34. LIAM
34
LIAM
Now
I shouldn’ t have called her.
I stared at my phone for an hour before grabbing Natalie’s to call Emerson. I knew she wouldn’t answer my call, but her earlier message was heard loudly and clearly.
Talking to Emerson is immensely intoxicating. She’s always been a drug to me. I’ve never been addicted to anything in my life except her. It’s an addiction I haven’t been able to quit since the first time I laid my eyes on her.
Waking up this morning next to Natalie after falling asleep thinking and dreaming about Emerson is wrong. This line I’m walking is becoming dangerous.
Everything I said to Emerson was true, except I want her to see past our past for me, too. Our lives might not be crossed romantically anymore, but they are crossed. I’ve ached to be back in her life. The same aching I felt before I finally told her I loved her.
Before last week, I’d take anything she’d give me. But how was I supposed to know that we both had unfinished business cooped up inside of us? That’s a bloody lie. Unfinished business is our calling card, the award we’d each win in this life.
It seemed pretty clear after the summer that we split—Emerson moved on. I was hurt, thinking we meant so little to her that she could just get over it. I did my best to move on. It wasn’t until meeting Natalie that I became remotely alive again. I guess it makes sense; she and Emerson are best friends.
“Oh shit.” Natalie is up, glancing past me at the bedside table clock. “Why didn’t you wake me up? ”
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“I have to be at a studio in the Loop. . . an hour ago! Shit.”
“Isn’t that on Wednesday?”
“It is Wednesday, Liam.” Natalie rolls her eyes at me. She jumps out of bed, pulls on a pair of leggings and a cropped, ribbed black tank top, and rushes into the bathroom while slipping her arms through a V-neck sweatshirt.
“Won’t you be hot in the jumper?” I ask her.
“No, the studio is always cold.”
I can overhear her on the phone in the bathroom. “Dave, I overslept—completely my fault. Yeah, yeah, I will be there in twenty minutes tops.” She’s moving frantically, braiding her hair and cleaning her face and teeth. “Calling an Uber now.” She releases a sigh. “Thank you for not being mad. Yeah, see everyone soon.”
Natalie is unnaturally naturally beautiful. She knows it but still layers herself with makeup, hair, and clothes—industry and society pressure has to be it. Otherwise, I think she wouldn’t even touch half of it, maybe her hair; she smiles bigger when doing it, even if it is only a braid.
“You look beautiful this morning,” I tell her, regretting the comment as soon as it leaves my mouth because only moments ago, I was thinking about how beautiful Emerson is—her best friend Emerson, and Natalie doesn’t even know.
Regret is starting to lose its meaning and ability to be black and white. It’s a gray zone between regretting what I’m doing to Emerson and what I’m doing to Natalie. What am I even doing to her? What even is this between her and me?
We aren’t dating. We’ve honestly never slept together, either. Tried, but Natalie stopped it. She won’t tell me why.
I should call it, but that’s an inner battle I’d rather not face this morning.
“Thank you.” She smiles over at me, her cheeks blushing.
I slip out of bed and slip on my jumper before following her to the kitchen, where I find a bar stool .
“I’ll be back this afternoon. I have back-to-back meetings this morning. . .” Her mouth and feet move at light speed. I can barely make out what she’s saying because she’s talking so fast.
“Cal lands today,” I remind her when there is a break between sentences. “We’re adding shopping to our already long list of fun things to get done.”
“Shopping for new hotels isn’t fun?” Her eyes widen in exaggeration.
“Shouldn’t you be going? Don’t want to be later than you are?”
“Dinner tonight? The three of us, or I can ask Emme if she wants to come.” Natalie tosses about fifteen items into a tiny purse that must be a clown bag in disguise. “Wait—you never told me how your walk home with her went?” she asks, her tone turning methodical.
“Lovely. Emerson is—lovely.” George’s laugh rings in my ears at the word choice to describe States. Lovely.
“Told you you’d love her.” Yeah, yeah, I do love her .
There’s a mad sort of grin on her face. It’s gone within a minute.
Natalie drops a kiss on my cheek before rushing out the front door.
Rummaging through her cabinets, I find a filter and grounds. I turn the bag to read it. Vanilla-flavored? Ew. Does no one prefer a plain black mug of coffee?
Emerson does .
Still, make a pot anyway. When the trickle of coffee begins brewing, I return to Natalie’s bedroom to grab my phone. Shoot off a text to Cal first.
I try George. Haven’t spoken to him much since he dropped news that Beatrix is pregnant on Callum and me when I was in London last. He was going back home to see his parents last he told me. Doesn’t answer.
Something in me urges me to call the only person. . . whose ears must be burning because his name flashes on my screen.
My dad, Haymitch Hayes .
We don’t talk often. An occasional text message here and there. Ever since my mom passed away while I was at school, he’s been different. I guess that’s what happens when you truly lose the love of your life.
Even though they were divorced, they were best friends and madly loved each other—which didn’t make much sense to others, either.
I think it is possible to love someone but not be with them. Maybe that’ll be me and Emerson forever. Caught in the dimension of the universe where that’s plausible.
Grief overcame him. For the first few years after Mom passed, he turned to alcohol to numb the pain, the first time seeing my dad drink more than a pint or two. Knew her passing was inevitable—diagnosed with breast cancer when I was twelve, had two durations of remission, but battled like hell. The cancer came back a third time, spreading into her lungs and liver. She died within the year.
My father’s grief, mainly the alcohol consumption, made him more distant than he already was. Not returning to football didn’t aid the situation either. His distance fueled his disappointment and distaste for me.
I told myself he saw me thriving at school and in the initial phases of developing my company as me not caring about my mother. . . or that she was gone. Or the neglect of everything he gave me as a child to get me to where I was athletically. Reality? Throwing myself into that is how I helped myself heal; if I didn’t. . . I’m not optimistic I’d be here. I didn’t know how to handle all the grief I felt at first.
Grief. A foreign monster that wreaked havoc on my mind. As soon as I learned to handle (defeat) it, it reappeared in a new version. That’s what they forget to tell you about grief. It has many faces, and there’s no way to prepare for it .
I wanted to go to therapy, told my dad, and his reply was to man up. Our relationship became even more estranged, and then I lost both of my parents.
Cal and George knew about what I was going through and sat there with me in the hospital the day she died. As relieved as I was that my mom was no longer struggling, I still wanted her on Earth with me. They watched grief shift something inside me. Manned up, as my father said, didn’t talk about what I was going through until Emerson. She listened, asked questions, and helped heal those final parts of me that success couldn’t. Emerson also helped me, more forced, rekindle my relationship with my father. Something I’ll forever be grateful for.
I pick up on the third ring. “Son. It’s good to hear from you.”
“I’ve been busy,” I ask him. “How are you?”
“Good, we are good.” He’s referring to his girlfriend, Michelle. They’ve been together for the past four years. She’s incredible, and I’m happy he has her. Michelle reminds me a lot of my mom. When I met her, it made sense why my father gravitated toward her. “How are you? Are you back in London?”
“No. I’m in Chicago.”
“Going for the expansion?”
“That happened last year, Dad,” I remind him. Rekindled, not fully restored relationship—let me clarify that here. “I invited you to the opening. You haven’t RSVP’d.”
I don’t expect him to come. He hasn’t been to any of the others. He’ll talk to me about everything I’ve accomplished but hasn’t come to a single one, even in his own backyard. Michelle attended the last one in London. She told me he was busy and wished he could have been there. Her soft smile told me she tried. I don’t push the issue. It may sting still, but this is far better than anything I could have hoped for.
“I’m s—” he starts to say.
“Don’t sweat it. I didn’t expect you to come, anyway,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear that .
There’s a long pause between us.
“I’m proud of you, Liam,” my dad says.
My heart is like a geyser about to blow. It doesn’t matter our age; we always want our parents to be proud of us. . . and hear it.
Since forming Hayes Hotels, he’s never once told me that. Honestly, I don’t know if he’s ever said those five words to me.
“Thank you, Dad. I appreciate hearing that.”
“I know I don’t tell you enough.” Or ever. “But I am. You’ve worked extremely hard to get to where you are. Your mom would be proud, too.”
“She would.” I smile, thinking about her.
“How long do you plan to be there?” he asks.
“Undecided. At a minimum, through the opening and the month following. Cal and I’ll decide the rotation of presence needed here,” I respond, updating him on the other two locations we are eyeing in the area to try to make a name.
The coffee pot alarm goes off, and I pour myself a cup. I take a small sip—this vanilla isn’t half that bad.
We catch up about Callum and George. I tell him George’s big news, and like me, he can’t believe it. He informs me that he and Michelle are heading to the Highlands this weekend. He asks for restaurant recommendations.
Our call lasted another ten minutes before I jumped to prepare for work. He told me he was proud of me again, and we hung up. At least some part of today should end on a high.