Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
I shouldn’t have come here. That was the thought cycling through my head as I stood outside Ava’s apartment door, my hand raised to knock, my whole body vibrating with self-loathing and dread.
I’d driven for an hour after leaving my father, trying to outrun the poison he’d planted in my brain. But every road I took led me here.
To her.
Because even when I was trying to outrun my demons, she was still the only place that felt like home.
That’s what makes this so dangerous, the voice in my head whispered. That’s how it starts. He loved your mother too. Look how that ended.
I knocked before I could talk myself out of it.
The door opened, and there she was in sleep shorts and one of my old hockey T-shirts, her hair pulled up in a messy bun and her lips lifted in a gentle smile.
“Hey.” Her smile flickered when she saw my expression. “I was starting to worry. You never texted me back. Is everything okay?”
No. Nothing was okay. I was pretty sure nothing would ever be okay again.
I stepped inside without answering. The apartment was quiet—Sydney must have been out, or already asleep. The living room was lit only by the lamp in the corner, casting everything in a warm, golden glow that made the room feel peaceful which felt like a cruel joke given what I was about to do.
“Liam?” Ava closed the door behind me, her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
I looked at her and it felt like my heart cracked down the middle.
She was so beautiful. Not just physically, though God knew she was that too.
But she was also beautiful in the way she stood there, worried about me, when I was the one about to detonate a bomb in the middle of everything we’d just built.
She was beautiful in her trust and her openness.
She’d let me past every wall she’d ever constructed, believing I wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t deserve this.
You’re going to hurt her anyway. It’s only a matter of time. Better to do it now, cleanly, than to drag it out until you destroy her completely.
“We need to talk,” I said. My voice came out flat. Wrong, like it belonged to someone else.
“Okay.” She moved toward the couch, but I didn’t follow. I couldn’t sit next to her for this. Couldn’t be close enough to smell her vanilla-cinnamon lotion or strawberry shampoo or feel the warmth radiating off her skin. If I let myself get that close, I’d lose my nerve.
She noticed. She always noticed everything. Her expression shifted from worried to guarded, her arms crossing over her chest in a protective gesture that made me want to take it all back before I’d even started. She didn’t sit down.
“Liam. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop them from shaking, and forced myself to meet her eyes even though looking at her felt like staring into the sun.
“You made a list,” I said. “A list of things you wanted to try. And we did them. All of them.”
She blinked, clearly thrown by the direction of the conversation. “Yeah,” she said dragging out the word. “We did.”
“The list is done, and so are we.”
The words hung in the air between us, sharp and final.
For a moment, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared at me like I’d told a horribly offensive joke.
Finally, her brows furrowed and her mouth opened and closed before she found her voice. “What?”
“This was always supposed to be temporary.” The lie tasted like ash on my tongue, but I forced it out anyway. “An arrangement. You wanted experiences, and I helped you get them. That was the deal.”
“That was the deal before.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Before you told me you loved me. Before you told the entire arena you were off the market. Before—” She stopped, swallowing hard. “Liam, what the hell is going on?”
Tell her the truth. Tell her about dinner. Tell her what he said. Let her help you fight this.
But I couldn’t. Because what if he was right? What if the love I felt right now was just the beginning of a slow slide into becoming everything I’d sworn I’d never be?
I’d rather break her heart once than break it over and over again for years.
“I got caught up,” I said. “In the moment. In the thrill of it all.” Each word felt like swallowing glass.
“But now that it’s out in the open, now that the chase is over…
” I shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of cruel, which hurt me as much as it hurt her.
“I realized I don’t feel the way I thought I did. ”
All the color drained from her face. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“No.” She shook her head, taking a step toward me. “No, I don’t believe you. Something happened. Something—” Her eyes widened. “Your dad. He texted you. Did you see him? Is that what this is about?”
She was too smart. She always had been. She could see right through me, straight to the rotting core I was trying so desperately to hide.
I had to make her stop looking.
“This isn’t about my dad.” The biggest lie of all. “This is about me finally being honest with myself. And with you.”
“Then be honest!” Her voice rose, cracking at the edges. “Because this—” She gestured between us. “This isn’t honest. This is you running away from something, and I deserve to know what.”
“You want honesty?” I stepped closer, close enough to see the tears gathering in her eyes, close enough to smell that goddamn lotion and shampoo mix that would haunt me for the rest of my life. “Fine. Here’s honesty. I enjoyed the chase.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her.
“The forbidden aspect turned me on,” I continued, forcing the words out past the lump in my throat.
“Sneaking around, keeping secrets, knowing I wasn’t supposed to have you.
But now that’s over. And I’m already…” I made myself say it even though it was the worst lie I’d ever tell her.
I made myself drive the final nail into the coffin. “I’m already getting restless.”
The sound she made was barely audible—a small, wounded noise that would echo in my nightmares for years to come.
“You’re lying.” But her voice had lost its conviction. The fight was draining out of her, replaced by something worse but necessary. Resignation. “You have to be lying.”
“I’m not.” I held her gaze, willing myself not to crack.
Not to reach for her. Not to take it all back and beg her to forgive me.
“You deserve a nice guy, Ava. Someone who won’t get bored.
Someone who can give you the kind of love that lasts.
That’s not me.” I swallowed hard. “It was never going to be me.”
She was crying now. Silent tears sliding down her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe them away. Didn’t try to hide them from me. She stood there looking at me like I was a stranger wearing the face of someone she used to know.
“So that’s it?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Everything we—all of it was just…nothing?”
Everything. It was everything. You are everything.
“It was what it was,” I said instead. “And now it’s over.”
I made myself turn away. Made my feet carry me toward the door even though every cell in my body was screaming at me to stop, to go back, to fall to my knees and tell her the truth.
You’re saving her, I reminded myself. This is the kindest thing you can do.
But it didn’t feel kind. It felt like I was cutting off my own limb with a rusty blade, slowly, while forcing myself to smile through the agony.
My hand was on the doorknob when she spoke again.
“I never asked you for anything.”
The words stopped me cold.
“I never pushed,” she continued, her voice thin but steady. “I never demanded more than you wanted to give. I never made you promise me forever. I just…” She took a shaky breath. “I just let myself believe you when you said you loved me. That’s all I did.”
I couldn’t turn around. If I turned around, I would shatter.
“I know,” I said quietly. “That’s why you’ll be fine. You’ll find someone better. Someone who deserves you.”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharp. “Don’t you dare make this about what I deserve. If you’re going to leave, then leave. But don’t pretend you’re doing me a favor.”
I deserved that. I deserved so much worse than that.
“Goodbye, Ava.”
I opened the door and walked through it and out into the parking lot where my truck was. I made it all the way to the driver’s seat before I broke.
The sob that tore out of me was wrecked and defeated, the kind of sound I hadn’t made since I was a kid. I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel and let myself fall apart, just for a moment. Just long enough to feel the full weight of what I’d done.
I’d saved her.
I’d saved her from me. From my father’s legacy. From the inevitable moment when I’d look at her and feel nothing but the urge to run.
She would hate me now. She would move on. Find someone who could give her everything I couldn’t.
And I would spend the rest of my life knowing that the best thing I’d ever had was something I’d chosen to destroy.
Because that’s what men like me did.
We destroyed the things we loved.
It was better this way.
It had to be.
The lie sat heavy in my chest as I pulled out of the parking lot, leaving behind the only person who’d ever made me believe I could be something other than my father’s son.