Fearless King

by Hughes, Maya

  “What did he do? What the hell could he have done to drive this wedge between you two?”

  Colm’s fiery gaze dropped from Ford’s to mine. “He slept with my fiancée.”

  Things slowed down. If there had been a hummingbird in the room, I had no doubt I’d have seen every flap of its wings.

  My head whipped around, and I stared into the horror-filled gray-brown eyes I thought I knew so well. “You slept with Felicity?” If Colm had told me this was Ford’s evil doppelgänger who’d gotten rid of the real Ford years ago, I couldn’t have been more shocked.

  I jerked my hand back from his chest. His fingers wrapped around my wrist to keep me put. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know who she was.”

  My voice shot up an octave. “How could you not know?”

  “I didn’t know he was dating her.”

  “But once you found out, did you tell me? Did you confess the whole thing and come to me asking for forgiveness?”

  Ford dropped his head as his grip on my wrist tightened. My chest burned like I’d been drowning and kicking for the surface, dying for a gasp of air.

  “No, I didn’t tell you.”

  “You’d have kept that a secret and let me marry her. I trusted you.” Colm’s gaze bounced back to me. “But I can see once again that trust was misplaced.”

  “Felicity wasn’t my fault. How many times do I have to apologize? She promised me it was a lapse in judgment, a one-time thing, said it would never happen again. You were so happy.”

  “Happy in a lie! It should’ve been my choice. Instead I had to find out from someone else, sitting there with humiliation burning in my gut as some other guy talked about you two sleeping together.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “And then I ask you to figure out what’s going on with Olive and not only are you sleeping with her, but she’s not going to medical school? You can’t help but fuck up my life.”

  Their words volleyed back and forth. My chest was so tight it was like someone had slipped me into the jaws of a vise, but then the words finally registered.

  I snatched my hand from Ford’s grip.

  “Seems he’s good at keeping some secrets after all—secrets where he’s covering his own ass.” Colm seethed behind me. If he could have breathed fire, I’d have ducked for cover.

  I stared up at Ford in disbelief. “You told him about med school?”

  35

  Ford

  They were the words I’d known were coming. Secrets balanced on top of lies, sprinkled with omissions—it had only been a matter of time before the crash. They clattered to the ground around me, leaving splintered shards scattered all over my life.

  Liv looked back at me like she was seeing me with new eyes, and why wouldn’t she? I’d slept with her brother’s fiancée. I’d gotten her plastered all over social media and told her brother the one secret she’d needed to tell him herself.

  “I didn’t mean to. I was trying to show him how the pressure he was putting on you was driving you away.”

  “You think you know what she needs more than me.” Colm slammed into her back, coming for me, nearly toppling her over into me.

  I grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. “Yes! You keep trying to shove her into this twelve-year-old-sized hole in the old life you had, and it won’t work anymore. She’s an adult. She deserves to live a life that makes her happy.”

  “You two stop talking about me like I’m not here.” She shoved both of us away and stepped back. “It wasn’t your place to tell him.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists in front of my face, slamming them into my forehead. “I know. I was trying to tell him that he was pushing you away, that you love him but this pressure he’s putting on you is making you so unhappy. It slipped out.”

  “That slips out but you can’t tell me I’m about to marry someone who’d cheat?”

  “And how would that have gone down, Colm? You finally tell me about the girl you’ve been secretly dating. You’re happier than I’ve ever seen you and I show up at that table and…what? I tell you what? That she’s a cheater? You’d have wanted to know how I knew, and I’d have had to confess that to you, would have had to break the heart of my best friend. You’d have never forgiven me.” My voice was raw as the words tumbled out, choking me.

  Colm glared and paced. At that moment a pin drop would have sounded like a jet engine.

  Liv stared at me like I was a different guy than the one she’d wrapped around last night, like I wasn’t the person she thought I was, and maybe I wasn’t.

  “Last night, you could have told me. When I was going on and on about having that talk with him, you could have told me you’d already said something.” Liv’s hurt echoed in her voice.

  “Last night—” Colm froze with his hand halfway in his hair. Every muscle in his body went rigid, and then something snapped. He rushed forward. “It was you. The video…the video all over social media last night—it was you.” He held out his shaking hand to Liv.

  She shied away, dropping her chin to her shoulder like she’d been smacked.

  “Are you trying to completely fuck up her life?” Colm roared at me before rounding on Liv. “Are you trying to screw up your life? Is this your way of making sure you don’t get into med school? A sex tape?”

  “It wasn’t a sex tape. You can barely see anything. You didn’t even know it was me until now.”

  “What would Mom and Dad think if they were here? How would you explain it to them?”

  She jerked back and stared at him wide-eyed. Shaking her head, she threw her hands up. “I’d probably schedule an appointment and wait a week just to have them cancel it on me and never even notice.”

  “Is this your way of getting back at them? Of getting back at me?”

  “Back at you for what? You’re my brother and I love you, but I just want to live a life I love. I want to do something that makes me happy. Why is that so hard to understand?”

  Colm spun around and shoved his hands into his hair. “If you do this, if you don’t go to med school, and whatever this thing is with Ford—if you do this…” He stared at her over his shoulder. “I’m cutting you off.” Turning, he crossed his arms over his chest like his word was the end of the discussion. I’d never wanted to see this ugly, controlling side of him, but I supposed it had always been there. He’s only ever been supportive of his dreams for Liv. She’d hidden such a huge part of her life from him. He talked about her dancing like a throwaway thing that didn’t matter, but it mattered to her.

  She made a sound like someone had hit her right in the chest. I’d heard that sound before when I took a puck straight to the solar plexus. “This is my life.”

  I stepped in between them. “Don’t do this, man.”

  “I’m not going to let her ruin her life and throw away everything she’s worked for—we’ve worked for over the years.”

  “I know you feel guilty, but her going to med school isn’t going to bring your parents back.” In the dark days after the funeral, he’d nearly buckled under the intense guilt that clawed at him. It wasn’t only the pain of losing a parent. I’d seen that pain cutting deep into Liv, but Colm’s was different. His was guilt, and I knew it because I’d felt the same kind of crushing guilt before.

  “This doesn’t concern you. This is between me and my family, me and Liv.” His jaw popped.

  “You’re not going to have a family left if you keep pushing her like this. Let her make her own choices.” I went toe to toe with him. Colm trying to resurrect their parents through Liv would crush her. She already had so much to deal with without him trying to fix something that could never be fixed. We stared each other down, breath coming out like two charging animals ready to tear each other apart.

  “A choice I’m perfectly capable of making myself.”

  We both glanced to the side at the sound of her voice.

  Liv stood at the foot of the steps to my bedroom fully d
ressed, and the backpack on her shoulder made my heart plunge straight to the pits of despair. Her gaze burned into mine. “I told you everything, all the ugly little things I’d hidden away or kept locked up, and you kept this from me.” She lifted her chin. “I asked you directly what happened between you two, and you shrugged it off. Then you go and tell Colm about med school before I can tell him. After last night, I thought we could handle anything as a team, but I can’t trust you.” Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “And Colm, I can’t be who you want me to be. Killing myself to follow in the footsteps of two people who never thought we were worthy of their attention…I can’t live with that in the back of my head anymore. If you want to cut me off, fine. I’ll do it myself.”

  “You can do it; you can be a doctor. Just stick to what we told them we’d do. We made promises to them, Liv.”

  “I was in the hospital, too, right there beside you, but you can’t expect me to follow a plan created back when I was a kid.”

  “I can. Don’t make me do this.”

  “You’re doing this. You both are. Looks like you two are a hell of a lot closer than you thought. You both think you’re the only one who knows what’s best for the people you claim to love.” She stared into my eyes with a pain and hurt that lashed at my skin, and then there was nothing but blank space where she’d stood.

  Colm rounded on me the second the door slammed shut. “You did this.”

  “You did this to yourself.” My blood pounded in my veins like a cascading rapid. “And now she’s gone.” I gritted my teeth and met his eyes fire for fire.

  “I asked you to do one thing, and you couldn’t even do that.”

  “I’m sick of apologizing for things I’m not to blame for. Should I have told you about Felicity? Yes, but sleeping with her wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know she was with you. You kept your relationship from me. If I had known, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near her. Since then, it’s been a string of failed relationships for you. You say it’s because you have trust issues, but maybe it’s because you’re finding the exact type of women you deserve. You’re an asshole who just cut off the only family he has because of some obsession with fulfilling the dreams of your parents who are long gone.

  “They are gone. There’s nothing you and Liv can do to bring them back. She needs you. You’re the only family she’s got. Don’t do this.” I dropped my hand onto his stooped shoulders.

  He shook off my hold. “You don’t think I know that? I have a responsibility, though. I promised them she’d be safe, promised them I’d protect her, and look what I come back to. She wants to teach dance.” He spat the words like nails splitting wood. “She wants to be with you, a friend I can’t even trust to not bang her in public?”

  I clenched my fists at my side. “It was a mistake, something I’ll regret for the rest of my life, but it was a mistake I’ll never make again. I love her, man.”

  There was a split second where his eyes lit up, and I thought maybe that had been all he needed to hear: that this wasn’t some fling between me and her, that I loved her with all my heart and I’d do anything for her.

  That was before his fist connected with my jaw.

  Pain exploded on the side of my face, and I stumbled back. The metallic explosion of blood filled my mouth. I wiped the back of my hand against my lips and stared at the blood smeared on my skin.

  Colm stood in front of me with his chest heaving and his hands dancing at his sides. “You don’t get to take someone else from me. Stay the hell away from her.” His words were low and dangerous. It would have been better if he’d yelled and shouted at me, but he hadn’t. He stared at me like he wanted to melt the flesh off my bones. “I forgave you once, but this…” He glanced around the apartment. “You don’t get a pass on this. Stay away from her, and stay the hell away from me.” The walls rattled as the door slammed behind him. It was becoming an everyday thing; maybe I needed them to reinforce the walls or something.

  Tugging the freezer open, I grabbed a handful of ice and dropped it into a kitchen towel. I rang Liv. Her phone went straight to voice mail. The silence of the place roared in my ears. Sitting on my couch with the ice on my face, I stared at the pictures on the wall.

  So many things I should have done differently.

  So many mistakes made.

  So much I needed to fix.

  36

  Liv

  I stood on the sidewalk outside Ford’s place shaking like the ground beneath me was shifting. Colm had just cut me off, Ford had slept with Colm’s fiancée, and I’d ended things with Ford. I had no place to go.

  Walking the streets with my bag banging against the back of my leg, I tried to clear the cloud in my mind. The cold snap from the night of the fire had melted away like the frost on the ground. Spring had finally arrived. The birds chirped their early morning song, and people went about their day like the world hadn’t just imploded.

  I’d been prepared for the lost feeling after the fire. Everyone had seemed so surprised I’d bounced back like I did. Even the video had rolled off my back, but this was so much more. The person who had been a foundation of my life had just sliced the line that bound us like it was nothing.

  I turned on my phone and touched the first name on my list.

  “Morning.” Her groggy voice was the anchor I needed.

  “Hey.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Don’t bullshit me. What’s wrong? What happened? I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I kind of need a place to stay.”

  “What about F—oh. Okay, let me know where you are.”

  I glanced around at the street signs and told her the cross streets.

  “Getting dressed now, ordered a car, I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  Nodding, I looked for a spot to wait. “There’s a coffee shop on the corner. I’ll stay in there until you get here.”

  Concerned faces from behind the coffee shop counter made me want to turn around and bolt. Instead I ordered my coffee and sat by the window, waiting for Marisa. I sipped on the black coffee and tried not to burn myself. Staring out the window, I caught a look at my reflection. Now it made sense why everyone was staring at me like I was a sideshow freak. My eyes were red, and my hair was a mess. My brush was back at Ford’s.

  Marisa burst through the door like a superhero making her grand entrance. Her eyes scanned the people sipping their coffee and typing away on their computers. She had on gray sweatpants rolled up a bunch of times at the ankles and an oversize white T-shirt she’d knotted at the waist.

  The second she spotted my face, she rushed over to me. “Let’s get you out of here.” She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and guided me out like the paramedics had right after the fire, like I looked like I was on the verge of losing it. It was appropriate because I was.

  We got into the car, and she gave the driver our old address. I glanced over at her.

  “Our landlord called. We can go back into our place and salvage what we can.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Standing in front of the building we’d called home, I couldn’t let go of the gratitude that we’d made it out. Most of the windows along the front were shattered, and char marks had licked their way up the brick exterior of half the building.

  My stomach sank when I thought about Colm pulling up to the front of this building and not being able to get ahold of me. Hiding from your problems wasn’t how you fixed them; it only made them that much worse when they were brought out into the light of day.

  Marisa threw her arms around my neck, apparently trying to cut off the blood flow to my brain.

  “What the hell is that for?” I said against her arm, which was squished against my cheek.

  “For getting me out of there. I’ll never complain about you staying up so late to study again.”

  I laughed and disengaged her arm lock. We walked around the back of the building to the back stai
rs. Caution tape cordoned off the areas that were off-limits. So many apartments had the tape across their doors. In the grand scheme of things, we were lucky we could even go back and see what was salvageable.

  Empty doorways showcased the charred remains of furniture and belongings blackened and blanketing the floor. Many objects were no longer recognizable, and the smell of burnt plastic and wood overwhelmed every other sense.

  Pushing open the broken door, we stood staring at the waterlogged remains of the life we’d built together there. Her fingers wrapped around mine, and we walked inside.

  “Wow.” Marisa glanced around our living room—well, what was left of it. The couch LJ always bitched about was a shell of itself. The paint was peeling off the walls, and scorch marks lined the ceiling.

  She went inside her bedroom, and I froze outside mine, following the blazing trail of destruction with my gaze. The door, broken from the hinges, leaned on the other side of the doorway, propped up against the wall. My bed, my desk, and everything else looked almost normal. The wood groaned under my feet, and the wooden planks creaked where they’d buckled.

  The books on my desk were stacked how I’d left them, but the edges were warped. I picked one up, and the entire cover fell off. The words on the page were blurred and faded.

  Opening my closet door, a small flood of water came rushing out, having been trapped behind all the clothes stuffed inside. The strong smell of mold hit me. Unsalvageable.

  “Looks like your room missed most of the fire.” Marisa stood in front of the door with a few things cradled in her arms and her weighted down backpack slung over her shoulder.

  “But not the fire hose.” I closed the door and spotted the boxes under my bed. Like my feet were encased in cement blocks, I walked over to my bed. Everything slowed down, but my breathing pitched higher and faster with each shuffle of my feet.

  Marisa’s gaze followed mine, and she winced, taking a step farther into the room.

  Crouching down, my fingers trembled as I dragged the crumpled boxes out. The printed cardboard collapsed more with each inch I moved them. Peeling a lid off, I stared into the box of childhood memories. The watery smiling face of my mom and dad stared back at me. Lifting the picture, a few more came with it, stuck to the back. The ink shifted, sliding the entire photograph off onto my fingers. I choked back a breath, the image swimming even more as my eyes filled. Memories I’d held on to washed away in an instant…it was like having the images physically erased slowly, chipping away at the clear picture of them in my head.