Chapter 14
Baking
YouTube
Nature
Waterfalls
Hope
Maddy, Seraph, and Mila
Liam. Always Liam.
Iwas headed to pick up the girls, but I wanted to stop by the center.
I told myself it was to see if there was anything I could pick up for Nora and Rae, but there was a tiny part of me that wanted to check on Jeffery.
I knew he had to be pissed at me, and I wouldn’t blame him if he was with how our evening ended.
I didn’t want to make excuses for Liam, and I had willingly accepted an invitation to go out with Jeffery and then left with someone else.
Regardless of my frustration in the moment with him, it was still shitty.
I pushed open the door and found him in one of the back classrooms. Nora wasn’t in, neither was Rae, but there were a few other guys milling about the place.
Leaning against the door frame, I waited for him to acknowledge me.
His hat was backward on his head, pushing all that unruly blond hair back. Without looking up, he gruffly said. “Need something?”
His tone cut through me, and even though I didn’t have romantic feelings toward him, his derision still cut.
I took a deep breath and then just decided to get into it. “Last night was shitty. I wasn’t going to go with him, but…”
Brown eyes lifted, landing on me in a curious way. “But what?”
Shifting off the door, I explained. “I don’t like being warned away from people.
It bugs me. You tried to scare me away from Liam the first chance you got, and I don’t think you even understood what that could have done to our working relationship.
But Liam matters to me, just like you do.
And if Liam had said that about you, I would have left him too. ”
Jeffery’s eyes narrowed before he lowered his head again and punched a few more nails in.
“So that’s it? Nothing else is going on between you two, you’re just friends, like we’re friends?”
My heart felt frenzied and panicked at his question. Liam and I said that we didn’t want to tell anyone about us, and I wouldn’t betray him that way.
“Nothing else is going on.” The lie was bitter on my tongue, but I swallowed down the taste.
“He acted like…” Jeffery shook his head, running a hand through that messy hair.
I shouldn’t press, but I was also trying to figure out what his perspective of all this was.
“Like what?”
He stood and walked closer to me, leaving his nail gun behind. “Like I had just stolen from him. He acted like you were his, always had been and always would be.”
Well, damn.
My throat was suddenly dry, so I lowered my face and shook my head.
“I think he knows I’m not legally twenty-one and freaked, given he’s my brother’s best friend.”
“You’re not?” His tone picked up, bordering on panicked.
I laughed. “One more month.”
“Oh. Then yeah, he probably did freak out.”
There was a sigh fluttering in my chest.
“So are we good?” I asked, and I was expecting maybe a nod or a knuckle bump, but he pulled me into a hug.
“Yeah, we’re good.”
I hugged him back. Not like I hugged Liam, more like that time Colson hugged me.
When he let me go, I waved to him and promised I’d be back tomorrow to help him.
On my way back to the car my stomach churned so badly I worried I’d throw up. That was two people I had lied to today, and while I understood the importance of keeping details to myself, I really didn’t like it. Lies always caught up with you.
That was something Blaire always said.
“Don’t bother dabbling in the dark, the sun always moves, and eventually shows what’s been going on in the shadows.”
There was something so soothing about having three little faces smiling back at me while I drove around town.
We were on our way to school––the girls were rocking out to Taylor Swift––and the sun was shining in a bold attempt to stanch winter temperatures.
We had a tradition now where every morning we picked up our “mochas”; theirs were just hot chocolates with whipped cream, and mine was a skinny vanilla latte.
I had a smile I couldn’t smother because I loved this feeling and I loved how the girls seemed to transform each morning I showed up to take them to school.
Regardless of Liam asking me to stay the night each night, I only gave in if the girls asked for a sleepover at Uncle Colson’s or if they were already in bed when I came over.
I still arrived before breakfast each morning, whether I stayed overnight or not, to help them get ready, and Liam always managed to ravage my mouth in the pantry when I went in to grab the kids’ snacks. Or the garage…
One morning, he’d tucked me behind a tall tool chest, shoved my leggings down, and then with one swift movement, he’d entered me and fucked me right there.
I was still dragging my feet on all relationship-related things, feeling weird that we were hiding and sneaking around.
But there was a part of me that felt so insatiable for him that I couldn’t stop myself from giving in.
I was so selfish that I just didn’t want to give up the touches, or the secrets.
After I dropped the girls, we were meeting again at the gym, and my legs clenched tightly together at the idea of what he’d do to me.
The brake lights in front of me brought me back to the present and the little slip of road where I parked the car so I could walk the girls to the front of the school.
It was ten times faster than waiting bumper to bumper in the carpool line.
We’d done it once and the girls said it made them late, so now I parked and walked them straight to the door.
We crossed the wet grass, each girl still wearing their heavy-duty boots and coats, then I hugged each one as they disappeared behind the front doors.
Liam had said that Maddy was in fifth grade this year, and by sixth, she’d migrate to the middle school.
I couldn’t wrap my brain around the idea that she’d be a middle schooler next year.
Even more so, I couldn’t fathom my place in her life at that time.
Would I still be here? Would Liam and I still be sneaking around, stealing kisses?
My hands were tucked tightly against my chest as I walked back, my eyes on the wet ground at my feet, so when I approached my car, I startled when I saw a woman resting against it.
The woman had long blonde hair that kissed the top of her heart-shaped ass, her lithe form slightly hidden under a large brown leather jacket, and those blue eyes, those I recognized.
I’d just watched three pairs of them in my rearview mirror from three beautiful little girls.
My throat went dry as I slowly rounded the hood, standing a few feet away.
“My sister was right, you are cute.” She cocked her head to the side as she propped her arm against my car.
That confirmed my assumption that this was, in fact, Lacey, Liam’s ex-wife. My stomach churned as I stared at her.
The silence stretched as the sun dipped behind a cloud, and it began drizzling.
“He fucking you yet?” Her pink lips slung to the side while her nose scrunched.
I narrowed my eyes and asked sharply, “Did you need something?”
Blue eyes turned into slits, as if her mask dropped.
“He tell you how much he likes his dick sucked? He really likes it when you swallow his jizz down too…goes wild if you let him disrespect you a bit.”
I pinched the inside of my arm where she couldn’t see. I absolutely would not be doing this right now. I had no idea what the fuck this woman’s problem was, but I wasn’t about to have a cat fight over Liam.
“Can you get the fuck away from my car please?” I asked coldly.
I moved closer to my door, but she blocked me.
“The girls have any massive meltdowns in public yet? The little one, she likes her dramatics.”
My stomach knotted at her choice of words… Did she not even remember her daughter’s name?
Her eyes scanned me, like she was waiting for me to respond, but I wouldn’t be.
“He feels real good though, right? I’ve had a lot of lovers, but none have the stamina that man has.”
She took a step closer, and I had to fight the urge to step back. If I did it once, she’d make sure she did it again and again.
“Get. Away. From. My. Car,” I demanded sternly.
Was I really about to fight this woman?
She inspected her nails then licked her lips. “I think I might still have one of our sex videos. I tried to upload it to one of them websites, but Liam had a little panic attack and threatened legal action. But maybe I could give you a few pointers.”
Giving her a sharp glare, I repeated, “What do you want?”
“To remind you where they came from and ensure you understand where they’ll end up. They’re mine, make no mistake, honey.” Her feet brought her closer as she cracked a sinister smile before turning on her heel and swaying her hips and she stalked off.
I quickly got into my car, ignoring how my hands shook.
Starting it up, I breathed through my nose a few times to clear my head, but even as I pulled away, there was something painful being pieced together in my chest. I could feel it.
I just wasn’t sure Liam and I would be the same once it solidified and I understood the gravity of what formed.
I drove toward the edge of town and parked near a bridge that overlooked a massive waterfall.
It was one of my favorite places in Macon when I first got here.
I liked how quiet it was, how serene, and best of all, it offered silence when my thoughts seemed too loud.
After the encounter with Lacey, I needed to calm my nerves.
So, I began walking the trail, ignoring how cold the spray from the water was against my face.
The closer I got, the better I could think.
Liam was expecting me at the gym, but I couldn’t face him right now. He’d know, and it wasn’t that I would hide the encounter with Lacey from him. I just didn’t want to seem broken when I told him about it. He didn’t need to carry an unnecessary burden.
So, I climbed trail after trail until I circled the entire waterfall. Once I finally reached the top, I walked out along the bridge and stared down into the water and tried to sort out my loudest feelings.
Realizing what the girls had likely been through with Lacey weighed the heaviest on my mind.
Second was the painful awareness of how unstable their lives must still feel when it came to new people, especially females.
My heart seemed to unwind slowly, and with each turn, something else would hit me.
The image of the girls finding Liam and I sneaking around, the fear that might come from us breaking up, the drama behind a messy argument.
What would happen if they caught us before we’d told them?
What if someone else caught us and told them?
Then there was the tiny tendril of horror that I’d essentially become my mother.
While not in the same way, I didn’t have an affair with a married man, but I was still a secret.
One that Liam wasn’t ready to share with people in his world.
I was hidden in plain sight from my brothers, labeled as merely the daughter of their father’s secretary until I was six years old.
They all liked me for the first few formative years—until the secret came to light.
This felt eerily similar.
My body seemed to fold in on itself as a cold feeling invaded. I was young, but rarely was I this naive. Liam wasn’t some twenty-year-old bachelor. He’d had a life with someone, a career. He was a father to three children.
Liam wouldn’t carelessly introduce someone he was romantic with into his girls’ lives unless he was sure. I knew this deep in my core. But how long did he expect us to sneak around? My mind kept thinking back to how long my father had hidden his relationship with my mother. Six years.
I didn’t want that. Not for me, or the girls. Not for Liam.
After meeting Lacey, I realized those girls didn’t need the threat of a messy relationship.
They needed stability. They needed people they could count on to be standing in their corner.
They needed mature adults to be in charge of keeping them safe, and I wasn’t being very mature about my relationship with Liam.
I was falling for him, too fast. Too hard. In the end, it would be like an egg falling from a two-story building. If I gave us some time, maybe I’d be more like a rock so I could withstand the fall, but right now, I wouldn’t…and the girls wouldn’t either.
They’d been through so much.
I refused to put them through anything else.
I felt a tiny pinch in my chest as I made up my mind, and resolve settled into my core like cement.
Liam would eventually understand that I was giving us a foundation.
His daughters were his entire world, and if I ever wanted to be within that orbit, I’d have to become something more substantial than a passing light that only blinked in their lives for a moment.
I wanted to be something that made them better.
Someone who could sacrifice and put them first, so that no matter what, they wouldn’t have to deal with someone like Lacey again.
With tears falling from my lashes, I finally turned and left.