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Chapter Two

As luck would have it,I meet Liam again a few days later while getting myself another raspberry lemonade at Pat’s. He’s getting a cup of coffee. No sugar and black. Like his soul.

He’s wearing jeans, combat boots, a gray hoodie, and the same beanie as before. A couple days’ worth of scruff on his face tells me he hasn’t bothered to shave. Liam does that slight nod guy thing and says nothing. My eyebrows rise on their own and I take a moment to decide if I should be nice or engage the bitch mode. Skye’s “be nice” words come back to remind me the promise I made to be cool. I give it a shot and take a step closer to him. He smells clean, like fresh laundry and soap.

“Good morning. It’s Liam, right?”

He looks me up and down, once, twice, three times before his eyes meet mine and he acts like whatever he was looking for is lacking. He says nothing. What. The. Actual. Fuck! Okay, I can do this. I try again.

“We started on the wrong foot. I’m sorry for dumping my drink on you. Want to give it another shot?” I give him my best smile and a hand for him to shake.

Liam glares at me with his sugarless, bitter coffee-colored attitude and stone cold gray eyes and ignores my hand.

“Are you going to dump that drink on me again?”

I’m tempted. Oh, I’m so tempted. I look at my cup and back at him again, and I know he can read it on my face how bad I want to dump my drink on him. But it’s three bucks and I’m not going to waste another lemonade. I dump words on him instead. Those are free and I got plenty of them. Screw nice. Nice is a two-way road and if he doesn’t want to play nice, then neither do I.

“Did it hurt?” I ask with a small sneer.

Liam tenses. His shoulders square. “Did what hurt?”

“Did it hurt when they shoved that big stick up your ass? You know, the stick that keeps you so uptight all the time.” My sneer is full-on now.

His right-hand fists and he shifts a fraction of an inch. I catch the almost imperceptible movement. Another person may not have noticed it, but for some unknown reason I’m attuned to him. I see it in the way his eyes narrow for just a moment, and how his body adjusts as if either waiting for impact or preparing to attack. I feel the tension radiating from him and I have to say, I relish in the feeling I’m not alone in this strange game of push and pull I find myself in every time our paths cross. And our paths will cross a lot thanks to my sister Skye and his brother Logan. All because of Skye.

“What? Are you going to punch me?” I taunt. “I know you want to do it. I can tell by the way you’re moving.”

“I didn’t move. And I would never hurt a woman.” His eyes are fixed on mine.

“Oh, you moved all right. You gave yourself away without even knowing it. And I’m sure if I had balls instead of tits, I’d be on the floor looking for my teeth right now. But as luck would have it, I’m the proud owner of an awesome rack.”

His eyes drift to the aforementioned rack and linger for a long time. Long enough for my nipples to harden under his stare. Fucking nipples. It’s not even cold. His eyes darken and then a different expression takes over him. I’m about to snap my fingers in his face to get his attention away from my boobs when we’re both saved by Skye and Logan stepping next to us.

I know they can pick up on the tension. Heck, a rock could pick the murderous vibes between Liam and me. Skye, always the calm one, defuses it by tugging at my arm and directing me to an empty table.

“Hi, Liam, good to see you again. Come and join us.”

When his eyes move to her, he smiles, and it’s an honest to God real smile. His face transforms. He looks happy, younger, and carefree. None of the tension he holds around me is there. Who the fuck is this guy and what happened to the blackened, soulless Liam?

“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’ll catch you later, okay?”

Even his voice is warm and nice. And that pisses me off even more. Why is his disdain directed only at me?

I’m not used to this kind of response from people, especially not from guys. Catty girls’ jealousy every so often? Yes, I get that. But I’ve never been the target of such unveiled dislike. I pissed him off with my juvenile drink-dumping prank. But I apologized. Twice. I tried to be nice. Didn’t I?

If he wants to play it like that, I can too. Game on.