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“Thanks a lot, man,” the driver said, sarcasm dripping from his words as he looked over his shoulder at Amber in the back seat.
“Just make sure she gets home safe,” I barked before stalking off. I needed a fucking drink after all that shit.
I went back inside and searched for Liv, but I didn’t see her. I found Beth, who was talking with the other girls in our group, but Liv wasn’t among them.
“Hey, Beth, where’s Liv?”
She glanced around, her brow furrowing when she couldn’t find Liv either. “I don’t know. We just took a shot a few minutes ago, then I think she went outside to look for you.”
My stomach dropped.
Shit.
I took my phone from my back pocket and immediately called Liv. I made my way outside so I could hear better as the call connected. It rang a few times before going to her voicemail.
“Liv, call me back, please. It’s not what it looked like.”
I hung up and called again with the same result. “Fuck!” I yelled, heading for my truck. I needed to find her to explain what had happened.
Because if I knew Liv, she was going to run. And I couldn’t lose her again.
I lost count of how many times I called and texted
Liv over the course of the night. I went to her hotel, but the receptionist said that Liv had checked out not long before I arrived.
I thought about going to her parents’ house, but I doubted she would go there. If she was trying to avoid me, she wouldn’t go somewhere where I knew the location. And her parents probably wouldn’t tell me if she was there anyway.
So I decided to check the other hotels in the area. There were only a handful of hotels in Beaufort, so my search didn’t take long. Unfortunately, I met the same results as before.
I kept my shit together until I got back in my truck, then I lost it. I pounded the steering wheel and shouted every cuss word in the book to let my anger and frustration out.
Liv had left me.
Again.
I exhaled a heavy breath, my chest tight as I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, debating what to do. I thought about going to Charlotte and seeking her out—I had her address from when I’d written her that letter—but that seemed a little stalkerish. If she wanted to be found, she would go somewhere she knew I’d find her.
Memories of the first time she left flashed in my mind. My heart had told me to go after her, but she’d told me not to. She didn’t want to make things harder for either of us. So I didn’t. I’d let her get in her car and drive away even though it had ripped my heart to shreds. Maybe I shouldn’t have. If I’d chased her, then maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in my truck with a broken heart again.
What the fuck do I do now?
I couldn’t sleep that night. I called Liv every few hours, hoping she’d answer and say that she’d just had too much to drink and had been trying to sleep it off. But deep down I knew that wasn’t the case. She was gone. I’d lost her again.
I was more upset that she’d left Piper after building a relationship with her. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain things to her without breaking her heart, too.
LIV
Three weeks later
* * *
My phone buzzed on my desk. I glanced at my screen, expecting to see my mom or Lincoln’s number flashing on the display. They’d both been calling me several times a day since I’d left, trying to get me to come back.
But I’d made up my mind. The first few days back were hard. Being away from Lincoln was like trying to hold my breath underwater for too long.
The pain eventually ebbed to a dull ache that I could ignore for most of the day. But when I was home alone, that was when the pain was the hardest to ignore.
I didn’t recognize the number calling me. My brow furrowed as I picked up my cell. The number wasn’t local, but it was from the Beaufort area. Normally, I didn’t answer numbers that I didn’t recognize, but something was telling me to answer the call.
