Chapter 25
Ihad pretty much stopped expecting to hear from him, so I was surprised when a text showed up from Liam that evening.
Liam: Sorry for radio silence. Everything is still crazy here. Want to talk to you in person. Can I come see you?
My blood seemed to chill. He wanted to come see me. After a week of silence, could it be a coincidence that he finally wanted to talk only a few hours after his ex-wife had stood two feet away and told me that they were working on their relationship?
Want to talk to you in person. Why in person? Was he hoping it’d be a gentler rejection if he dumped me to my face? I stood there rooted to the spot, staring at my phone, every doubt and sting of pain I’d ever felt over Liam O’Conner rushing through me all at once.
I should have known this was going to happen. Hadn’t I always been just a way of passing time for him?
My phone beeped and I stared down at the screen, numbness setting over me.
Liam: Gracie?
Liam: Can I come over? We need to talk.
I felt like I was going to throw up. I also knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if Liam showed up here to break up with me, I was absolutely going to cry. The thought of him seeing me hurt like that turned my stomach sour.
I wasn’t ready for this. Not yet.
Me: Sorry. I have plans with the girls.
When his next response came through, I could practically feel his frustration.
Liam: This is really important.
Anger swelled, finally, and it was almost a relief. Anything would feel better than the terrible, ice-cold pain I’d felt since Chloe showed up in my room.
Me: My friends are important too, Liam. You don’t get to disappear with your wife for a week and expect me to sit around waiting for you to spare five minutes for a conversation.
Almost as soon as I hit send, the phone rang in my hands. Of course it was him. There was no way I was answering it. Maybe that made me a coward, I really didn’t care.
I ran up the stairs to my room, leaving the phone on the kitchen table. I should text Peyton and let her know I was coming over, but I was too afraid of seeing more of his texts. It was a school night, she was probably home with Elliot. And if she wasn’t, I would go to Rosa’s.
I quickly washed my face, trying not to notice how sickly pale I looked in the bathroom mirror, and pulled my hair up into a messy ponytail.
Then I went to stand in the closet, where I stared at my clothes for several long minutes.
I had changed into fleece pajamas almost as soon as I walked in the door, and while I felt more comfortable with my girlfriends than anyone, I probably shouldn’t actually leave the house like this.
I was hoping Peyton would find something mindless on Netflix and pour tequila down my throat until I felt better. That kind of night called for leggings and a hoodie. But what if she didn’t have liquor in the house? What if we had to go out? Maybe I should put on a pair of jeans or something.
The urge to cry hit me all over again. Why was I making such a big deal out of my clothes? Why did everything feel impossible to deal with? I just needed to put on some freaking pants so I could get out of this house and—
“Gracie?” Liam’s booming voice carried up the stairs, followed by the sound of the front door slamming behind him. My stomach sank to my knees. “Where are you?”
I leaned my head against the closet doorjamb, trying not to freak out. I could handle this. It wasn’t like I had never been dumped before.
But I had also never been in love before, not really. Not the way I was with Liam. I had probably been in love with him all along, but the truth of it hit me in that moment while I stood in my closet, waiting for him to come upstairs and break my heart.
“There you are,” he said, looking relieved in the doorway to my room.
“I told you I was going out.”
“I was already on my way over. I really need to talk to you. It can be fast if you need to get going. Hell, I can drive you to wherever you’re going. We just need to talk.”
Was he really that eager to be rid of me?
Feeling deflated, I brushed past him to head downstairs.
There was no way I was having this conversation in my bedroom, where so many of my happy memories of our short time together took place.
Which meant the living room was off limits, too.
I still felt myself blush whenever I sat on the couch.
I took a seat at the kitchen table and he sat across from me, his face pinched. God, how many times had I sat across from this man at a kitchen table? But he hadn’t been a man back then. He’d been a boy. A boy with the power to break my heart. And that, at least, hadn’t changed.
“Look,” he began, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. This week has just been so—”
“Crazy,” I said shortly. “You’ve said.”
He eyed me warily. “I should have been the one to tell you Chloe was in town. That must have been shocking, hearing it from Josie.”
I shrugged. “Not quite as shocking as Chloe showing up in my classroom today.”
His eyes widened. “She what?”
I released a sigh. Maybe this would be easier if I just said it. “It’s fine, Liam. I understood from the beginning that your life was complicated. It was probably silly to jump into something so quickly.”
“Hang on.” His eyes flashed. “What are you saying? My life isn’t that complicated—”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Come on. You just moved to a new city. You have a new team, a new routine to get used to. Your daughter is struggling. My brother, who doesn’t like you very much to begin with, is your boss, and could trade you any time he wanted.
And now your ex-wife is back, wanting to work on things, and—”
“Wait just a fucking second,” he growled, expression furious, eyes blazing, and for the first time I really appreciated what a fearsome competitor he must be to face off against. I’d be shaking in my skates if I had to stare at that expression across the ice. “What, exactly, did Chloe say to you?”
“She said the two of you were working on repairing your relationship.” His mouth dropped and I barged ahead, needing to get this over with before I lost it. “And that’s fine, really. I get it.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed. “You get it? It’s fine?”
I fidgeted, not understanding the source of his anger. What the hell else was I supposed to say?
He didn’t let up. “It would just be fine with you, if I went back to my ex-wife? Seriously, Gracie?”
I clenched my teeth. “Since I don’t really have a say in the matter—”
His hands slapped down onto the table, hard, and I jumped in my seat. “Of course you have a say in the matter!” He gestured between the two of us. “We’re together.”
I sucked in a breath. “I’m not going to beg you to choose me, Liam. She’s the mother of your child—”
“Do you have any idea what the mother of my child is like?” he asked, voice low and dangerous. “You must have some idea—you knew her in high school. And all of that petty shit she did? That’s still her, Gracie.”
I shook my head, not understanding what this had to do with me.
“When we ran into each other during our senior year of college, I thought she’d changed.
Grown up. I really did.” He gave a bitter laugh.
“Turns out she’s just a really good actor.
” His hands clenched into fists on my table.
“But now it’s much worse, because now it isn’t just me she can lie to. It’s my daughter.”
My mouth felt dry. “She lies to Josie?”
“Half the words out of her mouth are lies!” he snapped. “She crashes into our lives, gets Josie all excited. Fills her head with all of these ideas about how things are going to be. And then she gets bored and takes off again and I’m the one left to pick up the fucking pieces.”
I didn’t think I had ever seen him so angry, and the urge to reach across the table and put my hand over his was overwhelming. I slipped my hands under my thighs just so I wouldn’t be tempted. “So you’re saying—”
“I’m saying that I most definitely am not repairing shit with Chloe.” He was pretty much glaring at me. “And I can’t fucking believe that you thought I would.”
My back straightened at that, a spark of anger building. “Well, what the hell was I supposed to think, Liam? When I haven’t heard from you in days?”
“You’re the one who said we could talk when things calmed down,” he argued.
“Well, sorry, Gracie, but they haven’t. It’s taking everything I’ve got to try to keep Josie’s expectations balanced.
I hate leaving her alone with Chloe for even a half hour.
Between trying to be with her as much as humanly possible, and hockey, there hasn’t been a lot of time. ”
“You could have at least sent me a text.”
He leaned across the table. “I wanted to talk to you in person. Not through text. And in case you forgot, I’m not the one who makes it so hard to see each other.”
The anger built. “What the hell does that mean?”
He threw up his hands. “You’re the one that insists this entire thing be kept a secret. You’re the one who won’t see me outside the fucking bedroom.”
“It’s your job I’m looking out for!” I shoot back.
“Give me a break, Grace. Would your brother be thrilled to find out we’re together? Probably not. But do you honestly think he would trade me?”
I opened my mouth to respond but he just barreled on.
“First of all, he’s a smart business guy.
Obviously. The man could make gold out of a pile of dirt if he put his mind to it.
I doubt he’d trade his leading scorer out of anger.
” He leaned forward again, trapping me in his gaze.
“More importantly, Andrew would bend over backwards to make you happy. If he knew we were together, if he knew this,” again he gestured between us, “was something good in your life, he would never try to take that away from you.”
“It’s not the happy-ever-after fantasy I’m worried about,” I snapped.
There was a beat of silence and when he spoke again, I could hear a warning in his voice. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Liam, that the real danger happens when this all ends. If my brother thinks you hurt me in some way, then hell yes, he would trade you. Plus, there’s still the fact that I am your daughter’s teacher…
” I trailed off when the look on his face finally registered.
He no longer looked so angry. In fact, he now seemed distinctly pained.
“You think I’m going to hurt you.”
It wasn’t a question. I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat. “I didn’t say that. I just meant if Andy thinks—”
“You did mean it,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t think we’re going to last. You don’t trust me.”
“Can you blame me?” I blurted out without thinking.
Liam stared at me for a long moment, eyes searching my face, and I immediately regretted my words.
I was pretty sure I had just wounded him, badly.
Yet I couldn’t find it in me to take it back.
Because really—why wouldn’t I worry that he would end up hurting me?
He was Liam O’Conner. He had lived his entire life on a pedestal, revered by the masses.
He could have anyone and anything he wanted.
And I was just…me. The same plain old nerdy bookworm I’d been the day we met.
If anyone was getting out of this thing unscathed, I was pretty sure it was not going to be me.
A beep from his phone broke the tension between us, and Liam groaned loudly, running a hand over the back of his neck while he checked the screen.
“I need to get back,” he muttered. “I won’t keep you from your friends any longer.”
“Liam,” I whispered, suddenly near tears.
“It’s fine, Gracie. You were right, we should have waited to talk until things calmed down some more.” He stood. “You don’t have to walk me out.”
I felt frozen in that chair, unsure of what to do. Part of me wanted to follow him, to take it all back. And part of me knew that this was always how it was going to turn out anyhow. Why prolong the inevitable?
A rush of anger swelled in my chest as I watched his retreating back walk away from me. The only problem was, I didn’t know if I was angry at him—or at myself.
Liam was at the kitchen door before he stopped, turning to look at me. “Just so you know, this,” he gestured between us once again, and his next words made my heart stop in both fear and relief. “This is far from fucking over, Grace.”
And then he stomped to the hallway and was gone.