Page 70 of Liam (Preston Brothers #4)

Addie

“Have you been here before?” Liam asks, holding the chain-link fence open for me so I can slip through the gap.

I wait until he’s joined me to answer. “Never.” I’d seen the water tower before, but only from a distance. I’d never even been to the field that surrounds it, let alone climbed to the top of it.

Liam takes my hand as he leads me toward the ladder. “Ladies first,” he says, then smirks to one side. “Actually…” He slaps my butt. “I just want to watch your big booty ass climb it.”

I sit on the platform, my legs hanging over the edge, while Liam sits behind me, his knees on either side. His arm around my middle holds me firm, as if he’s afraid I’ll fall. “It’s nice up here,” I tell him, looking out over the town I once called home. “Do you come here often?”

He presses his lips to my shoulder, keeps them there as he shakes his head. “First time.”

I rear back. “Really?”

“Yep.” He clears his throat, looks out at the view ahead. “You know, Mia’s mom was our nanny for a few years after my mom died. She spent summers with us when she was, like, twelve to fourteen.”

“Is that how you guys got close?”

“No, we didn’t get close until about a year ago. Long story. Anyway, she and Leo used to sneak off every morning and come up here to watch the sunrise.”

“Stop it,” I coo. “That’s adorable.”

He seems surprised by my response, and I get it. I don’t exactly come across as the most romantic person in the world, but I’ve definitely come to terms with loving love .

“So she and Leo have been together all that time?”

“No. And another long story, but the point is, when she told me about her time here with him, she had this… wistfulness about her. This wonder and awe. I told her that I hadn’t been and that I’d check it out, and she told me not to. That I should wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“To experience it with someone special.”

My chest fills with warmth.

“You’re pretty special to me, Addie, and I know it’s not a sunrise, but it’s the sunset…”

“Your favorite time of the day.”

He nods. “With my favorite person.”

“Liam…” I breathe out, my vision blurred by the tears.

He kisses me once, lets it linger a beat before pulling away. “I think we should talk about what happened today—with you and Pierson.”

“Right,” I sigh out. I’d been so wrapped up in Liam and being in the Preston world, I almost forgotten about Pierson.

When Liam texted me to go to his house instead of the cabin, I was a little nervous.

Okay, a lot nervous. I hadn’t really interacted with all of his family since Roman and I had dinner there, and a lot has changed since then.

Still, I showed up, simply because Liam asked me to.

And then I entered the kitchen, unsure of what would greet me.

But I didn’t need to worry, because there was nothing but grace and acceptance, and as lame as it sounds, it felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket after being left out in the cold.

If they can make me feel like that, I can only imagine how they make my brother feel.

Loved, I bet. That’s what it felt like to me.

They refer to Roman as family. I smile at the thought, at the future in front of me.

“Addie?” Liam says, pulling me from my daze.

“Sorry. I was just… thinking.”

“About?”

I shift, positioning myself so I’m sitting across his legs. The view ahead might be great, but the view of him is better. “I was just thinking about how great your family is.”

His grin is instant. “Yeah. They’re pretty amazing. And they clearly love you.” There’s that word again. “I didn’t get a single goodbye when we left. It was all about you.”

I smile at that.

He taps my leg, his eyes distant as he stares ahead. His jaw works, eyebrows lowering. I can feel the weight of the thoughts creeping into his mind.

“I’m glad I went to see him,” I say, hoping to ease some of his anxieties.

His gaze drops to mine. “Yeah?”

I nod. “You were right. It definitely needed to happen.”

“So… what did you talk about?” He pauses a beat. “If you want to tell me. You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” I assure. “I feel like we didn’t talk about much, but also, kind of everything. He filled in all the gaps of what happened after the accident, and since then, and that helped a lot—just to know for certain. And then…” I trail off, unsure of how to proceed with the next part.

“Then what?” he urges.

I release all the air in my lungs and sit taller. “I’ve had this feeling deep in my gut for a while now, and every time I felt it, I pushed it away because I thought I had no right to feel it, or maybe my feelings weren’t valid, you know?”

“Not really,” he says truthfully. “What feelings in particular?”

“I was mad,” I blurt out, my gaze dropping in shame.

“Like, I appreciate what he did for me, but I was also mad at him. I didn’t ask him to do that for me, and I would never want him to.

But he did. And for three years, I’ve felt this immense amount of guilt over it.

Not just over the accident itself, but over a choice he made, and—” I break off when a single tear slips from my eye, but Liam’s quick to discard it before I can, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb.

He cradles my jaw, urging me to look up at him. So I do. “Did you tell him that?”

“Yes, and I felt horrible for it, but I just—I held it in for so long, and it felt selfish to let it out, but—” I break off on a sigh.

“How did he take it?”

“He said he understood where I was coming from, but he also said he wouldn’t change a thing.”

“That’s valid,” he murmurs. “And so are your feelings, Addie.”

“You don’t think I’m a horrible person for feeling that way?”

He scoffs. “Not even a little bit, baby.”

I press my lips to his—the first kiss in almost twenty-four hours, and it takes my entire breath away.

“So do you have plans to see him again?” he asks, his mouth an inch from mine.

“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “There’s a part of me that wants to put all of that behind me, but at the same time, I don’t want to forget it happened at all. Like you said, our past is what got us here, right?”

“Right.” His smile is soft, filled with admiration.

I can feel it deep in my bones. In my marrow.

I take a mental snapshot of his face, of this particular smile, just so I can spend the rest of my life remembering how I feel right at this moment.

“I don’t mind if you see him again, Addie.

He’s an important part of your story, and I don’t want you to deny him a part of your life for me.

” His eyes stay locked on mine a moment—the kindness in them overwhelming.

I’m really starting to love love.

He pulls away, looking out at the view again. “So you’re good?”

I lay my head on his chest, listen to his heart beat a steady rhythm. “I’m much better now that I’m with you.”

He holds me to him, and for minutes that feel like seconds, we stay that way, content in each other’s presence.

“I just have one more question, and then I’ll let it go.”

I tilt my head back, so I can look at him.

“Does Pierson look like Olaf?”

My eyes narrow.

“Or more like Gaston?”

“Oh, no,” I laugh out. “What crazy thoughts have been spinning in your mind today?”

He shakes his head, faces forward. “Trust me. You don’t want to know.”