“It’s like history repeating itself, Lee,” he oddly adds when I finish speaking. “Not the exact same, but the foundation built on the same rocky ground.”

“Riddles don’t suit you,” I quip.

“I suppose not when you’ve got more on your mind than you can keep up with.” He studies me before speaking again, “One look, you said?” At my nod, his smile grows. “Buckle up, son, it’s going to be a bumpy road.”

“I’ve got four wheel drive,” I laugh.

“Liam, I’m really not sure I can add anything here that will help you. As far as I can tell from what you’ve just told me, you’re about ten steps ahead of where I was when I was wearing your shoes. Half the battle is already won. You’re in and breaking down that wall, you just need to make sure you’re ready to catch her when she falls from that prison she’s been living in.”

“And if she doesn’t ever get to that point? Because I’ve got to say, I have a hard time seeing the end game through all of this right now.”

His hand comes out and grips my shoulder, hard. “That is not an option you give yourself, bud. You don’t give up and you damn sure don’t allow her to give up on you or herself. Your plan’s a good one. Hell, it’s a great one. But I promise you, it’s one that is going to have her hurting before she can heal. From what I know about Megan, she’s been given a lot of pain in her life. It’s up to you to show her that in pain there is always beauty to be found.”

“I don’t want to give up on her.”

“Then don’t. Honestly, son, this isn’t about you right now. Sure, in a way it is, but until you get her to . . . what did you call that list?”

“Feeling Alive,” I tell him.

“Yeah, until you get her to remember how to live past that pain she’s been clutching tight to, then you need to hold on and gear up. What’s the next step?”

“Number two on the list was karaoke.”

His brows furrow. “What in the hell is there about karaoke that put it on the list at number two?”

I smile, feeling that determination that I had started to lose come back.

“You have to learn to laugh when you feel so scared that you just want to run and hide. You have to hike those big girl pants up and even though you want nothing more than to run back to your little bubble of safety, and push through the fear to let yourself dance to the music.”

He smiles and I look into my father’s eyes and give him a big grin of my own.

“Proud of you, son. She isn’t going to know what hit her with my boy working that Beckett magic.”

I laugh, “I hope she doesn’t. Thanks for the chat, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too, bud. Now tell me how much you hate those ten-hour shifts.”

We spend the next hour talking about how my shifts at work are going now that I’m on patrol. He tells me how things are going down where he works at Corps Security and as always reminds me that he wishes I had decided to come and work for him and not joined the force.

By the time my mom joins us we’d moved into the living room, beers in each hand, and the television on the sports channel. I don’t leave until long after my mom had filled my stomach with a meal fit for a king and a calming sense of purpose to get my girls.

IT’S BEEN A WEEK SINCE Liam stood at my front door and hugged my daughter goodbye.

A week of silence from him.

A week of me missing him fiercely.

A week of realizing that continuing to push him away will be fruitless, because in this week I’ve craved him with an unhealthy degree.

It baffles me that he could be under my skin, so deeply imbedded this soon. While we’ve known each other for almost two years—or at least that’s how long it’s been since I was first introduced to everyone at Cohen’s going away party. In that two years we’ve been thrown together at various parties, group nights out, and basically whenever Dani pulled me out of the house when I would get too consumed with work. For the last six months of those two years though he hadn’t hidden his attraction. Little touches here and there¸ the casual brush of his skin when he would walk by, or most recently—after Dani and Cohen’s wedding—our shared night of the hottest sex I’ve ever had.

I think it was during the paintball game that I realized he had started to burrow under my skin. When I looked at him, his knee-melting smile shining bright, and felt my gut get tight . . . that’s when I knew how much trouble I was in.