The words came out rough, like they'd been scraped out of my chest. I still wasn't looking at him. Couldn't look at him.
"Lucy?" Liam asked. Like there was any question.
"Yeah."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "Okay. And?"
I finally turned to look at him. "And? That's all you've got?"
"I mean, I'm not exactly shocked, Cal. You've been orbiting that woman like a moon for months. The whole crew's got a pool going on when you'd finally figure it out."
"A pool?" I was shocked by their boldness.
"Owen's got fifty bucks on Christmas. Riley said Thanksgiving. I had faith in you, went with Halloween." He shrugged. "Guess I owe Riley twenty bucks."
I stared at him. "This isn't funny."
"No," he agreed, his expression sobering. "It's not. So why don't you tell me why you look like the world's ending instead of like a guy who just realized he's in love with a beautiful woman who's clearly crazy about him too."
So I told him the whole story.
All of it. Everything I'd been carrying for three years, everything that had been building for months. The promise I'd made to Mateo in the warehouse, hisblood on my hands and his last words in my ears. The way I'd moved into Lucy's building to keep that promise, to watch over her from a distance, to make sure she was safe without ever letting her know why.
I told him about the six months of silence. Passing her in the hallway, pretending we were strangers, both of us avoiding the weight of everything between us. I told him about hearing her cry through the thin walls, about lying awake at night wondering if I should knock, if I should say something, if keeping my distance was protecting her or abandoning her.
Then the texts from Evan. The night she'd knocked on my door, terrified, and everything had changed. The way protection had turned into proximity, and proximity had turned into something I never meant to feel.
I told him about Gabrielle. The late nights walking the hallway with a baby against my chest. The way Lucy looked holding her daughter, fierce and tender and more alive than I'd seen her in years. The way she fit into my life like she'd always been there, like the space had been waiting for her all along.
And then last night. The kitchen. Her face tilted up toward mine, her eyes closing, the brush of her lips against mine before Gabrielle's cry shattered everything. The almost-kiss that had kept me awake until dawn, staring at my ceiling, trying to figure out how I'd let this happen.
Liam listened without interrupting. His expressiondidn't change, didn't judge. Just took it all in, the way he always did.
When my words finally ran dry, after long minutes of everything pouring out of me, he was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said: "And the problem is...?"
I stared at him. "Did you hear anything I just said?"
"I heard all of it. I'm just not seeing the problem."
"She was Mateo's fiancée." The words came out harder than I intended. "I promised him I'd take care of her, and instead I'm?—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't say it out loud.
Liam finished for me. "Falling in love with her. Which is exactly what Mateo would have wanted."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do." Liam leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I knew Mateo almost as long as you did. And I know he loved Lucy more than anything in the world. You think he'd want her to be alone forever? You think he'd want her grieving in that apartment, working double shifts at the café, running from some psycho ex with nobody to protect her?"
"That's not?—"
"You think he'd want you to spend the rest of your life keeping her at arm's length because you're too guilty to let yourself be happy?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
"Mateo asked you to take care of her," Liam continued. "Not from a distance. Not like a duty. Heasked you because he trusted you. Because he knew you'd do right by her."
