“Sure.” The word tasted like ash.
“So what else is going on? You having fun out there?”
The question sounded casual, but coming from my dad, “fun” only ever meant one thing.
“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t complain.”
“That’s my boy.” I could hear the grin in his voice, and it made my gut curdle. “Best years of your life, Liam. Enjoy them. Play the field. Trust me, I learned the hard way what happens when you let a woman convince you she’s the only one.” He laughed, and I had to close my eyes against the sound. “Your mother was a beautiful woman, but she wanted to clip my wings, and that’s just not in our DNA.”
Don’t say it. Don’t you dare fucking say it.
“Farrell men aren’t built for that, son. We’ve got too much to offer to limit ourselves to one woman. It’s just not how we’re wired. Your grandpa was the same way.”
My knuckles were white around the phone.
“Actually—” He dropped his voice conspiratorially, like we were buddies, like we were the same. “I’ve been seeing this woman in Denver. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. But she’s getting clingy—you know how it goes. Starting to leave things at my place, talking about meeting each other’s families.” He let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’m gonna have to cut that one loose before she gets any more ideas. Beautiful girl, but I can’t have her thinking she’s the only one, you know?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. Because what I wanted to say was that he was a selfish bastard who’d broken my mother’s heart so thoroughly she’d never let another man close enough to try again. That he’d left a woman who’d crossed an ocean for him alone in a country that wasn’thers, with a baby she had to raise by herself. That every woman he “cut loose” was a person, not an inconvenience.
But I didn’t say any of that. Because some part of me—the part I hated, the part that kept me up at night—heard his voice and recognized it as my own.
Same charm. Same easy smile. Same way of making people feel like the center of the universe, until something shinier came along.
“Yeah,” I managed. “I hear you.”
“Glad to hear it. Anyway, I’ll text you when I’ve got my schedule sorted. We’ll have that dinner. It’ll be good to catch up properly.”
“Sounds good, Dad.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
I stood in the kitchen for a long time, staring at the dark phone screen. The counter was cool under my hands, and the light buzzed overhead.
Ava’s rosy flushed cheeks, blissed-out gaze as she looked at me, and the feeling of coming home…
The memory slammed back into me, and this time I couldn’t outrun it. The way she’d looked at me after. Her sweet smile. The trust in her eyes. Like I was someone worth trusting. Like I was safe.
But my dad had probably made hundreds of women feel safe too. Before he got bored. Before the restlessness kicked in. Before he proved that charm and loyalty were not the same thing.
Farrell men weren’t built for that.
I pulled up my text thread with Ava. I should end this. Before I hurt her. Before I woke up one day and realized I’d turned into the man whose voice I couldn’t get out of my head.
But ending it meant giving her up. And the thought of that made me feel like I was drowning.
So instead, I’d do what I always did. What I was good at.
I’d pull back. Create distance. Keep things surface level and physical so the feelings didn’t get any deeper than they already were.
We hadn’t established any rules around how often we’d see each other. If I kept things to group settings—public places, study sessions, coffee runs with Drew—I could manage this. I could keep my hands off her long enough for this desperate, terrifying feeling in my chest to fade.
It had to fade.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and went upstairs to bed, passing Gordy’s closed door on the way. No sound from inside. No sound from Sam’s room either, but I could see light under her door.
I wondered if Gordy was right about her. If she was using those hookups the same way I’d been using the library—the thrill, the risk, the physicality—to avoid looking too closely at whatever was really going on underneath.
I wondered if she knew what she was running from.
