Page 105

Although I hated that she’d lost her job, I couldn’t ignore the sudden lightness in my chest. Maybe this would be easier than I thought. Maybe this was all going to work perfectly.

“I’m sorry to hear about your job. What are you… what are you going to do?”

Some small voice in the back of my head was telling me she was going to say exactly what I wanted to hear—that things couldn’t have fallen into place any better if she tried to make it happen.

But Layla didn’t give me that. “Well, I need to go back to the city. I have things I need to figure out. My life has been there for eight years, and my lease isn’t up for another seven months. I can’t put Frankie in a bad spot.”

Seven months.

I couldn’t do it. How could she?

Plus, if she didn’t have a job and moved back there for the remainder of her lease, she’d have to find work. What if she found something she truly loved? What if she never came back again?

Panic consumed me. Perhaps a bit of resentment and resignation, too.

Was I too forgiving? Was I so desperate to have her back in my life that I allowed myself to believe the best was going to happen simply because she showed up at the party yesterday?

As quickly as I could snap my fingers, I went from feeling hope and excitement at the prospect of us being able to build something solid again, especially with her job not playing a factor in this, to feeling such heaviness and tension.

I yanked my hand away from hers, doing it harshly enough that she couldn’t miss it. Feeling like I was struggling to breathe, I shook my head and croaked, “Layla, I can’t.”

“What? Can’t what?”

“After all this time, I can’t do long-distance with you. Not after everything we’ve been through. I want you. God, I want you so bad it hurts, but if you walk away again, I… I don’t know what I’m going to do. I thought you wanted this. I thought you wanted to fix things between us. But if you leave, that’s never going to happen. And though it kills me to say this, I know that if you leave me again, I won’t be here waiting for you if you ever decide to come back.”

“Liam,” she gasped, the hurt in her voice enough to bring me to my knees. She held my stare for several long beats, questions and thoughts swirling in those beautiful eyes. “I’m not asking you to do long-distance with me.”

“So, you don’t want this?”

“I do.”

I scowled at her. “How is that going to work if you leave?”

“When I said I had to go back, I meant returning there for a couple of days to work things out so that I can make the move back here to Landing,” she clarified. “And I was hoping I’d be able to have you join me during that short trip.”

The tightness in my chest eased. “Oh. I thought you were planning to go back, at least until your lease was up.”

“I said I wanted to fix this,” she reasoned.

“But telling me you need to go back and have seven months left on a lease didn’t indicate that.”

Her chin trembled, and she struggled to make eye contact with me. “I know I’ve given you no reason to believe what I’m saying, but Liam, this is never going to work if you don’t trust me.”

My throat felt painfully thick, my cheeks burning with humiliation. She was right. I was struggling to trust her, to believe that she wanted me as badly as I wanted her. “You’re right. I’m having a hard time believing I’m getting this second chance with you. I’m sorry, Layla. I’m not trying to make this more difficult or to make you feel bad, but I think it’s going to take me some time not to assume the worst in every situation. I’m begging you to be patient with me.”

This time, it was Layla who reached for my hand. My eyes latched onto her fingers covering mine, and Igave myself a minute to ground into reality. She was here. Then my eyes traveled up to her face.

“I know how badly I hurt you,” she said. “And I think it’s only fair I find a way to be patient with you as you learn to trust me again. I know I need to work to regain that.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “This is not how I envisioned our day together.”

She smiled at me. “It’s a lot, Liam. Maybe we don’t need to fix it all in one day. Maybe we should get out of here and go do something fun together. If I recall correctly, you’re a guy who knows exactly how to do that.”

A soft chuckle escaped. “I think you’re right. We need to have some fun.”

With that, I waved our server over, asked for the check, and paid the bill. I was going to do whatever it took to turn this day around for both of us.

27