Page 10 of So Bad It Must Be Good

Something like a shudder moved through her, and she couldn’t explain why or even what it was. But something about his finger on hers, no matter how barely it rested there, was like a thunderclap. A moment that resounded within her, reverberating and booming.

She must be drunk already.

“You shouldn’t take anything I say to heart. I’m an idiot.”

She glanced over at him. He seemed so genuinely concerned that something he’d said had made her sad. Troubled that he might have said something that hurt her feelings.

No one cared if they hurt her feelings. Not in the Gallagher clan, where everything was about what could further the business. Not with her friends, who would call her the poor little rich girl if she mentioned her dissatisfaction with things.

Even Dinah, though she could be counted on to be a solid rock if Kayla asked, didn’t go out of her way to see when she’d hurt Kayla. Not like this.

She looked down at his finger on hers again. He had a bright white scar across his knuckle and a scrape along the side of his hand.

He pulled his hand away, but she impulsively grabbed it. It was probably weird, but there was enough of a buzz in her brain that the knowledge that it was weird got drowned out and she curled her pale, unmarked fingers around his tan, scuffed ones.

“Would you teach me?” she asked, squeezing his hand, looking at him with the most imploring look she could muster.

“Uh, teach you what?” he asked, not so subtly trying to pull his hand away.

She held on tighter. She needed that connection. She needed help, and though it seemed strange and out there, she decided Liam Patrick was just the man to do it.

“How to make the figurines. Like the bear.”

“You want me to teach you woodworking?”

“Yes.” She thrust the hand that wasn’t holding his into his face. “Look at my hands. What do you see?”

“Um. Well. I see my eye getting poked in about five seconds.” He wrapped his free hand around her waving hand and pressed it to the bar.

“These hands have done nothing. Nothing! I’ve never built anything or shaped anything. All they’ve ever done is typed and made phone calls and planted a freaking basil plant in a tiny pot on my windowsill. They need to do.”

“There are lots of things you could do without . . . well, me.”

“But you’re perfect. Look at your hands. They’re beat up. You’ve done things with them. You . . . you make the most beautiful things. I want to make something. It doesn’t have to be beautiful. It just has to be something.” The idea was snowballing through her chest like she’d found a pot of gold, because it felt like a treasure, this idea.

“Kayla.”

But she paid him no mind. She just kept talking. Which was funny, and made that giddiness flutter harder and more potent through her. She never just kept talking. “I was thinking when I was getting ready that I’ve spent the past few months wallowing in leaving Gallagher’s and how that stage needed to be over and I need to build my life.”

She thrust her hand into his face again and this time when he grabbed it, he curled his fingers around her wrist. Her pulse jumped, her heart jumped, but she was too excited about her idea to wonder about that.

“So you can teach me how to make something with my hands. And Carter can teach me how to grow something. And . . . Yes, I will start doing. It’s the answer.”

“Who’s Carter?”

“Dinah’s boyfriend. He has a little urban farm right by Gallagher’s.” She waved in the general direction of that world. A world she didn’t feel a part of, but the trouble was she didn’t feel like part of any world.

Which meant she had to change. Not just herself, but what she did. “Let’s go.”

“Kayla.” It was his turn to squeeze her hands. “You’ve been drinking. I can’t teach you much when you’re halfway to being drunk.” He released her hands. “Maybe more than halfway,” he muttered.

“Okay, that’s fair.” It didn’t burst her bubble though because this was a plan. This was what she’d been waiting for. “Tomorrow morning then.”

Liam laughed, then seemed to realize she was serious. “Honey, two more of those and you won’t be in any shape in the morning to do much of anything.”

The word honey rolled off his tongue so easily, but it settled somewhere in her rib cage, like a fish caught in a net. Wiggling, uncomfortable.

Honey.

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