Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
brIAR
I’m sleeping with the gloves again when I’m awoken by a heavy knock on the door. Karma yowls and jumps onto my face, and another knock lands before I manage to peel him off.
It’s pitch dark outside.
Why would someone be at my door at this hour?
I tiptoe out of my bedroom and through the living room, dodging the sectional in the dark. When I reach the door, I stand still for a second, worrying my lip.
I won’t open it. I’ll see who it is, that’s all. And if they won’t leave, I’ll call the police.
I peek through the peephole, my heart racing, and see…nothing.
“Oh, that’s not creepy at all,” I mutter to Karma, who has settled at my feet and is giving the door a death stare. Unfortunately, it works better on people than on possible ghosts.
No sooner does that thought cross my mind than a figure sways into view. The breath escapes my lungs as I throw the door open without a second thought.
It’s Liam. He came. He came to me after all.
Karma bounds outside, and I nearly scream, worried he’ll be lost in the cold.
But he starts weaving around Liam’s legs like he belongs to him. Liam crouches to pat the cat’s head, and the sight of his big hand nuzzling Karma’s fur makes my heart melt. Even though it’s freezing outside, Liam isn’t wearing a hat or gloves. I want to wrap him up in a hug and give him my warmth.
He put someone in the hospital, I remind myself.
He slept with you and left without a backward glance.
He hasn’t dated a woman seriously for years.
But I know he’s not dangerous to me. His energy has always felt protective.
“Come inside,” I say.
He walks in, Karma trailing after him like a lovesick cat. Oh, of course he’s crazy about him too.
I shut the door after him, biting my lip as I watch him sit on the sectional and bury his head in his hands, his reddish hair tufting between his strong, scarred fingers.
It’s only when I sit down next to him and get a whiff of alcohol that I realize he’s been drinking.
Disappointment seeps into me. He’s here, but he spent this day the way he always does—thinking about another woman.
“How’d you get here?” I ask, my voice choked. “I hope you didn’t drive.”
“I walked.”
“From where?”
“Montford.”
Several miles in the dark. In the freezing cold.
“Oh, Liam.”
He glances up at me, his eyes bloodshot. “I let you think the other night didn’t mean anything to me, but it did.”
I set my hand on his leg, needing to touch him. “It meant something to me too. We were both confused.”
“No. I wasn’t confused. I don’t want you thinking that. I knew I wanted you. It would be impossible not to want you.”
“But we both know it’s more complicated than that.”
“Not just because of Hannah or the brewery.” The sadness in his gaze floors me. “I…Julia told me there was something missing in me, and I think maybe she was right. I don’t want to hurt you.”
I lift my fingers to his face, feeling the cold he carried in on his skin and his beard. Maybe I can seep warmth and light into him. He needs it, and my heart aches to do for him what he’s done for me over these past weeks—to be strong so he can be vulnerable.
“What, exactly, do you think you’re missing?” My voice comes out as a whisper as my cat leaps onto the couch and curls up next to him.
“If I knew that, Princess, I’d be halfway toward finding it,” he says with a gruff laugh, then shakes his head, his short beard brushing against my hand.
“Tell me about Julia.”
“I’d rather not.”
“You know everything about Jonah. The rule about not oversharing came after I’d already told you about him.”
“I don’t want to talk about that prick either.”
I tip my head up and brush a quick kiss across his lips. “Tell me, Liam. You need to get it off your chest. I can tell. You spent hours walking here because of it.”
He swears under his breath. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. I want to know you.”
His smile is wry and full of self-deprecation. “Most people who do are sorry for it.”
“You want them to be. You push them away on purpose so they can’t get close.”
“Let’s not get hasty,” he replies with dark amusement. “I don’t like most people. I don’t let them get close because I don’t want them close.”
“But you liked Julia,” I say, my words arrowing into my own heart.
He shrugs. “Sure. For a while.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I’m sure he’s done sharing. I’m trying to resign myself to that and respect his boundaries when he surprises me by continuing.
“We were together for two years, but she fucked my boss at the holiday party I refused to go to, and everyone found out. I think she wanted me to challenge Steve to a fight or some shit, but I didn’t.
I quit, obviously, but I figured there was no point fighting for her.
Why fight for someone who doesn’t want you?
If she wanted to be with him, let her be with him.
Maybe she’d finally be happy. But Steve had a coke habit, and a few weeks after she got with him, she overdosed on his drugs. She almost died.”
“That’s when you attacked him?”
He hangs his head. “I should regret that, but I don’t. He didn’t take care of her. But neither did I. It was my fault.”
“That’s a stretch. Why would you think it was your fault?”
He gives a humorless laugh, and his gaze seems haunted when it meets mine again.
“Because she told me so when I visited her in the hospital. She was in tears. She said she’d only slept with him because I hadn’t paid her any attention in months.
After it happened, she’d prayed I’d step up and tell Steve to go fuck himself, but I didn’t do anything.
She was trying to overdose, Briar. Because of me. She loved me, and I destroyed her.”
My heart is fracturing inside of my chest. I’m tempted to ask whether Hannah knows about all of this, but I know better. He wouldn’t have told her this part. This is something he’s carried alone, and what a heavy load to carry.
The weight of his memories must have been slowly breaking him.
I know what that’s like.
My hair is down to my waist now, but I still play with it constantly to reassure myself it’s there. That I won’t reach back and feel the shorn spots my mind still fears exist.
I nuzzle closer to him, running my hands over his face, his hair. Giving him the soft benediction he needs. My heart is so full of him. “She was struggling with her mental health, Liam. That’s not your fault. You didn’t do that to her. You can’t protect people from their own brains.”
“I should have seen it. I should have been there for her, but I didn’t even notice she was struggling.
Briar, I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing, I don’t notice whether I’ve eaten.
A lot of times, I don’t remember I haven’t called someone back until it’s been months.
I can’t be responsible for someone else’s happiness.
I can’t even…” He swears, pulling away. “I can’t even casually sleep with someone without messing everything up.
You know all about Margaret, obviously.”
“She wanted more than you were willing to give.”
“What do you want?” he asks, staring at me intently.
The question engulfs me, and all I can do is shake my head, feeling the inadequacy of the gesture. What do I want?
No one has really ever asked me before.
I want the brewery.
I want my friends.
I want to believe in happy endings, and winning scratch-off tickets, and happily ever after.
I want Liam, but I’m terrified it would be another mistake for both of us—one that might break us.
Hannah doesn’t want us together.
The brewing world is cautious of him.
There’s so much on the line…and neither of us has a history of healthy relationships.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, my voice ragged and full of anguish. “I don’t know.”
He gives me a smile filled with so much pain I almost burst into tears. “I shouldn’t have come here, Briar. I just wanted you to know that the other night meant something to me.”
He pulls away and gets to his feet, turning toward the door. But he only makes it one step away before I quite literally throw myself at him.
“You can’t walk home from here. No way.”
He smiles as if I’d said something cute. “No one’s going to mess with me. The walk will sober me up the rest of the way. I drank too much with Otis.”
“You drank with Otis?” I ask, stunned. “Is he still alive?”
He barks a laugh. “I didn’t say we went drink for drink.”
“What were you doing with Otis? I thought…”
I thought he’d holed up to brood about Julia, and that coming here was an afterthought.
“I was looking for you. Dottie said something that made me think you’d be there. You weren’t, obviously, but he and his grandmother asked me to stay, and I figured…” He lifts one big shoulder. “Maybe it was worth trying to be a guy who says yes to things like that.”
My confused and broken heart tries to make sense of this.
He went there looking for me. He wanted me. Maybe he even got drunk because of me instead of Julia.
“Otis is crazy about you too, you know,” Liam says. “You’re not alone, Briar. We’re all behind you. We’re all invested in making the brewery work. You’ve made us want it as much as you do.”
My eyes fill with tears. All my life, I’ve longed to hear those words. It’s still hard to trust them, but I want to stuff them into my soul and keep them forever. I want to keep him.
“And I’ve got your back,” I insist. “You’re not leaving.” I position myself firmly between him and the door.
He gives me the wry look of a man who could move me as easily as most people could move a barking Chihuahua.
“Don’t make me put my new gloves on,” I warn. “I had a pretty good boxing teacher.”
He smiles then—a real smile. “You got them?”
“I’ve been sleeping with them,” I admit, feeling those hot tears still pressing at my eyes.
“I should’ve gotten you a stuffed animal instead.”
“No.” I plant my palm on his warm, hard chest. “I love them. I’m just upset because I didn’t get you anything.”
He tips my chin up. “You honestly think you didn’t get me anything? You gave me everything. Before you burst into my life, I was stuck in a dead-end job, just surviving. You’ve made me feel alive again.”
I place my other palm beside the first. I can’t let him leave. I can’t. It feels like my world will end if he walks out that door. “You’re staying here tonight. I want you to hold me.”
“The gloves weren’t doing the trick?”
“No. I need you.”
Those words are so hard for me to say to anyone, especially to a man. Jonah took my need and twisted it against me, but I know Liam would never do that purposefully. Liam is good and loyal and strong, and everything Jonah only pretended to be.
“We should stay away from each other until we decide what to do,” he says, his eyes conflicted.
“I won’t let you get past me. I’m unrelenting when I have a goal. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t need to ask anyone.” He holds my gaze, and the warmth I see in his eyes fills me with wonder. “I’ve watched you. I’ve seen the way you’ve stepped up. You’re fucking remarkable in every way.”
“Stay,” I say again, one more time, my voice cracking.
His face softens, and he leans down and scoops me into his arms. The tears finally track down my cheeks as he holds me close, and even through his shirt and coat I can feel his heart beating hard too.
He holds me close for a long moment, like he can’t bear to let me go, then kisses my forehead and carries me into my bedroom.
He lays me down in the bed like I’m something precious, then pulls the covers up to my chin.
But he makes no move to get down beside me.
“You’re not leaving,” I say, starting to sit up, worry pumping through me.
A ghost of a smile passes over his handsome face. “Am I allowed to take my coat off? Or is getting comfortable out of the question?”
“I’ll allow it.” I smile, but tears are still sliding down my cheeks. I won’t feel settled until he’s in the bed with me.
He removes his cell phone from his coat pocket, setting it on the bedside table, then shrugs off the coat. Sits down on the edge of the mattress and takes off his shoes.
“You can take your pants off too.”
He gives me a regretful smile, then reaches over to wipe away my tears. “No. I think I’d better keep my chastity belt on.”
I laugh in surprise as he slides under the covers next to me, my body naturally tilting toward him because he’s so big.
“Do your feet slide over the end of the bed?” I ask, fascinated.
“I’m not Bigfoot, Briar,” he responds, looking amused.
“But you are big everywhere.”
He groans as he reclines on his side and pulls me to him, my back to his front, my body fitting perfectly against him.
A deep sense of peace fills me as he wraps his arms around me, holding me close and enveloping me in his scent.
He might think he’s incapable of protecting people, but I’ve never felt this safe with anyone else.