Chapter 10
Liam
Sweat pours down my face as I finish my last set of box jumps at the Wolves training facility.
“Two more. You got this,” my trainer Eddie says.
My leg muscles burn as I jump again and again. When my feet land on the ground, I hunch forward and brace my hands on the tops of my thighs.
“Nice work,” he says. “Hit the stationary bike for cool down.”
I nod at him and drag my aching body to the far wall of the gym and climb onto the nearest bike. I force my legs to pedal at a medium speed, despite the burn in my muscles. Eddie will give me hell if he sees me slacking, even during cooldown.
He walks over and tells me I’m looking good in my off-season training.
“At this point in your training, I think we could swap out one of your cardio sessions for yoga. Something that stretches you out well,” Eddie says. “That’ll help prevent injury when you’re back to playing in the fall.”
I nod instead of shouting out of pure joy, like I want to. As important as off-season training is, I’m done with the four sessions per week of explosive cardio that I’ve been doing for the past month.
I tell him I’ll find a local yoga class and enroll right away. He walks off, and I continue with my cooldown.
It’s a couple of minutes before my breathing starts to even out, the soreness in my body starts to ease, and my mind starts to clear.
The one good thing about training sessions that make me want to puke? It’s helped me avoid thinking about the way I left things with Kendall the other night.
Every day since then, I can’t stop thinking about what a jerk I was. How I cut things off when Kendall teased me about me only talking about jokes and hockey for my best man speech. How short I was with her when she offered to help me clean up. How I barely acknowledged her when she left.
I exhale sharply, wishing I had handled things differently.
I knew she was kidding, but in that moment her words stung.
Because I was dead serious when I told her I wanted to write something romantic and sentimental.
I was gearing up to tell her that I wanted to incorporate the books they love into my speech and I wanted her help with that.
But when she made that joke, my defenses went up.
She didn’t take me seriously. And really, why should she? I’ve never been romantic or sentimental around her. I’ve only ever been a cocky smartass, always joking and teasing.
I wipe the sweat from my brow. I should have explained myself. I should have just been honest and told her the truth.
But I held back. Because I was scared of how she’d react if she knew that I wanted to try to be different for my best man speech. That I want to try and be better than the smug jokester everyone sees me as. I was afraid that she’d laugh in my face.
I shouldn’t have assumed that she would react that way. Especially after the night we had.
We actually got along with each other. We laughed and chatted while sharing our favorite takeout. It felt like old times, when we were friends in college.
Warmth pools in my chest at how good it was to feel like I was friends with Kendall again. I think about how she told me about what it was like to be a caretaker for her aunt and how her ex broke up with her over it.
Tightness squeezes through my chest just thinking about what he did…and the pain in her eyes when she talked about it. I could tell it hurt her. It felt awful seeing her like that…but it also meant a lot. Because it meant that she trusted me enough to talk about something so personal.
That warmth in my chest overtakes the tightness. I finish my cooldown and hit the mats to stretch. Regret gnaws at me. She was open and honest with me. I should have been the same with her.
As I head to the locker room to get cleaned up, I check the time. I’ve got a few hours until Kendall comes over for our next meeting about the wedding. And when she does, I’m going to be honest with her.
When I answer my front door, there’s Kendall standing there with a massive paper bag in her arms.
“Hey. Ready to write some speeches? I brought plenty of food to power us through.”
I chuckle. “Hell yeah.” She walks in and heads to the kitchen island.
“You didn’t have to bring takeout,” I tell her. “I was going to order delivery for us again. Training ran a bit long today so I didn’t have time to order before you came over.”
“You paid for brunch and takeout last time. It’s my turn to bring food,” she says as she unpacks boxes of Chinese takeout.
I clear my throat. “Hey, listen. I wanna apologize for last week.”
She looks up, a confused frown on her pretty face. “For what?”
“For the way I ended the night. I think was a little short with you.”
Her expression softens. “Yeah, I noticed,” she says softly.
“I’m really sorry about that,” I say. “It’s just that, I was serious when I said I wanted to do something sentimental and romantic for the best man speech. And when you laughed, it kind of threw me off. I know you didn’t mean it…”
Her eyebrows crash together in concern. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me to laugh at you.”
“It’s okay.”
She steps around the kitchen island and walks over to me. “It’s not okay. I really am so sorry.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that. You’re always joking around, and I just assumed that’s what you were doing,” she says. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “That sounds like I’m making excuses.”
I touch her arm. She opens her eyes and aims that gorgeous deep brown stare at me. “It’s okay. I get what you’re saying. I’m not known for being the most sentimental guy. Or romantic. But I want to try and be for this speech.”
Her lush mouth curves up in a sweet smile.
I pull my hand from her and run it through my hair, working up the nerve to say this next part.
“I, um, thought it would be cool to incorporate some romantic literature in the speech, since Aidan is a professor and he and Micah write romance books together.” I pause. “Unless you think that’s a stupid idea…”
The most radiant smile spreads across Kendall’s face. “Liam, that’s so thoughtful and sweet. And crazy romantic.”
I grin. “Yeah?”
She nods. “I think that will be really special. Micah and Aidan will love it.”
“I, uh, don’t really know much about famous literature though. Or writing. That’s hopefully where you come in.”
“I can definitely help with that.”
We dig into the food while standing at the kitchen island.
“So what works do you want to reference in the speech?” she asks as she chows down on sesame beef.
“Aidan teaches classes on Shakespeare, so maybe that?”
“Great idea!” Kendall says excitedly. “Do you have a line from one of his plays that you like? Or one of his poems?”
I frown. “Wait, he wrote poems too? Not just plays?”
“Yeah, he wrote a ton of sonnets. Lots of romantic ones too.”
“Oh.” I let out an embarrassed laugh as I poke my chopsticks into my lo mein. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s okay. His plays are what most people know and pay attention to,” she says.
“Which is totally understandable. Shakespeare’s plays are epic.
I mean, Love’s Labor Lost has one of my favorite lines ever.
‘And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony.’” She clutches her hand to her chest. “Amazing, right?”
I blink at how she just rattled that off the top of her head. “Yeah, wow.”
“There are tons of swoonworthy lines from Shakespeare sonnets too,” she says.
“Like, ‘So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground.’” She chuckles.
“That’s not really a lovey-dovey line, I suppose.
It’s more about how all-consuming the passion and lust for another person can be. Still pretty romantic in my book.”
I gaze at Kendall, in awe of how she lights up as she talks about this.
She takes another bite of food and looks at me. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“You know all those lines by heart?”
Her full cheeks blush. “Yeah. I guess that’s pretty nerdy, isn’t it?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s impressive. You’re able to memorize random lines from Shakespeare like it’s nothing. Kendall, you’re a genius.”
She bursts out laughing. “Not even close.”
“I’m serious. How do you know all that?”
She shrugs. “This is what I studied in school for years. It’s what I teach every day. It’s not really memorization. More like I’ve just been exposed to the material nonstop for so long.”
“That’s still amazing. I couldn’t recite a single line from any book that I’ve ever read.”
She tilts her head at me. “Come on. Of course, you could.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know anything about books.”
“You know, ‘Oh Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”
I roll my eyes and laugh. “That doesn’t count. Everyone on the planet knows that line.”
“What was your favorite book as a kid?”
I finish chewing my bite of lo mein and gulp my water. “I didn’t read much as a kid. I was too busy with hockey.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.” She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “What about in college? We had a literature class together freshman year. What was your favorite thing we read?”
That familiar stab of insecurity appears. Kendall doesn’t know that I did next to no coursework in college. She has no idea that my coaches had an unspoken agreement with my professors that I could half-ass my homework and they would give me passing grades so I could focus on hockey.
I pretend to brush something off the hem of my t-shirt and clear my throat. “I don’t really remember what we read. I remember the parties and hockey games that year though.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “No surprise there.”
I chuckle despite the concern gnawing at my gut. Kendall is one of the smartest people I know. She aced almost all her classes in college. She reads all the time. When she and Aidan talk about school or books, I never understand what they’re saying. It’s always way above my head.
She’s brilliant, and I’m a dumbass. And if she knew about the arrangement I had in college, if she knew that I willingly skipped out on most of my coursework, she’d think less of me.
She spent years studying and working hard in school while I just coasted.
I’d bet anything it would piss her off if she found out.
Things are just starting to feel good between us again, and I don’t want to ruin it by telling her that I’m a fraud.
“I have an idea,” Kendall says.
“Yeah? What is it?” I ask, thankful for the subject change.
“You should read some of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Highlight the lines you like. It’ll help you get a feel for what you want to say in your speech.”
“Would you recommend some for me? I don’t even know where to start.”
She smiles. “I’d love to.”
She grabs her phone and swipes her finger across the screen. “I’ll compile some I think you’d like and text them to you. You can read them and the next time we meet up, we’ll go over the ones you liked.”
I grin. “Sounds like homework. Are you my professor now?”
She raises her eyebrow at me. She’s still smiling though. “Is that how you wanna play this? I’m your professor?”
“I’ll play anything as long as it’s with you, firecracker.”
She shoves my shoulder. I laugh. A familiar warmth gathers in my chest. Teasing Kendall is a lot more fun when she doesn’t hate me for it.
When we finish eating, she gathers her things and I walk her to the front door.
“I’ll send you some sonnets to read in the morning,” she says as she walks out the door.
“Can’t wait for my homework. Thanks, Professor Firecracker.”
I don’t miss that sexy smile as she rolls her eyes. I watch her walk the few feet to her car parked on the street in front of my place. She drives off and I close the door. And that’s when I realize this is the first time in my life I’ve been excited about homework. And it’s all because of Kendall.