Cassie picked up on the second ring, her voice groggy and suspicious. “If this isn’t about blood or fire, Liam, I swear to God—”
“I love him,” Liam said.
Silence.
His throat worked, the confession tearing free. “I’ve been sleeping with him. It’s not… it wasn’t just once.”
“Jesus, Liam.”
He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes stinging. “I kept telling myself it would pass. That it was just a phase. A mistake. But it’s not. It never passes. It’s still there and it onlygets stronger.” He swallowed, his chest heaving. “Fuck, I can’t get over him.”
Cassie exhaled, not shocked, just resigned. “Yeah. I figured.”
His head snapped up. “You figured?”
“I’ve seen how you talk about him,” she said gently. “Even when you don’t mean to. You don’t talk like that about someone you don’t care about.”
He dropped his head into his hand, fingers gripping hard at his hair. “Do you hate me?” he whispered.
“No.” Her voice was steady. “I hate that you’ve been carrying this alone. I hate that you’ve been killing yourself with it instead of letting someone in.”
His throat closed. “It’s not something I can say out loud. Not to Emma. Not to anyone.”
“You just did.”
He laughed hoarsely. “Yeah. At two in the morning. When I couldn’t stand being in my own head anymore.”
“That’s when the truth comes out,” she said softly. “When it’s too heavy to hold by yourself.”
He didn’t answer.
“Liam,” Cassie said after a beat. “What do you want?”
The words gutted him, but he forced them out anyway. “I want him.”
“Then what are you still doing?”
A sound tore out of him, too close to a sob to be anything else. “Trying not to destroy the people I love.”
“You’re destroying yourself. That counts too.”
Cassie didn’t fill the silence with platitudes. She didn’t say he was noble or that he was doing the right thing. She let the sorrow hang there until it pressed down on him like truth.
She sighed quietly before she continued. “I can’t tell you what to do. But I’ll tell you this—loving someone doesn’t go away just because you want it to. You can run from it, you can bury it, youcan hate yourself for it, but it’s still there when you wake up the next day. So maybe stop asking how to kill it, and start asking how to live with it.”
“I don’t know how,” he whispered.
“I know,” she said. “But you don’t have to figure it out alone. I’m here, no matter what happens next.”
For the first time since returning to his room, his chest eased, air slipping through the tightness. It wasn’t peace or clarity, but it was enough to keep him breathing.
Chapter 43
Jacob
The punching bag rocked beneath his fists, the leather snapping back on its chain with every hit. He didn’t count anymore, just kept moving, his body running on muscle memory while his head spun in circles it couldn’t escape. His knuckles ached, sweat tracked down his spine, and still he kept going.
It had been three days since New York, and he was still trapped in that elevator. Touching Liam again, tasting him after so long, had been too much and not enough all at once. The moment had been inevitable, and leaving afterward had taken everything he had. He kept reminding himself it had been the right choice, though part of him couldn’t help wishing he’d been weaker.
