Page 42 of Trusting Liam (Taking Chances 2)

Liam raised an eyebrow at me. “Really,” he said, his tone full of disbelief.

“I’m sure there are people who have families far different from mine and Kira’s. I’ve already told you that my dad and uncle Mason are detectives in the gang unit, and you met Mason, so I’m sure you can somewhat understand, and having them hovering over us and just being the way they are as we grew up was an experience in itse

lf. But the older we got, the more stories we heard . . . and I don’t know how to wrap my head around the kind of men that they had to be. So it’s not like I had this insane life growing up, or crazy family who had weird rituals in the backyard on full moons or anything. We just weren’t a cookie-cutter family. I grew up learning how to escape being kidnapped, how to defend myself, how to shoot, and basically having two bodyguards instead of a dad and uncle,” I finished on a laugh.

Liam watched me for a few seconds with a soft smile on his face. “Okay, well, my family wasn’t like that. Things were . . . normal—for the most part, I guess. Mornings were spent surfing with my dad, sometimes my friends and his. Grew up in his gym, as you already know. My family is really close. I’ve already told you I have a different relationship with my dad than most sons have. I’ve always seen him more as a best friend. I see him almost every day at the gym even though we spend the mornings at the beach, and I see Mom a couple times a week. Even if my sister didn’t live with them, I know she’d be the same way.”

I felt my brow pinch together. “That doesn’t seem like an abnormal family.”

He laughed hesitantly. “It’s not my family that’s abnormal. It’s the circumstances behind my family that are. I have three sets of grandparents. And I’m extremely close with all of them. I have an uncle and aunt on my dad’s side, and the same on my mom’s side. But the part where it gets confusing . . . is it’s not really my mom’s side. My mom has her real dad and his wife, and they’re great. We all love them. But then she has this other family she considers hers, who we all consider her side of the family, who is my real dad’s family. And that’s where my aunt and uncle come from on that side; and that uncle is Konrad . . . you know him from working at the gym.”

“Wait. What?”

“Exactly.” He sighed.

“So your parents were related before they got married?”

His wide blue eyes met mine before he burst into laughter. “No. Not even close. I meant that my mom’s family is technically not her family but my biological father’s family. His real sister is my aunt Bree, and her husband is Konrad.”

My confusion quickly disappeared, but then I was left feeling surprised. “Brandon isn’t your real dad? I never would have known.”

“No. I mean, he is. He’s my dad, but he’s not my biological father. And this is where it goes from confusing to fucked up. Apparently my dad and mom were together, and my mom cheated on him with his best friend—my biological father. Nine months later, and here I am.”

“Holy shit,” I said before I could stop myself. “And did your dad know?”

“Yeah, he knew. My mom and biological father, Chase, were together for a short time while she was pregnant. According to everyone, she loved him and my dad both. She knew she’d made a mistake, but was trying to make it right by being with Chase. And then halfway through the pregnancy, my biological father died in a car accident.”

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped, but no sound came out.

“Few months later she and my dad got back together, and he’s raised me as his own, but they raised me to know who Chase was. And before Mom and Chase ever got together, Chase’s family had pretty much already adopted her because she was best friends with my aunt Bree and wasn’t talking to her dad or something, I guess. So we have this weird family that consists of my dad’s family, my mom’s dad, and then Chase’s family—who my mom considers her family. It’s confusing as shit, and we’re all close.”

“That is confusing,” I mumbled. “And just . . . just oh my God.”

“Yeah.” He took in a heavy breath, then released it and stared up at the ceiling again. “But you need to know all that to understand the tattoo.”

When he didn’t say anything for a while again, I squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to tell me, Liam.”

“I told you I grew up knowing about Chase,” he began, his eyes still glued to the ceiling. “There wasn’t one morning of surfing with Dad and Uncle Konrad that there weren’t stories of him. Then, of course, whenever we were with my grandparents—Chase’s parents—stories were told. No one wants his memory to fade even after all this time, and I get it to an extent. Kristi and I don’t understand completely because we didn’t know him, but we know how important it is for them. But as I got older, I stopped looking like my mom, and started looking more and more like Chase. Because of that, there were times where my grandparents, Aunt Bree, or Mom would just start crying when they were looking at me. Even my dad sometimes, I’ll catch him staring at me with a distant look, and I know he’s back in college with his best friend.

“The stories—shit, I could tell you stories about Chase like I had been there. But I have no real emotional connection to them, and to have my family randomly crying or accidentally calling me Chase when they saw me started getting on me. On my nineteenth birthday, my mom was trying to get me to do a bunch of things—I don’t even remember. But everyone was there, and she was busy, so she rambled off a list of things really quick that she needed me to do, and I said something to her. Two words. Just two fucking words, and my entire family went dead silent and then all the women started sobbing.”

“What did you say?” I asked when he didn’t offer anything else.

Liam finally looked over at me and shrugged. “I said, ‘Okay, Princess.’ I was just being a dick because she was giving me a list of things to do on my birthday. Out of all the stories they’d told me about Chase, no one had ever mentioned that he called my mom ‘Princess.’ Ever. So my dad finally told me why everyone was crying, and that, mixed with how I looked just like him . . . it was too close to home, and I kinda lost it. I went off on all of them. Told them to get over what happened, that it’d happened long enough ago that they shouldn’t be upset anymore. My dad was yelling at me to shut up, and I just kept going. I was pissed and said I wasn’t Chase and it wasn’t fair that they all kept putting his life on me, like they wanted me to be him for them or something. I said it wasn’t my goddamn fault I grew up to look like him . . . and then I looked at my mom and said, ‘If you would’ve kept your fucking legs closed, I wouldn’t have to deal with everyone’s bullshit now,’ and then I left.”

“Liam . . .” I said on a breath, shock apparent in the one word.

“I know. I went back to my dorm and didn’t talk to any of them for a week, and not one of them tried to contact me. I didn’t blame them. I said the worst thing I could to them. They don’t want me to be him, I knew that even then. I knew all they wanted was for me to know who he was. Like I said, I was being a dick. It had just started feeling like the Chase thing was forced on me all the time. My middle name is Chase, and a friend of the family only ever calls me LC—for my first and middle name—or Little Chachi. He and his wife always called Chase ‘Chachi,’ so once I started looking like him, the nickname transferred over to me. But I didn’t really start looking like him until I got into high school, and then that’s all anyone could talk about. So for the few years before that birthday, I just felt like I couldn’t get away from his ghost . . . if that even makes sense. And then I let it get to me when I shouldn’t have.

“So when I’d cooled off and realized what I’d done and how I’d hurt my family, I went to get this tattoo. Brian—the guy who came up with the Chachi nickname—is a tattoo artist who worked with Chase and is still close with my parents; he does all of our work. I went to see him, and of course he’d already heard about what I’d done on my birthday. When I told him what I wanted, he just smiled and sat me down. Once it was done, he told me something I still remember like it was yesterday—probably because it was the first time he’d ever been serious around me. He said, ‘What you did was fucked up, LC, but we’ve put a lot on you that no kid should have to deal with. When Chase died we all had to cling together to keep going—this family of strays loved that guy, and I think we were all terrified of forgetting him. So we made sure we wouldn’t. Your mom and dad’s intentions were from the heart. Chase meant a lot to both

of them, and they wanted you to know the dad you would never get to meet. Did we put too much pressure on you? Maybe. Even though having you here and seeing Chase through you has been the biggest blessing of my fucked-up life, I don’t want you to be him, and I know they feel the same. Is it crazy looking at you and seeing him? Yeah, dude, it’s a fucking trip. But it’s the best goddamn trip I’ve ever been on.’ ”

My lips tilted up in a small smile at the remembered words. “And then you went to apologize?” When Liam nodded absentmindedly, I asked again, “So what do the letters stand for?”

“My last name is Taylor. Chase’s last name was Grayson—that side of my family’s last name is Grayson. They want to remember him, and they wanted me to know him for a reason. So this is my way of accepting and embracing that part of my life.”

I watched him for a couple minutes before whispering, “I think that’s beautiful.”

---