Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
brIAR
In, hold, out. In, hold, out.
I’m hardly doing well, but at least I haven’t needed to run to the kitchen to search for a paper bag. Being in this house always makes me feel like a child lost in a labyrinth. Never alone, but always alone.
I don’t like that Liam is across the table from me, seeing me like this. Meek. Quiet. Accepting. I transform every time I step through that door, turning back into Briar the Doll. Briar, the seen but not heard.
Briar, the obedient daughter.
And now I’m going to have to sit down next to Melly and pretend she isn’t the one person I truly hate.
I lift Liam’s beer for another sip, find the bottle empty, and glance at him across the table. He must see the need in my eyes, because without a word, he takes another beer out of the six-pack, ignores the two bottle openers my mother set down beside him, and opens it on the edge of the table.
I smile as he hands the bottle to me. Part of me is glad he’s here. He’s made it clear he’s on my team. Before I met my new friends, I didn’t even have a team. No one had ever really stood up for me.
At the same time, Liam wouldn’t be here if not for Hannah—Hannah, who made her boundaries very clear.
The smile ghosts off my face as heels click-clack toward the dining room, and my mother emerges with Melly, who is dressed in a black floor-length dress with lacy three-quarter-length sleeves. Her auburn hair is chin length and perfectly curled around her sweetheart face.
“Well, hello,” she says.
She’s not talking to me. Her eyes slid right past me as if I were wallpaper, finding Liam. His muscles are straining against that black shirt, which brings out the red in his hair.
“Who are you?” Melly continues.
A horrible feeling creeps through me, like black mold spreading under my skin.
She obviously wants him, just like all the women at the brewery, and she usually gets what she wants…
But instead of getting up to greet her, Liam leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m Liam. I work with Briar.”
It’s obviously his turn to ask who she is, but he doesn’t.
Undaunted, she hugs my father, calling him “Uncle Don,” and then sashays around to Liam, holding out her hand.
He shakes it with a flat expression.
“I’m Melly. I’m Briar’s best friend from boarding school.”
I drop my beer bottle.
It cracks on the floor and sprays fizzy liquid. My dress is mostly unscathed, but the wood flooring under the table gets doused.
“Briar!” my mother practically screams.
Blood is beating in my ears. I can feel everyone staring at me, just like they did the night the whole staff of Silver Star quit. I hear my mother leaving the room, heading toward the kitchen. I can feel Liam taking in my shame and lack of grace.
“Still such a butterfingers,” Melly says as she helps herself to my mother’s chair.
“My mom’s sitting there.”
“I’ll move when she gets back,” she says, her arm brushing against Liam’s. Her features scrunch. “I don’t want to sit in beer.”
Liam gets up, surprisingly graceful for such a big man.
“I’ll sit in it. I prefer smelling like beer.
” As he passes me, he skims his fingers across my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze.
It happens so quickly, I might have questioned whether it really happened if not for the heat trailing from that spot.
Emotion clogs my throat as I watch him collect the bigger pieces of glass on the floor into a pile. Then he takes the napkin from the unused place setting and swipes the chair and sits down next to me.
“So, Melly,” my father says, not remotely interested in the seating arrangements or the mess. “Your father’s told me all about your success. He says it’s not easy to break into social influencing. That’s what you call it, right?”
“Yes, I’m an influencer,” she says, smirking at me. Reminding me that she played that role before, and that she was good at it then too.
My hands fist beneath the table.
“What, exactly, do you influence?” Liam asks.
“People,” she says with a wide, red-lipped smile. “People who want to look like me, or have a similar lifestyle.”
“So you’re an advertiser.”
“It’s more like a public service.”
He wings his eyebrows up. “Oh? In what way?”
My mother rushes in with her housekeeper, Martha, who has a massive stack of towels, a trash bag, a mop, and a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner. The chef who cooked our dinner is following them, holding a tray with five dessert plates containing some kind of fruit tart I don’t want to eat.
“Let me clean it up,” I say as Liam gets up. “Please. I’m the one who made the mess.”
I don’t know Martha well—my mother always has a new housekeeper—but the woman must be at least sixty-five, and I don’t want her getting down on her knees to clean up after me.
“Honestly,” my mother says, rolling her eyes, “that’s what she’s here for.”
I ignore my mother. “I’m not trying to do your job, Martha, but it was my mess. I’d like to clean it.”
She silently checks in with my mom, who rolls her eyes again for posterity before nodding.
Martha hands over the cleaning supplies, and Liam holds a trash bag open for me so I can pick up the rest of the glass.
He helps mop up the floor, too, but Martha insists on bringing everything back to the kitchen herself.
My father chuckles to himself as Liam and I return to our seats.
“It’s like I told you, son.” He points a finger at the wooden plaque hanging over my head. “My daughter will never get anywhere because she cares too much about other people’s feelings. Make sure you don’t keep making the same mistake.”
I take a bite of the tart, which is probably delicious but tastes flavorless in my mouth.
“She’s always been like that,” Melly says, cutting into her fruit tart with the side of her fork. “Too sensitive.” Giving me a sly smile, she says, “Remember that time I borrowed your doll?”
My heart seizes in my chest. I can’t believe she’s actually admitting to it, talking about it as if it were nothing. As if it were funny.
“Yes,” I say after a moment. “I remember.”
She flourishes her fork at me. “You know, your dad actually gave me twenty bucks to do that. He wanted to see how you’d react.”
My father shakes his head. “And of course she let you keep it for a whole week.”
The floor falls away beneath my feet. My father has always loved “throwing down the gauntlet,” as he likes to say, but I was six years old and homesick and scared. Losing that doll to someone I’d been told would be my friend had chipped away at the one solid piece in my foundation.
I get to my feet.
Liam stands up beside me, stepping closer so his side touches mine. Strength laps off of him, bolstering me. I can feel him telling me I can do this—I can finally take a stand.
Still staring at my father, I ask, “Did you tell her to chop off all my hair too?”
He looks surprised, thank God, but my rage doesn’t care. I’ve never been this angry before. I’ve always turned my fury on myself, but now I know my father has never been on my side. Never. I was just a game to him. A gamble. He never wanted me to succeed for my sake.
“I think your recipe for success is bullshit and always has been,” I say.
My mother gasps. “Language, Briar.”
“Everyone thinks so.” I dart a look at Melly, who has whipped cream on the corner of her mouth.
I wish I could take a photo. “And you’re not a real influencer, Melly.
You only have eleven thousand followers on Instagram, and you live off your trust fund.
I can only imagine you got connected to the paper through someone your father cut a deal with. ”
Her pointed stare is probably supposed to be scathing. It probably would be if I cared what she thought of me anymore. “Your father just gave you a brewery, Briar. You’re hardly in a position to judge.”
“Yeah,” I say, “but I don’t try to pretend to be something I’m not. Let’s go, Liam.”
He strolls around the table and grabs what’s left of the six-pack, shoving it into his rucksack before saluting my parents and Melly. “I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure, but I don’t lie for other people’s benefit if I don’t like them.”
He returns to me, pressing a steadying palm to the small of my back as we walk out of the room, heading toward the foyer. I can feel the support radiating from him. It’s the only thing saving me from hyperventilating.
When we reach the cold marble entryway, I realize there’s a flaw in my escape plan.
“I don’t have my car.” Defeat slumps my shoulders. I couldn’t bear to ask my father to give me a lift, and I don’t want to wait in their yard for an Uber. I’d feel like a child sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a school bus.
“Won’t be a problem,” Liam says.
I open the coat closet, and he darts a wolfish grin at me when he sees it: his two coats, hanging side by side.
“You actually wore it,” he says with a grin.
“I wanted to see if they’d say anything.”
“Did they?” he asks, pulling it off the hanger. He holds the coat open for me, and my throat clogs with emotion. It’s such a simple thing, but so few people have wanted to take care of me.
“My mother said she was buying me a new coat. So I have that to look forward to.” I slide my arms into the sleeves, feeling the soft glide of his fingers through the fabric. “Why isn’t it a problem that I don’t have my car?”
“Because we’re taking my bicycle,” he says wryly.
My pulse kicks up at the thought of riding his motorcycle with him. “But you must only have one helmet.”
“And you’ll be wearing it.”
“What about your head?” I ask as he gets his coat on.
Am I really going to leave with him?
“I’ve been told it’s harder than dried cement,” he says. “But I’ll try extra hard not to get into an accident.”
He pauses after opening the door—waiting for me to decide—and that’s what does it. I step out into the night with him. The cold wraps around me, but I barely feel it. My pulse is still racing, my blood heated, and that awful anger is thrumming through me, needing to be released.
I tug Liam’s arm, and he halts, turning toward me. He towers over me, but no part of me is intimidated by him anymore. I feel protected when I’m with him.
“Liam, I want you to take me to the boxing gym. Please. I need it.”