“If we start whatever this is we’ve started, and I don’t live up to it. What if I can’t live up to it . . .”
He frowns. “You have nothing to live up to—”
“Of course I do. You’ve been in love with me for over two decades, that’s a hell of a lot of expectation. What if it’s not what you imagined? What if you prefer the fantasy?”
“No,” Liam says firmly. “That’s not—it won’t—”
“But what if it does? What if I’m not good enough?”
HIs lips twitch. “Freddie—”
“I’ve got nothing to offer you.”
“Yourself,” Liam snaps, and he’s growing frantic. He rubs the towel over my head like he’s trying to start a fire. “That’s what you’ve got to offer us, that’s what we want.”
“But Ryker, he’s a fucking firefighter, he saves people. And you, you’re a police officer, you catch the bad guys. I make plastic and metal components for machines—correction, I made them. Now I’ve got no job, I’ve got no home—”
“Stop this,” Liam hisses. He takes a step back, no longer towelling me down. It slips from my head and hits the floor with a wet smack. Liam’s lips open but no words come out, then he shouts over his shoulder. “Ryker!”
Ryker’s better with words, better at expressing how he and even Liam feels. I’ve backed him into a corner and it’s instinct to call to his brother for help.
“How do I know I won’t let you down?” I say. “How do I know I can be what you need?”
“Because you always have been, just as you are.”
I raise my eyebrow at him, and at first, he glares—and it lasts rather a long time—then he closes his eyes and his brow smooths out. “You little shit.”
“Language,” I whisper, and now the defences are down, I go for the castle. “You kept calling me. If you hadn’t, I would’ve died.”
“Ryker told me to.”
“You would’ve done it anyway,” I counter. “Wouldn’t you?”
His nostrils flare.
“You told me to get to the window. You told me to shout for Ryker.”
“I should’ve done more.”
“You literallycouldn’thave.”
Liam stiffens his jaw. “I could hear you struggling to breathe. You had your phone pressed to your ear, listening, waiting, and I couldn’t speak. I wanted to—oh, fuck did I want to—I wanted to reassure you, comfort you, I don’t know. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t.”
“Couldn’t,” I correct. “I wasn’t expecting you to say anything. I didn’t need you to. You were there on the other end of the phone and that was enough.”
“Ryker got you out.”
“Yeah, he did, but you saved me too. And I know you’ll find out what happened, how and why that fire started.”
“I will.”
It leaves his lips as a vow.
“I know. You look out for me.”
“Yes.”
“And I want to look out for you too.”
