Page 98 of Best Kind of Trouble
“She thinks I’d hurt Briar, and she’s probably right. But that’s not the only reason I should stay away. I really need this job. I was going crazy at Big Catch. Working with Briar is…” I rub a hand over my chest, trying to ease the ache. But it’s a bitch of a feeling that won’t go away. “If this works out, it’ll be everything I’ve ever wanted. A dream job. A creative outlet. I can’t throw that away.”
She plays that silent game of hers again for a moment. Then she says, “You didn’t strike me as a man who’d admit defeat before he even plays the game.”
I give her an incredulous look. “And you didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d think any of this was a game.”
“Life is a game, Liam. Winning and losing are part of it, and they can both hurt. But we don’t get to experience any of it if we refuse to play.”
Her words are a sucker punch to the soul, but I lean back on the seat and say, “I’m a sore loser.”
“So perhaps I should be sitting here with Otis.”
I have to laugh at her boldness. “You’re threatening me?”
“I’m speaking factually. Our dear Briar deserves to be loved. I’ve made it my mission to find her a partner.” She smiles at me, her whole face leaning into it. All of her wrinkles, I realize, are from forming this smile. Decades’ worth of smiles live on this woman’s face. “I think you’ll find that I am also a sore loser.”
I swear under my breath, pushing the tea away.
“Does it vex you to think about her with another man?”
Vex me?It makes me want to flip the table.
“Sure,” I respond tightly. “But I’ve got no right. She’s not mine.”
She gives me another long look. “Drink your tea, dear.”
“Is this where you drug me, and I wake up in some kind of rehab community for assholes?” I glance down into the teacup. “Because I already tried that. Turns out anger management classes are just full of other angry people.”
“There’s nothing but love and tea leaves in that cup.”
“So youdiddrug it,” I say with a reluctant smile.
“If you choose to see it that way.”
I ignore the tea, my hand tapping the tabletop. “Look. I’m not going out with Briar. I like my balls where they are, and she’s my boss. It’s not happening. But I do want to make sure she has somewhere to go on Christmas. Can you help me with that?”
“Of courseshe’d be welcome to join my partner and me. But, as it happens, I know she already has other plans.”
“Oh?” I ask, feeling like an opponent in the ring has a one-up on me.
“Indeed. I’m sure she’d tell you all about what she’s doing if you were to ask.”
“She’s not going to her parents’ house?”
“No, thank goodness.”
So whereisshe going? Hannah’s gone, and Sophie left for the holidays too.
Otis.
He and his grandmother will probably be in town.
Dottie has been hinting that she thinks Briar might eventually come around to the kid’s obsession with her.
Could she possibly be right?
My mind skips back to the past—to a shitty groove I’ve worn into the record of my life.
Me screwing up with a woman. Another man stepping in with sympathy when it was most needed…
