Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
brIAR
It’s Friday, two days before the New Year’s Eve party. My father has already confirmed that he and my mother are coming—and also that he expects me to attend the weekly Sterling family dinner tonight.
He didn’t acknowledge Melly’s article, or the role he clearly played in it, not that I’d expected differently. Accountability is not his thing—hence the way he made it our fault that he and Bubba flubbed the brewery’s organic status.
He also has not acknowledged the retraction the paper printed, or the statement from Liam, reporting that he took over the brewing at the beginning of the month and has seen no evidence that the brewery was producing organic beer before the change in management.
We told the truth, which is exactly what was needed, but the truth is always a double-edged sword.
Because even if my father won’t acknowledge our statement, other people have.
Several of the bars and local grocers that stock our beer have called up threatening to cut ties over it.
I’ve had to make several restitution payments, and I’m sure more requests will come. Maybe enough to sink us for good.
Everything had been shaping up so well, but now our path is full of stumbling blocks.
I haven’t told anyone other than Dottie about the blowback yet, and all she’s done is pat my hand and assure me that it’s all going to be okay and that the truth is always a worthy cause.
Though Liam and I worked on writing his response together, and the words flowed like magic, he’s barely said a word to me since.
He looks at me though.
He looks at me a lot, and every time he does, it feels like my heart is being ripped into smaller pieces.
It wants to love him. It wants to trust him.
It wants to believe it’s possible for us to have some kind of future together, even though publicly acknowledging our relationship is even riskier now.
It might convince people that Melly had a point—that Liam has been steering the ship solo, and I’m a no one at my own brewery.
I don’t want that, but I do want him. I’ve struggled to sleep at night, because I keep waking up, half-expecting him to be there, only to discover that the warm paw striking me in the face belongs to Karma.
I want everything—Liam and the brewery and my friends—and each morning I wake up with the sinking feeling that I might end up getting nothing in the end.
Just like last time, and the time before.
Maybe I really am doomed to be a failure, but I won’t accept that fate without putting up a fight.
In honor of my new determination, I got a punching bag and set it up in my apartment. Karma watches me apathetically every night as I practice boxing with my new gloves. I haven’t told Liam about it, but Hannah and Sophie know.
Now that they’re both back from their respective trips, I’ve had a chance to catch them up on things.
We haven’t seen each other yet, but they’ve been supportive.
Nora, too. Of course they don’t know everything.
All they know is that someone printed shitty lies about the brewery and we had to bite back.
I leave the brewery at noon to have lunch with my friends at Tea of Fortune.
It feels good to see them, to hug them, and after Hannah commands an exhaustive report on the engagement of Eugene and Mrs. Applebaum, I find myself telling them the full story about Melly, from Felicity to the hair shearing.
“I’m going to fucking kill her,” Hannah says.
“Liam doesn’t seem to like her much either,” I reply without thought.
“Of course he doesn’t. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me so I could punch her.” She casts a sideways glance at Sophie and Nora. “Women can punch other women, you know. That’s totally within the realm of fairness.”
“Still assault,” Nora comments, popping one of Dottie’s special sandwiches into her mouth. The ones with the red pepper paste are so hot they burned the roof of my mouth permanently, but Nora claims she’s immune to spicy food.
“We don’t want to have to bail you out of jail,” Sophie adds.
“We have to do something.” Hannah lifts her chin, caught up in the tide of possible vengeance. “This isn’t the kind of thing we can let go, especially after she wrote that shitty article. I mean, honestly, Liam can be a pain in the ass, but what she said about him is basically slander.”
I shrug, trying to swallow my own feelings about Melly. “I can’t imagine the retraction they printed will be good for her freelancing career.”
“Still not enough,” Hannah insists.
Nora gives us a wicked grin. “What if we buy a Felicity doll, shear off all the hair, and send it to her anonymously with a note saying, I know what you did. That’ll probably fuck up a few sleep cycles.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
“Hey,” Hannah says, pepping up and giving Nora a high five. “That’s diabolical.”
“Those dolls are super expensive,” I point out.
“Can’t put a price tag on revenge,” Hannah says. “Besides, it’s doubly appropriate since everyone freaked out when Felicity cut her hair on that old TV show.”
“Which TV show?” Sophie asks.
Both Nora and I shrug, at a loss.
“Philistines, all of you,” Hannah mutters.
“What if Melly reports it to the police?” I ask.
“We’ll just say we sent her a shitty gift because we thought she liked that doll…on account of she stole yours.”
“We can even gift wrap it,” Nora adds.
I look to Sophie, who’s the most kindhearted and forgiving of all of us. “This is a bad idea, isn’t it?”
“No, I think it’s actually a pretty good idea. We can even stick some crystals in there for her betterment. I’m sure Dottie’s picked some out.”
The conversation shifts, and we talk for a few more minutes before we head back to our respective responsibilities, but Hannah insists she’s going to walk to Silver Star with me.
It seems…unusual, and my nerve endings prickle as we step out into the cold.
She couldn’t possibly know about Liam and me, right?
He never would have told her, and even though Dottie knows, I don’t think she would tattle on me either. Not about that.
“Did you like Travis’s mom?” I ask, hoping to keep the conversation off Liam.
Hannah laughs. “I don’t even think Travis likes his mom, but we had a good time.
His sister’s pretty cool. But, hey…” She stops walking and tugs me to the inner edge of the sidewalk, close to a brick building.
“I was wondering if you’ve noticed how Liam’s doing.
I think he’s avoiding me. I thought it might be because of that article.
He’s pretty sensitive about what happened at Mountain Morning.
You know, he and that asshole Steve used to be friends. ”
“I know,” I say, my heart lodging in my throat. “Liam’s just been working a lot.”
Has he been avoiding Hannah because of me?
I hate the thought.
“Yeah, that’s a given,” she says, shoving a lump of ice across the sidewalk with her foot. “But he hasn’t been answering my calls. He always answers my calls. It’s something we make a point of doing for each other because of what we went through after our mom left us.”
Oh God…
I knew their mom left them, obviously, but I haven’t given it much thought since getting close to Liam. He’s such a big man, so confident in his body and his abilities, that it’s hard to think about him as a little boy—a boy who was abandoned, just like my sweet, fierce friend.
And now he’s not communicating with the one person who could comfort him…
“I’ll talk to him,” I choke out as a few tourists pass us. One of them glances back, either curious or lost.
“Oh God no, don’t do that,” Hannah says with a bark of laughter. “He’ll know I told you, and then he’ll get stubborn, and God forbid anyone cares about him.” She rolls her eyes. “He’s such a pain in the ass. But thank you for standing by him. That means a lot.”
“Of course I did,” I say through my hoarse, heart-choked throat. Guilt swallows me whole, because I haven’t stood by him.
I remind myself of the awful feeling I had when I saw that app on his phone, but as the days pass, I feel increasingly sure he wasn’t using it. The truth was written on his face that day, and I see it in the glances he’s been giving me. Rueful. Full of need.
Still…he’s kept to our rules. He hasn’t even tried to talk to me for the last several days outside of our writing session. So maybe he changed his mind about me or decided I was too much effort, especially after that article my father masterminded.
I should forget what happened between us, or at least stop thinking about it constantly.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m always around him, seeing him but not interacting with him.
It’s as if the beautiful thing we were building has been hidden behind a sheet of unbreakable glass.
I can remember it but not touch it. I can watch it but not feel it.
“He’s been doing a good job, though?” Hannah pushes, leaning against the brick building we stopped beside. It smells a little like urine, so I pull her away from it.
“A great job. He’s a genius.”
He already has our next three beers fermenting, a job that’s getting easier as we keg and bottle the rest of Bubba’s brews.
She smiles, nodding. “Yeah, I think maybe he is. But I wish he’d let himself be happy.
Every time he finds something that might make him happy, he withdraws.
Like with the band. He could have had a really good thing going with them.
That agent who was interested in them a couple of months ago already has a meeting set up with them for the New Year.
He’s ready to sign them after listening to a few of the recordings they did with Cormac and Mick. Liam could have been a part of that.”
“I don’t think he’s interested in that kind of attention,” I say without thinking. “Not for music.”
She pauses, studying me. “You know…he told me he was on a dating app a couple of weeks ago, but I know for a fact he’s not using it.”
“How?” The word comes out hungry. Crap. Backtracking, I say, “I’m only curious because the girls at work are always talking about it.”
“What about you?” she asks. “Are you ready to start dating again?”
I shrug noncommittally, grateful she can’t hear the voices shouting inside of me.
“Well, don’t tell Liam.” She raises a finger. “But I created a fake profile of a stupidly hot person and messaged him. I wanted to see what he’d do, because I had this theory that he was trying to pull one over on me with the whole dating app thing…”
“You catfished your brother?” I ask in disbelief.
“He didn’t even read the message,” she says, watching me closely. “And then he must have blocked my stupidly hot avatar or deleted the app, because his profile disappeared.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to sound like I couldn’t care less about Liam and his dating life. “Well…I guess he wasn’t ready.”
“I guess not. Or maybe he’s with someone, and he’s trying to keep it from me. Have you seen him with any ladies at the brewery?”
“No.” My pulse jumps. Is she trying to get a read on me? Or is she serious? “But I try to stay out of his personal business.”
That much is sort of true. Now.
“Okay, I can see you’re not going to gossip.
” She averts her eyes to the sky as if she just can’t even with me.
“We better get you back, you girl boss, you. I still can’t believe you witnessed the engagement to end all engagements.
Nora didn’t seem as excited about it as I am.
Say, do you think Eugene will let me be his maid of honor? ”
“He’ll probably ask Cormac,” I point out as we start walking again.
“Yeah, that’s true. You think I can be a groomsman? I’d wear a suit and everything.”
“Eugene would probably do just about anything for you,” I venture, feeling an ache in my chest, because I know Liam would do just about anything for her too. And yet…
She’d asked him to stay away from me, and he’d been willing to break his word for me.
We make idle chatter all the way to the brewery. When we reach the edifice of Silver Star, she hugs me and takes off for Big Catch.
I head down to my office, and flinch at the sight inside.
Liam’s waiting for me on the couch. Our couch.
He’s wearing a black, long-sleeved T-shirt that makes his hair look especially coppery today, and it’s been a few days since he trimmed his beard.
He looks almost wild—and God, I want to touch him.
I want to climb into his lap and forget the last week happened.
Does he want the same thing?
I shut the door, feeling so full of hope and anxiety that I can barely function. I walk over and stand in front of him, waiting for him to speak. Because I can’t find any words yet.
“Is dinner at the same time tonight?” he finally asks.
I wince. “What are you talking about?”
“Dinner,” he repeats. “At your parents’ place. Every Friday, you said. Is it at the same time? It would work better if we go together. They might not let me in otherwise.”
“You’re not coming with me,” I insist. My father already wants to destroy him. I doubt he’ll be feeling more friendly tonight.
Liam lifts his eyebrows, his expression suggesting he doesn’t have a single care in the world. “I think you’ll find that I am.”
I glance at the closed door. “You can’t seriously expect me to take you. My father’s got it in for you, and…” My throat catches. “You’ve barely said a word to me for days.”
“I’m not intimidated by him.” He hesitates, his jaw working. “And you made it clear you wanted to keep things professional. This is me, doing that to the best of my ability. That means trying to stay away from you while we’re at the brewery.”
I search his gaze as he stands up, and see nothing but the truth. I want to reach for him, but I’m frozen. I want to know if he’s been ignoring Hannah because of me, and to tell him to stop. I want to know if he still cares about me, and if he’s still willing to put it all on the line…
Because I’m starting to think that I might be. Especially if I was right about Hannah, and she was implying she’d be okay with us seeing each other after all.
I want to touch him, something I’ve been missing all week. I want to tell him that I’m still scared, so scared, but I want to stop being afraid and keep taking chances. I’ve felt more alive in the past few weeks than I ever have, and I’m hungry for more of it.
But the only words that come out are, “We can’t go together.”
My breath freezes in my lungs as he reaches a hand toward my face, but he only tucks my hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering for half a second before dropping.
“I’ll pick you up at seven fifteen on my bicycle. Probably wouldn’t do for us to be late. We won’t want to miss anything. Wear that jacket you had on last time.”
“They’ll think we’re a couple,” I say. “My dad already probably does.”
“Good.” He smiles at me, and the memory of his lips on me nearly breaks me.