Page 65 of Liam (Preston Brothers #4)

She stares up at me, her eyes wide, and I can’t tell if it’s with fear or pleading or something else entirely.

But ever since she told me about the whole wait for me situation, I’ve thought about this moment a lot.

There are two distinct paths she could go down, and regardless of what I do or how I feel, the decision has to be hers.

Sure, I love her.

But she never said the words back, and just because I feel that way, it doesn’t mean she has to.

I lean across the mattress, press my lips to her forehead.

“Talk to him, Addie,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.

Calm. “He’s waited three years to hear your voice.

You should at least give him that.” I don’t wait for a response before exiting the room, and the second the door’s closed behind me, the phone stops ringing.

“Pierson?” she says, and my eyes drift shut.

I try to settle the hammering in my chest, the unsteady beat of my pulse.

Blood rushes through my veins, and I force myself forward.

One step. Two. I make it to the couch. Sit.

Stand. My eyes catch the baseball fidget clicker on my desk, and I grab it, click it between my fingers.

It doesn’t have the same effect it used to.

I can’t breathe, and it’s so fucking ridiculous that I’m feeling this way, but I can’t take in enough air to push back out.

I step outside. Fresh air fills my nostrils, ribbons through my airways until it fills my lungs.

I need something to do. Something to take my mind off what the fuck they’re saying to each other. I bet she tells him she loves him. Maybe not in that way, but how could she not love someone who did what he did? For her .

It’s too much.

Everything she’s going through, all at once.

I shouldn’t have told her to answer, even though I could tell she wanted to.

She just didn’t want to hurt my feelings.

What if it makes things worse? What if this one phone call ruins all the progress she’s had in therapy?

She literally just had a breakthrough two days ago.

What the fuck am I doing?

How the fuck am I this selfish?

I’m losing my mind.

Minutes ago, I was watching the literal girl of my dreams sleeping peacefully on my lap and now?—

Now I’m in the back of the minivan, the back seats laid flat so I can vacuum.

It’s been five minutes.

The hand-held vacuum cleaner we keep in the van only has enough battery to last ten, and then I’ll have to find something else to do.

Thankfully, on the seventh minute, the front door opens, shining a light into the front yard.

Addie pops her head out, and I’m sure she says something, but I don’t know what because the vacuum is too loud.

A second later, the porch light flicks on, and a second after that, she’s making her way toward me—barefoot and beautiful.

She stops at the open trunk door, her hands on her hips, head tilted.

I lower my gaze, focus on the already clean carpet, run the stupid vacuum over the same spot, again and again.

The van rocks, and I glance up to see Addie pulling herself up and into the van, dragging dirt from her feet onto the floor. I vacuum the mess she made, then grab her ankle, tug it toward me so I can vacuum the sole of her foot.

She giggles, twisting out of my hold. “Stop it!” She takes the vacuum from me and immediately switches it off. “What are you doing?” she asks, but she says it in a way that hints she already knows the answer.

“Vacuuming,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Obviously.”

Her eyebrows rise. “ Why are you vacuuming?”

“I don’t know,” I breathe out. Now that the vacuum is out of my grasp, my hands become just as antsy as my mind.

I pull out the fidget clicker and click away.

“I tried to sit on the couch, but I could still hear your voice, and I didn’t want to hear what you were saying, so I came outside.

I tried to sit on the porch, and that wasn’t much better than the couch, so I moved to the minivan, and then—well…

” I wave a hand around me. “You saw what happened next.” I heave out a sigh, press my back against the side of the van, and keep my gaze lowered.

I can’t let her see the insecurities living, breathing, multiplying inside me. “How’d it go?”

“We talked,” she says, all nonchalant. “We basically just caught up on our lives, but…” she trails off.

I glance up, then right back down. Click, click, click goes the stupid baseball. “But what?”

“Once I brought up the accident and what he did for me, he said he wanted to talk about it in person.”

Oh, great. Because a phone call isn’t enough, he wants to see her in the flesh. I can’t really blame him. I’d want to see her, too. “Where is he?”

“He lives in Charlotte now.”

I go to Charlotte all the time. I mean, I drive to Charlotte to pick up Lincoln from the airport, but I never get out of the van. “Tell him you’ll meet him tomorrow. I’ll drive you.”

“ Tomorrow ?”

I finally look up, and she’s already watching me, just like I knew she would be. “I don’t know, Addie. Maybe you should just—” I try to come up with the right words, but nothing seems to fit. I drop my gaze again, mumble, “Just get it over and done with.”

What am I even suggesting right now?

“Or not,” I quickly add. “Probably not. You should work on you, you know? You’re healing journey or whatever. I mean, you should just focus on…” I trail off, because I’m an idiot who can’t think straight.

But I love her.

And I’m so fucking scared to lose her.

Addie’s quiet for so long, the silence intensifies the sound of plastic clicking.

The van rocks when she moves, sitting opposite me to match my position. My legs are too long to stretch out like hers do, and it takes everything in me not to reach out and touch her. It doesn’t feel like the right time.

In fact, it never does when it comes to us.

Our timing is way, way off.

So is Pierson’s.

The motherfucker.

The clicking is so loud now, or maybe it’s just in my head, tapping away at my skull, drilling into my sanity.

I see her hand before I feel her touch, her fingers warm, soothing , as she covers my hand in hers. Carefully, she spreads my fingers, removing the fidget clicker from my grasp. “Talk to me, Liam.”

I puff out a breath, my hands trembling.

I don’t like this feeling—this out-of-control spiral my mind has taken me on.

I square my shoulders, gathering what little courage I have, and finally face her.

She looks as scared as I feel. “Look,” I start.

“I’m not going to lie. This whole Pierson thing has messed with my head—and not just now , since he called, but… since you told me about it.”

A beat of silence passes before she speaks, her tone soft, gentle. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“What am I supposed to say, Addie?”

She taps her foot against my leg. “You say exactly what’s on your mind. The Addie Effect, remember?”

I want to smile, but I can’t. Instead, I shake my head, murmur, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” she asks. “If you can’t talk to me about it, then how am I supposed to help you?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t want you to help me. I want you to do what’s right for you. And I don’t want anything I say or do to affect whatever choice you make here.”

“Choice?” she asks, her eyebrows pinched. “There is no choice here, Liam. I?—”

“There has to be,” I cut in, my tone even, calm. “And not just for you, but for me, too. Obviously, I love you, and I’d give anything to be all in with you, but we can’t just skate over the facts as if they don’t matter.”

“What are the facts?” she retorts.

“That I’m fucking terrified,” I answer truthfully.

“I tell you I love you and you don’t say it back, and that’s fine.

It’s not that I need you to or that I expect you to, but I at least want to know that we’re in the same book, if not the same page.

You haven’t even brought it up since. And not only that, but I’ve been in this fucking limbo ever since you told me about Pierson.

Did you wait for him? Are you going back to him now?

What would’ve happened if he didn’t contact you?

Would you have called him? Do you want a relationship with him? ”

“Liam…” She’s crying.

And I don’t know if she’s crying for me or her, but I don’t think it matters anymore. I wish I could comfort her somehow, but she wanted me to talk, and now that I have, I can’t seem to stop.

Selfish .

But also, maybe not—because I’ve held on to these feelings for weeks, kept them locked away until now.

And maybe it’s too soon for her to hear all of this, but maybe—maybe I need assurance, too.

“You know what the worst part is?” I mutter.

“My head is so fucked up, I can’t stop thinking about how much it’s going to ruin me when you leave.

And I’m not saying you’re going to leave me for him, but even if you stay with me, how am I supposed to live up to that — to a white knight who was willing to give up his life for you?

And say we do go all in… am I just supposed to ignore that it happened at all?

Because a year from now, the questions are still going to be there.

Do you regret choosing me? Do you at least question it?

Do you compare what life he could’ve given you over what you chose? ”

“Liam…” Her eyes drift shut, allowing the tears to fall from her closed lids.

“And what happens when the summer’s over, Addie?

Have you even thought about it? You go back to Raleigh and I stay here and what?

I drive four hours south to see you whenever you have time for me?

When you’re not living your life? What the fuck do we do?

What the fuck do I do? Because I want this to work. And I want you ? —”