Page 8 of So Bad It Must Be Good

“So, I’ll, uh, buy you a drink then.”

She took a deep breath and looked back behind the bar. “Okay.” She gave a nervous little nod. “Okay. We could do that.” She brushed some hair behind her shoulder and chewed on her bottom lip before sliding a glance at him. “You don’t have anywhere to be?”

He shrugged. “I was just working.” At her blink of surprise he realized he had to explain which work he’d been doing, not that he’d left a fix-it job to do his brother’s bidding. “Wood carving. It’s actually. . . a hobby, not . . .”

“You’re very good,” she supplied when he trailed off.

He ignored the frisson of pleasure the compliment gave him because what did it matter? It was a hobby. “Thanks. So, drink?” He motioned to the bartender and ordered a beer, and Kayla ordered some fruity girl drink.

And Liam was officially out of conversation. Christ. What did he talk to any other women about? It deserted him, like she had some kind of voodoo that leaked any ease he had with people right out when she was around.

“Can I . . . Can I ask you an awkward question?” she said, not looking at him, but instead smiling politely at the bartender as he slid her glass toward her.

“Only if I can give an awkward answer,” Liam replied, bringing the bottle of beer he’d been given to his lips.

She laughed, as if she was surprised he could say something moderately humorous. “So, um, you know, I’ve seen you with other people. Like my grandmother. I’ve watched you charm the pants off her, but with me you’re . . . Well, did I do something somewhere along the line? Offend you in some way?”

He almost choked on the sip of beer he’d taken. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

She looked hard at her drink. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . It seems to be me. You were always nice to Dinah, easy. And I once watched you charm my grandmother. My grandmother. I can’t charm my grandmother, but she smiled at you.”

“It’s actually quite easy to charm your grandmother when you accept she’s going to hate you no matter what you say.”

Kayla laughed, the hint of surprise in it making him wonder what it sounded like if she just laughed without being shocked he was the one making her do it.

“Anyway. Everyone knows Aiden got all the charm.”

“What did that leave you with?”

He smiled wryly. “Everything else.”

Again, she laughed, and it was something like a drug. He wanted to keep feeling that little jolt when the bright sound tumbled out of her. He wanted her to keep smiling at him like . . .

Well, like he wasn’t the dimmer star in Aiden’s far more interesting universe.

“You haven’t been around lately. Gallagher’s, that is.” He’d heard, because people didn’t always hold their tongues around someone fixing their sink or floorboard, that Kayla had left her position with Gallagher’s, but even the loosest of lips hadn’t known why.

Her smile faded, the pretty tint of pink in her cheeks going pale again. Because he’d stepped in it, hadn’t he? Seriously, what was his deal?

“No, I haven’t. And I won’t be.”

“There a story behind that?” he asked, not because he was nosy, but because some people needed to be asked to unload their problems.

She slid him a glance. “What do you think of the Gallaghers? I mean, not the brewery or the restaurant, but us?”

Liam rubbed a hand over his beard, because being put on the spot was never fun. Even when Kayla was the one doing it. “Well . . .”

“Tell the truth. Just whatever you think. It won’t hurt my feelings, I promise.”

Yeah, right. People didn’t want honesty half as much as they thought they did. “There are some complex family dynamics there. But, you know, any time you mix family with business, that’s going to happen. I love working with my dad, but it’s complicated.”

“What if you didn’t love it?”

“Huh?”

She polished off her drink and motioned for the bartender to give her another. Apparently she was serious about this getting-drunk thing, which meant he had to be serious about making sure she got home okay.

Whether he told her that or not, she’d officially become his responsibility. If that was a little warped, he’d deal with it later. Maybe he’d seek therapy in his retirement. Or on his deathbed.

“If you didn’t love it, if you actually thought working with your family was slowly killing you from the inside out, would you stay?”

It hit a weird spot in his chest, one he had no interest in examining, so he took a deep drink of his beer and tried to formulate some kind of lie.

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