Page 66 of Until Bax

Opening his mouth, he then closes it and glares at her.

Oh my God, he likes her. Likeactuallylikes her, and it’s obvious he thought last night was more than fun and is shocked that she is just gonna go back to Chicago without thinking twice about him. My brother has probably never been in a situation like this in his life. Or he has, but the shoe has always been on the other foot. And although part of me wants to say, “Ha! That’s your karma,” another part of me feels bad for him.

“We’ll talk about it when I take you to the airport tonight,” he says after a moment.

“What?” she asks, her brows dragging together as she looks over at me. “I think Olivia is dropping me off.”

“She was. Now,I’mgoing to.” He turns away from her and picks up his coffee.

I look at Rebecca—who now looks confused and maybe a little freaked out—and then Liam, who’s still looking pissed but also determined. Having seen that look from him throughout my life when he hasn’t gotten his way, I rub my lips together.

Well, this should be interesting… and either really bad or really good.

When there is a tapping at the back door, I look that way and see both Lucy and Gemma are waiting, with both their noses pressed to the glass. When Liam gets up to let them in, I look at my best friend, and she gives me an awkward smile, which I return with an awkward one of my own.

CHAPTER20

Olivia

“Is that everything?” I look around my bedroom, then at Rebecca’s suitcase still open on my bed with more stuff in it than she came with since we decided to go shopping this afternoon after Liam took off and Bax went to go help his mom with something.

“I think so.” She glances around. “And if it’s not, you can just mail me what I forgot.”

“Or maybe if Liam gets his way, you’ll be back sooner than you planned.” I give her a look, and she shakes her head.

“Probably not.” She closes her bag, and I push down on it to help her zip it up. “Don’t get me wrong; I really like your brother, and we had a great time last night. But…” She looks at me and rolls her eyes when she sees the disgusted look on my face. “I don’t mean like that. I mean, we had fun. He’s easy to talk to, and we have a lot in common, but we are not in the same place. Even before last night, he made it pretty clear that he doesn’t do relationships, and that is something I want. I want to get married and have babies sooner rather than later. And I’m done with men who avoid that kind of commitment.”

“I get that.” I don’t even attempt to defend Liam, not when I know his history. And yes, I know that people can change, but I’m not sure he’s at a point in his life when he’d want to.

“I will, however, be back down to visit you in a few months,” she says as we both look toward my bedroom door when it sounds like someone just opened the front door. Knowing I locked it and that even if I hadn’t, Bax wouldn’t just walk in—and neither would Liam—my heart starts to pound.

“Someone’s here,” I whisper-hiss.

“Who?” she whispers back.

“I don’t know.” I pull out my phone from my back pocket while moving to the door of my room to close it.

“Olivia?” Kourtney calls out, and my shoulders sag in relief.

“Oh my God.” I step into the hall and find Kourtney with her suitcase, standing at the opposite end. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.” She gives me a half smile. “I would have called to tell you that I was coming home, but my phone bit the dust yesterday.”

“That’s okay.” I walk to her to give her a hug and see her body stiffen when she looks behind me. I look over my shoulder and see Rebecca has stepped into the hall. “You remember Rebecca, right?” The two of them met when Kourtney stayed with me in Chicago while she was working there. Though, we all didn’t get to hang out much, since Kourtney was working crazy hours at the hospital. And she’s also very anti-social.

“I didn’t know you had company.”

“Umm… yeah. Reb came down to visit me for the weekend.” I shake my head. “Sorry, I didn’t think about telling you that she was coming.”

“It’s fine.” She sighs, and I rub my lips together. Honestly, I’m not sure how to feel about her reaction, and I don’t know if I’m in the wrong. Maybe I should have told her Rebecca was coming into town, but she wasn’t here, so I didn’t think about it. I also haven’t had to ask someone if I could have company since I was a teenager and living at home with my parents.

“I thought you were working in LA for the next couple of weeks.”

“I was, but after the police called me, I decided to use my time off to come home and check on things.”

Guilt twists around my insides. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“It’s fine.” She looks at the front door when there is a knock, and I start to walk down the hall as she turns to answer it. She gets there before me, and when she sees it’s Liam, I watch her body jerk in surprise. “Liam?”

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