Chapter 25
July, Now
Candice, Hailey, Folly, and Harry spend the day backstage with us before the first Chicago show.
Harry and Misha gossip the whole time, and Hailey gets the Etta Girls to sign her forehead.
They leave directly after the performance and are all sound asleep by the time Liam and I make it back to Lincoln Park around one in the morning.
He and I crawl close under the floral sheets and open the floodgates, at long last.
“Do you want to start?” he asks.
I nod. “I’m not sure where to.”
Memories of that day are flying through my brain Speed Racer style. I hardly recall the things we said. Only how I’d felt during, and after.
He waits.
“You broke my trust,” I say. “And I trusted you so deeply, Liam. I trusted you, knowing you’d only ever been casual with other girls.
I had faith that you’d want me just the same once you had money.
I shared my deepest insecurities with you because you’d done the same with me.
You never gave me a single reason to doubt you.
So I didn’t. I never, ever doubted you. And I guess it just really hurt me that in the end, the one thing I shouldn’t have trusted you with was my songs.
Especially because the songs were the start of all of it,” I whisper softly, voice catching.
“Part of the pact that made us friends in the first place. All the other pieces of trust came later. But you broke the first piece.”
He nods against the pillow. “For breaking your trust, Paige, I am so, so sorry. I couldn’t grasp how you felt at the time, or maybe I just didn’t want to, but I get it now. And I’m so incredibly sorry.”
“There’s something I didn’t tell you back then,” I go on.
“Okay,” he says, eyes nervous.
“When I was a senior in high school, I wrote this poem about my mom leaving our family that won an award, anonymously. I was proud of myself. But I was also young, and so confused by my own feelings, and I just … didn’t want any of my classmates knowing how abandoned and tossed aside I’d felt by my own mother.
The only person I told about the poem and award was Maisy. ”
His mouth pinches.
“She was on the newspaper committee. She announced it in print and shared the poem beneath it. When I confronted her about it, she said I needed help ripping off the Band-Aid. I know what you did isn’t the same as publicly sharing my work without my permission, but—”
“It still triggered you,” Liam says, thumb skimming my cheek. “I understand why. You don’t have to qualify it.”
I suck in my bottom lip. “I forgave Maisy for that. Because she was my best friend, and I loved her, and she promised me she did it because she was proud of me. But then she betrayed me a second time by lying to me about—about you.”
His eyes fall closed in understanding. “I see. You couldn’t forgive me because you didn’t want to give me a second chance to betray you.”
Or to leave my life after you did it.
I pull against Liam’s body, my nose by his shoulder.
“What I’m trying to say is there was a lot going on in my head that day you weren’t exactly privy to.
I was shutting down. I didn’t give you the space or time you deserved, you’d earned, to explain yourself.
I regret that, especially knowing how much you’d been hurting then too.
And—you’re right, Liam.” I inhale, then shudder out a sigh. “It’s time I said thank you.”
Thank you.
I’d told Candice last night I didn’t have any anger left for Liam. As soon as I realized the last of it had evaporated, I knew it was time for these words.
“Don’t thank me, Paige,” Liam says. “You would have gotten there on your own eventually, and without me violating your trust.”
“I wouldn’t have. I needed to be pushed.
” I rest my forehead on his shoulder, swallowing back tears.
“I can admit that. Admit that I needed that. I used to get so sick of other people thinking they knew what was better for me than I knew. But I was content not to challenge myself and that was the biggest shame of all.”
We’re quiet, heads lost in the past.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Still, and anyway, and always. I am so sorry.”
I don’t want Liam to regret it. But hearing him apologize heals something inside me I hadn’t even known was still broken. And so, I have to assume that me expressing my gratitude for what it eventually meant to me healed the same broken thing for him.
“Ask me how in love today,” I say.
His voice is fathomless when he asks it. “How in love?”
“One hundred percent.”
His mouth lands on mine. We trade kisses that are salt tinged, messy, and slow.
Between them, he says, “I love you, too, Paige. Invariably. I have loved you like you were beside me, even when you weren’t.”
Silently, privately, we decide that’s enough talking for now. A microscopic part of me wonders if we’re leaving a few castaway stones unturned. But I don’t want to go checking just for the sake of it.
Liam pulls me over his chest, and I fall asleep with his fingers in my hair.
The next day, it’s like I can look at him and finally breathe how I used to.
Enough to fill my lungs to the brim. We sneak loaded, loving glances at each other through sound check and family lunch, both of us losing the trails of conversations or asking someone to repeat themselves with an apology and a dopey smile.
On the third morning, we say our goodbyes—Liam and I are headed back to the venue for one more show before road-tripping to St. Louis—and I squeeze Candice, Hailey, Folly, and Harry, whispering how much it meant to me, how deeply I love them all.
Everybody’s so effusive with Liam, even knowing what they know, that it only feels genuine.
“Don’t look now,” Folly whispers when it’s her turn, with all the subtlety of a freight train, “but I’m slipping a wad of condoms and a tube of caramel-flavored lube into your purse.”
When Liam and I finally make it to our car, he turns to me and says, “Did Folly also give you some condoms?”
I burst out laughing.
But it’s not funny by the time we get to the venue. Liam finds a quiet alcove and sets me gently against the wall, then kisses me within an inch of my life.
We haven’t done this since our first night in town.
I’d get greedy, Liam warned me, and now, I see what he means.
We’re off in our own universe. Liam’s mouth tugs mine, his movements gentle but purposeful.
Our hands are roaming each other, our throats vibrating with needy sounds.
Small whines and low groans and whispered nothings like I missed you and can we go somewhere private?
and yeah, baby, I have keys to the dressing rooms—
“Oi!”
With what seems like every drop of effort, Liam pulls his mouth off my jaw. He catches my eyes, commiserating, his irises swirling like lava-hot chocolate.
Liam’s palm goes past my shoulder to the wall as his upper body twists back. “What, Marlowe?”
“Just thought you’d want to know your boss is here.” Marlowe grins, arms crossing. “Caught him in the parking lot. He’s chatting with the venue manager.”
Liam sighs, head hanging. “Thanks.”
“You got it.”
“Everything okay?” I ask when Marlowe waltzes off.
Liam smiles, brushing a thumb over my lower lip. “Yeah, Bristol, it’s fine. He does this. Drops in on tours like a food safety inspector.” I snort. After a beat he adds, “You deserve better than a dressing room anyway.”
“Liam, we once had sex in your truck bed.”
“If I recall,” he says, eyes going sad, voice softening, “that was the last time, wasn’t it?”
I nod, remembering. It was right before his injury, and actually pretty romantic.
We hadn’t planned on it, but we’d driven to a big private field to stargaze and made love under them, using an old towel and some clothes as cushioning.
We fell asleep out there, only to get roused by an angry farmer at dawn.
“The condoms,” Liam murmurs, pushing his bitten-over lips together. “Do we need them?”
“I’m still on the same birth control from before. And I’ve been tested recently enough, so it’s your call. But also”—a flare of anticipation lights in my chest—“are you sure you’re ready?”
His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes do. They get flinty, somewhat playful. “Are you? Ready for me?”
My core heats, but I say, “Liam, I’m being serious. I want us to get this right.”
“Has any part of this summer felt wrong to you yet?”
“Only the way we’ve withheld things from the band, but today I’m planning to tell the girls the truth.”
His eyebrows jump. “You sure?”
“Yes. I need this.”
He searches my face. “Do you want me to be there to help explain?”
I give him a small smile. “Thanks for offering, but no. I’m the one who started this. The explanation should come from me.”
His gaze sweeps over me, inwardly calculating, but he eventually nods his understanding.
“It pains me to say this, but maybe you should avoid me today. We’re not technically doing anything wrong, since you’re paying for your own meals and we’re sharing hotel rooms, but I didn’t tell my boss you’d be here so—”
I give him a salute. “I’ll be scarce.”
He hands me one last heated gaze before ripping off the wall and walking away.
“She’s a government spy,” Penelope suggests.
“A paparazzo,” Misha throws out. “Sent here to find dirt on Penelope and sell it to TMZ.”
“She’s Penelope’s long-lost sister,” Henrietta adds.
“That would track.” Penelope sprawls on one of the daybeds in the Etta Girls’ dressing room. “My father left when I was two.”
“I’m not your long-lost sister,” I promise. “And I’m not a pap, or a spy.”
“She’s a superfan!” Gretta pumps an index finger in the air. “She’s been collecting our hairs and dirty napkins to sell on eBay!”
“For a bunch of quasi-famous people,” I say, “none of you seem the least bit concerned about any of these scenarios.”
“I’m outright famous,” Penelope says.
“And humble to boot,” Gretta says.