by Aly Martinez
Me: Where ya at?
His reply came almost immediately.
Quarry: I’m about to get in the ring… You okay?
I got out of my car and checked up and down the street. His Porsche was pretty hard to miss though, and as suspected, I came up empty.
I racked my brain, trying to remember if there was possibly anywhere else he could have been getting in the ring, but like before, I came up empty again.
Me: I’m fine. Are you at the gym?
Quarry: Yeah, babe. You need something? I need to get my gloves on.
My heart sank, and the backs of my eyes stung.
But my fingers didn’t move to type my reply. I could only blink at the screen.
I reread his message a dozen times, and each time I typed a different response. Some were concerned. Some were snarky. And, admittedly, some were even jealous.
I deleted them all.
This was Quarry. He didn’t lie to me.
Me: What gym?
Quarry: My gym. Do you NEED something? I have to go.
My nose burned, and my stomach wrenched. I was so confused that I didn’t even know what conclusion to jump to. And, God, did I want to jump to some conclusions. My mind raced with a million different scenarios. Some good, like maybe he was planning another over-the-top date for us. Some bad, like he was having an early morning breakfast with one of his random girls he’d sleep with after fights. Some really bad, like maybe he was having second thoughts about us and needed some time alone to figure out a way to let me down easy.
It had to be something big though. Quarry Page was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. I decided not to beat around the bush.
Me: Yes. I need to know why the hell you’re lying to me.
Quarry: About what?
I laughed, not finding one single solitary thing funny. Quickly losing my patience with the entire exchange, I clicked out of my messages and dialed his number. My anxiety was climbing rapidly in expectation of a straight answer.
Panic hit me like a brick wall when I got his voicemail.
My phone pinged in my hand almost immediately.
Quarry: Text. I don’t have my hearing aids in. I’m about to get in the ring!
I was already clinging by a thread to sanity, but that damn exclamation point pushed me right over the edge. Clenching my teeth, I quickly typed another message.
I should have deleted it.
I hit send.
Me: You fucking liar!
Quarry: Excuse me?
Me: You have two seconds to tell me the truth.
Quarry: About what? And for the record, you call me a fucking liar again, I’m turning my goddamn phone off.
Yeah, that just infuriated me even more. He was lying to me. He didn’t get to make the threats.
Me: Wow! Wouldn’t that be convenient for you? You know, FOR THE RECORD, you jump out of bed with me, lie to me about where you are, and then threaten to turn your phone off…a girl can get certain ideas.
Quarry: Oh yeah, Rocky? What the fuck kinda ideas you getting?
Me: Tell me where you are?
Quarry: No, I’d really rather hear about these ideas. Because it sounds a hell of a lot like you’re accusing me of something.
Me: Where are you?
Quarry: I was supposed to be getting into the ring, but now I’m standing here fighting with my girl like a pussy-whipped punk.
My hands were shaking, and I was fighting back tears. Quarry and I didn’t fight. We bickered. We made fun of each other. I rolled my eyes at him. I made fun of him. He laughed at me. This entire exchange was not how we communicated. It was different, and not in a good way.
Me: Look at us. You promised me we wouldn’t change. You PROMISED me.
I was typing another message to tell him that I was at On The Ropes when his incoming FaceTime lit my phone up.
“What’s going on?” he asked before the picture came into view. His voice was stilted, but not angry.
I turned the phone to the On The Ropes sign as my answer.
When I looked back at the screen, he was sporting an endearing grin. “Ah, well, I’m not at that gym, Rocky.” He lifted his phone and did a quick spin, showing a small gym barely big enough to hold a ring and a few hanging bags.
“I can see that,” I signed with one hand.
He chuckled. “I need you to trust me right now.”
I used the corner of my T-shirt to wipe under my eyes. “I’m trying!” I exclaimed.
He read my lips. “Well, try harder.”
I rolled my eyes. If he only knew.
“Now, stop freaking out. Hang up. I’m gonna send you an address. Come straight here. And I’m gonna warn you: You’re probably going to freak when you get here, but take a deep breath and do it anyway.” He smiled teasingly. “Stop crying, crazy. We’re good.” His dimple danced on the screen, easing my nerves.
I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Hurry up. I have an asshole to kill in two months. I actually do need to work out today.” He laughed before ending the call.
I was still trying to collect myself when my phone pinged with an address.
I recognized it immediately.
Quarry had been wrong; I didn’t even need to arrive before I started freaking out again.
IT WAS COLD AS BALLS, but I was sitting on the front steps when her car pulled through the security gate I’d left open. The last few weeks had been a crazy roller coaster of emotions, and this moment right here was either going to be the highest of highs or yet another terrifying low. Who the hell knew with Liv though? She’d been all over the place recently. I never would have guessed that she would have flipped out the way she had when she’d realized I wasn’t at On The Ropes. The jealous bit was usually my thing. And that was the only reason I’d calmed down while we had been texting. I hated the way she’d reacted. But I fucking loved the idea of Liv getting all cavewoman possessive over me. I would have acted way worse if I’d thought she was lying to me, so I had to cut her some slack.
Plus, it’d damn near broken me when she’d called me out on the nothing-changes-between-us promise I’d made her. I refused to fail on the very first test, even if it meant spilling a secret I’d been hiding for several years.
When she cut the engine, I stood up and walked over to her. Pulling her door open, I found her just as I’d expected—scared as fuck. It made me an asshole, but I laughed.
“Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that,” I said. Taking her hand, I helped her from the car.
“This isn’t the gym,” she said, craning her head back to look into my eyes.
Throwing an arm around her shoulders, I curled her into my side and strolled up the front steps. “Nope.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief until I pushed the front door open.
Then she got all kinds of stiff.
Her hands flew to her mouth, and she gasped my name.
The house was a fucking mess. My shit was everywhere. Boxes upon boxes of products my sponsors had sent over sat unopened in the massive foyer. One side of the split staircase was lined with my shoes that no longer fit in my closet at our apartment. The other side served as a filing cabinet for all the paperwork, news clippings, and fan mail I didn’t know what to do with. I had a cleaning lady who came in every two weeks, but even she didn’t know how to organize a virtually empty six-point-four-million-dollar house that was being used as nothing more than a glorified storage unit.
“Soooo.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I was kinda hoping to get things cleaned up before showing you this place.”
Her face had paled. “Did…did you buy this?”
Pressing a kiss to the top of her hair, I mumbled nervously, “I did. You still like it?”
She quickly stepped out from under my arm, heading directly to the huge living room that ran the length of the house, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the large backyard nestled against a private lagoon. It was the room she couldn
’t stop talking about when we’d first looked at the place years earlier. I swear she and the realtor had fully decorated that room before we’d even stepped foot into the rest of the place.
When I’d first walked into that house, I’d had zero intentions of buying it. It was nearly twice what I’d wanted to spend and about ten times bigger than I’d ever need. It was a home in every sense of the word. The kind you raised a family in. The kind Till had bought for Eliza the minute he’d had the money. The kind Flint had bought for Ash even while she had still been running away from him. The kind a bachelor like me had no business even looking at.
But, for some inexplicable reason, after I’d seen Liv’s excitement as she’d raced from one end to the other, sucking the oxygen out of each room as she’d oh’d and ah’d, I’d put in an offer the same night.
I had been confident when I’d bought the place, but now, watching her exploring the room—running her hand over the back of our old couch, which appeared miniscule in the massive space—I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“When?” she whispered.
I drew in a sharp breath. “Two years ago.”
Her confused eyes immediately lifted to mine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. Remember when we came to look at it a second time and I asked you which bedroom you’d pick?”
Her hand slapped over her mouth, and her face turned sad in understanding. “Oh, God. You’d already bought it?”
I nodded. “Yep. I’d signed the contracts not even an hour before you informed me you weren’t moving into a house with me.” I laughed at the memory. “You said it would be weird for us to continue living together…especially after I’d bought a house. Funny thing is I’ve only recently realized that ‘it’s weird’ is your go-to phrase when you freak out. If I’d known back then, I would have pushed harder.”
“It would’ve been weird.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Says the woman who’s still freaking out.”
She rolled her eyes and then moved to the windows at the far end of the room. “Living in an apartment together was one thing, but buying a house together. Quarry, it was too much.”
After following her to the windows, I stopped at her side but shoved my hand in my pocket to keep from looping it around her waist. “It wasn’t too much for us. It was too much for you.”
Her voice was thick with regret. “That’s probably the truth.”
An awkward silence fell between us, and I swiftly pulled my phone out and turned a playlist on. Propping it on the edge of the window, I gave her the time she needed to process it all. But I didn’t allow her to do it in silence.
Her face turned soft, and her hand caught my elbow, tugging my hand from my pocket before intertwining our fingers in unspoken gratitude.
We must have stood in front of that window for at least ten minutes. Watching her closely out of the corner of my eye, I squeezed her hand reassuringly when I felt her emotions build.
Finally, she asked the window, “Why didn’t you leave? You bought this gorgeous house but spent the last two years in a cheap two-bedroom apartment.”
“You,” I told the same window.
She shook her head and dropped her chin to her chest. “That’s insane.”
It wasn’t. Not knowing what I knew now. I might not have been fighting the need to strip Liv naked all those years ago, but I’d loved her all the same. And living without her hadn’t been an option.
I cleared my throat and sighed. “I couldn’t sleep that night. As naïve as it sounds, I’d never actually stopped to consider the possibility that you wouldn’t move with me when we started house shopping. You were—are—a huge part of my life. I was still in a bad place back then, and I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own.”
She swung her head to look at me, but I squeezed her hand and kept talking to the window.
“I paced the hall all night long, eventually waking you up to bullshit about something. I can’t even remember what it was, probably boxing or something equally as stupid to be discussing at two a.m. But, as usual, you gave me a grand pep talk and sent me to my room feeling better than ever.” I paused to look at her. “After that, I decided to move. You made me realize that, whether you came with me or not, you would always be there for me. Only a phone call away, right?” I smiled painfully.
Liv didn’t respond, but she tugged her fingers from mine and sidled closer until her front was pressed into my side. I soothed a hand up her back and sifted it into her long, brown hair.
Kissing the top of her head, I murmured, “I woke up three hours later to find you in my bed.”
Her shoulders jerked. “I…” She rocked back a step, but I tightened my grip in her hair and refused her the space.
“It’s okay. I’ve known for years. And, if you want to know my secret, I used to pray every night that I’d find you there. It was the only time I really slept.”
She buried her face in my chest and mumbled something I couldn’t make out, but I didn’t ask for clarification.
“That’s when I decided I couldn’t leave you. I still have no idea what comfort I offered you by just being there in the middle of the night, but after everything you had done for me, I knew I’d never take that away from you.”
With a gentle tug, I tipped her head back and forced her gaze to mine. Her eyes searched my face nervously, looking anywhere but at my eyes.
“If you need it, I want to be the one to give it to you, Liv. I felt that way then, and I feel it even more now. So I stayed.”
When her eyes landed on my mouth, I offered her my most charming smile, being sure to pop the dimple I knew she loved so much.
“It wasn’t exactly a hardship. I hate that apartment, but I’d have taken up residence on a park bench if that’s where you were.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and a single tear rolled from the corner. I brushed my lips against her mouth, letting them linger without actually kissing her. Her body slacked in my arms as our breaths mingled between us. Sucking in deeply, I reveled in the feeling of more than just my lungs being filled. The hollowness I had been carrying my entire life vanished with every inhale.
“I gutted the guesthouse to make a gym. I come here a lot when I need to be alone. I wasn’t lying to you about that, but you’re right. I am a liar,” I admitted on a whisper.
Her eyes popped open.
“I could stay in that apartment with you for the rest of my life, but I started to worry that, one day, you’d want to move out on me.”
“What are you talking about?” She pushed on my chest.
I pushed back—with my lips.
She struggled for only a scant second before she melted. Our tongues tangled together. Slanting my head, I took it deeper, forcing a soft moan from her throat. My cock thickened between us, and Liv inched closer to press against it.
I was ready to throw her down and take her on the floor when she suddenly backed away.
“What have you been lying about?”
I groaned at her retreat, rushing forward, not stopping until her tight body was once again flush with mine. Lifting her off her feet, I walked to the couch and confessed, “I pay you shit as my assistant. Seriously, it’s near criminal. But, if I’d paid you what you deserved, there’s no way you would have stayed in our apartment with me. I couldn’t risk you leaving.”
A flash of relief hit her face, and then her lips tipped up, brushing against mine as she murmured, “I buy all of my shoes on your credit card.”
I nipped at her bottom lip and gently lowered her to the couch. “I know. Which is why I haven’t been eaten alive by guilt over the years.”
She giggled then gasped as I settled on top of her, my hard-on landing at the junction between her legs.
“Goddamn it, I hate when you wear jeans. How about you use my card to buy some fucking winter dresses?”
“I can do that,” she replied, tugging my shirt off.
Sitting up, I peeled the shirt over her hea
d and made fast work of stripping her jeans and panties down her legs and then removing my workout pants before moving back on top of her.
Her mouth landed on mine as I shifted to my side and squeezed my large frame into the back of the couch, my hand immediately diving between her legs. Her hips writhed as I alternated between gliding through her folds and circling her clit.
“Please,” she moaned into my mouth.
She was drenched by the time I gave in and pressed a single digit into her tight heat. Her mouth disengaged from mine as her head flew back on a strangled cry.
Her dark nipples tightened as her hips bucked against my hand. I temporarily quelled her need by adding another finger, but it came with a price.
“Say you’ll move in here with me,” I ordered.
“Quarry,” she breathed, circling her hips off the couch when my hand stilled.
“After that shit last night, I don’t feel safe with you in that apartment anymore.” I nuzzled her with the stubble on my jaw, feeling her breathy mews breeze across my skin. “I want you here, behind a security system and a gate.”
“Please,” she whined. “We can talk after you fuck me.”
She was right. But that wasn’t the way I was playing this. Without a doubt, she was going to fight me, but after my dream, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was taking no for an answer. I’d been in a cold sweat all fucking morning, trying to figure out how I could keep from failing her again. I hadn’t been planning to tell her about the house yet, but maybe her finding out the way she had was a sign from whichever god I hadn’t pissed off yet.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I twisted my hand and again found her clit with my thumb. “Say you’ll move in here. This is different than the last time. We’re together. We’re starting a life. I need peace of mind that you’re safe.”
“It’s too soon,” she cried, rocking herself against my hand. “Please, Q. I need to feel you inside me.”
I rolled on top of her, spreading her legs to accommodate my hips. Poising myself at her entrance I demanded, “Move in here with me.”