See you there.
That was just like my dad. He didn’t ask. He demanded. I guess I should be grateful he picked a timewhen I didn’t have a game to play. But my stomach was still in knots. It was never a good thing when he came to town.
Men as handsome as us have responsibilities to never settle down.
His voice echoed in my head, that casual cruelty he’d dressed up as father-son bonding. All those years of hearing my mother cry herself to sleep, of lying awake listening to her pray for him to change, of hoping that maybe this time he’d stay—and he’d had the audacity to make it sound like infidelity was my birthright.
“You good, Liam?”
I looked up to find Gordy watching me, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he clapped me on the back and then headed for the showers.
I shoved my phone in my bag without responding to the message. I couldn’t think about it right now. Couldn’t process what seeing him would do to me, not when I’d just started to believe I could be something other than what he’d made me.
I needed Ava.
Twenty minutes later, I was knocking on her apartment door.
Sydney answered, took one look at my face, and stepped aside without a word. “She’s in her room studying.”
“Thanks.”
I found Ava curled up on her bed, surrounded by textbooks and highlighters, her hair piled on top of herhead in a messy bun. She looked up when I walked in, and her face shifted from concentration to concern in an instant.
“Li? What’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t was more like it. My thoughts were a spiraling mess.
Instead of answering, I crossed the room and crawled onto the bed, displacing notebooks and loose papers as I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.
“Liam—”
“Just…can I just hold you for a minute?”
She went still, then her arms came around me, one hand sliding up to the back of my neck. “Of course.”
I buried my face in the curve of her shoulder and breathed her in—her vanilla-cinnamon scent instantly soothing me. The tension in my chest loosened, just a fraction. Just enough that I could think again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
“No.” The word came out muffled against her skin. “Not yet. I just…I needed to see you.”
She didn’t push. Didn’t demand an explanation or try to fix whatever was broken. She just held me, her fingers tracing slow patterns across my shoulders, and let me hold her. Right now, it felt like she was the only thing anchoring me to the world.
We shifted after a while, rearranging ourselves until I was lying with my head in her lap while she sat propped against her headboard. Her textbook was balanced on the bed beside us, momentarily forgotten, and her fingers worked through my hair in slow, soothing strokes.
I should’ve felt ridiculous—a guy my size, with my head in her lap like a kid seeking comfort. But I didn’t. I felt safein a way I hadn’t felt since I was too young to know who my father really was.
“Your hair’s getting long,” she murmured, her nails scraping lightly against my scalp.
“You complaining?”
“No.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “I like having something to hold on to.”
