“I don’t want to do this with you.”
“Right now?”
“No. Never.” She shakes her head. “I have nothing to say, Liam. You said what you had to that night and you didn’t wait to hear what I had to say or answer any of my calls. I don’t have to listen to your excuses, and I definitely don’t owe you anything.”
She turns away. Starts putting things behind the counter. Busying her hands so she doesn’t have to give me her eyes.
“You expect me to walk away knowing I have a son?”
She snickers. The sound guts me.
“Yeah. I expect you to walk out the door, get on your fancy bike, and go back to your celebrity girlfriend and back to wherever it is you came from. There’s nothing here for you and I don’t want you hurting my son. I don’t want him to know you just so you can walk away and out of his life for the next ten years.”
She wipes a single tear. Just one.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Her head snaps toward me. “Oh my god, Liam, from everything I just said you pick out the girlfriend part?”
She’s right. Of course she’s right. But I needed her to know. No one else. Just her. Always just her.
“We’ve moved on and you’re not part of our lives. Noah doesn’t need you, he doesn’t even know you, so please just go and don’t come back.”
I nod. There’s nothing left to say that won’t make this worse. I can’t look at her as I walk past. My body moves on autopilot, around the counter, toward the helmet sitting where I left it. The gloves. The armor I wear so the world can’t see what’s underneath.
“See you around, Josephine.”
The name tastes like ash. I’ve only called her that once before. The worst night of my life. Until now.
The bells chime behind me. Cold air hits my face. I throw my leg over the bike, jam the helmet on, fire the engine. The vibration runs through me, the only thing holding me together.
I pull away from her shop. In my mirror, through the glass, I can just make out a shape crumpling to the floor.
I ride faster.
“Hey,” Josie says as she tugs on my arm. “Are you with me right now?”
I clear the memory from my mind. I don’t know why that particular part of my life came through and I wonder if it’s because of Sterling and how I feel about my father and finding out I was one. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”
“I asked if you wanted to walk through the park?”
I take her hand in mine and we cross the street. The crew has been busy in the park, setting up for the haunted house that’ll run the week leading into Halloween. Josie points out the displays she did, and honestly, they’re the cutest things I’ve ever seen.
“I’m excited for the triplets to come over and trick or treat,” I tell her.
She pulls me to her and looks into my eyes. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
I nod and look over my shoulder at the parking spot. “I think all the questions I answer, and with that caller potentially being my father, has me thinking a lot about things. When we stopped in front of the shop . . . that day . . . the first day I met Noah and then came to see you, it all came rushing back. I was a fool for leaving you behind.”
Josie cups my cheek. “It all worked out.”
“Because Mason died and I happened to see a newspaper article about it.”
“I believe you would’ve come back, regardless. Ten years is a long time, Liam. We’ve worked through all of that and have come out stronger. We’re better because of it.”
She kisses me softly.
“I know you missed those years with Noah, but you’ve more than made up for them. You need to let yourself accept that.”
