Sighing, I clean the weights I used and stow them away. “It’s a problem.”
“Why’s that?”
“She’s made it pretty clear she’ll only see me in secret. She’s not interested in being with me for real.”
He lifts his eyebrows, studying me. “Has she told you why?”
“I think it’s because of our parents, partly.” I pause, not wanting to say this next part but needing to get it off my chest. “Maybe she’s embarrassed of me. I’m not exactly smooth.”
Liam’s expression darkens. “Bullshit. Any woman would be lucky to date you.”
I manage a halfhearted smile. “Thanks. But history would suggest you’re wrong.”
“History’s a fickle bitch.” He clasps my shoulder. “If you based all your opinions on history, you’d say that I don’t know how to date women either. But I found the right woman, and everything changed for me. Maybe Nora’s the right woman for you, and maybe she’s not.” He hesitates, which is unusual for him, then says, “Has anyone told you about Jonah?”
“And the whale?”
He gives me awhat the fuck, Cormac?look.
“No, the little pissant who’s the reason our ladies met.”
“They met because of this Jonah?” I ask, not liking the sound of that.
“Yeah.” He cracks his knuckles. “Jonah was engaged toSophie, but at the same time, he was seeing my sister, Briar, and Nora. None of them knew until Sophie found the evidence on his phone. This all went down last summer.”
“How did I not know about it?” I ask, my hands forming fists at the thought of this asshole, this Jonah, not appreciating my Nora.
Okay, not my Nora, obviously. ButNora. Beautiful, funny, bold, strong Nora. Kind Nora, who cares about Nathaniel like I did and is putting everything on the line to help José.
How dare this Jonah guy do that. How fucking dare he.
“You don’t pay attention to a lot, my friend, and I guess this was before your dad got with Nora’s mom.”
“What happened to him?” I ask, because I know without a doubt that my friends wouldn’t have allowed this repugnant creature to walk away unscathed.
He grins. “The girls got him back. They publicly revealed what he’d done at the Orange Peel, in front of a packed concert crowd. It was in the local paper and everything.” He pauses. “He’s Rob’s brother.”
“You mean my Rob?”
“Let’s make that an official nickname.”
“Forget the nickname. So Rob married his brother’s ex-fiancée?”
“Hell of a thing, isn’t it? Obviously, they don’t get along. Rob hasn’t talked to anyone on that side of his family for months. You sure you didn’t read about this?”
“No one reads the paper anymore,” I say distractedly, mulling this over. They’d unmasked him, and now Nora was obsessed with unmasking Pansy. That tracks.
“True enough,” Liam says. “Anyway, I hear he’s working for his dad now, and it doesn’t sound like it’s going too good for him. I made it clear what would happen if he ever went near Hannahand Briar again, and since then, I’ve tried not to run into him. I enjoy not being in jail.”
I nod thoughtfully.
Still, I’m not sure a sentence of nepo baby employment is enough of a punishment for a man who did that to Nora.
“I’m going to think about this.”
“You do that, bud,” he says with a knowing smile. “But make sure you don’t do anything that’ll get you into trouble with the law.”
“You think Jonah might be the reason Nora’s not interested in dating me?”
