“To tell me that you’re not Xena, who just wants to have a baby with the most powerful man she’s ever met,” said Danny. “And you’re not like Hermia, who’s just using me and letting me use her because by helping each other we both gain. With you it isn’t a bargain or a trade, and it isn’t because you want to get something from me.”

Pat was crying now. “Yes.”

Danny got up and sat on the couch beside her and she nestled against his shoulder and he put his arm around her and she cried. “You came here to tell me that you’re my true friend and that I can count on you in a way I can’t count on anybody else.”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“You came to tell me that you love me.”

She pulled away, turned and flopped down against the other arm of the couch and cried even harder. “I’m so stupid,” she said. “If I’d known that was what I came to say I wouldn’t have come!”

Danny put his hand on her back and she did not recoil. He stroked her gently and said, “You came to tell me that you’re the best of my friends, that you’re the truest, the most reliable. That you don’t think this magery is cool, you think it’s dangerous, and I’m in danger, and you don’t want anything bad to happen to me, because what you care about isn’t power or coolness. It’s me. You care about me.”

She nodded, and she wasn’t crying now. His hand was stroking her back, and when she sat up his arm stayed around her and she turned her tear-soaked, red-eyed face to him and he kissed her.

It wasn’t like with Lana. Yes, it was, in that his body approved of what was happening. But he wasn’t afraid. He took her at her word. He trusted her. And he realized that in all his conversations with his friends at high school, Pat was the only one he actually listened to with any expectation that her words would matter to him at the level of reality rather than entertainment.

Which wasn’t strictly true, he realized. He respected Hal and liked him and he thought Hal was also worth listening to. But he wasn’t like Pat. He didn’t see as clearly and harshly and truthfully as Pat did. Hal told the truth as far as he knew it—but Pat was far more likely to know true things, so her honesty was more valuable. More reliable.

Meaning I can use her.

Danny hated the thought as soon as it came to his mind. It was an ugly bit of self-knowledge. He broke off the kiss.

“Please,” said Pat, and tried to resume it.

“No,” said Danny.