3. Being an Adult Was Overrated
BEING AN ADULT WAS OVERRATED
LIAM
If I had known that attending my best friend’s engagement party would result in me confronting every poor decision I made between the ages of eight and fourteen, I would have faked my own death by drowning.
But there I was, on a rooftop in Los Angeles, surrounded by twinkling string lights and people who actually knew how to be happy, nursing a champagne flute and trying not to look like I was planning my escape route.
“Liam!” Kiara grabbed my arm, practically vibrating with joy. She looked radiant because she was literally glowing as if she had swallowed the sun. “I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I lied smoothly. I already calculated that I could reasonably leave in forty minutes without seeming rude.
She held up her left hand, where a diamond the size of a small country caught the light. “Isn’t it perfect? Ethan designed it himself. Well, ‘designed’ is generous, but he drew a stick figure ring on a napkin and the jeweler translated.”
“It’s beautiful.” I laughed because it was so perfectly Ethan. “You’re beautiful. I’m happy for you guys.”
And I meant it because I genuinely was happy for them. The eight-year-old version of me would have been shocked.
“Oh!” she said, and her eyes lit up in that way that always preceded disaster. “My cousins Deepika and Diya are coming tonight! Deepika is running late from set, but she’ll be here. You remember her, right?”
How can I forget her?
My champagne tasted burned on my tongue. “Vaguely.”
“You two were so memorable together as kids,” she said, her smile pure innocence, but there was a glint in her eye that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing. “Maybe you’ll finally get along now that you’re both adults.”
Adults. Uh-huh.
Unless one of us pushes the other one through the balcony.
After the pool incident at eight, we met again two years later during Ethan’s tenth birthday party. She was invited since she was visiting Kiara.
The birthday party was a sprawling backyard affair with games and prizes, and Deepika and I had turned it into the Olympics of Petty.
We competed in everything. Sack race? I won. Three-legged race? She won. Musical chairs came down to the two of us, and when I sat down a fraction of a second before her, she accused me of cheating.
“You pushed me!” she shouted.
“You’re just a sore loser!” I fired back.
The argument had escalated until somehow (I still wasn’t clear on the physics) we crashed into the birthday cake. Chocolate frosting was everywhere. Ethan had turned red while Kiara threatened to kill us both with her slippers. And Deepika had gotten frosting in her hair and blamed me.
I was grounded for a week.
Then, at fourteen… ah. I would rather swim with sharks than remember that incident.
In everyone’s life, there’s one moment that they’d like to forget, and for me, that was it. Because it still haunted me and woke me up in the middle of the night sometimes, cringing so hard I wanted to leave my body.
It was a Valentine’s Day party I had thrown at my house when my parents were out for a weekend. I had been stupidly staring at Kiara like a lovesick puppy, and Deepika had noticed because of course she had.
She noticed everything.
We played Seven Minutes in Heaven with the bottle landing on us, and I wanted to die on the spot.
We were shoved into a closet, surrounded by winter coats, and Deepika had leaned against the wall with a knowing smirk.
“So,” she said, “Kiara, huh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, leaning on the opposite wall. I didn’t like how drastically our bodies had changed since we last saw each other, and I wasn’t used to the deep tone of my voice or the lankiness from my tall height.
“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes. There was glitter on her lids that made her dark eyes shine. “You look at her like a golden retriever looking at a tennis ball. It’s embarrassing.”
I was mortified that my nemesis knew my deepest, darkest secret. So I had done what any mature fourteen-year-old boy would do. I lashed out.
“At least I’m not stuffing my bra,” I smirked.
Her face had gone white. “What?”
And because I was an idiot, I doubled down. When we emerged from the closet, someone had asked what happened, and I said, loud enough for half the party to hear, “Nothing much. Just learned Deepika’s a thirty-four-b.”
The room had gone silent except for the few guys who laughed at Deepika. But I knew I had messed up big time when Kiara and Ethan glared at me while her cousin’s eyes, the glittery ones, filled with tears.
I had realized, too late, that I had crossed a line I couldn’t uncross.
She left the party. Just grabbed her coat and walked out into February in San Francisco, which wasn’t even cold, but she looked so small and hurt that I felt sick.
I wanted to follow her and apologize, but I was frozen, surrounded by people laughing. And by the time I worked up the courage to go after her, she was gone and I couldn’t find her.
We never spoke again.
“Liam?” Kiara asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Just... thinking.” I said, forcing a smile. “I’m sure Deepika and I will be perfectly civil.” Very civil. No punching or throwing each other off the balcony.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Kiara muttered, but she was already being pulled away by someone else who wanted to admire her ring.
Ethan appeared at my elbow, grinning like an idiot. Love looked good on him. It made the sharper edges of him softer, his differently colored eyes shine.
“Dude, Kiara’s cousin is coming tonight. You remember Deepika, right?”
Not again.
“So I’ve been told,” I said, taking a long drink of champagne.
I’d need the alcohol if I had to face her.
“Maybe you two will finally get along.”
I looked at my best friend and tried not to laugh hysterically. “Sure, we will. It’s your and Kiara’s special day after all.”
“Good,” he said with a small smile. “Because if you ruin it and make Bella angry…”
I shuddered, thinking about it. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Ethan sighed and nodded. “She’s really hoping you two can be friends. You know, for the wedding and stuff.” He clapped me on the shoulder and wandered off to greet more guests.
Friends with Deepika Sharma? The girl I spent my entire childhood tormenting, culminating in the most mortifying moment of both our lives.
This was fine. Everything was fine.
I checked my phone, and it was half past seven, and Miss Uptight was officially late.
Maybe she wouldn’t show. Maybe she was attending someone’s funeral on the weekend at night. Maybe she was communing with the Devil—
“Liam, darling, this party is charming, but when do we eat? I haven’t had carbs since Thursday.”
Valentina, my date for the night, said, sliding beside me. She was six feet tall in heels, legs for days, and bone structure that made photographers weep. And unfortunately, completely wrong for me in every possible way.
But she photographed well, and Xavier had suggested I bring someone ‘visually impressive’ to counter the latest tabloid disaster. Valentina was a model I had met at a campaign shoot. She was nice enough, smart enough, and crucially aware that this was purely transactional.
“There are appetizers circulating,” I said, gesturing vaguely.
She wrinkled her perfect nose. “Those little toasts with fish eggs? No, thank you. Oh look, champagne.” She plucked a fresh glass from a passing server and glided away to network.
I should have felt something. Attraction, interest, or anything. But nada. Instead, I felt like I was playing a role in a movie I hadn’t auditioned for. Thankfully, it would end soon, and I’d go home in my million-dollar mansion to watch Netflix alone on my bed.
Not alone. I could eat zero-calorie mango ice-cream. Yum.
My phone buzzed.
Xavier: How’s it going with Valentina? Getting good photos?
She’s lovely. I feel nothing.
Xavier: That’s the spirit. Remember, you’re cleaning up your image.
By pretending to date someone I’m not actually dating?
Xavier: It’s called strategy, Liam. Look it up.
Rolling my eyes at the last text, I pocketed my phone and surveyed the party. Ethan and Kiara were in the center of everything, laughing, glowing, and surrounded by people who loved them. This was what normal looked like.
What healthy looked like.
The elevator doors opened across the rooftop, and I turned automatically, expecting another batch of late arrivals.
And then I saw her.
Deepika Sharma, seventeen years after the pool incident, thirteen years after the cake disaster, ten years after I had humiliated her in a closet and never apologized.
She was wearing a deep golden dress that caught the light, her hair longer than I remembered, and on her arm was—
Marcus. Marcus fucking Reynolds, Hollywood’s current golden boy and looking every inch the leading man in his perfectly tailored suit.
Of fucking course. Of course, she had brought a date. Of course, he has blond hair (my blond hair was better and healthier). Of course, he fucking looked like he stepped out of a cologne advertisement.
Our eyes met across the rooftop, and I watched her entire body go rigid. Time slowed, only for a moment, before she looked away.
She turned to say something to Marcus, who laughed. It was a warm, genuine sound that carried across the party, making my bones crackle.
Why the fuck am I annoyed by the golden boy?
“Is that…?” Valentina had reappeared at my side. “Oh my god, is that Deepika Sharma? I love her in ‘The Last Goodbye.’ She was robbed at the Globes.”
“Mmm,” I managed.
“You know her?”
“Sort of. We grew up together.”
“How fun! You should introduce me.”
Fun, indeed. This was going to be so much fun.
Across the rooftop, Deepika was greeting Kiara with an enormous hug, laughing at something, pointedly not looking in my direction.
Seventeen years of unpleasant history, one rooftop, an engagement party, and a hundred guests who did not know they were about to witness either a reconciliation or a murder.
I finished my champagne in one swallow because being an adult was overrated.