Page 7

Chapter 7

Brodie

The morning of the next day rolled around and brought with it a little less jet lag. I still wasn’t sure what day of the week it was, but at least my body recognized morning when the sun rose.

It was nearly ten when I crawled out of the guest room. My body weighed ten tons, but I managed to drag my carcass to the kitchen. I stood, dressed in boxers and a ratty old t-shirt that I’d stolen from Shane years ago, while I waited for my coffee to brew when there was a knock at the door.

I was up earlier than Kieran and Clay, who didn’t have to work that day. Barely awake, I combed my fingers through my hair to smooth it down so I wouldn’t resemble an electrocuted hedgehog and I shuffled my way to the front door.

“Hang on. I’m coming,” I croaked out, not loud enough for anyone outside to hear me, but mostly for my own benefit. I didn’t want the knocking to wake anyone.

Another knock.

Persistent fucking solicitors. I wondered what they were trying to sell me. It was a toss-up between religion or vacuums. Both sucked. I managed not to laugh at my own brilliant joke and pulled the door open.

Clearly my brain hadn’t woken up all the way because it saw Liam fucking Lawson standing on Kieran’s front step, holding more tulips than I’d ever seen in my life. He looked like shit. Like, he looked good because Liam was hot. Tall, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones, eyes that usually sparkled. The corners crinkled when he smiled and though he was barely thirty, he had a smattering of grey at his temples starting.

“Brodie.”

Liam’s voice cut through my brain fog. The mirage on my doorstep was a living, breathing man. My body jerked back as if I’d been in a car crash as all my senses came to life at once, computing the fact that Liam was here.

“What are you doing here?” My first instinct had been to recoil from him, but now I fought not to shove those stupid yellow tulips aside and climb into his arms. I’d cried in airport bathrooms for him. I sniffled over the ocean. My body hurt like I’d put it through a meat grinder. All to escape him. Not him. The pain he’d caused. The agony I’d put myself through.

Liam didn’t seem to have an answer to my question. He stared at me over an ocean of bright yellow until things got awkward. When I took a step back and reached for the door, Liam finally found his voice again.

“I came to talk to you.” He even sounded like hell. His voice was thin and raspy and weighed down with a million things he probably should have said before he let me walk out of that hotel room.

“I have a phone, Liam.” Not that I’d looked at it since I landed. I’d turned it off when I realized there would be no frantic apology text. No series of phone calls begging to be accepted.

“Would you have answered?” He didn’t wait for me to tell him that no, I fucking would not have. We both knew that. Instead he took a step forward and held the obscene bouquet out to me. “These are for you.”

I almost took them, but the absurdity of it had me stepping back.

“You shouldn’t be here.” I wanted to brick myself off from him and his stupid face and the dumb way I felt about him. I hated that I didn’t hate him. That even now I wanted to give in and let him pour his heart out.

But I wasn’t an idiot.

Okay, I was an idiot, but fool me once and all that.

“Give me ten minutes. Brodie, please.”

My hand flailed in empty air until it found the doorknob. Without another word, I closed the door. I stared down at my hand and had to make myself let go before I did something ridiculous like open the door again. I stormed into the kitchen as the coffee maker sputtered and finished brewing my coffee.

The house was eerily quiet now. The clock on the wall counted the passing seconds with an aggressive tick … tick … tick. I made myself get my coffee. Adding two sugars, no milk, I sat at the table and stared into nothing. I thought of all the things I had to do soon. A place to live. A job. A dog. I still wanted the dog. I refused to unpack the reasons why.

I tried not to think of Liam, but I never made it more than half a minute before he was invading my brain.

When my coffee was finished, I was sure that Liam would be long gone. Tiptoeing to the living room, I pulled the curtain back and peeked outside. A shiny black sedan sat on the curb and a familiar shape inhabited a spot on the front step.

“Fucking Christ.”

I stomped over to the door and yanked it open. Liam jumped up like his ass was on fire and thrust the flowers at me again, leaving me with little choice but to take them.

“Ten minutes. Please, Brodie. Hear me out,” Liam begged.

“Are you seriously still here?”

“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

Again, I closed the door. I took the flowers to the kitchen in time for Kieran to wake up and stumble out of his room. His rubbed at his eyes as he stared at me, massive bouquet of tulips in my arms.

“Tulips?”

“Apology flowers.”

Kieran acknowledged my explanation with a grunt and opened a couple cupboards and slid things around until he produced a vase that looked big enough to handle the bouquet.

He thunked it down on the counter and grabbed a cup of coffee. After adding enough milk and sugar to turn himself into a fucking marshmallow, he eyed the flowers as I carefully unwrapped them from their floral paper.

“Do I need to kill him?”

“Who are we killing?” Clay emerged dressed in Kieran’s clothes. Kieran pulled him into his lap and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Jealousy burned through me hot and bright like an explosion.

“It’s a long story.” I scoffed at the tulips. They were pretty and I wanted to hate them for it, but I didn’t have it in me.

Kieran kicked a chair out from under the table. “Sit.”

Rolling my eyes, I dropped into the seat with my arms folded over my chest like a petulant child waiting to be scolded.

“Spill.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Kieran arched an eyebrow at me. “Is this the reason you came home out of the blue?”

“Ugh… fine. The abridged version is I fell for someone I clearly shouldn’t have and it ended badly, and he tracked me down because he wants to explain or whatever. He says he’s not leaving until I talk to him. He was still loitering on your front step last I saw him. It’s like you didn’t even read the postcards I sent here.”

“I read the ones with my name on them.”

I rolled my eyes. “Figures that you’d be all respectful and shit and not invade my privacy.”

Clay got up and rushed to the front window. He was back a minute later, trying not to grin at me. “He’s still here.”

“Something funny?” I asked him. I liked Clay; he was good for Kieran. If anyone deserved to be happy, it was him.

“It’s not funny.” Clay tried to smooth his expression, but failed. The remnants of a smile remained on the corners of his mouth. “But it’s so fucking romantic.”

“It’s stalking,” Kieran growled.

“It’s sweet.” Clay pressed on. “He tracked you down and bought you every tulip in town. Just for a chance to talk to you. Are you going to talk to him?”

“No,” Kieran said.

“I don’t know.” I glared at Kieran. “I appreciate your support, but you’re not allowed to murder people. And I’ll talk to who I want. When I want.” I stood and headed to my room. “If I want.”

Putting some distance, even a few measly feet between myself and Liam helped me think more clearly. Getting away from Kieran’s open disapproval also released some of the pressure that squeezed my lungs. For the first time since I woke up, I sucked in a deep breath.

I wasn’t going to let Liam’s presence put a damper on my day. I sat in Kieran’s living room and scrolled local real estate listings. The front curtains remained closed, blocking my view of Liam, but I knew he was still there. Even without looking. It was like I could feel him.

Kieran grumbled and belly-ached about Liam being there until I told him that if he really wanted, he could ask Liam to leave. There must have been something in my voice that slipped out, some little nugget of vulnerability that he picked up on because Kieran didn’t go near the front door and he stopped mentioning murder and body disposal techniques. The support was nice, if a bit morbid.

I didn’t want Liam dead. Or hurt. Or even sad. I hated that he was out there hurting. But he’d hurt me first and I still didn’t know why. The answers were right there on the outside of the house. On my brother’s doorstep.

I’d stayed in my room most of the day, but somewhere around dinner time when I was convinced Liam would be gone, I ventured out of my room.

Clay glanced at me, then at the front door.

“He still here?” Hope fluttered because it was stupid and foolish and didn’t know any better. Hope was a child who still believed in Santa and thought you’d get whatever you wanted if you asked nice enough.

Clay nodded. “He’s been out there all day. I don’t think he’s even left to use the bathroom.”

Fuck. I was an asshole.

“Brodie.” Clay’s voice got my attention. Not because he used my name, but because of how unsure he sounded suddenly. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but you seem to really want to go out there. And… I’ve been in his spot before.”

“You don’t even know what he did.” I crossed my arms over my chest, more to protect myself than because I was mad.

“Did he go into business with his best friend, then steal all their money and gamble it away because he has shit coping mechanisms and relied too heavy on short-term dopamine rushes to get through complicated emotions?”

I blinked at Clay and he let out a tight laugh.

“I’ve done lots of therapy,” he supplied.

The sound of a car door slamming had me rushing to the window. The black sedan was still parked on the side of the street, but a car pulled into the driveway and a driver got out carrying an insulated pizza bag.

“Did you order pizza?” I asked Clay.

“No. Kieran said he was going to order something later. He’s just on the phone with Shane about one of Shane’s new harebrained ideas.”

I watched the driver give Liam a pizza and a drink. Liam gave him a tip and then the pizza guy was gone and Liam was sitting on the front step.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I opened the front door and went outside. I was still in boxers and a ratty shirt, but I didn’t care. I plopped myself down on the other end of the step and reached into the pizza box.

“You have until I’m done with this slice to tell me what you came here to tell me.” I bit the tip off the hot triangle and arched my eyebrow at him.

Liam put his slice of pizza down and brushed his fingers off on his pants. “I was an idiot.”

“You’re off to a good start,” I told him after I swallowed my first bite. The pizza had lit my appetite up like a firework. “You’re going to have to talk fast because I’m starving.”

As if to prove my point, my stomach growled.

Liam smiled fondly and pushed the pizza closer. “Have as much as you want.”

“Time’s wasting.” I took another bite and waited for my answers. Once I had them, I was going to go inside and do my best to forget about Liam Lawson.