Wrong

by Stella Rhys

  She burst out the doors and I followed her out. “Riley, please, I never meant for it to come out like this!”

  “Don’t follow me.” Her voice shook as much as her wobbling legs. “After everything – everything I’ve done for you, Sasha. I stood up for you. I thought you were my real family, but you kept this from me the whole time when you knew I was in love with Liam! I’ve been. You knew that!”

  “I didn’t know that, Riley! I thought it was just a crush, okay?”

  “Fuck you!”

  I heard Liam’s footsteps coming from behind now. He didn’t even have to speak up before she spun around with wild eyes and mascara streaming down her face.

  “Stop! Don’t take another step near me.” Her voice was reedy, but there was an odd calm to it now. “I mean it. You two are fucking disgusting, and you make me literally sick to my stomach, so don’t talk to me again. I don’t want to be anywhere near you two or whatever nasty, twisted affair you’re having. Okay? So fuck off. You deserve each other.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  December had been the busiest month for us last year at The Queen. It was everyone in the city’s last hurrah before buckling down on eating out and spending, thanks to New Years resolutions that would keep till about March – at least according to our sales. Last year, December had been phenomenal for us.

  And within the first week of it this year, the last was already paling in comparison.

  “Shit, how do I still not know which one the lager is?” Aria asked, panicked as she tossed out an IPA and re-poured.

  “All the way right,” I said, wanting to smack A.J for laughing down the bar as he watched his girlfriend struggle with rookie bartending. Aria had never worked a non-gallery job in her life, let alone a restaurant job that required her to put on an apron and polish wine glasses. But for me, she agreed to start her first shift as opening bartender on the busiest week so far this year. She was finding her way, but her first brunch service was on pace to driving her completely insane.

  “Opa!” screamed the group of finance bros when Aria broke her second glass of the hour. I cringed, knowing well that she was absolutely raging behind me. Inside, I was too. I’d worked too long in bars to find “opa” funny or charming, and I was already dealing with a million problems with inventory, scheduling, and my staff fighting my kitchen.

  I needed Riley. Badly. But she wasn’t coming, and I knew that.

  I went eight days after Thanksgiving without hearing from her. I’d given her space for the first four, and forgave the fact that she wasn’t showing up to work. But by the fifth day, I was struggling to pick up her half of responsibilities at the bar, and by the sixth, I started calling. I left messages from the bar number and emailed her from work. I figured she wouldn’t want to talk about the night at Junction, so I tried to at least approach the matter from a business end. None of it worked.

  It wasn’t till yesterday that she showed up to the bar. And to my shock, she waltzed in with my mother.

  “My set of keys. Front door, side, office and safe,” she said, tossing them onto the counter. “We’ll discuss my buyout, but I thought I should tell you in person that I won’t be continuing this venture with you.”

  I was stunned, and surrounded by my staff, I couldn’t think of what to say. Twenty-four hours later, it was still gnawing at me that I’d let my mother get the last word.

  “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,” she said coolly, “but I find you vile, Sasha. You have always been a curse to the lives around you, and I want you to know that the path you’ve chosen won’t lead to happiness. If you really think you’re going to stumble into some happily ever after with Liam, you are shockingly stupid for someone so full of deceit.”

  Boom.

  I tried telling myself her actual words didn’t trouble me – that I was just bothered by having no response. But with the new changes in my life, I wasn’t completely convincing myself. I was drowning in the stress of being understaffed and the suddenly sole owner of my bar, but on top of that, there was Liam’s announcement.

  I should have expected it when I read last week that Damon Walsh had come out of retirement. It would have been bigger news had I not been so swamped by the dramas of my personal life, especially because I heard that he’d spent the last year rehabilitating to nearly full health. I was by no means a fan of Walsh. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been the one to hunt down Liam and start the fateful fight that forced him to leave the sport. But I knew that Walsh’s truncated career had always plagued Liam, and that he’d be in some way relieved by this news. I had been waiting to talk to him about it, but before I did, he revealed to me his decision.

  He’d accepted an invitation to return to the ring for a rematch with Walsh. It would be his first fight in over two years, and according to Liam, it was something he felt he needed – an outlet for the aggression that had accumulated as of late.

  “Because of me?” My voice was so small when I asked that Liam immediately cupped my cheeks and kissed me. He laughed at the look on my face, kissed me again and then murmured an inch from my lips.

  “If I said ‘yes,’ I would hope you’d understand that it doesn’t change anything, particularly the fact that I’ll never love anything in the world more than I love you, Sasha, and that I will do anything to make you happy.”

  “You mean keep me happy, because I already am,” I smiled. To that, he smiled back but said nothing. It was a silence I tried not to overanalyze, and I didn’t for long because a day later, Riley handed me her keys to the bar. So the timeline went from Liam’s fight, Riley’s return with my mother, and this morning, Liam’s official press release. I had read it before it went public. It was short and sweet at four sentences long, so the public response that flooded as a result took us all by surprise.

  Polishing a glass, Aria came over to me. “A.J’s phone. Another text from Max,” she said, flashing me the screen.

  “Good God,” I exhaled. It was an updated picture of the massive crowd on the sidewalk outside Liam’s gym. While some of the people were the usual girls waiting for selfies, most of them on this Saturday morning were members of the press looking for an interview with Liam. As far as I knew, he’d yet to give one, but it didn’t stop the media from churning out dozens, perhaps a hundred articles with headlines ranging from “Cage to Rematch Walsh” to “Cage Gets Cocky About Facing Walsh” – because apparently, silence was equal to nonchalance and disregard.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” Aria had told me all day when giddy regulars came in to show me headlines about Liam, good or bad. I tried to laugh it all off, but my stomach twisted when I recalled the memories of when Liam was an active fighter. His professional career was on and off between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six. Injuries had served as the top reason for a steady rather than meteoric rise, but it didn’t stop the press from hounding him at the gym, especially before and after fights. They wrote articles speculating about everything from his breakfast to his next match to his dating life.

  And for that reason, we were still laying low. It wasn’t the same as before – there were loads of people who knew about us at this point – but all I wanted was to keep my name away from the press and out of the papers.

  “No worries, Sash. We got your back,” Aria said when we sat for staff drinks that night after closing. Her shift finished at four, but I had worked a double and she’d come back to the bar to give my staff the talk that I didn’t have the energy to. “Closing arguments,” she said, raising her beer to the four staffers – my two bartenders and waitresses – who had been present when Riley and my mother came in. “Sash has been your favorite manager for two years running, and she is under a lot of stress lately, and let’s be real, none of you hos even give a rat’s behind about MMA, so please no talking to the press about anything you may have seen or heard recently. Maybe Sasha’s dating a certain someone, maybe she’s not. Regardless, she would appreciate the ever-loving shit out of you a million times more
than she already does if you use discretion and keep her personal life exactly that. And I will… I don’t know what I can do for you guys, ‘cause I’m a really shit bartender, but I’ll… pick up shifts whenever you want a day off? I don’t know, man. Cheers.”

  “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!”

  I laughed as Aria and I raised our beers with my staff. While they pounded their drinks, she and I took little baby sips for good luck, but then escaped down to my office to do more work.

  “You know you’re not getting paid overtime for this, right?” I teased as she sat on my floor marking up resumes while I emailed vendors.

  “Actually, in a way, I am. The sooner we get you one new manager and one new bartender, the sooner we can do that weekend in Vail. ‘Cause I sure as shit am not going alone with A.J. I mean I’d love to, but I need Liam there to physically contain his crazy ass when he decides to like, back-flip cannonball into the pool from the deck.”

  “Fair enough. But… don’t kill me, but I can’t even imagine going on a vacation right now. I feel like I have a million things to tackle, and after I’m done with those things, I have the next million.”

  “Oh, hush. That’s dramatic. And if it’s true, it just means you need a vacation before things get crazy. I mean when’s Liam’s fight with Walsh? March?”

  “Yes. The Fifth.”

  “Yeah, he’s gonna want to get training seriously soon since it’s been two years since he’s been in the ring. And you’re gonna have zero chance for a vacation between now and probably April, which is like five months, which is almost half a year. And considering all the shit you’ve been through, that feels like a long-ass time. So…”

  I turned from my computer to look at her grinning at me from the floor of my office. I snorted. “You are adorably manipulative.”

  “But you love me.”

  “I never said I didn’t.”

  By 4AM, we both decided it was time to finally close up shop for the night. To my relief, Liam was not only awake at home but hanging out with A.J, which meant Aria could share a cab with me back to Liam’s.

  When we stepped into the apartment, she and I burst out laughing at the sight of Liam and A.J lounging on the couch in their sweats, watching HBO and drinking the bottle of Prosecco Aria brought me a couple days ago.

  “We ran out of beer,” A.J explained, wide-eyed. Liam only grinned lazily at me from his corner of the sectional, and with a pat on his chest, beckoned me over to collapse onto him. I didn’t even bother kicking off my boots before going to him and letting myself fall into his arms. A second behind me, Aria did the same with A.J.

  “We’re so beat,” I groaned into his hard chest as he stroked his hand through my hair. “Good training today?” I rested my chin on him and felt my heart swell at the way he gazed down at me.

  “Yeah, baby.” His eyes were sleepy as he studied me for a moment, brushing his thumb over my cheekbone. Our eyes locked in silence, it felt like two seconds of our own private getaway. My stress lately had been more than real, but every night, the second I got home and crawled onto Liam’s chest, the feeling never failed to take me away from it all. “Are you okay?” Liam asked.

  “I’m great,” I said as if the answer was obvious. But in this moment, it was. Since the night of Thanksgiving, our romance had yet to reach that level of stress-free pure bliss, but I reminded myself that if it was a mountain, we’d passed the halfway mark.

  “Well. A.J has news that’ll make you feel even better,” Liam grinned, eyeing A.J from across the couch.

  “Oh yeah.” A.J straightened up as we all looked at him. “You and Liam are coming with me and Aria to Vail on Tuesday. You can try to figure out your staff situation between now and then, or my brothers will help while you’re gone. Tony’s been running my parents’ diner since he was like, twenty-two, and Danny picks up management duties here and there, so yeah. I told them if they help run your bar for three days, I’ll pay them five grand.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “That’s generous, A.J.”

  “I know. It’s also complete fuckin’ bullshit, and they know that, but I’m their baby brother and they have to cater to me.” He tilted his head. “Also, I hook them up with mad girls when we go out,” he said, barely flinching when Aria smacked his chest. “So what do you say, Sash? You want a last hurrah vacation before Liam starts training to crack open Walsh’s head again?”

  “Oh, A.J.”

  “Too soon.”

  He grinned. “Sorry. But come on. We all need this. You and Liam more than anyone, and he’s in, so it’s all on you now, babe. Whattaya say?”

  My eyes fluttered as I tried to process all the information. It honestly felt like the worst time to leave my bar unattended, and I couldn’t help the feeling in my gut that something bad would happen if I let my guard down and relaxed. But laying on a grinning Liam in the living room, in the company of both our best friends, I felt like I couldn’t say anything but yes.

  “I’m in,” I blurted before I could change my mind.

  “Hell yeah!” A.J and Aria cheered at the same time. I looked up at Liam and the both of us snorted before sitting up to toast with the last of the Prosecco.

  “Cheers to good times, good company and true relaxation before shit gets real – in a good way,” A.J said as we brought our drinks up. I met Liam’s eyes as our glasses clinked together and for this toast, I made sure I drank till it was bottoms up.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  As it turned out, relaxing wasn’t horribly difficult in a small ski town, even during peak season. Surrounding us at every turn were snow-topped mountains and massive evergreens that made me feel so comfortably hidden, especially coming straight from the media madness in New York.

  Our flight departed at 8AM but still, the boys squeezed in an early morning workout before we left – “like a bunch of sickos,” as Aria remarked. Within an hour, there were a few media members trying to get past Max and access the gym. Apparently, the papers had quoted Walsh accusing Liam of “lacking competitive spirit” for leaving the sport despite physical health. “He must have some other skeletons in his closet. Shouldn’t be hard at all to get in his head.” That was the exact quote, and because of it, there were media members milling outside the gym at 6AM, waiting for Liam to give them something of a rebuttal. But as usual, he said nothing, and by 7AM, we were aboard our flight to Colorado.

  The morning had been spent snowboarding. Rather, Aria and I skied for a few hours before doing exactly what I’d predicted, waiting for our boys at the mountaintop lodge and throwing back Irish coffees and hot toddies. We laughed when Liam and A.J finally clomped in, carrying their helmets, wearing their goggles on their heads and trailing snow everywhere with their boots. Dressed head to toe in Burton gear, they looked much more like winter sport stars than fighters, and we pretended they were exactly that as we sat in front of the fireplace, occasionally talking to other couples as “Anton” and “Lola.” They were the random names A.J had assigned us “in case of reporters or spies,” which was silly, but even sillier was the fact that Liam and I were still playing that couple by nightfall.

  “In my mind, she wears white fur vests and white Uggs year round,” I said as Liam tried to pull me from the edge of the Jacuzzi back to him. I pouted. “No, stay here. Look at the mountains with me,” I pleaded, gazing over the balcony we had to ourselves since A.J and Aria were long asleep.

  “As long as she wears that and nothing else,” Liam grinned against the back of my neck. I giggled as I gazed out at the endless view with Liam’s strong arms wrapped around me from behind.

  “That can be arranged. She’d probably even cook for you wearing just those furry Uggs. And maybe a matching apron.”

  Liam groaned, pressing his swelling cock against me. “Christ. My imagination’s getting a little too vivid.”

  I reached behind me and stroked his length. “Yeah? What else ya got?”

  “You have me thinking of you in white. What do
you think I got?”

  I peered over my shoulder at him. I wanted to say “shut up” but I was too embarrassed to even imply that he was talking about a wedding dress – in case he wasn’t. He grinned wickedly at my reluctance to speak.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “That you’ll always love torturing me.”

  “Hard not to when you give me those looks.” Pulling me back, Liam took a seat and turned me to face him, spreading my legs over his lap. There was mischief in his green eyes as he took his cock out and wrapped my hand around it. “Say what you were thinking.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “Say it.”

  I bit my lip as I stroked his cock under the water. I felt it twitch just as my lips parted to speak. “A wedding dress,” I finally murmured. The tip of my tongue ran over my teeth when I felt him swell rock solid in my grip. “Oh my God, Liam,” I laughed, shaking my head. He smirked.

  “Hey, my dick doesn’t lie. At least you know I’m telling the truth when I say I want you wearing one for me.”

  I tried to deflect. “You’re a dirty man,” I teased, still stroking him.

  “I’m an honest man,” he countered.

  “Right.”

  “What are your doubts right now?”

  “You telling me that you think about me… in a wedding dress,” I replied dubiously. But the words alone sent a thrill up my spine.

  “I’m telling you that.”

  “Mm-hm. In a classic happily ever after.”

  “Yes. Tell me why you can’t seem to believe it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I laughed. “Probably because I’ve put you through such endless hell that I can’t imagine you have time to think about anything besides your next breath. I gave you so many things to stress over and be angry about that you decided after two years you needed to fight again. Just to let it all out.”