Page 110 of Best Kind of Trouble
“I don’t know,” I whisper, my voice ragged and full of anguish. “I don’t know.”
He gives me a smile filled with so much pain I almost burst into tears. “I shouldn’t have come here, Briar. I just wanted you to know that the other night meant something to me.”
He pulls away and gets to his feet, turning toward the door. But he only makes it one step away before I quite literally throw myself at him.
“You can’t walk home from here. No way.”
He smiles as if I’d said something cute. “No one’s going to mess with me. The walk will sober me up the rest of the way. I drank too much with Otis.”
“You drank with Otis?” I ask, stunned. “Is he still alive?”
He barks a laugh. “I didn’t say we went drink for drink.”
“What were you doing with Otis? I thought…”
I thought he’d holed up to brood about Julia, and that coming here was an afterthought.
“I was looking for you. Dottie said something that made me think you’d be there. You weren’t, obviously, but he and his grandmother asked me to stay, and I figured…” He lifts one big shoulder. “Maybe it was worth trying to be a guy who says yes to things like that.”
My confused and broken heart tries to make sense of this.
He went there looking for me. He wantedme. Maybe he even got drunk because of me instead of Julia.
“Otis is crazy about you too, you know,” Liam says. “You’re not alone, Briar. We’re all behind you. We’re all invested in making the brewery work. You’ve made us want it as much as you do.”
My eyes fill with tears. All my life, I’ve longed to hearthose words. It’s still hard to trust them, but I want to stuff them into my soul and keep them forever. I want to keephim.
“And I’ve got your back,” I insist. “You’re not leaving.” I position myself firmly between him and the door.
He gives me the wry look of a man who could move me as easily as most people could move a barking Chihuahua.
“Don’t make me put my new gloves on,” I warn. “I had a pretty good boxing teacher.”
He smiles then—a real smile. “You got them?”
“I’ve been sleeping with them,” I admit, feeling those hot tears still pressing at my eyes.
“I should’ve gotten you a stuffed animal instead.”
“No.” I plant my palm on his warm, hard chest. “I love them. I’m just upset because I didn’t get you anything.”
He tips my chin up. “You honestly think you didn’t get me anything? You gave meeverything. Before you burst into my life, I was stuck in a dead-end job, just surviving. You’ve made me feel alive again.”
I place my other palm beside the first. I can’t let him leave. I can’t. It feels like my world will end if he walks out that door. “You’re staying here tonight. I want you to hold me.”
“The gloves weren’t doing the trick?”
“No. I need you.”
Those words are so hard for me to say to anyone, especially to a man. Jonah took my need and twisted it against me, but I know Liam would never do that purposefully. Liam is good and loyal and strong, and everything Jonah only pretended to be.
“We should stay away from each other until we decide what to do,” he says, his eyes conflicted.
“I won’t let you get past me. I’m unrelenting when I have a goal. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t need to ask anyone.” He holds my gaze, and the warmth I see in his eyes fills me with wonder. “I’vewatched you. I’ve seen the way you’ve stepped up. You’re fucking remarkable in every way.”
“Stay,” I say again, one more time, my voice cracking.
