Page 74 of So Bad It Must Be Good

“I don’t want to do this right now.” She grabbed her keys and moved for her door.

But he stepped in front of her. “I do,” he said firmly.

She knew she should meet his steady gaze with the most condescending, imperious look she could manage. She should tell him to go to hell. Instead, she stared blindly at his chest. Her throat was tight and she felt like crying again, and it was so damn infuriating that she would cry again.

Again and again and again, over this. “Butt face.”

“I’m sorry did you just . . . say . . . Did you just call me a butt face?”

She covered her face with her hands and let out an irritated groan. “I don’t want to do this! I want you to leave.” She blew out a breath, forcing herself to look at him. He looked tired. Beat down. “How’s your Dad?” she asked, because she might think he was a butt face, but she didn’t want him to be a sad one.

“Everything looks good.”

“I’m glad. Really.”

“I know.”

“Now can you please go?” she asked, perilously close to tears.

“No.”

She wanted to stomp her feet and push him. Instead, she went for a low blow. “I really think it’d be best for poor Aiden if you did, don’t you?”

He ran his tongue over his top teeth and let out a breath. “I get that I deserved that.” He kept that unreadable blue gaze on her. “But I’m not going anywhere until we talk.”

“Why are you making this hard on me?” she demanded, trying to blink back the tears. “Last night wasn’t bad enough, now you’re trying to make it worse?”

“I know you’re mad at me, and I know I fucked up, but I don’t think we automatically stopped loving each other because we had a fight.”

“Sure, but maybe I don’t want to love you,” she threw at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

His hand dropped and he inhaled sharply, standing so unnaturally still for a few seconds she was almost afraid to breathe.

He wiped his hand over his mouth and beard, his throat working hard to swallow. She had to stare at his throat, because on his face was a kind of pain that even mad at him she regretted having put there.

She wanted to run away. She wanted to hide. She wanted to sweep all this feeling—hurt and fear and fury—into some dark corner. She wanted it so bad she could hardly see straight, but there was this little piece of her reminding her of what he’d said last night.

About her running away, and he hadn’t been right, exactly. She hadn’t run away last night by ending things, but right now she was running away from what Dinah had suggested—figure it out or cut it off. She wanted to hide from it, wait for it to go away, and that just wasn’t an option.

“Let me tell you about this morning, and then if you still feel that way, I’ll go,” he said, his voice little more than a rough scrape, his throat still moving as if he found it as hard to breathe evenly as she did.

Though everything in her screamed to refuse, she forced herself to nod. Figure it out or cut it off. This had to be handled, not run away from, even if the hardest part was the fact that he’d been the best example of standing up and taking care of things she’d ever seen.

Grandmother and Dinah bulldozed through, and Dad swept things out of the way or manipulated his way to get what he wanted, but Liam stepped in and solved problems and really helped people. He cared beyond himself.

That was half of why she was standing here crying as she unlocked her door and pushed it open though. Because she admired his ability to fix, she just hated his inability to draw any boundaries with it.

She wiped her face with her palms as she stepped into her apartment. She heard him follow and close the door but she didn’t turn around to face him. She hugged herself and tried to figure out what it was she wanted from this.

From him.

To end it. She had to end it. This was Liam’s pattern, and it wasn’t going to change. Working things out would only bring them right back here, and it was too much hurt. It was way too hard. She had to end things now with complete and utter certainty.

“I was wrong last night,” Liam said, his voice low and sure. Never in her entire life had Kayla heard someone admit being wrong with such a sincere certainty.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he stood there, eyes steady on hers, so . . . sturdy and certain. She looked away again.

“You were right, and the funny thing is, you’re not the first person to accuse me of my helping priorities being a little skewed.”

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