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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

LIAM

It’s been a week. Seven agony-laced days since I last saw Sasha or had the warmth of her body curled against mine. I can still hear her sweet laugh and the way she said my name like I was the only person who mattered. It’s funny how time can feel so long and so short at the same time. It feels like I’ve been without her for an eternity.

Our time together might have been nothing more than a string of lies, but it doesn’t make what I’ve lost hurt any less. The pain is still fresh. It leaves me numb, lying in our bed for hours on end, staring at the ceiling, and trying to find what I missed. Searching desperately for everything I should have seen coming.

But there’s nothing… Everything about her was fucking perfect.

“Liam?” Declan’s deep voice echoes around my empty apartment. The soles of his shoes slap along the hardwood floor of the hallway as he walks toward my bedroom.

“I said I’m fine,” I gruff when he pokes his head through the door.

“Maybe, but you look like fucking shit.” He walks into the room with Quinn on his heel.

“Jesus, Li…” she exhales, taking in my unusually disheveled appearance. Grabbing the blankets at the foot of the bed, she hesitates for a second. “Am I going to see more than I’m bargaining for?”

“Not likely,” Declan answers for me, wiggling his pinky in the air. “He’s the runt of the litter, if you catch my drift.”

“Fuck you,” I spit, sitting up and throwing back the covers to lunge at Declan.

“I’ve seen bigger, but it’s not bad.” Quinn winks at me, throwing a pillow at me to cover myself.

“It’s good to see you’ve some fucking fight left in you,” Declan quips, walking into the bathroom and turning on the shower.

Storming after him, holding the pillow to cover myself from Quinn, I growl, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Returning the fucking favor.” He grabs the pillow and shoves me under the icy spray of the shower. I grumble and try to jump from the stream, but he shoves me back under. “You forced me to pick up the pieces of my life when I was at my lowest. I’m not going to let you lay here for weeks on end and wallow in your grief.”

“Besides, you’re being a fucking idiot,” Quinn chirps, letting herself into the bathroom. “You know that, right?”

“Fucking hell!” I exclaim, slapping my hands over my cock. I’m generally not modest— I fuck in public, for Christ’s sake— but it’s Quinn. For all the flirting and jokes about sleeping with her, I respect my brother way too much to have my cock swinging in her presence. “Can this conversation wait a minute or two?”

“Nope.” She hops onto the bathroom vanity across from the shower, also to Declan’s dismay. Looking between us both with a shrug, she sasses, “What? It’s not like I haven’t seen it already.”

“Really?” I snark, glaring at Declan with a furrowed brow. Of all my brothers, I would have expected him to possessively carry her from the room over his shoulder.

Instead, he crosses his arms and leans against the shower stall, looking like he’s ready to beat the piss out of me or knock some sense into me. “You’re a fucking idiot.”

I don’t want to talk about this… With either of them. Especially not while I’m naked and holding my cock. Even if I was clothed, I’m not ready for this pep talk.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I mutter, releasing my cock in hopes it gets at least one of them to leave. Stoic like fucking statues . Grabbing the soap, I huff, “Just let me be.”

“I get it,” Declan tells me with a slow, empathetic sigh. “You’re hurting.”

I shake my head, trying not to let thoughts of her slip back in. “You don’t understand,” I scoff. “It wasn’t real. None of it was real.”

“Bull-fucking-shit!” Quinn challenges from her perch. “It’s not your heart that’s broken, it’s your fucking pride. Because you know damn well that is not even the slightest bit true.”

Fuck, Quinn…

“The two of you of you were good together. For each other . You love her, and she loves you.” Quinn seriously doesn’t know when to stop.

I hate this. I hate it because part of me knows that she’s right. I do love Sasha.

“It was a lie,” I insist, rinsing the suds from my body down the drain.

“She lied,” Quinn admits, shaking her head while looking at me like I’m the idiot she keeps claiming I am. “But the two of you weren’t a lie. What did I say to you the night I first met her?”

I think back for a second. “That you’d never seen me so happy.”

“That was real . The way she looked at you to elicit a smile like that… It was real,” Quinn insists, sliding from the counter as I turn off the water, and tosses me a towel. “So, she didn’t tell you who she was. Did you ever stop to think that maybe she had a good reason?”

“She messed up. So what?” Declan adds. “Relationships are fucking messy. You fuck up and you fix it.”

“You don’t behave like a fucking idiot,” Quinn chimes.

“You go after her. You fucking fight for her.” Turning his attention to Quinn with an apologetic smile, Declan insists, “You don’t just let her slip away because it’s fucking hard.”

“I don’t even know if she wants me to fucking fight for her.” My words carry every bit of bitterness I’ve been harboring for the past week. The betrayal of having Sasha walk out of my life, I can get over that. Eventually . Staring into her eyes and having to endure her confirming I meant nothing to her… No, that will fucking break me.

“She needs you to fight,” Quinn imparts confidently. “Don’t be a fucking coward?—”

“Now I’m an idiot and a coward,” I tease with a hint of sarcasm, pulling on a pair of trousers.

Smiling at the first light-hearted thing I’ve said in a week, Quinn continues, “Just don’t let your foolish pride get in the way of something and some one that matters.”

“Don’t sit around on your arse and spend the rest of your life regretting it.” Declan places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a fatherly squeeze.

I don’t respond as I finish dressing and put on my shoes. I’m not sure if I’ll regret listening to them. I’m not sure about much of anything right now. But I know with certainty I’m already lost without her.And I’ll stay that way if I don’t try.

“Did you two draw the short straw?” I ask. “Or did the others vote you two because you could guilt me with all your trauma?”

“Does it matter?” Quinn quips with a smile, handing me the keys to my car.