No. Nothing was okay. I was pretty sure nothing would ever be okay again.
I stepped inside without answering. The apartment was quiet—Sydney must have been out, or already asleep. The living room was lit only by the lamp in the corner, casting everything in a warm, golden glow that made the room feel peaceful which felt like a cruel joke given what I was about to do.
“Liam?” Ava closed the door behind me, her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
I looked at her and it felt like my heart cracked down the middle.
She was so beautiful. Not just physically, though God knew she was that too. But she was also beautiful in the way she stood there, worried aboutme, when I was the one about to detonate a bomb in the middle of everything we’d just built. She was beautiful in her trust and her openness. She’d let me past every wall she’d ever constructed, believing I wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t deserve this.
You’re going to hurt her anyway. It’s only a matter of time. Better to do it now, cleanly, than to drag it out until you destroy her completely.
“We need to talk,” I said. My voice came out flat. Wrong, like it belonged to someone else.
“Okay.” She moved toward the couch, but I didn’t follow. I couldn’t sit next to her for this. Couldn’t be close enough to smell her vanilla-cinnamon lotion or strawberry shampoo or feel the warmth radiating off her skin. If I let myself get that close, I’d lose my nerve.
She noticed. She always noticed everything. Her expression shifted from worried to guarded, her arms crossing over her chest in a protective gesture that made mewant to take it all back before I’d even started. She didn’t sit down.
“Liam. Whatever it is, just tell me.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets to stop them from shaking, and forced myself to meet her eyes even though looking at her felt like staring into the sun.
“You made a list,” I said. “A list of things you wanted to try. And we did them. All of them.”
She blinked, clearly thrown by the direction of the conversation. “Yeah,” she said dragging out the word. “We did.”
“The list is done, and so are we.”
The words hung in the air between us, sharp and final.
For a moment, she didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stared at me like I’d told a horribly offensive joke.
Finally, her brows furrowed and her mouth opened and closed before she found her voice. “What?”
“This was always supposed to be temporary.” The lie tasted like ash on my tongue, but I forced it out anyway. “An arrangement. You wanted experiences, and I helped you get them. That was the deal.”
“That was the dealbefore.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Before you told me you loved me. Before you told the entire arena you were off the market. Before—” She stopped, swallowing hard. “Liam, what the hell is going on?”
Tell her the truth.Tell her about dinner. Tell her what he said. Let her help you fight this.
But I couldn’t. Because what if he was right? What if the love I felt right now was just the beginning of a slow slide into becoming everything I’d sworn I’d never be?
I’d rather break her heart once than break it over and over again for years.
“I got caught up,” I said. “In the moment. In the thrill of it all.” Each word felt like swallowing glass. “But now that it’s out in the open, now that the chase is over…” I shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of cruel, which hurt me as much as it hurt her. “I realized I don’t feel the way I thought I did.”
All the color drained from her face. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“No.” She shook her head, taking a step toward me. “No, I don’t believe you. Something happened. Something—” Her eyes widened. “Your dad. He texted you. Did you see him? Is that what this is about?”
She was too smart. She always had been. She could see right through me, straight to the rotting core I was trying so desperately to hide.
I had to make her stop looking.
“This isn’t about my dad.” The biggest lie of all. “This is about me finally being honest with myself. And with you.”
“Then be honest!” Her voice rose, cracking at the edges. “Because this—” She gestured between us. “This isn’t honest. This is you running away from something, and Ideserve to know what.”
