Chapter 37
Liam
Liam was awake before six, rising out of habit rather than rest. The routine carried him forward on autopilot—shower, clothes, coffee—each step a bid to keep his mind blank, to stop last night from replaying in sharp fragments.
If he moved quickly enough, maybe he wouldn’t picture Jacob’s hands gripping his hips, or hear the rough rasp of his voice—undone in a way Liam had never heard before.
You ruined me.
On the way home, Emma had chattered about the party, full of stories and laughter, while he carried those words with him, lodged beneath his ribs. After a shower, he had slipped into bed next to her and stared at the ceiling until dawn, hoping for forgiveness. None came.
His phone buzzed across the kitchen counter.
Studio PR: Press meeting rescheduled. Jacob cancelled. We’ll be in touch.
He frowned, reading it twice. Jacob didn’t cancel: not meetings, not press, not anything that carried the studio’s stamp of importance. Unreliability wasn’t in his nature. Liam lingered over the words, trying to make sense of them, before thumbing out a quick text to Jacob.
Me: Everything okay?
The answer came minutes later.
Jacob: Can’t talk. I’ll explain later.
That was when the unease began to settle in—an itch beneath the skin.
He drifted into the kitchen, dropped bread into the toaster, and topped up his mug.
He kept circling the counter, restless, unable to burn off the energy inside him.
It wasn’t panic, just the sense that something had shifted without warning.
Hours stretched. He brought Emma breakfast in bed, scrolled through messages from his agent, and scrubbed down the kitchen until it gleamed. Nothing stuck. Each distraction finished too quickly, leaving him drifting back to the silence of his phone.
By midafternoon the hum in his chest had grown harder to ignore. He was pacing the length of the living room when the screen finally lit up again.
Jacob: Can we talk in private?
His pulse kicked hard enough to stagger him. A second message followed immediately.
Jacob: I’m here. [location attached]
Liam didn’t waste time on a reply. Keys in hand, he was already moving, the door closing behind him with a weight that matched the knot forming in his stomach.
* * *
The house wasn’t visible from the road, hidden behind a tall gate that sealed off the driveway from view.
Liam slowed at the keypad and waited as the iron bars slid back with a low mechanical groan.
The property sat deep off the street—the kind of seclusion that whispered money.
With all clean angles and tall panes of glass, the house embodied a certain Los Angeles modernism: polished, anonymous, waiting for someone to inhabit the fantasy.
Jacob’s SUV was the only one on the gravel drive. Liam parked next to it and cut the engine. He sat there for a beat, his hand resting on the key. He hadn’t known what he expected to find here, but the weight in his chest told him he was about to find something big.
The gravel shifted beneath his shoes as he crossed to the door, left open just a crack for him.
He didn’t knock. Inside, the air conditioning poured cold into a space that looked lived in only on the surface.
Neutral furniture, impersonal artwork, the faint manufactured scent of something floral that didn’t quite belong to anyone.
It was a house arranged for occupancy, not a life.
Jacob sat on the edge of a low gray couch, elbows braced against his knees, head bowed. He looked as though he had been sitting in that exact position for hours, held together only by stillness.
He raised his head when he heard Liam step inside and the sight of him hollowed Liam out. Jacob’s face carried exhaustion so complete it seemed etched into his bones. He looked crushed, stripped of the polish and control that usually shielded him from the world.
Liam’s throat tightened, his thoughts a mess, but the only thing that found its way out was the simplest. “Is this place yours?”
Jacob’s eyes didn’t waver. “Short-term lease. My realtor pulled it this morning, someone backed out last minute. Timing worked out.” His mouth twisted, a shadow of a smile that never reached his eyes.
“Hollywood’s full of houses like this. Furnished, clean, just waiting for someone to live in them. ”
Liam stepped further into the sterile stillness, gaze flicking across the unscuffed furniture and gleaming floors. “It looks empty.”
“It is.”
The next word out of his mouth was the only one that mattered. “Why?”
Jacob didn’t move, didn’t blink. “I left.”
The words landed like a blow. Liam stopped mid-step, his mind registering the syllables without fully absorbing them. “You… what?”
“Caroline questioned me,” Jacob said, his tone stripped bare. “At the party. I think she already knew. Or at least suspected. Either way, I couldn’t lie.”
Liam’s heart jolted hard in his chest. “You told her?”
A slow nod. “Yeah.”
“And then what?”
“I packed a bag and walked out.”
Liam’s gaze shifted to the duffel by the door, the proof of it all. “You just… left?”
“I couldn’t stay after that.”
For a moment Liam could only stand there, his thoughts splitting in two directions.
One part of him wanted to close the distance, to reach for Jacob and hold on; another wanted to turn and bolt, to get away before the ground gave out beneath him completely.
Emma’s hand on her belly flickered through his mind.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked instead, his voice raw.
Jacob exhaled, the sound bitter. “No.”
Liam moved before he could second-guess it, as if gravity had already decided for him.
He crossed the space and dropped onto the couch, so close their bodies touched from hip to shoulder.
His hand curled around Jacob’s arm before finding his hand.
Touch was the only anchor he had left, and Jacob was the only direction he knew how to go.
After a long moment Jacob spoke again. “I didn’t mean for her to find out like that. I never planned for any of this.”
Liam nodded slowly. He didn’t need to be told, he already knew. “I figured.”
Jacob turned his head toward him, red-rimmed eyes dragging over his face. “I always know what to do,” he murmured, voice so low it barely carried. “Right now I don’t.”
The ache in Liam’s chest deepened until it was hard to breathe. “Neither do I.”
He let his head rest on Jacob’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent. Jacob’s hand curled at the back of his neck, holding him there. It was quiet proof that he wanted Liam close, and for a while, that was all either of them needed.
Liam closed his eyes. In that fleeting moment he wasn’t split open, wasn’t fractured between two lives.
It was just this—the solid weight of Jacob’s shoulder beneath his cheek and the familiar warmth against his skin.
The reprieve didn’t last. Guilt seeped back in like smoke under a door, thick and impossible to hold off.
Eventually, Liam pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Jacob shook his head, gaze heavy. “I don’t have words for any of it yet. I just… needed to see you.”
Liam nodded, his hand lingering. “I’m not going anywhere. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen.”
He squeezed Jacob’s hand, thumb brushing over the cool metal of Jacob’s wedding band. For a moment he just traced the gold circle, before letting his gaze drop to his own hand. His ring caught in the sunlight, glinting up at him—a silent reminder of everything waiting for him at home.
His breath wavered. “The baby’s coming soon,” he said softly. “I don’t know what to do.” His voice broke on the last word.
Jacob’s hand tightened slightly.
“If I tell her the truth, I destroy her. I become the man who walked out on his pregnant wife. Stress like that—this late in the pregnancy—it isn’t just cruel, it’s dangerous.
Soon, it wouldn’t just be her—I’d also be leaving a newborn behind.
” His breath shook. “But if I keep lying to her every day, I feel heartless. Like I’m living in her house while betraying her with every breath.
” His voice dropped, flat with despair. “I don’t want to be either of those men. ”
Jacob didn’t argue. He didn’t reach for easy comfort, only stayed quiet beside him.
Liam’s throat tightened as he forced another truth out. “Walking away from you feels impossible too. I’ve tried. God knows, I’ve tried.”
Jacob’s hand shifted in a slow stroke at his nape.
“I feel like no matter what I choose, it’s the wrong move.”
The silence that followed seemed to expand until Jacob’s answer cut through it. “That’s because it is. There might not be a right move, just the one you can live with.”
The breath Liam let out felt hollow, drained of everything he needed. He pressed harder into Jacob’s shoulder, defeated by the weight of it all. “I hate this,” he whispered.
“I know. Me too.”
Neither moved. Neither let go. The silence between them carried everything they could not yet bring themselves to say.
* * *
The movie was Emma’s idea—a film about childbirth and newborn care.
The kind of thing couples were supposed to watch together.
She sat curled on the couch beside him, eyes fixed on the screen, while voices from the TV filled the space with practiced reassurances about feeding schedules and sleep patterns.
Liam tried to follow along, but the narrator’s calm voice only made his mind wander.
Sometimes he really hated his ADHD brain.
His mind refused to stay still; it kept catching on Jacob’s broken voice from the day before, then spinning toward the baby, Emma, his family who’d be here soon for a two-day visit.
When the movie shifted to a segment on adjusting to life with a newborn, Emma exhaled loudly. “They make it sound so simple,” she said, half a laugh in her throat. “Eat, sleep, repeat. Like it’s a factory reset.”
He tried to smile. “Guess we’ll find out.”