Page 58 of The Focal Point

“You’re not eating either, either?”

The word either caught my attention, and before I could stop myself, the question slipped out, sounding far more troubled than I had meant. “Liam’s not eating?”

Thomas’s gaze slid toward me, though he didn’t move his head. “Well, he didn’t stop as some sort of protest. But—”

He let the rest of the sentence hang, but I didn’t need to hear the rest to understand—Liam was too upset to eat.

Scout brought the ball back and dropped it in Thomas’s hand. He threw it, and the dog bounded away again.

“I know I’ve already talked to you once about this, but Liam is a mess. He really misses you.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even look at Tom—I didn’t dare. I was too afraid he would see the uncertainty in my eyes. Instead, my gaze stayed trained on the German shepherd in the distance who, ball in his mouth, was accosting a passing family for pets.

“What Liam did, there isn’t an excuse for it. But he knows he did the wrong thing. Liam knows he screwed up. But also, his heart was in the right place—he knew you were hesitant to date again, and he wanted to give himself time so you could get to know him. It was stupid, but sometimes, as brilliant as he is, Liam doesn’t exactly think before he does something, especially when his heart is involved.”

I wanted to snap at Thomas and tell him that didn’t make the situation any better as I had in my office the first time he had come to me. How could it when, in the end, Liam had still lied? I supposed he had never told me specifically he hadn’t just bought the houses, just that he had another place for me to design. But a lie of omission was still a lie.

But Liam knew he had screwed up. He knew what he had done was wrong. He felt remorse, so much so that he wasn’t eating, and that simple fact was the only thing keeping me from writing him off entirely.

The breeze rustled the leaves above us, the dappled light shifting on the walkway pavement and my sandwich. I moved a crumb around the butcher paper with the pad of my finger.

“Like giving away six pieces of equipment to the children’s hospital?” I finally asked, biting my lip so the smile trying to press my mouth upward wouldn’t escape.

Though I wasn’t looking at him, I heard Thomas’s chuckle. “Yeah, like that. I’m still not sure Jordan has forgiven him.” He paused, and we watched as Scout trailed after the family as they tried to leave, the ball still in his mouth. “I hope you will, though. I’ve never seen him like this with anyone else. I think this is real for him, Bailey. You’re it for him. And I know he’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything to him as he stood up and jogged after his wayward German shepherd puppy. More like a teenager, with the height, gangly limbs, and awkward personality.

I missed that puppy. I missed Thomas’s barbecues.

But most of all, I missed Liam.

Was I ready to forgive him? I didn’t know. My head was still whirling and my anger still simmering. But one thing stood out to me: He felt guilty for what he had done. So terrible Thomas had said he was a mess. I didn’t know whether to believe it because I hadn’t seen Liam with my own eyes for two weeks.

But Russ would have never, ever felt guilty. He wouldn’t have lost a single minute of sleep for doing something like this.

As Kristen had pointed out, that was something.

Chapter 24

Liam

––––––––

THE ENTIRE WALK UP to the apartment building door, I was vibrating. My legs felt like jelly, ready to give out at any moment, and I couldn’t stop jiggling the keys in my hand as I rode up the elevator. The noise or the level of my agitation must have annoyed the people sharing the car with me because I didn’t miss their side-eyed glares.

But I couldn’t stop—my heart was pounding too fast.

On the drive over, when I had nearly turned my car around, I wondered how I could still feel this way when I had grown a company from an idea to a billion-dollar firm. But the answer was simple—this was different. The stakes were different.

When I first came up with the idea for my software, my only goal was to get it out there. I didn’t care how or that it was revolutionary. All I had wanted to do was make sure doctors could use it so fewer families had to go through what mine had.

I hadn’t expected the program to be such a sensation, and I certainly hadn’t expected the venture capitalists to come and seek me out instead of the other way around. Before I knew it, I had a company, Tom as my CFO, and someone telling me how to handle all the money flowing in for new product development.

Mine wasn’t a typical success story. I had worked hard, but it hadn’t been something I had sought out. Even now, I was still slightly stunned it had happened at all. Sometimes, I sat in my office and simply looked around, taking everything in. I knew in the wild world of tech, it could all be gone in a minute, and I was insanely grateful for every turn my life had taken since I had released my program into the world.

But even so, I had a laid-back outlook to all of it. In meetings that had Tom pacing the floor, when Jordan was freaking out about something, the couple of times we had faced difficult decisions or sailed the ship through rocky waters, I hadn’t felt the same sense of impending doom. I was grateful for all that I had, but if we lost it, well, I would make sure our employees were taken care of, but I would be fine.

But this? This was entirely different.