Chapter 42 Bailey
BAILEY
Getting him thrown in jail didn’t work.
Riding around in his damn truck, listening for a noise that wasn’t there, didn’t do a damn thing to discourage him either.
Every day, he waited for me at the garage. And every day, he walked me home, making sure I got inside before he went back to his truck and waited outside until night fell.
When he drove away, I always wondered when he was going to give in. I prayed it would be soon, because I was terrified that I might slip and let him back in.
And then I would be crushed all over again.
Even on days when I thought I escaped him, I found him watching from across the street. Every step I took, he was there. I would never shake him.
Today was no different. He was waiting for me at my apartment. He walked with me to work, and even though I ignored him the whole way, he chatted the whole time about the house he was building for me.
He was delusional if he thought I would actually move in with him.
Then the day proceeded with him watching me work, bringing me lunch that I refused, and then following me to meet Cheyenne at the bank, where we walked to The Beaver and Boot together.
“I see you still have your shadow,” she smirked as we took our seats at the two-seater table.
Slinging my purse over the back of the chair, I sighed heavily. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. He’s driving me nuts.”
“Is he really?” she smirked.
“You have no idea what this is like,” I scowled. “He’s always there!”
“Yes, always there, following you and telling you how much he loves you. Must be awful.”
My narrowed eyes didn’t get to her at all. In fact, she just laughed at me.
“Lizzy,” I called out, snagging her attention as she strode to another table.
“Hey! Do you want the usual?”
“I want you to get your brother to leave me alone.”
“Ha! I would, but you can’t tell Liam anything.”
“Then ban him from the bar.”
“I would, but he’s part-owner. Not much I can do,” she shrugged. “But I’ll gladly spill a drink on him if it’ll make you feel better.”
It would, but the joy would be short-lived, and I wasn’t sure I was petty enough to do something like that to him.
“That’s okay,” I sighed. “Thanks anyway.”
“I’ll put in your order and get your drinks. Just give me a minute.”
Slumping in my chair, I propped myself up with my fist under my chin as I leaned hard on the table. I was quickly running out of ways to get Liam to back off. Nothing had worked so far, and I was beginning to think that waiting him out wouldn’t work either.
“So, what should we do tonight?” Cheyenne asked.
“You mean other than get rid of my stalker?”
“Hey, it could be worse. He might not want to be with you at all.”
“I wish he would,” I grumbled.
“Careful what you wish for. One of these days, he might actually leave you alone. Do you still think you’d be happy about that?”
“Perfectly,” I answered without hesitation. “He’s just delaying the inevitable. There is no way in which I could ever be happy with him.”
“Not at all?” she smirked.
“Not even a little. I would always remember that he cheated on me—”
“Pretended,” she stressed. “You know there were extenuating circumstances. Why can’t you just forgive him?”
I wanted to. God, I really wanted to. “Because every time I close my eyes, all I see is her in his arms,” I said quietly, still replaying the scene in my head. “And I can’t help but wonder if something really did happen at his house. He was drunk and…”
My gaze flicked involuntarily over to him before returning to Cheyenne. The thoughts flickering through my mind would not be tamed.
“I don’t think I could ever be sure that he’s telling me the truth.”
“But he loves you.”
“Yes, and because of that, do you really think he would tell me if something did happen, knowing it would ruin everything?”
Her hesitation said it all. “I guess not.”
“Trust is the foundation of every relationship. As much as I may want to forgive him, I don’t think I could ever forget. It would haunt me every day, and that’s no way to live.”
“But Bailey…it’s Liam.”
And that’s what hurt most of all. “I know. I just…can’t see a way to get past it.”
A loud scrape of wood against the floor had me twisting in my chair. Liam stood, his eyes flicking to me one last time before he walked out of the bar.
“Do you think he heard us?” Cheyenne hissed.
“If he did, maybe he finally decided to give up and walk away,” I said as I watched the bar door swing shut.
“How can you say that?” she asked.
I knew this was coming. Cheyenne was one hundred percent on Team Liam. She did a good job pretending to support me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before she admitted her true feelings.
“Because he needs to walk away. It’s best for both of us.”
“He may have been wrong, but he was doing it for the right reasons,” Cheyenne hissed. “You’re being selfish, Bailey. That man loves you, and he proved it by doing the hardest thing he ever could have.”
“No, he could have proved he loved me by having enough faith in me to tell me the truth.”
“The man was terrified. He was in the hospital and—”
“Enough!” I snapped, getting up from the table.
“I get it. You all think he’s a saint and I should forgive him.
But he broke something in me, Cheyenne. I can’t just push those images out of my mind.
I can’t pretend that it never happened when that’s all I see when I close my eyes.
He chose to lie to me, and now we both have to deal with the consequences. ”
She leaned back in her seat, pursing her lips.
“He did it for the right reasons! You’re choosing to let it rule you.
If the two of you can’t find your way back to each other, it’s because you’re being stubborn.
Not because you feel it’s right. That stubbornness is going to make you miserable for the rest of your life. ”
Snatching my purse, I walked out of the bar and away from the one friend I had hoped wouldn’t throw Liam’s love in my face. I needed her support right now more than ever, and her defense of Liam only pushed our friendship into an uncomfortable territory.
“Bailey!” she shouted as I stormed down the sidewalk.
I turned, hoping she would apologize.
“I’m not wrong and you know it. Refusing to admit the truth is only going to ruin your life.”
“I had hoped you of all people would be on my side.”
“I am on your side. Bailey, I only want you to be happy, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you have Liam in your life.”
What was it going to take for the town to leave me alone? Did they not trust that I knew my own mind? Or were they all just too damn sure that Liam Parker would always come out on top?
“I don’t need Liam,” I corrected her. “What I need is for everyone to stop thinking they know what’s best for me.”
“Then you’re going to be on your own for a long time.”
“So be it.”
I wandered the streets of town long after I got off work. It was strange to be on my own when, for the past few weeks, Liam hadn’t left me to go anywhere without him as my shadow.
As much as I was enjoying the time alone, a hollow feeling filled my chest as I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see him. Shadows lurked in every corner of every building. Maybe he was hiding somewhere, watching from a distance to give me the impression I was really on my own.
It was that very thought that had me drifting into the recesses of my mind, opening me up to a run-in with the one person I couldn’t stand more than Liam.
“Oh,” she squeaked, nearly running into me as she locked up her shop.
I hadn’t even realized I’d come as far as the boutique when all I could think about was Liam. I should have known that thinking of him would only make things worse.
And they very much had.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Ellie May said as I turned to flee.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You’ll want to hear what I have to say!”
Her words shouldn’t have stopped me. I should have run away as fast as I could, but my curiosity got the better of me.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, hoping my excuse might save us both from having to discuss the uncomfortable subject that left us divided.
“I get that you don’t trust him,” she continued, even though I wouldn’t look at her. “I was in on that deception. All I’m asking for is five minutes of your time. I have something I know you’ll want to see.”
“You have nothing to show me that I would want to see.”
“Not even proof that Liam didn’t cheat on you?”
My breath caught in my chest at her words. The ache was always present, always pushing against my heart as a reminder not to trust again. But her words twisted that ache into a sharp, stabbing pain that deepened the longer I was in her presence.
“I didn’t want to do it, but he was desperate.”
Her words brought me comfort when they shouldn’t have. So much so that I found myself turning back to her and following her into the boutique. The echo of the door slamming behind us sent shivers down my spine. Everything felt so final now that I had made the choice to listen to her.
“I know things have been rough on you,” she started, twisting her fingers in nervousness. “And I know what I did betrayed you on every level.”
“It’s not like I’m surprised,” I huffed. “You’re not exactly known around town for your discretion. Why wouldn’t you take it a step further and become part of the gossip?”
“Those are just rumors from nasty people,” she scoffed, walking toward the back of her store.
“Do you know how many people come in here to talk about the latest thing around town as they look through my store? People ask where they heard a piece of gossip, and to avoid having to name names, they simply say they heard it in my store. That’s how that whole rumor about me got started. ”
I wasn’t sure I believed her, but I wouldn’t put it past some of the people in town to do something like that.
“What was it you wanted to show me?”
“Proof that Liam didn’t sleep with me.” She scrolled through something on her tablet, and while she was looking for this so-called evidence, she lamented her story.
“Liam came to me when he got out of the hospital. He told me what happened, what he suspected was happening with Austin. I begged him to tell you about it, but…he was so scared.” Her eyes drifted up to meet mine.
“Bailey, I’ve never seen a man scared, let alone Liam.
I thought nothing could shake him. But when he told me about Austin visiting him in the hospital, I couldn’t deny him. ”
“Couldn’t or didn’t want to?” I asked.
“Liam is not the man for me. Yes, he’s very handsome, but everyone in town has known since we were kids that you and Liam were meant for each other.”
I looked away, unable to hear yet another person tell me how I was supposed to be with Liam. Wishing it wouldn’t make Liam and me happy.
“I met him at the bar that night, and I pretended to come onto him. After that, I let him take the lead. I played my part, but Bailey, I hated every second of it. And when you came in…Bailey, I could feel the panic coming off him in waves. He was in hell over what he had to do to you. As soon as you left, he got blind drunk and I had no choice but to drive him home.”
“This doesn’t prove anything,” I said, ready to leave. There was nothing here that proved he hadn’t slept with her.
“I knew you would have questions one day,” she said quickly as I started to leave. “If it was me in your position, I wouldn’t believe him either. I took a video.”
Turning on her, I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you just telling me about this now? You’ve had months to bring this to me.”
“Would you have listened? I’m not sure you would have even spoken to me. I wanted to give you time to cool down. I know you don’t even want to talk to me, but I hoped by now you would at least hear me out. Just look at the video,” she said, shoving her tablet toward me.
I was tempted to run away, to not give her the time of day, but I had come in here for a reason. If I didn’t watch the video now, I would always wonder what was on it.
Snatching it out of her hands, I hit play. She’d set up the camera on his table, and was dragging Liam by the armpits across the living room floor.
“Bailey, I know you’re going to have questions one day,” she huffed as she tugged on him. “Your man weighs a ton, and if he wasn’t so drunk right now, I would leave him to deal with this on his own.”
Grunting, she dropped him to the ground and turned to the camera.
She was covered in something that looked like vomit.
“As you can see, he puked all over me right before he passed out. I want you to know that he hated every second of what he did, but he did it for you. Now, I have to get him cleaned up, but I hope when you see this, it proves just how horrible he feels about what he did to you.”
I stared at the frozen screen, wishing there was more. Yes, it showed that he was drunk and that he had passed out, but what about the rest of the night? What about the morning after?
“This proves nothing,” I said, handing the tablet back to her.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. He could have slept with you later. All this proves is that he was passed out for three minutes.”
“Bailey, he was so drunk, he couldn’t have gotten it up for anyone. I doubt he even knew his own name!”
“But it doesn’t show the rest of the night! All that tells me is that he had too much to drink. Why would you think that would convince me?”
She stared at me, completely stunned by my lack of empathy over the situation. “Bailey, the man is crazy for you. He’s absolutely out of his mind in love with you.”
“That doesn’t mean I can forget what he’s done! Did you really think showing me that would just…make everything vanish from my mind? Would you be able to forgive me if our situations were reversed?”
Sighing, she dropped her gaze. “No, I guess not.”
“Look, I appreciate that you wanted to help him, and I believe that you thought you were doing what was right. But Liam’s a grown man. He told me he knew it would break my trust, but he did it anyway. I can’t just move on from that.”
“Maybe not. But you’ll never be happy if you don’t find a way to forgive him.”
I didn’t want to stick around and hear another word out of her mouth. Storming toward the front door, I flung it open and ran right into Liam. The grin on his lips quickly slipped away when he saw how upset I was.
“What happened?”