Chapter 11 Liam
I'd been blocked everywhere.
Phone calls went straight to a generic voicemail. Texts were undelivered. When I tried Instagram, her profile was gone, and it was the same thing with Facebook. She'd cut me off completely, severed every line of communication like I was a stranger.
Worse than a stranger. Strangers got the benefit of doubt.
For weeks now, I'd been living in our apartment surrounded by her things.
Her clothes still in the closet. Her toothbrush still by the sink.
The wedding planning binder I'd finally shoved into a closet because I couldn't stand looking at it anymore.
I'd thrown out the wedding cake slices after a week—couldn't take opening the fridge and seeing them there, a reminder of everything I'd destroyed.
Piper hadn't come back for any of it, nor had she sent Maya to pick stuff up. It was like she'd decided she'd rather start over with nothing than have to see me again.
I got that. I did.
But I needed to talk to her. Needed to explain, to apologize properly, to make her understand that I knew I'd fucked up and I was sorry and I'd do anything to fix it.
So on a Tuesday afternoon, five weeks after what should have been our wedding day, I drove to Maya's apartment.
I knew Piper was still staying there. Had to be. And if Piper wouldn't answer my calls, maybe I could convince Maya to at least pass along a message.
I stopped at a grocery store on the way and bought flowers. Just a small bouquet from the floral section—daisies and some purple things I didn't know the name of. It felt stupid even as I was doing it. Flowers weren't going to fix this. But I had to do something. Show up empty-handed felt worse.
I parked on the street and walked up to the third floor with the flowers in one hand, feeling like an idiot. Knocked on 3C.
When Maya opened the door, her expression went from neutral to furious in half a second.
“Are you kidding?” she said. “No.”
"Maya, please, I just—"
"Absolutely not. Nope. Not happening." She started to close the door but I stuck my foot in it.
"I need to talk to Piper—"
"And I need a million dollars and a private island, but we don't always get what we want, do we?" She looked down at the flowers in my hand. "Are those grocery store daisies?"
"I just wanted to—"
"What, apologize with seven-dollar flowers? That's your play? You cheated on her for four months and you think daisies are gonna fix it?" She let out a laugh that had zero humor in it. "Buddy. My guy. My dude. You are so far out of your depth you can't even see the shore anymore."
"I know I messed up.”
"You didn't mess up. You didn't forget to take out the trash or accidentally double-book dinner plans. You stuck your dick in someone else while my sister planned your wedding. That's not a mess-up. That's a choice. Or, rather, multiple choices. Like, hundreds of choices over four months."
"Can you just tell her I'm sorry? That I want to talk—"
"She doesn't want to talk to you, and she sure as shit doesn't want to see you.
She doesn't want your sad grocery store flowers or your explanations or your excuses.
" Maya leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
"She's done, Liam. Completely, utterly, one-hundred-percent done. And you know what? Good for her."
"I love her."
"No, you don't. You love the idea of not being the bad guy. You love not having to face consequences. But you don't love her, not really. Because if you did? You wouldn't have done what you did."
My jaw clenched. "You don't know—"
"I know my sister cried for three days straight.
I know she baked until her hands cramped because it was the only thing that made her feel like she had control over anything.
I know she had to cancel a wedding and tell two hundred people and face her friends and her family and explain that the man she was going to marry couldn't keep it in his pants for four goddamn months.
" She stepped closer, and I actually stepped back. "So yeah. I know plenty."
"I just want a chance to explain—"
"There's nothing to explain. She caught you. You admitted it. That's the whole story." She pointed at me. "Now get off my doorstep before I call the cops and tell them you're harassing my sister."
"I'm not—"
"You showed up at her place of residence after she blocked you on every possible platform. That's textbook harassment, my dude. Now leave. And take your ugly flowers with you."
She slammed the door in my face.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the closed door, the cheap bouquet wilting in my hand.
Then I walked back to my truck and threw the flowers in a dumpster on the way.
I sat in the driver's seat for ten minutes, hands on the steering wheel, trying to figure out what to do next. Maya wasn't going to help. Piper had blocked me everywhere. But I couldn't just... give up. There had to be a way to talk to her.
Riverside Elementary. She'd be back at school by now. Prep week, maybe, or the first day with students. I could go there. Just show up, wait for her to come out, catch her before she got in her car and—
I pulled out my phone and called Scott.
He answered on the second ring. "Hey."
"I don't know what to do," I said.
"About?"
"Piper. I can't reach her. Maya won't let me near her. I need to talk to her and I don't—" I stopped. Took a breath. "I'm thinking about going to her school."
Silence on the other end.
"Scott?"
"Don't do that."
"I just need five minutes to—”
"Liam. Listen to me very carefully. Do not show up at her workplace. That's stalker behavior, man. That's restraining order behavior. You do that and you're done, completely done."
"I just want to apologize—"
“I don’t think she wants to hear it, Liam. She made that clear by blocking you. Showing up at her school isn't romantic, it's creepy. It's cornering her in a place where she can't leave." His voice softened slightly. "I know you're hurting. But you need to leave her alone."
"So I just... give up?"
"You accept that you fucked up and she doesn't owe you forgiveness. So, yeah."
I leaned my head back against the seat. "I don't know how to do that."
"You figure it out. Because the alternative is making this worse, and trust me, you don't want to do that." He paused. "For the love of God, Liam. Leave her alone."
He hung up.
I sat there in the parking lot outside Maya's building until the sun started to set.
Then I drove home to an apartment full of someone else's things and tried to figure out how to accept that I'd lost everything.
The next morning, I showed up at Station 47 wearing sunglasses and nursing the worst hangover I'd had in years.
Captain Morrison had texted me the night before.
Need you in tomorrow. 0800. We need to talk.
I hadn’t set foot in the station since he’d put me on administrative leave. It wasn’t punishment, at least not officially. He’d worded it as "just until things cooled off", but what he really meant was "until I figure out what to do with your sorry ass."
I'd responded with a thumbs up and then finished the bottle of whiskey I'd opened after talking to Scott.
Now I was paying for it.
I pulled into the parking lot at 7:55, five minutes early out of habit. A few of the guys were already there—I could see Carlos's truck, Jenkins's motorcycle, Patterson's beat-up Honda. A normal Tuesday morning.
Except nothing about this was normal.
I sat in my truck for a minute, sunglasses on despite the overcast sky, trying to will my headache away. Trying to figure out what the hell I was going to say when I walked in there and had to face everyone.
Finally, I got out and headed inside.
The bay doors were open, trucks gleaming in their spots, and I could hear voices from the common room. The morning shift was starting, and the guys were grabbing coffee and shooting the shit before the day really began.
I walked in and the conversation stopped.
Carlos was pouring coffee while Jenkins scrolled through his phone and Patterson worked on a donut. All three looked up when I walked in, and the easy morning energy evaporated.
"Sullivan," Carlos said, his voice carefully neutral.
"Hey." I headed for the coffee pot, trying to act normal. Trying to pretend I didn't notice the way they were all looking at me.
Jenkins buried himself in his phone, Patterson chewed like he couldn’t taste a thing, and Carlos poured his coffee and slipped out without looking at me.
The room felt hollow. I stood there with an empty mug, listening to the scrape of chairs and the hum of the vending machine, wishing someone would just say something.
No one did. Eventually, Patternson and Jenkins drifted off, leaving me to wait.
I was on my second cup of coffee when Morrison's office door opened.
"Sullivan. My office."
I followed him in. He closed the door behind us and gestured to the chair across from his desk. I sat, but he didn't. Instead, he stood there and looked at me the way you look at a fire you can’t quite put out.
"How you doing?" he asked.
"Fine."
"You look like shit."
I took off the sunglasses. "Didn't sleep well."
"I can imagine." He leaned against his desk, arms crossed. "You know why I called you in?"
"To tell me I'm fired?"
"No. Though there are people who think I should.
" He let that sit for a moment. "What you did—what happened with you and Piper—that's your personal business.
I'm not your marriage counselor. But when it involves someone under your command, when it undermines the integrity of my crew, it stops being your business and becomes mine.”
"I know."
"Do you?" He shook his head. "Jenna has already put in for a transfer. Left last week. Said she couldn't work here anymore after everything that happened. So now I'm down a firefighter and I've got a crew that doesn't trust you."
My stomach dropped. "She transferred?"
"She’s over at Harbor now. Effective immediately." He studied me. "You didn't know."
I hadn't. I knew Jenna had gone quiet after everything blew up, but I didn’t realize she’d left completely.
"The crew knows what happened," Morrison continued.
"They know you cheated on Piper, and that you did it with someone from this station.
They also know she caught you here, and they know it was Jenna.
Not that it takes a genius to put that together.
" He leaned forward. "Everyone loved Piper, Sullivan. She was part of this family. Showed up for every event, treated everyone with respect. And you… you made this station a punch line because of a meaningless fling.”
"It wasn't—" I stopped. What was I going to say? That it wasn't a fling? That it wasn't meaningless? Both of those were lies.
"I’m not going to fire you,” Morrison said.
"Frankly, you’re lucky Jenna didn’t take this upstairs.
If she’d filed anything formal, you’d already be gone and I’d be buried in paperwork.
" He exhaled hard. "But as it stands, I’m going to strongly suggest you put in for a transfer. Fresh start somewhere else. Because right now? This crew’s uncomfortable.
You’ve broken their trust, and that’s dangerous in our line of work. "
He was right. If the crew didn't trust me, didn't want to work with me, that could get someone killed. We relied on each other in ways most people didn't understand. One person out of sync could mean the difference between life and death.
"How long do I have?" I asked.
"End of the month, son. I'll approve whatever transfer you want, wherever you want to go." He stood up and walked to the door, then paused with his hand on the handle and turned back to look at me.
"I'm disappointed in you, Sullivan. I thought you were better than this." He was quiet for a moment, pressed his lip into a thin line. "But I hope you learn from it. Hope you do better next time."
Then he left, closing the door behind him.
I thought you were better than this. I'd heard those exact words from Scott three weeks ago.
Turned out everyone thought I was better than this.
They were all wrong.