Page 62 of So Bad It Must Be Good

He huffed out a breath but crossed to the chair and sank into it. “I have to get to work,” he grumbled irritably.

“You should have put ice on this,” she replied, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. She studied his bruise then. As carefully and slowly as she could, she pressed the bag to his cheek. He winced a little bit, but she slid into his lap, holding the bag of frozen carrots to his cheek.

He looked at her with that baffled expression she was learning to recognize even if she didn’t always know where it came from.

“Now,” she said, mustering all her firm determination, “tell me what happened.”

He shifted a little underneath her, his arm coming around her waist and resting there. He didn’t move his head from the bag, but his gaze slid away from hers. “It’s not—”

“If you say it’s not important, I will not be held responsible for my actions, Liam Patrick.”

He sighed. “Aiden and I got into it a little bit. I shouldn’t have . ..” He shifted again, but he held on to her as if to keep her in his lap. “He was pushing my buttons, and I lashed out. I know better.”

“So you and Aiden got in an actual fight?”

“Um . . . Yes. It was a crappy mistake, Kay. I shouldn’t have let him get to me that way. I threw the first punch. It was my mistake.”

She gently touched his lip where it was puffy and split. “You both threw punches.”

“Well, yes, but it never should have happened. I should have kept my cool. I knew what he was trying to do, and he succeeded. Mom heard us and came out and took Aiden inside and . . . Well, anyway. It’s over. I won’t be falling into that trap again, let me tell you.”

“What did your mom do after she took Aiden inside?” Kayla asked, her stomach sinking sickly at what she suspected. But surely . . .

Liam shrugged ineffectively. “They went inside.”

“What about you?”

“I went home.”

“But . . . Walk me through this. I don’t understand. You both fought? Because you hit him and he hit you?”

“Yes.”

“But when your mom came outside, she only took Aiden in?”

“He was the one on the ground.”

“Was he hurt worse than you?”

“I . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I have a house to go back to and—”

“And she ushered one of her children inside and did what with you? Ask if you were okay? Offer you some ice? Anything?”

“She . . . shut the door.”

“Liam! That is . . . That is cruel. And unacceptable.”

“Aiden—”

“I don’t give a shit about Aiden. Her sons, both of them her sons, got in a fight and she chose one to take care of? Well, that is bullshit, Liam. Bull. Shit. How dare she?”

“He needs—”

“What about what you need, for heaven’s sake?” She cupped the side of his face she wasn’t holding the quickly thawing bag of carrots to. “What about you?”

He blinked at her as if she spoke some foreign language. Did he not . . . Did he never think about himself when it came to his family? It filled her with anger on his behalf and unease at what she was doing here, but she focused on the anger because this was utter crap.

She’d always assumed because Liam and his family had a relationship, they had to be a better, more loving family than the Gallaghers. Now she wasn’t so sure.

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