Sheepishly, Liam smiles. His cheeks red from either being outside or embarrassment, I’m not sure.
‘I wanted to give you these. I found them amongst some stuff.’
‘It couldn’t have waited till morning?’
‘Yeah, they probably could have come to think of it.’ He chuckles, one large hand holding out the stack of books, the words pregnancy and baby catching my eye.
Taking the stack, I look up at him, but he’s busy glaring daggers at Vish, who is standing behind me, a silent conversation happening between them that feels all too heated for me to be here. Liam’s body is ridged and I watch as his thumb swipes back and forth over his knuckles.
Fuck it’s hot in here, between these two… I need to leave, like right now.
Quickly muttering a thanks, I squeeze past the man who makes me feel too much and slip into my dark room.
Chapter seventeen
Liam
‘Where were you both just now?’ I ask venomously as I spit the question at Vish.
I give one ounce of a shit that he is supposed to be one of my closest friends, all I want to know is why he was with my girl — at night. They have a past, something that was very clear to everyone who saw them together back at the school, so what are his plans now? And why did she look like she’d been crying.
‘We were having a blether.’
So whilst I was out there, in the dark, looking through rows of books at the Mitchel, hand picking out which ones looked like they could be the most relevant to Isla’s pregnancy journey, he was out playing catch-up with her.
After spotting Isla’s list of wants and fears, one idea had overcome me, and I’d quickly packed a bag, picked up my knives, shoved on a set of knuckle dusters and exited the stadium. It didn’t take me long to get to the library but spending most of my time lost, not knowing where to find the maternity rows underneath the several years of dust that had collected there I’d spent most of my time being a duster more than anything else.
I can still feel it tickling my nostrils.
And this entire time Vish was moving in onmygirl.
He spins on his heels, not taking any notice of me and walking away.
I growl.
Vish looks over his shoulder, his eyebrow arched as if to say,Did I really just hear that?
‘What are you playing at?’ I ask.
If he’s trying to make a move on her I will end him, best friend or not.
He sighs, continuing to walk away from me and I snap — enough of his bullshit games. Gripping the back of his neck, I squeeze, ripping his body backwards so that I have enough leverage to slam his back against the wall.
‘You’ve got it bad,’ he chuckles but I see nothing funny with how he’s acting right now. Come to think of it I’m seconds away from wiping that smug look clean from his face.
‘Liam, what the fuck?’ A scolding voice sounds from behind me and I’d know it anywhere. Ruaridh.
Vish tuts, ‘see you’ve gone and ruined the beginning of his honeymoon.’
Fauna stands at Ru’s side in a t-shirt that is too large on her and the noticeably absent t-shirt from Ru’s bare chest proves Vish’s point. Ruaridh’s gaze looks murderous, whereas Fauna’s looks well and truly amused, her eyes twinkling in the oil burners' light.
I release the prick, straightening to try and explain myself. But what’s there to say? I saw him with my girl, who happens to be your little sister — the one I got pregnant, yep that one — and I saw red. Because that’ll go down so well.
‘They’re just sorting some things out, come on.’ Fauna gives me some mercy, taking pity on my vibrating with rage body as she tugs her psychopathic boyfriend back into his room.
Ru goes, too fixated on his girl to remember why he’d even came out to shout at us in the first place.
‘Better get that jealousy sorted out, man. Green isn’t a good colour on you.’ Vish grins and with that, the prick steps away, backing up into his room, leaving me staring at glitter name tags attached to the hallway of doors.
