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“No. You need to know—”
“Ashleigh, stop!” I don’t mean to shout, but I need her to drop this. I came here to rant, not to be guilted into hearing all the sordid details. Or excuses about how he was drunk and didn’t mean to. It was his ex-wife. Drunk or not, that means something.
“Fine, but when you finally decide you’re ready to know everything, don’t come at me like I didn’t offer to tell you.”
My stomach turns. She makes it sound like there’s something I should know. But Liam has, too. He’s been insistent in the texts and voicemails he’s left. Refusing to listen has been hard because I love him, and a twisted, warped part of me wants to know, but I can’t put myself through that. I had literal nightmares for months over this. Seeing them together in my dreams, her round with his baby, them smiling as they held their newest bundle. And every night, I’d wake with tears streaming down my face, sobbing until my breaths were nothing more than stuttered sobs. I know it makes me seem stubborn and unreasonable, but I can’t hear the replay of it all, no matter what happened. My heart can’t take it.
Besides, there’s nothing he can tell me that will change the facts. Even if it turned out Krista’s baby wasn’t his, the possibility was there. I will never want to know what happened that night, and I can’t start questioning now. If I give in now, all my defenses will crumble, and that pain that has finally started to ebb—or at least let me sleep a little more often—will return with vengeance.
“If you didn’t come here to talk about Liam, why did you come?” Her lips quirk at the corner because she’s got me there.
“I came to rant.”
“About Liam?” I nod, and she chuckles as she rubs circles over her stomach. “Then rant away. I am a pro at the unrelenting jackasses.”
I roll my eyes as I kick off my heels and curl my legs under me in the comfortable chair. My elbow props onto the arm, and I drop my head into my hand. I swirl a finger in her direction with a scowl. “Your jackass and mine are not the same. What gets me is how now he doesn’t care who knows. He was always the one demanding it stay quiet. We fought over and over about it until…”
“Until you gave him an ultimatum.”
I tap my nose and point a finger at her. “That. And he did not bite, so I followed through.”
“Which lasted about two weeks, if I remember correctly.”
I hold back a growl. She remembers it didn’t last two weeks. The truth is, it barely lasted a day before he was calling me. I tried hard as hell to stay strong, but the day after his birthday, he promised we would go public if I just gave him a little more time. When Maddox came home wasn’t an exact date, but it was something I could hold on to; I crumbled like a house of cards. If I’d known it was coming off his fuck-fest with Krista, I wouldn’t have given in. I probably would’ve stabbed him in the face and removed his dick.
“I think losing you lit a fire under his ass. Maybe he sees being open about it as being a grand gesture.”
“He can take his grand gesture and shove it up his ass. It’s too little, too late. The last thing I want is for everyone to know now. Do you realize how much of a fool that will make me look?”
“He misses you, Lily. We all know it. He’s been… delightful since you left.” Her voice is heavy with sarcasm as her mouth turns down with annoyance.
“We were a mistake. I blame myself. I should never let myself get sucked into believing we’d ever be more than great sex. I knew that the night I met him. Hell, I knew it every time we hooked up.”
“How long were you together? I never asked before.”
I feel pathetic that I know that answer. That I know the minute we went from casual sex to being consumed with each other. “A month before Casey moved into the dorms. Before that, we just had a lot of casual hookups.”
Her head tilts to the side as she twists her mouth. Her eyes scrunch until tiny lines appear. “So, you were still going out with other people before that?”
I lift my shoulder and play with the fringe on my shirt. “I mean, yeah. I didn’t sit around pining after him. He never even crossed my mind until we’d run into each other, if I’m honest. I even had a few boyfriends between hookups. They weren’t frequent for a long time—the hookups, I mean. Then they were. Then we were together, I guess.”
“What do you mean, run into each other?”
“Just what I said. We happened to be at the same place at the same time. I mean, sometimes it wasn’t coincidental because… Well, take Europe, for example. I went to a festival in Paris. Angel and the guys were there. I knew he’d be there because of the band, so there was no tremendous shock. But usually, we just bumped into each other.”
I forget how expressive Ashleigh can be. Everything she thinks or feels is always written on her face. Right now, her eyes are wide, and her brows are high. “You and Liam would bump into each other? As in, you’d be at the same… club?”
My mouth opens, then snaps shut. I tilt my head, trying to figure out why she seems surprised and confused. It may be a big city, but it’s a small world. It’s not unheard of for two people to appear in the same place. “What are you getting at?”
She waves a hand in the air, shaking her head. “Nothing. Forget about it.”
“No. Tell me.”
She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, staring at me. I can see the wheels turning in her mind. “Don’t you think it’s strange you and Liam were in the same clubs? Liam? He’s a beer, corn nuts, and a local band-playing kind of guy. You like flashing lights, thumping beats, and lots of dancing with expensive champagne and cocktails.”
“I…” I trail off as my brain catches up with her words. “You don’t think it was coincidental, do you?”
“If being with Henry has taught me anything, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Not even a little. Liam was following you or… something. Did he know where you lived?”
