Page 9 of So Bad It Must Be Good

Chapter Three

When Liam didn’t answer her question, Kayla forced herself to look at him. Truth be told, meeting that ice-blue gaze was hard. It made her want to fidget outwardly as much as her organs seemed to fidget inside her body.

But she was fascinated by his reaction to her question. No answer, he’d gone almost unnaturally still in the crowded, noisy bar.

Eventually he cleared his throat and frowned down at his hands, which were linked around his beer bottle.

He had rough hands, all beat up, nicked. She imagined doing the intricate woodwork of his hobby would result in a lot of that, and maybe handyman work would too. But there was something oddly compelling about that roughness, about the visible representation of all the work he did.

Don’t be weird, Kayla.

“I guess I don’t quite understand what you’re asking me,” he finally said, completely unconvincingly. He wouldn’t have had such an outward reaction to the question if he didn’t understand it.

Wasn’t that interesting? She’d never spent much time considering what kind of person Liam might be. She was usually too busy feeling weird around him.

“So working with your dad is wonderful and perfect?”

“Of course not. Nothing’s perfect. I could do my woodworking full time and it still wouldn’t be perfect.”

“So the woodworking is what you’d rather be doing?”

“No! No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Defensive much?”

He cocked his head, that blue gaze meeting hers, something like surprise and, maybe it was silly to read into a look, but interest.

You’re being really weird now.

But he just kept staring. “What?” she asked, because maybe he would tell her what this was. This thing rattling around in her chest that she didn’t understand at all. She’d always assumed it was discomfort, a special kind only Liam Patrick brought out.

It was different though. It had always been different.

“I just . . .” He shook his head. “You’re different than you used to be.”

Her mouth curved, because he couldn’t have said a thing that would have pleased her more. Different. God, she was trying. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, you’re . . . It’s the thing. That you were asking about. The ‘me treating you differently’ thing. Your grandmother, your father, even Dinah, they were . . . I mean, Dinah’s nice enough and all, but they were all so purposeful. Strong. They seem untouchable. And you . . .”

Kayla’s smile died. Yes, she was none of those things. The odd man out of that Gallagher toughness. Grandmother had always said so.

“You always seemed rather fragile, I guess, and I can fix a problem, a stove, a window. I can fix just about anything that’s broken, but I’ve never known how to keep something from breaking. So I was never quite comfortable around you.”

Kayla felt cracked open a little. She’d never considered herself fragile, but hadn’t she been? Hadn’t she always been cowering in the shadows trying not to break?

“See? I offended you. But that’s on me. It was never something you did. It’s just me.”

“Or my fragility.”

He closed his eyes. “You’re proving my point that I was right to have kept my mouth shut all those years.”

She downed the next drink, concentrating on the warmth blooming in her chest, the way her limbs were starting to feel a tad heavy. Maybe she could drink her way into a new life, a new personality, or a new future.

Anything was better than this constant feeling of failure. Fragile. Everyone thought she was fragile or unimportant or . . .

“Hey.”

If it had just been his voice, an obnoxiously gentle note to it, she probably wouldn’t have stopped her inner wallowing. But he touched her. It was featherlight, almost as if he were afraid to do it, just the very tip of his pinky finger resting on the knuckle of hers.

---