? I’m coming to get you, but I don’t want you to go anywhere else.” She slid off the bed and pulled a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt out of her drawer.

“Leah?”

“Yeah?” she said, stepping out of her pajama bottoms.

“I don’t deserve this. I just really need you to know that, okay?”

She froze with one leg in her yoga pants. What the hell was he talking about? His keys being taken? Her coming out to pick him up? Or something else entirely?

Either way, his words were dripping with misery again, and she quickly pulled her pants on as she held the phone with her shoulder.

“I’m leaving right now. Just go back in the bar, alright? Don’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, alright,” he said distractedly before ending the call, and Leah tossed her phone on the bed as she pulled off her pajama top and threw on the sweatshirt. She combed through her hair with her fingers as she sat on the end of her bed, doing a Google Map search of McGillicuddy’s in Valhalla. The directions said the trip would take twenty minutes, but at this time of night, with no traffic, she could probably make there in ten.

Ignoring the little voice in her head that told her she was crazy for doing this, she scooped up her keys and purse and walked out of her bedroom.

If nothing else, Danny had become a friend of hers, and she would do this for any one of her friends, she told herself as she locked up the apartment and made her way down to the car.

Besides, there was something in his voice, something in the fraught way he spoke that caused a knot in her stomach. He needed help, and he had called her. It didn’t matter what had happened between them last weekend. After all, what kind of a person would put her own ego before helping someone in need?

Leah made it to the bar in just under fifteen minutes, pulling up to the curb right out front. She didn’t really know the area and wasn’t thrilled about walking around alone this time of night, so she hoped getting him to leave would be quick and painless.

She exited the car and pulled her hands into her sleeves, wrapping her arms around herself as she approached the bar.

Behind the impressive oak door, McGillicuddy’s was nothing but a dive bar; a few random patrons sat scattered about rickety wooden tables, and Leah’s heart rate kicked up a notch as she scanned the area, not seeing him.

Just as she was about to take out her phone and try to call him, she spotted him at the far end of the bar by himself. His head was down, his elbows resting on the bar as he spun a half-empty drink in his hand, and Leah frowned.

Why would they have served him again? The bartender took his keys, but gave him another drink?

Leah walked briskly toward the back of the bar, glaring at the bartender as she passed. When Danny heard her approaching, he lifted his head.

“Leah?”

She put her hands on her hips. “Danny.”

He blinked at her, stunned. “You’re here?”

Jesus, does he not even remember calling?

“Yes, I’m here. Come on. You’re going home,” she said, taking the drink from his hand and placing it on the bar. She realized a beat too late that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea; she had no idea what kind of drunk he was, whether he would get angry or belligerent if she took his drink away.