Chapter 17
Sloane
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, at a loss.
Liam’s never seen me this way. Fear flashes across his face.
I’ve always known what should be done, even if it takes me a while to figure it out.
“It’s new. I didn’t want you to get hurt, or to find yourself in the middle of it. It wasn’t going to happen.”
“But it did.” Liam scrambles away from Cruz, and away from me too, even though I hold out a hand to him. He backs all the way to the door and hits it so hard it rattles in the frame.
Hurt detonates in my stomach, eviscerating my insides.
I knew this was going to happen. I also know my son.
I know that Liam will calm down with time.
Some of the anger will fade, but he won’t look at Cruz the same way, and maybe not me either.
Is that the worst part? Or is the worst part the fact that I knew this could happen and I still kissed Cruz anyway, hoping naively for the best?
“I know that this seems wrong, Liam, but Cruz and I are adults. We talked this through. We didn’t make the decision lightly,” I pause to make sure he’s listening.
He’s still glaring at us. I continue, “You know that I wouldn’t do that.
I’m too rational. I wanted to talk to you.
I would have. Later. I didn’t plan this tonight.
It just happened and…” I need to stop. I’m only making things worse, rattling off words like a guilty teenager.
The roles have never been reversed for us.
I never wanted Liam to have to be the parent or feel responsible for me.
Liam arches away from the door, curling into himself.
His hands are still tight fists at his sides, his face contorted with emotion—none of it good.
“I always wanted you to be happy, Mom, but seriously?” His hand sloshes through the air and points at Cruz.
“He’s my friend. We’re going to be like brothers.
He’s exactly the kind of guy that you don’t like. You hate men like him.”
Oof. I don’t want to hate anyone. I hope Liam is just angry.
I rarely ever use that word. It’s such an appalling, harsh, festering emotion.
“I don’t hate Cruz,” I whisper. I can’t look at him.
I’m afraid to see the devastation there, or worse.
Nothing at all. That’s not who he is. He’s upset too, even if he’s more stoic.
All the signs are there. Just look. My eyes flick to Cruz and then quickly away, as a different, protective urge surges in me.
It’s not motherly, but I do feel the need to defend him and take care of him. “Not at all.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “No one hates Cruz. He’s awesome. At least I thought so until he came here to try and bang my mom.”
Cruz makes a noise that’s half growl, half disgust at that.
Clearly, I’m not the only protective one.
He doesn’t cut in to try and defend himself.
When my eyes finally flick to him and land for more than a fleeting instant, I notice how Cruz’s frame is languid.
He’s purposely trying to appear non-threatening.
He’s trying to make it clear to Liam that he would never raise his hand against him.
If Liam wants to charge Cruz, I doubt that he’d fight back, even though he’s bigger and he’s trained.
I take a few steps to put myself directly in their path.
Cruz might think he’s earned a beating, and I know guys often settle things with a fight and call it a day so they can go be friends again, but I believe in talking.
“Wait. Is that why you were so sad?” Liam’s face crushes into sorrow.
I hate seeing him like this, and knowing that I’m the cause makes my legs feel watery and my whole body leaden with guilt and shame.
“You seemed lost after he was gone. What were you doing? Pining for him? Wanting to sneak away and… do nasty things to each other? Fuck.” Liam shakes his head, grinding his teeth loudly.
“This isn’t happening,” he seethes. “This isn’t fucking happening,” Liam looks around me, though he doesn’t have to.
Cruz is more than a head taller. “Cruz. You’re not fucking my mom. Ever.”
Cruz’s arms cross and his jaw ticks. “You’re right. I’m not fucking your mom. That won’t ever happen.”
“Don’t go for cute semantics. That’s bullshit. You know what I mean.”
Cruz’s nostrils flare, but he keeps himself calmer than I could. “I would never disrespect your mom, or you.”
Liam snorts. It’s clear that he feels that we’ve already gone so far past disrespect. “She just fell on top of you, and you kissed her? Oops. It was an accident?”
“No. That was a choice. And then we were going to talk it through and decide how we wanted to tell you. It wasn’t nothing. No one was trying to sneak around.”
I’m fully aware that this is full-tilt crazy. My stomach flips as I look away from Liam’s angry, incredulous face and over to Cruz. He’s got his own locked down tight. His normally expressive eyes are dark and guarded.
“You were though. This isn’t the first time if you’ve both been thinking that it couldn’t happen. Is that why you’ve been acting so weird? Looking at that cactus and finding a cat? Is that for my mom?”
My crazy list. “A cactus?” I’m sure that I have the world’s shittiest poker face. I’m probably broadcasting everything that I feel. I don’t want Cruz or Liam to know the half of it.
“Just looking,” Cruz corrects.
“Oh my god.”
Cruz doesn’t look ashamed. That list was thoroughly ridiculous, but he’s looking at plants. Is he writing poetry and crocheting a blanket, too?
We share a heated look, staring at each other for too long.
This is special. I don’t have a word for it exactly, but I know that I want to see where it goes.
Ending it here would be a travesty. I don’t want to hurt Liam, but I don’t want to hurt Cruz.
I don’t want to hurt either. I want to find a way for this to work for the three of us.
There has to be a way that I can protect my relationship with my son and save his friendship with Cruz besides walking away.
Liam is nineteen, he’s an adult. He’s almost ready to start making his own life.
I don’t want to drive him away, but neither do I want to give up on what might be my only chance of happiness.
“I have no idea what’s happening, but I don’t like it,” Liam groans. He points at Cruz again, an angry, accusatory finger. “Don’t touch my mom in the future, Cruz.”
Cruz frowns. “That’s not fair. You can be mad, but you should think about how your mom and I feel. We’re people, Liam. Just because we’re older than you and she’s your mom doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want more in her life.”
“I know that!” Liam barks. He buries his face in his hands and groans.
“She doesn’t need you. We’ve been fine on our own.
” When his hands fall away, Liam’s eyes are still shooting sparks.
“Do you think that you’re gonna join the club and you can make horrible jokes about being club brothers, but you’re really my stepfather?
No. Fuck!” Liam stalks to me and grasps my hands.
His are hot and clammy like mine. “No, Mom. Not him. Please.”
My stomach twists. I can’t force a smile for Liam.
I can’t force anything. Most of all, I can’t force myself to not want this.
“By not him, you mean not anyone.” I clear my throat and blink fast. I don’t want to start crying.
That’ll only make Liam upset and Cruz too.
“I’d like to be allowed to open up and take a chance, or even… fall in love.”
Liam pales. “Love? Oh my god, no! That’s not love at all. It’s infatuation. You’re gonna end up being hurt and humiliated. I’m not gonna let that happen.”
My eyes dart over Liam’s shoulder to Cruz.
He’s tense. And his eyes. Fuck, his eyes.
They’re so sad, the burning fires, the bright hope, all the sparkling they did earlier—it’s all fading fast. What little fire remains is guttering out, hidden behind defense mechanisms. Cruz didn’t feel like he needed them.
I’ve never seen him look that way until now.
I can’t say I don’t feel that same emotion.
Hope splintering apart in my chest, leaving a massive vacuum.
It’s so much worse than the space that lay dormant.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Cruz before, but that hole was one full of possibility, even if I knew it shouldn’t exist. This feels like a slow march leading to a brutal shutdown.
Liam whirls on Cruz. “I’m not some selfish asshole!” he spits out. “It just can’t be you.”
“Liam.” I take his hand back and hold it between mine. “That’s anger talking, and it’s rude. Why can’t it be him? I think I know what you’re thinking, but I want you to tell me so that I can understand and not make assumptions.”
“I know I’ve asked you for a lot, Mom, especially these past few weeks. You’ve given me everything. You’ve loved me so much.”
Liam pulls me into a hug. I’ve marveled for years at the fact that he’s so much taller than I am. He has been since he was fourteen. It seemed that he went from a fairly small twelve-year-old to a giant well on his way to becoming a man almost overnight. Exactly how everyone says it happens.
“I want you to be happy,” Liam says against the crown of my head. “I truly do, but if you date Cruz and it goes badly, the fallout from that would be ridiculous. We’d have to pretend to be friends and it would make the club awkward.”
“Would it?
“Obviously.”
“Maybe for a time,” Cruz says. He’d stand all night if he had to, but he sinks down into a chair. I don’t know if his knee is bothering him or if it’s a subtle protest to Liam that he’s not leaving. “I don’t plan on hurting your mom.”
“People break up for other reasons besides someone being an asshole.” Liam talks to Cruz over my head.
I step out of the hug and angle myself so that I can see both Cruz and Liam.