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And he was kept waiting for the longest thirty seconds of his life.
“Because it’syou. Liam, you and I… we…” she couldn’t get her feelings to come out in words. “What if we were to get back together and then you find out that I’ve changed and you don’t actually want to have anything to do with me? Don’t you see? Every good and beautiful memory I have of you, of us, would be ruined. Instead of being my first boyfriend and one of my best friends you would suddenly be the guy I used to know who met me again and rejected me.”
“Soph, I couldn’t ever feel that way about you.”
“You say that now but I’ve changed. You think we’ll go out and pick up where we left off and you’ll have your old Sophie back. But?—”
“Be fair now. Have I put any expectations on you?”
“Well, no.”
“Have I pointed out that you’ve probably gained a few pounds?”
“Watch what you say Liam,” she warned.
“Or that you’re a right nasty bitch when you want to be?”
“I was always that way.”
“True, but these days you seem to go from zero to bitch in six seconds.”
“Believe me that’s progress.”
“All I’m saying is that I know you’re not the girl you were before. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still in there or that I won’t lo—like the new bits.”
Like always he was impossible. “You’re impossible.”
“Right well you answered my question,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t see why. I only found you out on a date with a man you hardly know when you won’t say say much as boo to one of your closest friends.”
Sophie looked down at her feet that were swimming in his navy blue socks and sighed. She really hadn’t given Liam’s feelings any consideration, and he didn’t deserve that. “It’s over, anyway.”
“I don’t need to know. Your business is your business.” Now he was pouting.
Sophie came around the sofa and sat beside him. “What if we got back together, and you decided you don’t like me anymore?”
“But that?—”
“Don’t say it wouldn’t happen because it does.”
“Is that what happened with…”
“Yeah.” She took a small sip of her drink and swallowed hard as it burned the back of her throat. “He adored me, worshipped the ground I walked on—until we learned that I’m barren. After that, he despised me. Did everything he could to hurt me.” Liam’s expression turned very sad, and he reached for her hand that rested on the cushion between them, covering it with his own. “Not like that. He never hit me or anything but,” she paused for a long moment as memories flashed through her mind. “That’s all he didn’t do. The affairs, the endless fights and humiliation… anyway.” She sighed and shook her head. “If things didn’t work out between you and me, then every good memory we ever made together would be tainted. Don’t you see that?” She turned her hand over and squeezed his. “I don’t have one single bad memory of you and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Keefe had warned Liam that her marriage had ended badly. It broke his heart to hear her say out loud that it had been such a ruin. If he believed walking away was best for her, he would do it—leave her alone for good if needed. But something told him that wasn’t what was best for Sophie—or for him. “Does that mean we can’t be friends anymore?”
She glared at him from behind her glass, a look that said she’d figured him out. He figured as much. But she had been avoiding him, which meant she hadn’t made up her mind. “I don’t know what it means.” She exhaled with a smile and stretched her arms out in front of her. “Tonight, I’ve felt more myself than I have in a long time, and I know that’s because I’m with you. Just…”
This conversation was heading in a direction she wasn’t ready to go and he knew that. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we not push it? Let’s just be friends, hang out, and see where it goes? No pressure. If anything, we could at least be friends again.”
“I never stopped being your friend.”
“No, but I sort of stopped being yours, didn’t I?” He’d already admitted to being at her wedding and leaving. Dredging up the past would help nothing. Nothing she said could make him feel more guilty than he already did for allowing his jealousy to come between them. “I’m more sorry than I can say.”
“Don’t be. I probably would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed.”
