20. Liam
LIAM
Liam lasted nearly twelve hours before finding his way to a bar.
He sat at the barstool, drink in hand, letting the ambient noise wash over him and remembering the last few times he’d been in an establishment like this one.
If he got himself kicked out of this one, he wouldn’t call Cara, that was for sure.
The last thing he wanted was to give her an opportunity to gloat about how right she had been and that he needed her guidance.
I’ve never needed her. I’m worse off than I was when I started thanks to her interference—worse off by a lot.
If I’d just waited, I’ll bet the whole thing would have blown over all by itself.
The Stingers had always been wrong to eject him from the team.
He’d known that, and by now they would surely have figured it out.
They had probably been testing him to see if he could keep his name out of the headlines for a few days.
If that was what the point of all this had been, he’d failed completely.
He had failed the moment he had engaged a publicist in the first place.
He took a long swig of his drink.
He had chosen beer today, a part of him instinctively leaning into the hope that he wouldn’t turn into a complete mess.
How badly could you really behave when you were only drinking beer?
It helped, too, that it was early in the afternoon.
The place wasn’t full of people looking to party.
It was full of people who shared his mood.
Sad folks who didn’t have anywhere better to be.
And in fact, saying full was a stretch. There were two men over in the corner, neither of them speaking, and other than that the place was a ghost town.
It made Liam sick to count himself among them. His life had been so idyllic.
Everything had fallen apart so quickly.
There was a TV in the corner over the bar.
Thankfully, it was playing a baseball game, so he didn’t have to think too hard about his own specific losses.
But watching baseball was hard too, in a way he hadn’t anticipated, because these players were enough like him to make him ache.
They had found the place where they belonged.
He could imagine how it felt to step up to the plate and to swing your bat, to feel it connect with a ball and send it flying into the stands.
It must be the same as the feeling of a perfect pass sailing right into your hands.
He took another drink. It was the last of his beer.
“Another round?” the bartender asked with a sympathetic smile.
Liam couldn’t quite bring himself to return her smile. “You must think I’m a real piece of work, sitting here knocking them back in the middle of the afternoon like this.”
“Believe me, I’ve seen a whole lot worse,” she chuckled. “Besides, I always had a feeling the press was wrong about you, Liam—is it okay to call you Liam?”
He looked up. “I didn’t know you’d recognized me.”
“Oh, sure. My ex was a huge Stingers fan,” she said. “That’s honestly the only good thing that came out of that relationship. Now I’m a big fan too. I thought it was crazy that they cut you from the team.”
Warmth filled him. “I knew there had to be at least one sane person left in the world.”
The bartender laughed. “I’m Megan.”
“Liam. Well, but you know that.”
She beamed. “It’s so cool to meet you. Jack would be so jealous. I wish I could tell him, but I’m not speaking to that…” She gritted her teeth and shook her head. “I should watch my language while I’m at work.”
“You could take a picture and post it on your socials,” he suggested, knowing perfectly well what Cara would think of that idea. “Then he’ll probably see it.”
“He unfriended me.”
“I’m sure he still looks,” Liam said. “You’re hot. There’s no way he isn’t searching you every now and then.”
She flushed happily at the compliment. He’d meant it, too. She was very cute. She was short, with an oval-shaped face and a spattering of freckles, pale skin and bright blue eyes, dark hair. In every way the opposite of Cara.
Now he was thinking of Cara. Her thick, strawberry blond hair. Her long limbs, wrapped around him. The way her chin dug into his shoulder when they embraced.
He didn’t want to think about her.
He cleared his throat. “Go ahead and take the picture.”
She turned her back to him and leaned in. “You’re sure this is okay?”
“Absolutely.” He was checking himself out on her phone screen, and he was pleased to see that the day’s events didn’t appear to have taken a physical toll on him. He looked fine. Normal. He smiled for the camera, and she took the picture.
“This is so cool,” she enthused, moving away and tapping at her phone screen. “I’ll just post it in a couple of places, okay? And I’m writing Guess who came into the bar! Is that fine?”
“Totally fine.” Cara was going to be pissed.
But Liam sort of liked that, actually. Let her see what he was doing.
She’d probably decide that there was no way he could handle himself without her help, and she would be completely shocked when nothing at all bad happened here.
It was obvious now that he wasn’t going to get thrown out of this bar.
Megan posted the picture and tucked her phone back into the pocket of her apron. “Awesome,” she said. “Can I get you a drink on the house, for that?”
“Definitely not,” Liam told her. “There’s no way I could accept that kind of generosity. But if you’re willing, I’d love you to have one with me. Are you allowed to do that?”
“At my discretion.” She grinned. “And I don’t mind.
It’s not that often someone asks me to share a drink in here.
” She jerked her head toward the barflies Liam had noticed.
“Those two won’t speak to me. They’ll sit there all night and not say a word.
It’s nice to have someone a little more lively in here. ”
She poured herself a beer, and a fresh one for Liam. “To our exes,” she suggested, raising her glass.
“So I guess that means you saw the article about me online today?”
“I saw it,” she confirmed. “I don’t know how much I buy it, though. That woman sounded kind of unhinged.”
“She was something,” Liam agreed. “I met her one time, to tell you the truth. I don’t know that much about her.”
“So she probably just did all that to try to get famous,” Megan said. “I figured it was something like that.”
Liam didn’t feel as if he could confirm or deny that suggestion, so he said nothing.
“But if I’m not overstepping,” Megan said carefully. “I wondered…are you actually with Cara Bailey?”
The sound of Cara’s name knifed him in the gut. “You know about her?”
“Well, sure. She’s been all over the news ever since your surprise wedding,” Megan laughed.
“Half of my friends are convinced she’s a gold-digger, but I always thought the love story was real.
Anyway…I just don’t want to make any trouble for you if the two of you are still involved.
I don’t know how she would feel about you sitting here having a drink with me. ”
“Well, I’d have to say that’s not any of her concern anymore,” Liam said, surprised by how much the words hurt.
Megan nodded slowly. “All right, understood,” she said.
“In that case…what does your evening look like? I get off at five, and if you’d like, we could go out and have a little fun.
” She grinned. “Nothing serious. I’m sure that’s not what you’re after.
But I’m a fan, and besides, it would be good to have a story or two that I could tell my ex if he comes lurking around. ”
It was exactly the kind of opportunity Liam would have gone for in his old life.
Megan was a very attractive woman, and she was forward enough to make moves.
The fact that she wasn’t looking for anything serious made what she was offering that much more alluring.
They could just have one fun evening, see where things went, and then go their separate ways.
On paper, this was a perfect offer.
But when he imagined himself leaving the bar with her, all he could think about was Cara.
She’d hate it, of course. Whatever she was feeling toward him right now would be compounded by the realization that he had been out with another woman.
The two of them had just been talking about exploring what was between them, and she’d be appalled to think she mattered so little to him that he had been able to run right off with someone else.
A part of him wanted to do it anyway. A part of him enjoyed the thought of her being angry like that.
It would mean she still cared. Maybe it would wake her up to the fact that in his hour of need, she had completely shut down.
She had offered him nothing but career advice when what he had wanted was comfort.
All he had wanted was to know that for once in his life someone cared about him, and she couldn’t give him that.
So why shouldn’t he go out with Megan? Have a little fun, for once? It had been so long since he’d been able to just relax, have fun, not worry…
That’s not true, though, is it? Because that’s how it was with Cara. With Cara, I didn’t have to worry. Not lately, anyway. With her, everything was easier than it has ever been with anyone else in my life.
He knew it was true.
And that was the reason he couldn’t say yes to Megan. Because no matter how much fun she seemed, no matter how attractive and easygoing she was…she wasn’t Cara.
Her eyes sparkled, but they wouldn’t go soft when she sensed he was struggling the way Cara’s had.
Her hand wouldn’t find his in moments of stress.
She wouldn’t bite back a laugh when he had said something unintentionally funny.
She wouldn’t talk back to him the way Cara did, making him forget that he was a famous name, making him feel as though the two of them were on equal footing—something he hadn’t felt with a woman in as long as he could remember.
Megan seemed great. She really did. But she couldn’t give him what he wanted.
Maybe no one would be able to do that now. Maybe Cara was the only one he would be able to feel that way with ever again.
“I think I’m going to go home, actually,” he said, giving Megan a smile to let her know that it wasn’t a rejection of her personally. “It’s been a rough couple of days. But thank you, it was nice to meet a fan.”
That was what she was, really. And it wasn’t nothing. It was nice to have fans. It was nice to know they still existed, after everything he had been through lately.
But Cara hadn’t been a fan of his. She’d been something more.
And that was what he wanted. Not a fan, not a publicist…Cara.
It doesn’t matter. It doesn't matter what I want, because she was never willing to be that. When push came to shove, she was always going to be my publicist first and foremost, and there isn’t any getting around it. That’s just the way it has to be.
He let out a sigh. Suddenly, he was realizing that he didn’t want to be in this bar anymore.
Whatever places like this had done for him in the past, that was gone too.