Chapter 23
Jordan
Nate was in his truck before I made it to the front yard. I don’t know what I planned on saying to him if I’d caught him, but I had to try. This wasn’t the way I wanted him to find out. If we’d been able to sit him down and tell him what happened, I’m sure it would have gone differently.
Oh god, I don’t know. It could have gone just as badly doing that, but I’d really like to think that if Liam and I’d had a chance to explain how we feel about each other, Nate would have taken it better.
I’d bet he would have taken it a lot better if he hadn’t caught us in such a compromising position.
A position that I wouldn’t doubt reminded him of what happened in high school.
My eyes close and I let out a sigh of defeat, wrapping my arms around myself as I stand in the front yard and take a deep breath.
I want to cry, but I won’t. We can fix this.
If we give Nate some time to simmer down, we can talk to him like we originally planned.
It’ll be fine. Things will be fine. No one likes being caught off guard like that.
With a determined nod, I head back into the backyard.
Tosha is at the gate to greet me, whimpering when I unlock it.
I’m guessing she can feel my distress. I kneel to give her a quick scratch on the head which quickly turns into giving her a hug that I need more than she does.
I met Tosha shortly after Liam got her, but in the past two weeks that I’ve spent a lot of time at his place, I’ve grown attached to her.
The feeling is mutual by the looks of it.
“C’mon girl,” I whisper to her. “Let’s go find your dad so we can come up with a plan.”
After one final squeeze, I release her and stand back up, heading toward the garage with her at my heels. Liam looks to be in the same place I left him, looking at the same thing I left him staring at. He looks like he’s in a different world.
I can’t imagine what Nate said was easy to hear. My only hope is that he didn’t believe a word of it.
“I couldn’t catch him,” I say on a sigh, wrapping my arms around myself as a shiver runs through me. It feels cooler in the garage now than it did when I left it. “He’s really upset.”
“Because he knows he’s right.”
“That didn’t go the way we’d—” I stop midsentence as his words penetrate my brain, replaying them. I hear it once in my mind, then a second time, before I repeat it once more. “What?”
“He knows he’s right.”
What on earth was Nate right about? Sure, he had the right to be upset with both of us, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call him correct.
“What do you mean he’s right?” I ask, my eyes narrowing at Liam.
He refuses to look at me, his eyes focused on something on the far wall, somewhere over my shoulder.
That alone makes my stomach feel like lead, but I ignore the gut feeling that something terrible is about to happen. I’m imagining it.
“This was a mistake.”
The words cut through me like a knife, turning my blood cold. It’s a shot of adrenaline, but it feels like ice in my veins.
My head shakes slowly. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
Liam shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels, still not meeting my eyes.
“All I’ve done since the first night in Vegas is think with my dick.
” His jaw grinds together as he pauses for a moment.
I would say something, but my tongue feels thick as molasses.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you, but my dick was doing all the talking.
It told me to take you back to my room, and the next day it told me not to stay away. ”
“That’s not true,” I whisper, my stomach swirling violently with each word from his mouth. At my side, Tosha whimpers. She nudges my thigh in comfort, but I can’t take any. As much as I don’t want to read between the lines, I am.
It’s me. I’m the mistake.
Liam forges ahead, deepening the cuts he’s already made. “This never should have happened. We never should have let it go this far.”
He’s lying. Whether he wants to admit it or not, I know he is.
We both know that this should have happened.
We couldn’t stop it. Whether it had happened in Vegas or it had taken another few months here at home to get to this point, I’m certain that Liam and I would have collided into this relationship one way or another.
Our pull to each other is too strong. The chemistry is too good. The trust ran too deep.
“Why are you doing this?” I wonder out loud, my arms wrapping further around myself, like somehow I’ll manage to keep it together if I just hold on tight enough. “I know Nate is upset right now, but—”
“He fucking should be, Jordan! And that should really fucking scare us both!” Liam shouts, throwing his hands out to the side.
It’s unexpected enough to make me flinch, and I don’t miss the way he cringes, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Nate’s ready to end our friendship, and god only knows about the relationship between the two of you! ”
My eyes widen as I connect all the dots that should have been obvious to me in the first place. He’s scared. Of course he’s scared. This is all new territory for him. He’s just been so good at it this entire time that I keep forgetting that he’s never been through emotions like these before.
“Nate and I will be just fine, Liam,” I say patiently, releasing the hold on myself as I take a step forward. I try not to react when he steps backwards. “And so will the two of you.”
For the first time since I came back in the garage he meets my eyes, but what I see there makes the ice return as dread swirls through my stomach.
Defeat. Sorrow. Anguish. It scares me more than any other thing I’ve seen because I know my heart is about to shatter, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
“You don’t know that,” he says in a voice so pained I hurt for him. “People leave for less, Jor. I can’t lose him.”
The first tear pricks the back of my eyes. “But you can lose me?”
Liam can’t bear to continue to gaze at me, so he drops his head. “We all know how it would work out in the end. I don’t do relationships. You deserve so much more than me.”
“That’s bullshit!” I yell at him. God knows I don’t want to cry. If I’m going to cry, I refuse to let him see it. “Nate was wrong.”
He shakes his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. “No, he wasn’t. He knows it as well as I do. He knows I wouldn’t be any good at this relationship shit in the long run. He’s my best friend, Jor. He knows me.”
“No!” I shout, stomping my foot like a two year old throwing a tantrum.
It’s ridiculous, but I’m suddenly so angry that I can’t help it.
Liam is scared and he’s giving in to the fear.
“If he knew you so well, he’d know you are perfect for me.
He’d know that you’d never do anything to hurt me, that you’d always protect me no matter what. ”
“Protecting you will never change,” Liam confirms, his eyes remaining glued on the floor near his feet. “That’s what I’m trying to do right now.”
“I don’t need protection from you, Liam!”
The chuckle he fills the garage with is so apathetic it makes me want to vomit. “You do, Jor. Because I’d fuck this up. I’m the man-whore of Santa Rosé, remember? Give it a couple months and I’ll end up cheating on you, right? Cause that’s the kind of thing I do.”
Rage unlike I’ve ever felt cascades through me, knocking me backwards a few steps. My head shakes vehemently. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe how easy it is for him to just give up.
“No, Liam,” I seethe with a curl of my lips. “To be a cheater you need to have a relationship, and you don’t do those, remember? You aren’t a cheater. You’re a fucking coward.”
Silence stretches between us. He works his jaw back and forth, his eyes firmly planted on the ground, hands shoved in his pockets.
There’s a very controlled rise and fall of his chest as I stare at him, waiting for some kind of reaction, but he gives me nothing.
I would rather him yell. I would rather him fight. I would rather anything but silence.
“So what?” I finally ask, my hands curling into balls. They feel frozen even though the garage isn’t cold. “That’s it? You’re just giving up?”
It takes him a full inhale and exhale before he shrugs, his eyes lifting. They’re devoid of any emotion now. Dead and cold, chilling me to the bone. “It’s what a coward would do, right?”
The sound of a sob bubbles up from my chest and I’m helpless to stop it. “You’re an asshole.” And then, as a final blow because my heart is breaking apart into a million tiny pieces, and I need him to feel some semblance of what I feel, I add a parting blow. “Even Paul fought harder for me.”
I get the satisfaction of his entire body jerking backwards like he’s been struck.
Then I’m grabbing my purse from one of the benches and fleeing the garage and him.
My words did what I intended, but there’s no actual pleasure derived from hurting him, even with how angry I am with him and my brother.
Lifting the latch on the back gate where my car is, I take one second to kneel down and give Tosha a kiss on the top of the head before leaving. She’s followed me out in my rush, and whines loudly. We’ve only had two weeks together, but I’ve absolutely fallen in love with her.
Just like her dad.
The first sob fully breaks free the second my car door is shut. Air is difficult to pull into my lungs, but I take one breath after the other. I need to get the hell out of here and away from Liam, Tosha, and this place. It hurts. It hurts worse than it’s ever hurt before.
I can’t allow myself to feel it yet because it’ll overwhelm me. It’ll suck me in and pull me down, and while I know it’s inevitable, I need to get away from here before I can fall apart.