Page 59 of Meet Me at the Grand

“Everything okay?”

He turned to find Cody entering the kitchen via the back door. “Oh, hey. Yeah, everything’s fine.” He dropped his hands.

“Really?” An eyebrow raised, Cody headed to the stack of paper plates and served himself some chicken casserole. “I just saw Dani run upstairs, and it looked like she couldn’t get away from you fast enough. You that bad of a kisser?”

Liam groaned. “You saw that?”

“I think the whole town saw it, man.”

“Fabulous.”

Cody rustled inside a bag of barbecue chips and plopped some onto his plate. “So what happened?”

“Kissing her was a mistake.”

“And let me guess—you told her that.”

“I screwed up, all right? But we’ve got too much at stake here to mess things up on a whim.”

“You don’t exactly seem like the kind of guy who does anything on a whim.”

“Normally, I’m not.”

“But she got to you. You’re falling for her.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, but I can’t.”

“Why’s that?” Cody snagged a napkin. “And don’t give me some lame excuse about how being with her would mess up the project, especially if you’re both on board with compromising. There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

Liam sank against the counter and sighed. “Once we get the council’s approval, the project will be turned over to someone else, and I’ll move on to the next thing. Hopefully, getting my dad to let me take over as CEO in Los Angeles. Dani would never move there, and I can’t be here, so it’s a moot point.”

“Ever heard of long distance, bro?”

“Been there, done that. It’s not a good idea.”

“Oh right, you mentioned something about that.” Cody slid onto one of the barstools behind the kitchen island. “What happened?”

“A few years ago, I seriously dated a woman who lived in Los Angeles. Tiffany. But I was gone ten months out of the twelve we were together. I really liked her, and we did our best to talk every night, but you know how it is. Work would run late, or she’d be out with her friends when I’d call. I came home when I could, but she never wanted to travel out to my work site. Said I was too busy for her whenever she did.”

“Sounds brutal.”

“We did our best.” Liam shrugged. “Though it wasn’t enough for her. On our one-year anniversary, I took her out to this really great restaurant, one she’d been talking about for ages, and she told me I needed to ask her to marry me or break up with her.”

“What’d you say?” Cody shoveled some casserole into his mouth.

“How could I ask her to marry me? I’d already signed up to take on a six-month project right after that and was up for a big promotion too, that would have required even more travel. It wouldn’t have been fair to be planning a wedding while we were apart that whole time, and I knew I would have ended up disappointing her even more. So we decided to break up.” Liam crossed his arms over his chest. “After that, I promised myself I wouldn’t ever do long distance again.”

Cody polished off his casserole and stood with his plate of chips, chucking his fork into the trash can. “I’m no expert by any means but sounds to me like you didn’t want it badly enough. Neither of you did.”

“Weren’t you listening? My job situation just wasn’t conducive to having a relationship.”

“Nah, that’s not it.” Cody clapped him on the shoulder. “Because when you really want something, you go after it—no matter what obstacles stand in your way.” A look stole over his buddy’s face, almost like surprise at the words he’d spoken.

Then he blinked, shook his head, and carried his plate silently out the back door.

Leaving Liam in the kitchen, once more, alone with his thoughts…and absolutely no answers.

ChapterEleven

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