Page 112 of Tell Me It’s Right

He presses one last kiss to the top of my head before rolling himself out of bed. But he doesn’t move toward the kitchen. He turns back to me, grabs my legs, and pulls me to the edge of the bed.

“Liam—”

“Hope you don’t mind if I have mine first.” The last thing I see before he lowers to his knees is his wolfish grin, then his face disappears between my legs.

“Do you want me to come in with you?”

I look from Liam’s thumb tracing circles on my hand to his face. A small voice in the back of my head screamsyes, but only because I don’t want to say goodbye to him yet.

But logically, I know this is something I have to do on my own. And this is only the first stop on the apology tour today.

I kiss him on the cheek and unbuckle my seat belt. “I’ve got this.”

He doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he lets me go.

“Call me later and tell me how it goes?” he says as I hop out.

I nod and head for the house before I can think too much about it. My new car sits in the driveway, so Leo or Keava must have brought it back for me.

It’s quiet when I walk through the front door, and at first I think no one’s home. But as I head for the basement stairs, I catch sight of someone sitting at the kitchen table. My steps slow. I know he heard me come in, but he doesn’t turn. I resist the urge to hide in my room and head toward him.

Leo’s sitting alone with an untouched cup of coffee in front of him, his arms braced on the table. It isn’t until I take the chair beside him that he finally looks up.

“Can we talk?” I ask.

The bags under his eyes are dark, like he barely slept, and my chest pinches.

“I’m sorry about last night,” I continue when he doesn’t say anything. “I don’t want to fight with you, Leo.”

“We’re not fighting,” he says quietly.

“Then what are we doing? You can barely look at me.”

“Because you’re wearing my best friend’s clothes,” he says with a flick of his wrist.

He takes in the hoodie and matching sweats, and the lines around his mouth deepen. I grimace. I’m not sure what would have been worse—showing up in Liam’s clothes like this or still wearing last night’s dress.

I sigh and wind my fingers together. “I’m really sorry that this is how you found out. And I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. Don’t blame Liam for the not-telling-you part—that was my fault. I—I didn’t expect this to be that big of a deal.”

He lets out something between a scoff and a laugh. “Gracie.” He exhales slowly and closes his eyes. “You see the best inpeople. I admire that. But what you have to understand is, Liam is not what you’re looking for?—”

“You don’t know that.”

He laughs again, nothing about it sounding amused. “Yeah, actually, I do. I know everything about him, which is exactly the problem.”

“You don’t,” I say quietly. “You don’t know everything. Andthat’sthe problem.”

He opens his mouth, closes it.

“Make me understand. Why are you so against this?”

“Gracie, you should’ve seen the trainwreck his last relationship was. You were too young to really understand all the details?—”

I scoff. “Don’t do that.”

“What? You were! You weretwelvewhen they started dating. And I don’t want that for you. Especially for your first relationship. I don’t want you to think that’s what it’s like. I don’t know what it is when it comes to girls, but Liam self-sabotages. I’ve never seen him in something healthy.”

I don’t want you to think that’s what it’s like. It’s so eerily similar to something Liam said that it makes me shiver. But it also makes my heart ache. For Liam. Because that washisfirst relationship, and what Leo’s so afraid of for me is exactly what he went through.

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