Chapter 3
Now
We’ve been inseparable ever since. That is, until a few years ago when Abby got married and moved with her husband to New Jersey. Now our friendship exists largely via texts and phone calls.
Abby’s the only person who knows about the divorce, which means I’ve been relying on her emotionally a lot lately.
I know she loves me and wants to be there for me, but I also know that she has a life and husband and problems of her own, and I can’t help but worry that one day I’ll have maxed out my social currency and she’ll be sick of hearing about my troubles.
Not that she would ever say that, but I still try to save the midnight phone calls for emergencies only. Which this definitely is.
“Hey,” comes Abby’s familiar voice as soon as I dial. “Perfect timing. Jake just went to bed, and I’m reading in the living room. I just got to the end of the chapter, and the werewolf just confessed he’s an alpha and that he wants to knot her.”
“Don’t let me interrupt, then,” I tease.
She laughs. “This is more important. How did it go at dinner with your family?”
“Really fucking bad.”
“Oh no. Don’t tell me they found out about you and Liam?”
“No, but they’re going to now that my grandparents are renewing their vows during this year’s family vacation and are expecting Liam to officiate.”
“Well, shit. What did you tell them?” she asks.
“Nothing. I still need to figure it out,” I sigh. “But I’m soooo fucked.”
“Are you going to tell Liam?”
“I already did, not that he was any help.”
Abby gasps theatrically. “You talked to Liam? What did he say? How did he sound? Did he sound miserable? Did he cry?”
I swallow back a snort. “Not exactly. He was at a party with some girl named Katie.”
“Who the fuck is Katie?” she demands.
“I have no idea,” I say, trying to block out thoughts of a beautiful woman with a red power lip that looks suspiciously like Meredith Blake. “But apparently she wanted to do a shot with him.”
“You don’t think he’s like…” She hesitates. “Dating again, is he?”
I briefly imagine what it might be like to see Liam’s hand in someone else’s, his lips swollen from another woman’s kiss, and I instantly feel ill.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He’s not exactly keeping me in the loop on his life right now.”
“You want me to see if I can find her online?” Abby asks.
Abby is great at social media stalking. She can predict if a guy is cheating with 99 percent accuracy just by looking at his tagged photos. But I don’t think I’m emotionally ready to find out who this Katie is. At least not tonight.
“No, that’s okay,” I tell her.
“You sure? I’ve already got it narrowed down between three potentials. Did she sound like more of a Katherine or a Kathleen?”
“I’m sure,” I say before adding, “I guess I’m just hurt that he’s moving on so fast. I mean, I know I’m the one who officially ended things, but still. Shouldn’t there at least be a mourning period? Shouldn’t this feel shitty for him too?”
There’s a beat of silence before Abby asks, “How do you know it’s not?
I mean, do you really think Liam’s moved on that fast?
It’s only been three months. Maybe he’s trying to make you jealous because he wants to get back together?
” she tries. “That totally happened to me with that guy I dated in college. Hank? Henry? He started dating this other girl, but later I found out they were never even together. It was all for show to make me jealous.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. For as long as I’ve known her, Abby’s always had a gaggle of men vying for her attention.
Of course a guy would go to the effort of faking a relationship just to make Abby jealous.
But that’s her life, not mine. In my life, my mom dies and my husband decides to check out of our marriage.
I think about the night I said it was over, the night Liam left. How he’d just stood there, expression blank while I silently pleaded with him to fight with me—for me. But he hadn’t. He’d just let everything fall apart around us until we were standing in the rubble.
I’d been the one to finally nail the coffin shut, but he’d handed me the hammer.
“Yeah, he’s just desperate to get me back,” I deadpan. “That’s why he left without a fight. Because he’s still in love with me.”
“I just don’t believe he’d move on so fast,” Abby says. “When you guys were together, he practically had heart emojis for eyes every time you walked in the room.”
Heat crawls up my collar. She’s right. We did used to be like that. But that was before. Before my mom died. Before we stopped having sex. Before grief and resentment and anger pushed us apart and ruined everything.
Or maybe things were ruined long ago; it just took the death of my mother to find out that what I thought had been a firm foundation of deep and abiding love actually wasn’t.
That our marriage hadn’t been enough to withstand the tsunami of grief that had pinned me down and gutted me.
Or maybe worse still, I hadn’t been enough.
That after my mom died, things just got too hard, too difficult, and in the end, I wasn’t worth it to him.
“Well, believe it. He’s moved on,” I say, playing with my mom’s bracelet. “Now I have to figure out what to do about this fucking vacation.”
“What did Liam say when you told him?”
“He thinks we should tell the truth and get it over with,” I tell her, sitting up and setting the bottle of wine on the coffee table.
“And are you okay with telling them?” Abby asks.
“I mean no, but what choice do I have? It’s not like I can keep pretending we’re still together.”
There’s a long pause before Abby replies, “Well, why not?”
I snort. “Good one. But I think they’ll probably figure it out when Liam stops showing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“No, I mean for the trip,” she clarifies. “Hear me out, what if…you two pretend to still be together.”
“Pretend?” I repeat, sure I’ve misheard.
“Yeah. This is the first family vacation since your mom’s death and your grandparents are renewing their vows. This isn’t exactly the ideal time to break the news. But if you pretend to still be together, you can buy yourselves more time and not ruin the trip.”
I start to laugh, only to realize that she’s not laughing back. “Wait. You’re serious? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious.”
I shake my head. “No way!”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s ridiculous!” I tell her.
“Is it, though?” she asks. “You two were together for nine years. You know everything about each other. You could pull it off if you wanted to.”
If. That’s a pretty big if.
And yet she’s right. We do know everything about each other.
I know that Liam’s coffee order includes seven-dollar whipped cream monstrosities, and that he can only wear Calvin Klein boxer briefs because he claims that any other brand feels itchy.
But none of this is helpful information when it comes to pretending to still be in love.
We’re not Hollywood actors. We can’t just fake chemistry and adoring glances when the cameras are on. Even if that’s something we once felt for real.
“We aren’t exactly chummy right now,” I tell her, slumping back against the couch. “We can barely get through a phone call, much less put on a big show for my family. It wouldn’t work.”
“It would just be for ten days,” she says. “I’m sure you two can call a truce for the sake of this trip.”
I’ve told Abby about the problems between me and Liam.
But I’m not sure she fully grasps how bad things were, especially in the final months leading up to the end.
How deafening the silences were, how being with him felt worse than being alone, and how there would be nothing simple about Liam and me pretending to still be together.
Besides, even if we could pull it off, I doubt Liam would go along with any such charade. Not when he’s clearly busy living his best new, single life with Katie and fuck knows who else.
“What makes you think Liam would even agree to this?” I ask.
“Isn’t he super close with your family?” Abby asks.
“Yeah but—”
“So chances are he isn’t ready to tell them either,” she finishes.
I want to tell her she’s wrong, that his relationship with my family wouldn’t be enough to convince him, but she has a point.
Liam’s always been tight with my family.
Not just because they are the founders of the Official Liam Woods Fan Club.
But because he hasn’t seen his own family in England in more than fifteen years—not since his dad kicked him out when he was eighteen.
Which means my family became his family and losing them would mean losing the only one he has left.
I allow the idea to expand and inflate, steadily becoming more and more fleshed out, until it takes hold with a kind of magnetic force that leaves me feeling off-balance.
What if…?
No, we can’t.
But what if we could? Wouldn’t that buy us more time? Or at least allow us to come clean at a better time?
“I’m not saying we’re going to do it,” I say after a minute. “But if we did, what would pretending entail exactly? Would we have to kiss and stuff?”
“You’re the romance writer,” Abby says. “Aren’t you supposed to be an expert on fake dating?”
“I don’t think anything I’ve ever read has prepared me to pretend to still be with my soon-to-be-ex-husband,” I say with a hollow laugh.
“So does this mean you’re going to ask him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, glancing toward my half-empty bottle of wine. “I think I’ve had too much to drink.”
“Why don’t you sleep on it,” Abby suggests.
“And you think sleep will make me want to pretend to still be with my ex?”
“Maybe this could be good for you two.”
“Good in what way exactly?”
“Good like it would give you the opportunity to spend some time together and work through your issues,” she says hopefully.
Issues are what I have of Vogue. What Liam and I have are massive problems. Certainly not the kind that could be solved with a little fake-dating and forced proximity.
“Not to burst any bubbles here, Abs,” I say. “But we’re more likely to feed each other to the sharks than work through anything on this trip.”
“I’m just saying,” she says, speaking slowly like she’s treading carefully. “I’ve seen this movie, and I’m pretty sure I know how it ends.”
“Texas Chainsaw Massacre?”
She snorts. “Come on. You and Liam, pretending to still be together for ten days at sea? Trapped in a tiny stateroom? With very limited square footage?”
“I can only assume you mean we will engage in a hostile rendition of the silent treatment?”
She sighs, clearly exasperated. “I mean what if you and Liam fall back in love or something?”
Now it’s my turn to snort. “I think you’ve been reading too many romance novels. That’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know?” she asks.
Abby, like pretty much everyone who has ever met him, has always been a big fan of Liam. Even after things imploded with us, she maintained a fierce optimism that we’d find our way back to each other.
You guys are soulmates. It might take some time, but you two will find your way back. I just know it.
But it’s easy for her to see things through rose-tinted glasses when she’s married to the kind of guy who wouldn’t dare come home without flowers, and has her favorite macarons flown in from Paris every year on her birthday. Meanwhile, I’ve only grown more cynical.
I think about how after Liam left, I spent the first few days obsessively checking my phone for texts or voicemails. How I even slept with the ringer at full volume just in case he decided our marriage was worth fighting for. That I was worth fighting for.
But he hadn’t, and the longer I went without hearing from him, the more I felt like the disintegration of our marriage was proof of some deep personal failing. Proof that I was wrong. Not just about Liam, but about everything.
Before Liam, I was cautious, never letting people close enough to be able to hurt me.
I’d seen my mom have her heart broken by enough asshole boyfriends to know that if love was sobbing in the driveway at 2 a.m. over a man who treated you like dirt, then I didn’t want it.
But then Liam came along and he made me feel safe and certain and brave all at once, and little by little I let my defenses fall, and finally so did I. Hard.
I allowed myself to believe that Liam was different. That I could trust him to hold up the walls while everything crashed and burned around me. But in the end, I was wrong. And I’m not sure what hurts more—being wrong, or that I so badly wanted to be right.
“Because we’re done,” I say after a beat. “It’s over. Trust me.”
She sighs. “Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic. But I always thought you two were endgame.”
I’m not sure if it’s an automatic reflex, or something more intuitive, but I reach for my left hand where the ring he gave me seven years ago still sits. A princess cut diamond along with a gold wedding band that, for reasons I can’t quite explain, I haven’t yet taken off.
I remember the day he proposed. The day he asked me to spend forever with him. I can still feel the hot air in my chest. The sting of tears in my eyes as I screamed yes and leapt into his arms, dizzy with happiness. Now the memory burns, sickeningly sweet, like I’ve eaten too much sugar too fast.
“Me, too,” I tell her, my throat feeling newly sore. “I thought we were endgame too.”