At some point in waiting for James to come home, I must have dozed off, as I woke up to the door clicking shut and opened my eyes to find him narrowing his eyes at my figure curled up in the far corner of his couch. His football duffel was over his left shoulder, his work uniform over his right arm, but he looked about as energized as a toddler on a sugar rush. I'd need a good doze of whatever he was taking or on at this point.

"Hey." James said softly. "Come on. I'm assuming you're here for me."

Scott threw a hand over his chest in feign hurt. "Because it's so hard to believe that she came to visit me?"

James smirked. "If that's the case she wouldn't be sleeping, man."

I squeezed Scott's shoulder once I was on my feet, still too tired to utter a coherent sentence. He flashed me a smile and nodded, then returned to his game as I followed his roommate to the end of the hall. James was pulling his shirt over his head when I walked into the room, and despite him having been almost naked the first time we met, I still fought the urge to avert my gaze.

"What's up?" he asked, discarding the black shirt in the hamper in front of the closet. "Are you okay? Is Danni good?"

"Yeah." I said quietly, then a little louder added, "Yes, Danni is fine. I just let my emotions get the best of me, I guess."

He cocked his head to the left. "Emotions about what?"

"I guess Danielle has been talking about you a lot. My mom asked who you were today."

There wasn't much that seemed to render James speechless, but my words did. Or perhaps it was hearing how much Danni adored him that did it.

"My mom thinks it's. . . it's unhealthy for you to be around her like this. And it got me thinking too. Because she's been let down so much in her life, James, I don't know if she can manage another heartbreak."

Distracted from changing clothes, he sat at the edge of his bed in nothing but boxer shorts and buried a hand in his dark hair. "I. . . I don't know what you want me to say, Harley."

"I just want to know if this is going to end in heartbreak for Danni. Scott assured me that you wouldn't walk out of her life, but he didn't take into consideration that we're not a couple and you'll eventually find someone else and she'll hate the idea—"

James extended a hand as I lowered myself beside him and shut my mouth gently with a shake of his head, interrupting me mid-babbling and whispered, "Harley, no woman that's worth a shit would have an issue with our friendship, and surely not me being a part of your daughter's life."

I remained silent, unsure of what I should say. Taking my silence as an oppturnity to continue, James' hand moved from my jaw to my cheek and he caressed under my eye with his thumb, catching invisible tears. "I told you a couple months ago I was your friend, and I stand by that. But I need to know what you plan for your future before I can figure out mine."

"Why?" I breathed. "Why would it matter what I plan?"

"Because I need to know if you're going to be apart of my life, Harley."

When I lifted my head again and leaned into the touch, there was an intensity in his eyes I'd never seen before.

"If we try anything more than friendship, James, and it doesn't work, I don't want to lose you. Danni can't lose you."

"You won't." he reassured. "We're adults, Harley. We're friends. If we decide to take it beyond friendship, know that it'll always be there to fall back on."

Before I could stop the words, the excuses just came flooding out. "Danni and I, we're a package deal and—"

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

"You're a twenty-three-year-old man—"

He shook his head. "You need me. She needs me, Harley. Jess and I would have killed to have someone like us in our lives when we were kids. I'm sure as hell not going to walk out of her life when she needs me most."

My words caught in my throat, and not trusting myself to not breakdown, I rested my head against his shoulder for a while, his arm circling around my own and pulling me closer. Eventually, I joked, "And here I thought it was because you liked me."

He chuckled under me, his lips against the top of my head, "That's just an added perk."

*

I wasn't sure what was more terrifying; that James and Jess agreed to attend a meeting with me-or that it took very little explanation for them to do so. The minute Jess showed with nothing to do, I asked her if she might consider joining me, and because I felt as though it would be cruel to emit James just because he was in the minority at the meeting was wrong, I invited him too.

Stepping through the doors, I could feel James tense against me seeing just how many people were at this meeting. I remembered the first time I'd attended a meeting, how in awe I'd been at the different stages each member of the group was in and how visible it was to someone on the outside. It'd made me wonder what I looked like to everyone else.

Melissa crossed the room in a few quick strides and extended an arm out to James. "Hello! Welcome! I'm Mellisa Hardy!"

Jess, sensing her younger brother's apprehensiveness, took the hand and smiled. "I'm Jessica Pierce and this is my younger brother James. Thank you for having us!"

They continued chatting, but I veered off to the chairs with James so he wasn't forced to stand there, uncomfortable. His eyes swept the room, and as I watched him in silence, I realized it was the first time I'd ever seen him look the least bit vulnerable. He no doubt wasn't keen on allowing that emotion to break through because he kept trying to force his guard up, but failed miserably every time.

The two of them listened as a few of the others shared before Jess finally straightened and agreed to tell a bit about herself. My body involuntarily leaned into James to my right as he grew rigid, wanting to both comfort him and learn more about what he refused to talk about.

"Hi, I'm Jessica." Jess says it quietly, which is so unlike her that I glance her way. "And I'm a survivor of domestic violence."

"Hi, Jessica."

She waits a few seconds before she straightens and says. "I've experienced domestic violence in more ways than one. When I was a child, my father used to abuse the three of us. My mother, brother and me. He'd have violent episodes and outbursts and eventually it got to a point that he nearly broke my nose."

I recoiled into my seat, feeling the anxious bouncing of James' leg beside me as he pretended to not listen to his older sister.

"My brother stepped in before he could and we never saw our father again after that night. But we also lost our mother soon after. My brother and I became one with the system for three and a half years. Bouncing from group home to group home, kept apart, and always having to struggle to keep contact." Jess dropped her gaze to the floor. "But my abuse didn't stop in just my own house. Because 9 out of 10 of those group homes I as abused too. Physically and sexually. It got to a point where I refused to be around men outside of my brother once our mother regained custody of us. I acted out and ran away over and over, but it didn't matter because I couldn't run from myself."

She turns to look at me, eyes glistening with fresh tears. I'd never seen Jess so vulnerable, and it both terrified me and broke my heart.

"I met Lindsey, my girlfriend, at an art gallery on one of the few times I'd run away once I turned eighteen. I was sleeping outside, and she happened to be bringing a piece in. I thought to myself the moment I saw her, "why would a girl that beautiful ever look my way." But she did. She picked me up off that street corner and we went out for coffee. We spent hours talking about everything and anything, and she offered me her couch at her loft temporarily. We all know how that turned out."

Laughs erupted around the room as Jess tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. I knew better than to reach out and take her hand, so I turned to James at the same time Melissa did.

"James, honey, would you like to share as well?"

He blinked, so lost in thought he must have forgotten where he was. I thought he'd deny the invitation to speak politely, but he sat up and rubbed his sweaty palms against his blue clad thighs.

"Hi, I'm James" He squeezed his eyes shut as he forced out the next words. "And I'm a survivor of domestic violence."

"Hi, James"

There was a beat of silence before. "My sister here kind of filled you in a bit about our childhood. Our father was very abusive. I spent those years in foster care terrified. I was so scared I'd become him. Become this...this monster with no remorse. That people would cower at the sight of me. Because of this, I went through girls left and right in high school. And I always went for the ones I knew wouldn't last. The one nighters, the quickies. The girls that wouldn't stuck around long enough to see how damaged I was...or the monster I could become."

Tears filled my eyes hearing his words, but every coherent thought vanished as he went on.

"College was different. I promised myself after high school graduation that I'd grow up. I'd set aside all the childish behavior and prove my sperm donor wrong. I'd prove that I was more that some scared little boy unable to defend himself or his mother and sister and I did. I have. I'm a bartender for one of the biggest clubs in the city. I'm contender for the NFL draft. But none of it mattered. Because I still feel that darkness, that monster I'm harboring under the surface."

He slowly let his eyes flicker from Melissa to me on his left and he reached out to touch my hand.

"But none of it seems to matter when I'm with Harley and her daughter. From the moment she wandered into the lockerooom we met in, crying, I wanted nothing more than to help her. To protect her. Because I could see it in her eyes then. We both knew how cruel this world and the people in it could be, and I wanted her to know that I had no intention of seeing her hurt more."

He squeezed my hand and said, as if he's talking to me and not a room full of people

"I know it seems like I'm trying to help you and Danni, like I have just forced myself into your life and ravaged through it in hopes to save you. But the truth is you've changed me, Harley. Danni has. You both showed me who I was meant to be and that the monster of self-loathing is created was an illusion created out of fear."