Page 71 of Until We're More
A sad smile ghosted across his lips. “Yeah, baby. You’re right.” He slid his hands over my hips and hooked them behind my waist. “But we both know that your heart is too big for a couple assertive lessons to keep you safe when it comes to your family. So you go deal with your mom, then next weekend when my mom’s in town for Brooklyn’s art show, we’ll deal with mine. After we survive, we can compare notes.” His eyebrows drew together. “Unless… Did you need me to come with you? To run interference, or help”—he wrinkled his nose—“sell jewelry?”
I could just picture him holding up the jewelry—women would be practically tackling one another to buy the pieces from him before anyone else could. But I couldn’t put him in that position. “I know you have a ton to do at the gym.”
“I do.”
I placed my hand on the center of his chest. “I’ll call if I need you.”
He covered my hand with his, holding it over the spot his heart steadily beat against my palm. “You know I’ll come.”
“I do.”
He smiled, silently telling me he’d caught the way I’d purposely echoed his words.
The strings in my heart tugged, and I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the pro or con column. Over the past few days, I’d been thinking a lot about what I wanted, and I couldn’t stop wondering what would happen if I didn’t go back to Denver. If I stayed in San Diego, I would inevitably enable my mom and get sucked into whatever guilt trip she cooked up for me. But Liam knew that about me, and he’d be here to talk me down. Even if it ruffled my feathers and hurt my feelings a pinch when he did.
Except… What if he got fed up with having to constantly do that? What if it caused a strain on our relationship? What if I gave up everything I’d worked for the past several months and we couldn’t make it work and we broke up? What if I regretted staying and it ate away at what we had until we weren’t even friends?
Panic-laced breaths came faster and faster.
“Chelsea? Are you okay?”
Big breath in, big breath out. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Overthinking?”
“Maybe. One problem at a time, right?”
His smile still seemed too sad, and my body took that in and amplified the emotion until it pressed heavily against my lungs. “That usually works best,” he said. Was that resignation in his tone? Like he was accepting we were a hopeless mess?
One problem at a time; one problem at a time…
“Well, according to that call, my first problem of the day will see me now.” I tipped onto my toes to kiss him, and even though I told myself this wasn’t an unfixable problem and every couple had disagreements and sore spots, I still had to force back the urge to cry as I climbed into the car.
Silver lining? If I ended up crying through the entire event, it’d somehow ended up my party, so I could cry if I wanted to.
Chapter Thirty-One
Chelsea
By the time I arrived back at the apartment that evening, I was tired, peopled out, and wearing the “free” necklace I’d gotten for buying a certain amount of jewelry.
There hadn’t been any mother-daughter bonding, and by the end of the party, mostly what I felt was used, with a side of hopelessness that things would ever change.
Between the startup money, the food, and the order I’d put in to help Mom reach the goal that would earnherfree jewelry perks, I was out a couple hundred dollars. A couple hundred dollars I definitely hadn’t had to spare.
I should probably add a maid fee in there, too.How much did two hours of deep cleaning and two more post-party go for these days? Mom claimed to have straightened, and she probably had, but it’d been filthy with years of neglect that seemed magnified by the thought of other people seeing the house in that condition. So I’d rolled up my sleeves—so to speak, since I’d worn short sleeves—and gone to work.
After living with Mom most of my life, I considered myself fairly clean, but Liam was, like, hygienically, hospital-level clean, and now I noticed my messes everywhere I looked around his apartment.
My collection of mugs with dried-up teabags dotted the side table and coffee table. I gathered them and cleaned them out, scrubbed the kitchen, and mopped. Most of my messiness came from a sort of rebellion. As in no one forced me to do all the cleaning, so I gave myself a break, without letting it get to the yucky,actual dirt and food crumbsstate. But after the layer of ick I’d cleaned today, I resolved to do better.
In a way, scrubbing down the apartment was cathartic.
Something I could control.
A good distraction from the other thoughts going through my head, ones about whether Liam and I could really make it in the long run. Part of my heart would always be his, but how did he feel about me?
Protective, sure. And yeah, he enjoyed having sex with me—at least I knew that much.
