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“You don’t know anything about it,” I told him, but I sounded as unconvincing as I felt.
Blair leaned forward, baring his teeth. “No, Liam. You’re the one who doesn’t know anything.”
“Fucking hell.” Anger surged through me. Anger at his attitude, at my best friend and sister for starting this debacle, and at myself for feeling like I couldn’t make sense of a really simple situation. “If I missed something, it’s because she never told me.”
Blair laughed. It sounded bitter. “Maybe not. But it’s not as though you made an effort to find out, did you?” He looked at me in disgust. “I thought you loved her.”
“I did,” I protested. “She. Dumped. Me.”
He shook his head. “You don’t deserve her.”
Then he took off after Kennedy. I watched them go, questions seething through my mind, my stomach churning.
What the hell was going on? With just a few sentences, Blair had challenged everything I thought I knew.
What had he meant?
“Where do they get off talking to you like that?” Asher demanded, sounding confused rather than angry. He hesitated. “That was weird, right?”
“It was,” Summer mused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Any ideas what he was talking about?”
I shrugged. “None.”
But damn, I was going to have to find out.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
LIAM
Isn’ttime supposed to make me miss you less? - unsent text message from Liam to Kennedy
I leftSummer to smooth things over with Mum, and Asher and I headed back to the fire station.
“Seriously,” Asher said as we crossed the road. “Any idea what he meant?”
“None.” My tone was short, which I felt bad about, but I also couldn’t erase the memory of Kennedy’s tearful gaze from my mind, and if Asher and Summer hadn’t been arguing like children, I might not have reacted so poorly and upset her that way. “What does it matter to you anyway? Aren’t you the one who’s been saying all along to keep my distance?”
“Yeah.” He huffed in exasperation. “But I figured anything she said would be a useless excuse.”
“Sounds like there might be more to it than that.” And I needed to know what. Especially when Blair had looked like he might genuinely want to kick my ass. But I couldn’t go after her without clearing it with Parks first, considering I was due back from lunch in a couple of minutes. Technically, we weren’t supposed to leave the station at all during shift, but it was only a couple of blocks to the cafe and town center, so he usually didn’t mind as long as we made sure our phones were on and our gear was ready to go at a moment’s notice.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find out what they’re talking about.” We entered the garage attached to the fire station, and Igor glanced up from where he was doing some maintenance work on the hoses. I nodded to him in greeting. “Need to get the okay from Parks to leave for a bit longer.”
We parted ways in the corridor. Asher went to the staff room, and I knocked on Parks’s office door. Unfortunately, after pleading my case, he refused to give the go-ahead for me to leave long enough to talk to Kennedy. Frustration simmered beneath my skin for the rest of the shift, but I understood his refusal. If anything were to go wrong, he needed me here. But that didn’t make it any easier to wait out one of the most uneventful shifts of my career.
As soon as I was off the clock, I drove to Grace’s place and took the path past the house to the cottages. I rapped my knuckles against the wood and stood back, waiting to see if Kennedy would let me in. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Kennedy standing on the other side. It was Blair. I scanned him from head to toe, noticing the differences a decade had wrought. He’d filled out, and he looked more confident in himself than he had as a sullen teenager. Once upon a time, he’d been moody and distant, but we’d bonded over music, and I’d earned his approval. Now, it was obvious any trace of his past warm feelings toward me was long gone. He glowered, arms folded over his chest, and waited for me to speak first.
“Is Kennedy here?” I asked.
“What’s it to you?” he demanded. “Didn’t think you cared what she did or said because it wouldn’t make a difference.”
I winced, hearing my own words reflected back at me.
“It seems like we’re overdue for a conversation,” I said as levelly as I could. If I responded to his aggression with my own, it would only make things worse.
Blair scowled. “I’m not letting you in just so you can hurt her. She deserves better than that.”
