She has the gall to roll her damn eyes at me.
“Freddie told his dad to never contact him. He never wanted to see him again and you invited him into his home, his safe place.” I back up a step and take a few measured breaths. Maybe I’m being unfair, but she shouldn’t have meddled in that relationship.
“Freddie shut me out and he . . . he changed, the way I saw him changed,” she says, “And Ben was there . . .”
“Save it,” I say.
“It was only once. A moment of weakness.”
I smirk. “We both know that’s not true.”
Keegan’s pitiful façade falls, and she pushes off the wall as she jabs a finger into my chest. “Who have you been talking to?”
I won’t drop Mel in it. Instead, I look Keegan up and down. “Who else are you getting all dolled up for?”
That reasoning seems to satisfy her and my mole stays undetected.
“Freddie won’t take my calls or respond to my texts. It’s over, that’s all he’s said. One message. If I mean so little to him, if he’s not willing to fight for what we have, then there’s no point moping around.”
She removes her finger from my chest. Liam appears at the top of the stairs with two full bags flung over each shoulder. He trudges down, knocking picture frames off the wall. They shatter, and he crunches over the glass. They contain photographs of Freddie and Keegan. She’s been quick to remove her engagement ring and continue whatever she’s doing with her stepbrother, but the photos on the walls are all still of them. I know there’s a snow globe of them in the living room and have a savage urge to open it up and tear the picture of them in two.
I’d keep Freddie, but screw Keegan into a ball then toss her away.
“I’m done,” Liam says, and Keegan squawks as she dives into the living room to avoid being pulverised by one of the bags as he passes us.
Liam leaves through the open door without apology or a glance back.
“What about his running machine? His TV and his food processor,” Keegan says.
Part of me wants to take those things, not for Freddie as such, but to make sure Keegan doesn’t have them, that she or Ben won’t get any use out of them. But we’ve got a running machine, a TV, and a state-of-the-art food processor at home.
Freddie can have ours; he can have our everything.
“And then there’s that busted-up lawn mower in the shed.”
“Goodbye, Keegan,” I say, and I pull the door shut by the letter box.
Liam’s thrown the bags into the back, and now he waits behind the wheel, stiffening and relaxing his jaw. Rather than get back into my car, I climb into his, grimacing at the news I have to break.
“What is it?” Liam asks.
I don’t stall, I speak, and Liam grows visibly paler. “Freddie’s dad was here. He was here, and Freddie was shaken up and he reached out to us, and we weren’t there for him. I thought it might’ve just been us bailing on being his best men that he hated us for, but he’s been stressed about work, thinks he might lose his job, and then his dad was in his house, waiting for him at the dinner table.”
“Fuck,” Liam hisses. He punches the wheel. “That’s why he’s like a loaded spring at the moment.”
“We messed up,” I say. “We messed up more than I thought we had, and I already thought it was pretty messy, but . . .” I press both of my palms to the dashboard. “We’re going to talk tonight. We’re going to explain why we acted like arseholes, properly, without his cock in my hand or your mouth, and he’s finally going to vent about his dad and tell us what’s been happening.”
The skin beneath Liam’s left eye twitches.
“What?” I ask him.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s really helpful.”
He starts the engine. “Let’s get over there.”
“We’re going to be hours too early.”
