Page 11 of Falling For Liam
Liam
“Morning,” I say, holding out the tray of coffees and bag of pastries I stopped to pick up on the way here.
I’ve already drank my body weight in coffee this morning after spending the night tossing and turning. I couldn’t get her scared and vulnerable eyes out of my mind. I was angry that I allowed Nicole to send me away. I should have been with her. Every part of me screamed to get myself back to her, to wrap my arms around her and show her that she’s safe, that I won’t allow anything to hurt her.
By the time 8am rolls around, I couldn’t wait any longer. I jumped in my car, my heart racing at the thought of seeing her again while nerves and apprehension ran rampant around my body at how she might react after last night.
“What’s that look for?” I ask when Nic turns her sad eyes on me. “What’s happened?”
“She’s gone.”
“She’s what?” I shout, louder than I was anticipating. Nicole just manages to move aside as I barge in past her. “For fuck’s sake, Nic. You said you’d keep an eye on her.”
“I wasn’t expecting her to run in the middle of the night.”
I fall down on to her sofa after dumping everything on the table and drop my head into my hands.
“She’s a mess, Nic.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m just as worried as you are, you know.”
“All right, you two. Calm down,” Dec says, walking into the room fresh from the shower.
“Have you called her?”
“Of course. It just rings off.”
“Give me her number.”
“No.”
“What? No? Fucking hell, Nic.”
“Enough,” Dec snaps, turning angry eyes on me. “If you’re going to talk to her like that, you can leave.” I probably should be pissed that Dec’s telling me off like a child, but I can’t help pride swelling within me that he’s found Nicole and that his main priority is to protect her. I watched him for years toss girl after girl aside, too scared to commit to any of them. “What?” he barks when he sees my smile.
“Nothing,” I mutter before turning back to Nic. “Please, we need to find out what’s going on. She might answer me.”
“If she wanted you to have her number, don’t you think she’d have given it to you herself?”
I’m well aware of this, and it’s pissed me off more than I care to admit since she left a few weeks ago. There was no denying the connection between us. Then, she just upped and left, much like right now, with no way for me to contact her unless Nicole ever caved and handed it over. I’ve tried finding her online but always come up empty handed. Who doesn’t have social media accounts these days?
“So what the fuck are we going to do? She’s fucking falling apart; we can’t just sit back and allow it to happen.”
“What are we meant to do? She obviously doesn’t want us getting involved. As hard as it is, we need to give her the time and space to come to us.”
“What if that’ll be too late?”
“What do you mean,too late?”
“I don’t…” I blow out a slow breath as I try to shake the fear surrounding me. I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this. “I don’t know what it is. She refused to say a word but, whatever it is, it’s bad.”
“I know,” Nicole whispers, reaching for one of the coffees. “We have to trust she knows what she’s doing.”
“But what if she doesn’t? What then?”
Chapter Four
Olivia
