Page 16 of The Savior

“Just different.” He shook his head, frustrated. “But you are doing everything the same.”

“What do you mean?” Linda studied him curiously but then her features softened as she understood. “Nothing will ever be like it was.”

He understood that. It wasn’t as if he’d spent the year moping under a dark cloud. At least not all the time. But he needed something to change. Hell if he knew what it was or how to do it.

“Are you okay?” Chelsea asked softly.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Chelsea rolled her lips into her mouth then offered a pitying smile. “Okay.”

Damn, he didn’t want to feel guilty for snapping at her on top of everything.

Linda closed her magazine and moved to the table. “Maybe it shouldn’t have taken us a year to get everyone together. I couldn’t have managed what we did yesterday after the funeral… But hearing from her friends and sharing our stories made my heart fuller.”

He shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth, having no idea when would be the right time.

Chelsea laid her pen on the oversized page. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Forget I said anything.” Liam chomped on another piece of bacon, ignoring the eggs and muffin. He sensed Frank and Linda staring and could feel Chelsea study him. She could still be upset about last night. They hadn’t traded a word when Linda and Frank forced them to sit together and look at pictures. He bet she was silently cursing him out with her ridiculous name-calling. Donut brain. Sprinkle ass.

“I think,” Linda said, “this year has been hard, and we’ve all had to find a new normal. That doesn’t mean we don’t hurt.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, not sure what to say.

Frank offered him the paper as though the mundane activity might help.

“No, thanks.”

And with that, Linda reopened her magazine. Frank stood and headed to the coffee pot for a refill, and Chelsea twirled her pen as if she were headlining a marching band.

The dryer signal chimed, and Linda pushed back from the table. Frank wandered from the kitchen with his refill.

Liam scowled at his eggs then dug in and tapped his bare foot. Chelsea’s pen dropped onto the table, and he looked up. Her dark pink-lips were pressed into a tight line that made them lose their color. Her eyebrows arched, and she stared as though she were waiting.

“What?”

“Don’t be like that to them,” she scolded.

He smirked. “Don’t act like it’s party central—”

“Oh, give me a break. No one’s acting like that.”

Liam shoveled another mouthful of eggs into his mouth.

“You’re not the only one who has had a hard time since she died.”

“Then act like it,” he snapped.

Her lips parted—then she slapped her mouth shut. Tears formed in her eyes, and she dropped her chin. Shit, he didn’t mean to do that. His throat knotted, and a lonely emptiness washed away his hostility, no matter how hard he tried to hang on to its protective armor.

“Sorry,” he finally muttered, though she’d hid her face with an intense study of her notes. “That was a dick move.”

Chelsea shrugged, not glancing up.

“And about last night.” He stabbed the eggs, moving them around. “I shouldn’t have been a dick then, either.”

She made angry marks across the page. “Don’t worry about it.”

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