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“I know what we said about keeping this private, but I don’t want to be away from you.”
His confession pried my chest open, gently cradling the terrified organ inside, coaxing it to believe him. I closed my eyes and leaned into the crook of his neck, so he didn’t have to see my hesitation. Handing my heart over to people always came too easy to me. I trusted blindly, believed the best, and then they’d walk away. Most of the time they didn’t even offer my heart back before they left.
So I shuddered against him and whispered in return, “Me either.”
“Then stay with me tonight,” he said, helping me off his lap.
I nodded then pressed a kiss against his lips.
Once he left, I thought over his refusal for help and realized it was still bugging me. I could feel Liam’s stress, and his fear over losing this place…the way he said no meant he already knew about me. Probably from Cole. Was he really that prideful that he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of me backing him?
It wouldn’t work. I hated pride…and stubborn men.
Liam Croft just became a challenge, and if there was one thing I was professionally good at, it was accepting them.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Baking
YouTube
Nature
Waterfalls
Hope
Maddy, Seraph, and Mila
Liam. Always Liam.
I was headedto pick up the girls, but I wanted to stop by the center. I told myself it was to see if there was anything I could pick up for Nora and Rae, but there was a tiny part of me that wanted to check on Jeffery. I knew he had to be pissed at me, and I wouldn’t blame him if he was with how our evening ended. I didn’t want to make excuses for Liam, and I had willingly accepted an invitation to go out with Jeffery and then left with someone else. Regardless of my frustration in the moment with him, it was still shitty.
I pushed open the door and found him in one of the back classrooms. Nora wasn’t in, neither was Rae, but there were a few other guys milling about the place.
Leaning against the door frame, I waited for him to acknowledge me.
His hat was backward on his head, pushing all that unruly blond hair back. Without looking up, he gruffly said. “Need something?”
His tone cut through me, and even though I didn’t have romantic feelings toward him, his derision still cut.
I took a deep breath and then just decided to get into it. “Last night was shitty. I wasn’t going to go with him, but…”
Brown eyes lifted, landing on me in a curious way. “But what?”
Shifting off the door, I explained. “I don’t like being warned away from people. It bugs me. You tried to scare me away from Liam the first chance you got, and I don’t think you even understood what that could have done to our working relationship. But Liam matters to me, just like you do. And if Liam had said that about you, I would have left him too.”
Jeffery’s eyes narrowed before he lowered his head again and punched a few more nails in.
“So that’s it? Nothing else is going on between you two, you’re just friends, like we’re friends?”
My heart felt frenzied and panicked at his question. Liam and I said that we didn’t want to tell anyone about us, and I wouldn’t betray him that way.
“Nothing else is going on.” The lie was bitter on my tongue, but I swallowed down the taste.
“He acted like…” Jeffery shook his head, running a hand through that messy hair.
I shouldn’t press, but I was also trying to figure out what his perspective of all this was.
