Page 121 of Best Kind of Trouble
But I can’t. Not yet. She needs to know the truth, dammit.
“I care about you, Briar. I tried not to want you, but some forces are too powerful to be denied. If you’re done with me, I understand—it’s a fucked-up situation, no doubt—but I can’t have you thinking I’ve been talking to other women. You’re the only woman who’s been on my mind. You’realwayson my mind.”
She swipes tears off her cheeks—tears I put there—and it feels like someone has wrenched my heart out of my chest with their bare hand.
“Please, Briar. Please just let me comfort you.”
“Put on some clothes,” she says, her expression hardening, as if I’d offered to fuck her on the kitchen table.
I promised myself not to care what anyone thought of me anymore after I was arrested, but I care what she thinks. I care a lot.
I nod woodenly, then head into the bedroom and tug on the rest of my clothes, my heart beating unevenly in my chest.
She’s going to send me away. Maybe she’ll fire me while she’s at it, not that I give much of a shit about my job at the moment.
She watches me as I emerge from the bedroom, her arms folded. Karma has his paws up on the table so he can get a good look at me too.
I lift my phone out of my pocket. “I want to show you my phone.”
She waves me off when I approach the table.
“Please be fair about this,” I say. “I know you’re fair.”
“Liam,” she says sharply. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Itdoesmatter.”
“No, I believe you about the app. Mostly. I know you wouldn’t offer to show me if you were lying.”
I like that first part, the second part less. “So?”
“It just…helped me realize.” She pauses to take a deep breath. “This was a mistake. I’m not ready, and it would be so messy for us to get involved.”
“Doesn’t feel like a mistake,” I say, a contrarian born and bred. “I want to be with you, Briar.”
She takes a second to digest this, then says, “What about Hannah? What about the brewery?”
“What about it? Don’t you like working together? Because I fucking love it.”
“We shouldonlybe working together,” she says firmly, crossing her arms tighter, as if she’s shielding herself from me. “And you and Hannah are so important to each other. I don’t want to ruin your relationship. I’d hate myself if I did.”
“Sheisimportant to me, but so are you. Please believe me, Briar. I need you to believe in me.”
Her eyes soften for a moment, but then fresh tears drip down her cheeks. Silent tears. “You should leave.”
Hopelessness swallows me. She’s not going to change her mind. Not now. Probably not ever. The last couple of days have felt like a pocket out of time because that’s exactly what they were. I’ll have to return to the life I had before, only now I realize how empty my existence was.
“So you took what you wanted, and now I’m dismissed?” I snap, undoubtedly making shit worse. I’m like a wolf caught in atrap who immediately starts gnawing on his own leg. Except I’m also hurting her.
God, I’m being an asshole. I know what it must have felt like for her to see that stupid app on my phone after what Jonah did to her. I haven’t opened it even once since downloading it. It was my attempt at a safety net—and now it’s my downfall.
But if it wasn’t this, maybe it would have been something else. Maybe my best will never be good enough for anyone.
Hurt ripples across her face. “Youknowit’s not like that. It’s just…it’s better if we stick to the rules.”
“All right.” I back up toward the door. “No hard feelings. You can ask for a fuck anytime you feel like it. Goodbye,boss. I’ll see you at work.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
