Chapter 6 #3
“Wrong,” I say. “Love works in an uncountable number of ways.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. After ten seconds of silence, he says, “No.”
I bristle. I knew I’d have to sell him on this, come up with a creative plan to work around his tour schedule, but I didn’t actually think Liam would turn me down.
Not when he’s the one who made me like this.
Not when he’s the person who single-handedly set me on this path, who told me to be this way out loud.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, no, I’m not going to break your heart on purpose, Paige.
I’m not fucking capable of it. Even doing it by accident nearly destroyed me.
” He stands and starts to gather our trash while my panic sets in.
“And if I’m not willing to break your heart, then I can’t in good conscience start something with you.
Not with my career the way it is, not with your career needing support I couldn’t provide. It’s just an all-around no.”
“Liam,” I try.
His eyes catch mine, and the look he shoots me scintillates over my skin. “You’ve always, always underestimated how much I care about you. You did it then, and you’re doing it now.”
His words are a scolding. I care about you.
This moment splits apart, and my think later strategy ends for good. All I can do is think think think.
I’m still frustrated with Liam for what he did four years ago, but not mad enough to inflict heartbreak on him just because I’m willing to do it to myself.
The part Liam isn’t saying is it would break his heart, too.
I see it in his weary gaze when he nods at the car, in his slumped shoulders while he waits for me to stand so he can follow me over.
Breaking my heart would break his.
I climb, childlike, back into the truck and stare at my first songs on his passenger floor, feeling suddenly, dizzyingly grounded, like I just got off a roller coaster. Like the hamster wheel of my emotions has finally stopped spinning.
You’ve always underestimated how much I care about you.
Liam slips in and starts driving, letting me sit with it.
I was so cavalier. On purpose, to ignore the weight of it all. A reunion. An imploring request. But I should’ve known an impulsive strategy wouldn’t have worked, not for us. Four years didn’t change a thing about who we are to each other.
The only words we exchange on the ride to my house are Liam asking for my address, me mumbling it to him so he can plug it into his phone. Now that he’s shut me down, all the adrenaline from earlier, the blooming spring between us, has cold snapped again.
And honestly. I might be sorry for the way I approached it, but I don’t think I regret finding him tonight. It was probably time, no matter what.
He pulls up to the curb of my complex, looking out at the dark, redbrick building beyond the passenger-side window.
“I’ll walk you to your door.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do.”
He trails me up the path until we’re beneath the awning. Darkness shades Liam’s face when I turn to bid him goodnight, or goodbye.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
I shake my head. “If I can’t find any inspiration, the music rep said he could bring in a lyricist for my melodies.”
He palms the back of his neck. “And will you? Try to find some … inspiration?” The word sounds dirty, illegal.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I have a couple months to figure it out.”
Even with all that time stretching out in front of me, I can’t fathom sitting down with a notepad anytime soon and coming up with words that aren’t plastic.
I’ve been stuck in this rut, which I didn’t even know until today was a rut, for so long that I don’t know how to get out of it.
Unless I meet a soul-altering love interest that magically taps my brain, and if the past four years are anything to go by, I’m not holding my breath.
“Everything aside,” I whisper, “it was good to see you.”
Liam says nothing back, just keeps staring at me like he’s hunting around in my expression for the code to parse my thoughts.
I turn for the door handle.
“Wait.”
My heart flutter kicks as I look at him. Liam scrubs a hand over his face.
“Wait,” he says again, even though I’m perfectly still.
I blink up at him patiently, and Liam takes a measured step in my direction.
His gaze coasts over my face with luxurious overindulgence. A very specific greed. My breath hitches when his fingers catch on mine, and both our heads snap down to the small place we’ve touched. Like we’re equally startled.
I try to calm my exhales while Liam links more of our fingers, brings our hands toward his face. His breath is warm against the inside of my wrist. His eyes flick to mine and his lips part, just before he sets my wrist against his mouth.
My eyelids grow heavy. His fall closed.
“I have missed you in ways I can’t begin to explain,” he mumbles into my skin.
I nod my agreement, momentarily inarticulate, but Liam isn’t looking for a response anyway. After only two more seconds, he releases my hand as if scalded, as if that simple touch were nothing but torture. I clutch it in my other. May as well have been dipped in gold.
“I have conditions.” He clears his throat, resettles his posture.
“Liam,” I gulp. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore. I should’ve considered you’d have equal feelings in this. The last thing I want is you getting hurt.”
“Yes, well, some of my conditions prevent that outcome, but we’ll get to those later. First things first. I want to hear the song.”
“The … song?” I ask, playing dumb.
“I hear it’s the best thing you’ve ever written,” he says.
I stall. Stall some more.
“Have you changed your mind?” Liam asks innocently.
“No.”
Molten eyes. “Then play me the song, Paige.”
Playing this song for him will be like reopening the wound of our old fight. But I know that I have to. I knew it as soon as I mentioned it to him.
I grab for my phone, riffle through my recordings until I find the right one.
While he listens to it, I face the other direction, leaning against the brick wall by the door and blushing head to toe from the unbearable humiliation of the betrayal in my voice, in the lyrics. When it’s over, I turn back to find Liam glaring violently toward the bushes.
“Say something,” I whisper.
He shrugs, rubbing his lips together. “It’s a good song. A little one-sided, narratively, but what do I know?”
He has a point, with lyrics like you begged for my trust just to break it. But maybe it could be a better song with another singer, another set of lyrics from a different point of view. A duet.
“Do you work in the morning?” Liam asks.
“Not until four.”
“I’ll pick you up for breakfast at nine. We can discuss more about this … project then.”
Giddy effervescence pools in my gut, knowing I’ll see him again in less than twelve hours. “What changed your mind?” I ask.
His hand reaches out and grabs my Mallen streak—which is actually pink rather than gray right now, thanks to boxed CVS hair dye.
Mesmerized, he sifts it through his fingers as he speaks.
“A few reasons. For starters, I guess I feel responsible for why you’re so invested in your music.
I also feel honored—greedy, even—being the source of your best material.
Third, I don’t want you looking for inspiration elsewhere.
And lastly, it sounds like I was going to hurt your feelings either way.
If I said no to you and vanished, that would have done it, too. ”
His eyes shift up to mine, and he whispers, “At least like this, maybe I’ll earn your trust back. We’ll get to the middle part we never reached back then.”
I swallow thickly, my skin prickled with texture as Liam adds, “Maybe—and it’s a big maybe, Paige, but—maybe we’ll even change the ending.”