by Hughes, Maya
“I picked it up a little bit here and there.” I wasn’t going to tell him it had been at boarding school. All I needed was an earful from Colm when that made its way back to him. I’d promised him two summers ago that my mixology skills would be on ice until I was officially twenty-one. Grabbing a handful of the mint leaves, I stuck them in the simple syrup. “Good game yesterday.” I kept my eyes trained on the pitcher in front of me.
“You watched?”
“I watch every game you guys play. It’s a compulsion Colm’s drilled into me over the years.” It wasn’t to watch him, though—totally definitely not to watch him.
Ford opened his mouth before snapping it shut. He was a regular chatty Cathy, just like old times.
I went back to work on the drinks.
“How’s school?” His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he rocked back on his heels.
“Why do you want to know?” I lifted an eyebrow and sighed. “It’s going well. Mak’s been helping me study.”
“That’s great. No issues? Nothing upsetting you?”
My gaze narrowed. “Everything’s fine, Ford.” I grabbed the muddler off the counter.
“No guy trouble or anyone giving you problems?” His gaze locked on to mine.
“Nothing to report, inquisitor.” The raspberries met the business end of the short wooden dowel.
“I just wanted to be sure you know if you need anything, you can always ask.”
“Ask who? You? Yeah, right.” This was the most he’d said to me in over a year.
“Of course from me.”
I scoffed. Now he was pissing me off. “You made it clear that I shouldn’t count on you for anything.” The swirling red mess at the bottom of the pitcher looked like a crime scene. There weren’t a lot of people I was close to, and he’d been one of them until suddenly he wasn’t.
“Liv, I never meant—”
My chest tightened, and it was hard to catch my breath. “Can you go now?” I didn’t look up from my work. I was tempted to check his forehead and see if he was running a fever and delirious. Had he gotten his bell rung during the game the night before and I’d missed it?
He let out a deep sigh and left the room.
I stared after him, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. One minute he was running away from me like I had a chronic case of halitosis, and the next he was playing twenty questions.
“You know he’s into you.” Max’s voice broke through the intense fruit-mashing session I had going on.
“Maybe he was once for a split second, but it’s too complicated now.” I glanced over at her. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I squeezed my eyes shut. Even if he was, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. The things Grant had confided in me… We’d gone to the Rittenhouse Prep playground after grabbing a bite to eat. Sitting on the swings, he’d talked about how relieved he was that I’d said yes to the date, about how much he’d always had a crush on me and the worry he’d had about never measuring up against his all-star brother.
I’d dropped my gaze to the wooden mulch covering the ground and hadn’t said anything. He’d figured Ford had already beaten him to the punch in asking me out. Ford had always been the first at everything: state championships, getting dates, going pro. Grant had talked about how he’d always felt like Ford had become the man of the house and he’d been relegated to kid status. I identified with that hardcore.
I had choked back the tightness in my chest and let him know he definitely didn’t have to worry about Ford, said I wasn’t interested anymore. Replaying it over and over in my head, I shook my head at how I’d tried to convince myself through Grant that I was over Ford. Stupidity had had a field day that summer.
Then there was the rocky relationship between Ford and Colm. I didn’t have all the details, but things had been off for a long time—too long. Even if Ford had been an option once, he wasn’t anymore. It was time to button up that old dream and lock it away.
Even if that weren’t enough, he was a hockey player, and I knew that life: puck bunnies throwing themselves at him, always on the road, over eighty games a season. That wasn’t a settled life, all the staticky phone calls, the missed and delayed flights and general mayhem. Even if he wanted me—which he didn’t—what kind of life would that be when I craved stability above all else?
“If you say so, but you didn’t see the way he checked out your ass when he was lurking in the doorway.”
“Right, to make sure I hadn’t accidentally sat in something or gotten dirt on my pants by playing on the monkey bars after school.” I grabbed more raspberries that had escaped my berry massacre and crushed them in the pitcher. Anything to do with Ford was a one-way trip to heartache. Been there, done that, got the jersey.
5
Ford
Real freaking smooth. I resisted slamming my head against the wall.
How was I supposed to be in the same room with her and not watch her? Not think about her laugh? Her lips? Want to feel her pressed against me? Her hair hung in a thick golden braid over her shoulder. She’d only gotten more beautiful, and she hated me. Hell, even I hated me sometimes.
The streak of white hair straight up the back of her head was tucked away in her blonde strands. Colm had the same one through his hair at the front. It was one of the only things that made people believe they were siblings.
When she was standing there in front of me, she wasn’t Colm’s little sister or the girl Grant had had a crush on since third grade. She was Liv, the woman who’d haunted my dreams for so long I’d stopped wanting to wake up because when I opened my eyes, I knew I could never have her. I was the frog and she was the boiling water, slowly turning up the heat, and soon I’d be cooked, which was why I’d pushed her away so hard.
A choir of timers went off with phones buzzing across the table. “Dinner’s ready!” Heath jumped up from his seat and dashed into the kitchen. He was a hell of a cook. Even after eating my mom’s cookies, the smells filling the air had my stomach rumbling.
The guys were so much like family, and I didn’t want to let them down and drive the wedge even further between me and Colm. Easier to stay away and not take the risk. Secrets and lies had a way of coming back at the worst possible moment.
Like Colm’s not-quite fiancée, for one. No one else knew. It was bad enough hooking up with the team owner’s daughter. Sleeping with someone like that was bad news. If I’d known who she was, I wouldn’t have gone near her. Turned out there was more than one reason it was a night I regretted.
Eventually Colm had introduced me to the woman he’d been sneaking around seeing. He had thought it would look bad, sleeping with someone from the opposing team, so he’d kept it quiet, so quiet he hadn’t even told me he was seeing someone. Felicity. A drunken hookup when I was new to the city had turned into one of the worst moments of my life when he opened the door to the restaurant with his girlfriend—her—on his arm.
When her eyes landed on me, they’d gotten so wide and scared. I was the guy she’d fucked in the coat closet of the club after the season opener celebration. Happiness radiated off Colm, and I didn’t say a word. I sat across the table from him, chewing food that tasted like sawdust and keeping my mouth shut. I couldn’t break his heart like that, not for a one-time thing.
She begged me not to tell him, promised me it would never happen again. I should have said something, should have told him right then and there, but the ultimatum I’d given my dad when I was a kid had come roaring back. He’d broken my mom’s heart. I’d heard her crying behind closed doors after the divorce. I’d wanted to spare Colm that, but turned out I’d only made it worse.
“Are you casing the place? Sit down—you’re making us nervous.” Emmett dragged the chair beside him out from the table and motioned for me to sit. Pushing off the wall, I dragged my fingers through my hair. I dropped into the seat. Declan slid a glass of bourbon across the table to me.
“It looks like you could use that.” He dr
opped into a chair on the other side of the table and looked over our shoulders into the kitchen. “What’s going on with you and Liv?” His eyes bored into mine.
I lifted the crystal tumbler to my lips to buy myself some more time. The sweet and smoky burn shot down my throat.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, dude. This is us you’re talking to, and Colm isn’t here.” Emmett peered over his shoulder into the kitchen where bodies crisscrossed in front of the doorway.
“There’s nothing to tell. I’m keeping my distance. All is right with the world.”
“If nothing’s going on, why would you need to keep your distance?” Declan’s gotcha smirk made me want to throw something at him.
“You can tell us.” Emmett dropped his voice. “We saw you two at the wedding. Avery and I saw you kiss her.” His whispered words sent a shock through my body. Bourbon sloshed onto my hand, and the smoky aftertaste of my drink turned sour in my mouth.
I gripped the edge of the table. “It was a mistake.” My jaw tightened, and I slammed my lips together. Could everyone else hear my heart pounding? Or was that the blood thrumming in my ears and drowning out everything else after the words I saw you kiss her?
My moment of weakness… Being so close to her with tears swimming in her eyes, I hadn’t been able to walk away. I should have found Colm and told him Liv was upset instead of rushing out of the wedding reception after her. The tears had done me in, and I’d been the one to put them in her eyes again later that damn night.
She was my weakness. It was so easy to give in, but that dam bursting would flood the plains, drown my oldest friendship, and leave nothing behind.
“Dude, chill the hell out. You look like you’re going to blow a blood vessel. We’re not going to rat you out or anything—or does Colm already know? Is that why things have been so…weird?” Emmett stared at me like I could clue him in to what was going on, but I couldn’t.
I took a deep breath and ran my hand over my face. “No, he doesn’t know. That’s not why things are…weird.” I rubbed my hands along the sides of my glass, the cool condensation doing nothing to beat back the heat rising along the back of my neck. “The kiss”—I licked my dry-as-ash lips—“was a one-time thing. She was upset.”
“Makes perfect sense—you decided to calm her down with your tongue?” Declan laughed from the other side of the table.
I shot him a glare that would melt steel, and he did his best clam impersonation. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as the ceiling became the most interesting part of the room.
“Listen, no judgment. She’s been crushing on you since forever.”
I squeezed the back of my neck. “That’s part of the problem. It’s like a habit for her, ingrained back when she was a preteen. I’m not about to be the guy going after a teenager.”
“But she’s not a teenager anymore. She’ll be twenty-one in a couple of months. If she’s into you and you’re into her, what’s the problem?” Declan leaned back in his seat like it was that easy.
“What about Colm?” He’d treated her like Bubble Boy since their parents died. She’d been a kid then, but he thought he could protect her after one of the worst things that could happen to a kid had already ripped away any sense that the world was a safe place.
Emmett took a swig from his glass. “He realizes she needs to grow up sometime, right?”
“I’m not going to be the one to break that to him. You remember the beach house.” My stomach turned.
Coming back from our guys fishing trip three summers ago, we’d walked into the house and right into Liv coming down the stairs with some guy. It had been bad enough sharing a room with her and Colm, but watching her run around in bikinis and sleep shorts had been straight-up torture.
Walking into the house as she slipped the strap of her tank back up with that fucker coming down the stairs behind her, I had wanted to break something. I had no right to dictate anything about who she wanted to date, kiss, or do anything else with, but it had killed me nonetheless.
“Emmett probably doesn’t remember because he was grudge-fucking Avery in the back bedroom.”
Emmett jumped across the table, rocketing a fork straight at Declan’s head. Declan dodged the flying utensil, which clattered against the wall.
“Hey, no denting the walls. This is a new place.” Heath walked out of the kitchen with a huge dish in his oven-mitted hands. A steady flow of food followed behind him, and Liv carried a pitcher.
“Is everyone having mojitos?” She rattled the container.
“That’s a silly question—of course we are!” Avery yelped as Emmett tugged her down onto his lap, nearly toppling over the tray of glasses. “Em, hands off. I’m carrying glassware.” She laughed and kissed the side of his face.
The table turned into a scene of chaos and mayhem as everyone lunged for the food, trying to secure the biggest piece of chicken parmesan. The ladies ducked out of the way, protecting their drinks from the encroaching horde.
Liv poured more of the red and pink mixture into everyone’s cups, ducking and dodging flying limbs. She stood at my end of the table. “Did you want one?”
Lifting my glass, I held it out to her. She wrapped her hand around my cup, our fingers brushing against each other. I jerked my hand back though I wanted to slip it under hers and feel her palm pressed against my skin. It was death by a thousand looks and touches.
Her gaze bounced around the room, trying to find another seat, any seat other than the open one to my right. There weren’t any. Pinching her lips together, she took it, every muscle in her body tensed like I might pounce on her at any second.
Easy conversation flowed around me as the gentle brush of her leg against mine every couple of minutes sent a pulsing throb through my body.
The food in the serving dishes was piled high even after the chicken parm bandits had their fill. Heath always cooked for a small army, which was saying something when he was cooking for pro athletes. They’d have leftovers for weeks.
“Heath, if you weren’t such a good hockey player, I’d say you have a future as a chef.” Avery patted her stomach, and Emmett nuzzled her neck. They were just as vomit-inducing as they’d been back in high school.
“Can I have another one, Liv?” Mak shook her glass in the air and smacked her lips. Declan plucked it out of her hand.
“You’ve already had two.”
“I can handle it.” She smacked her lips together again, and Declan shook his head.
“Liv, how about some virgin ones? Otherwise I’ll be on hair-holding duty tonight.” He wrapped his fingers around her reddish curls and held them back from her face. She stuck her tongue out and batted his hands away. Grabbing her glass away from him, Mak held it out to Liv, who poured her half a glass.
“Ready for dessert?” The new addition, Max, hopped up from the table and disappeared back into the kitchen. A second later she came back balancing the two-tiered cake with gold and blue designs on it, everyone oohing and aahing at the intricate details. The gold icing reminded me of Liv’s hair, shimmering and breathtaking.
Max shrugged and tucked her turquoise hair behind her ear. It matched the icing. “This is a practice cake. I needed to make sure I could get the flowers right.”
“I don’t want to cut it.” The look on Kara’s face was straight-up distress. “How can you cut this? It’s so beautiful.” Her fingers ghosted along the edge of the edible flowers piled on top.
Without warning, a huge knife sliced through all the delicate petals. Max wielded it like the cake had slapped her mother. “It tastes better than it looks.”
“But…we didn’t even get to take a picture.” Kara glanced up at Max like she’d taken a club to a baby seal in her dining room.
“You get used to it.” Avery laughed, holding out her plate for a slice. “Max makes the most beautiful desserts and loves to watch the world burn when she destroys them.”
“What can I say? I’m a rebel.” Max rolled her eyes and
continued cutting and doling out the pieces to everyone at the table. “Cakes are meant to be eaten. They’re pretty things to look at and then they go away.” With everyone served, she sat down and dug into her slice.
Liv inhaled her piece.
“Someone grab the plate before she accidentally eats it,” Heath called out before shoving another forkful of cake into his mouth.
Liv ran her finger across the plate to catch every last bit of chocolate.
“Wow.” The word was out before I could stop it.
She glanced up at me like a deer in headlights. Her cheeks turned beet red, and her eyes narrowed.
“It’s really good.” Chocolate coated her teeth and covered the side of her cheek.
“You’ve got some cake on your face.” I pointed to the spot.
She picked up a napkin and wiped at it, spreading it even more.
“Gone?” She stuck out her chin, turning to Kara to give her a better look. Before Kara could say anything, I jumped in.
“No, right here.” I pointed to the same spot on my face.
Her gaze darted back to mine, and she hesitated, like speaking another word to me pained her. She rubbed the napkin and smeared even more along her skin.
“Is there chocolate on the napkin? You’re making it worse.” I laughed and held out a fresh napkin.
Her lips pressed together in a firm line. Like my hand was a bear trap, she took it from my hands. The temptation to wipe away the chocolate with my fingers had me squeezing my fist against my leg under the table. With the way she looked at me, she’d have stabbed me with the fork if I’d done it—not that I’d blame her.
After a few more wipes, she was chocolate-free and I was locked in a cage match with what I knew I should do and what I’d wanted to do since the first time I kissed her. There were two things I knew: I’d have to win back her trust to get her to open up to me, and that was the last thing I should do. Opening up to her was a one-way ticket to something I’d regret, and I didn’t know if I could stop myself again if I went hurtling down that path.