Page 67 of Trusting Liam (Taking Chances 2)

I stood there completely silent, not knowing what to say. Because as much as I wanted to continue denying what he was saying, a part of me knew he was right. I had grown up wanting what my parents have, and now that Rhys had explained it to me, I could see that I had done things in my past to try to ensure I would have that kind of marriage and love—even in the smallest of relationships. But I hadn’t done any of that since the man standing in front of me had completely rocked my world.

I rocked back on my heels and shook my head once. “That doesn’t make sense now. I tried to avoid a relationship with Liam . . . and that was because of you. I didn’t want to go through what you’d put me through again, and I just knew that he had that power to crush me like you did. But I never once tried to make my relationship with him something it wasn’t. When I gave up with him, I was giving up trying to keep myself from him.”

Another sad smile pulled at Rhys’s lips. “Then I guess that tells both of us exactly what he means to you.” He watched my confused expression for a second before gesturing in the direction we’d been walking. “Come on. Let’s get all this stuff back and make Kira dinner, and we’ll stop with the heavy conversation for tonight. Deal?”

“Deal.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON I was walking into Brian’s tattoo shop with a bag of greasy food in hand. The air in the condo had been thick with tension as Rhys, Kira, and I had absentmindedly watched TV just so we wouldn’t have to talk to each other, and soon it had been too much for me to handle. With a quick good-bye, I’d gotten in the car and driven around for almost thirty minutes before I found myself in a drive-thru buying food for Brian.

“Dude number one!” Brian called out excitedly. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Why is it you don’t have an issue with figuring out which one of us is which?”

Brian looked offended. “As if I would? I had my share of twinsies before I met my lady love. I’m what everyone should call an expert.”

“Should?” I asked on a laugh. “Here, brought you something so you wouldn’t starve.”

“Glorious!” he sang out as he reached for the bag—once again like it was precious and fragile. “You here for some ink?” he asked over his shoulder as he walked to his station.

“Not today,” I said on a sigh, and took a seat. “I came for your crazy-worded wisdom. Liam said he always went to talk to you whenever anything was going on his life, so I figured I would try.”

“Smart boy.” He pointed at me and grinned cheekily. “And very smart girl! Lay it on me.”

“Has Liam been by in the last month to maybe talk to you about . . .” I trailed off, and my face twisted up as I tried to figure out how to explain the situation in as few words as possible.

“About your ex-boo? Oh yeah, I’ve heard all about it. My boy is torn up, my dude. Completely. Torn,” he emphasized by tearing a fry in half.

“That makes three of us,” I muttered. “I don’t know what to do, Brian.”

“What’s your heart tell you?”

I thought for a second, trying to sort through all the emotions I’d been fighting with for the last month. “It tells me that I can’t lose Liam—just like it told me the day Liam walked away from me.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh,” he mumbled around a bite of food. “But what about your ex-boo? What’s it saying about him?”

“That I’m so scared of hurting him. I don’t love him anymore, Br

ian,” I confessed out loud for the first time ever—and Christ, did that small confession feel good. “I don’t love him, not in the way I did, and not in a way that could make me possibly want him in the future. I enjoy his company, he’s fun to have around, but that’s it. That piece of my heart that I gave him all those years ago still belongs to him—but only in a first-love-memory type of way. But he thought we would be together again for four years. Four. Years. I was devastated when I lost Rhys after only having him for a few months, and I’m so worried about what I’ll do to him if I tell him I don’t want him.”

Brian had stopped chewing, and continued to sit there with his burger halfway to his mouth for a few moments before shaking his head. “You can’t be with someone just because you’re afraid of making their heart hurt. Because their hurt will be temporary, but think about how much your heart will hurt if you spend the rest of your life avoiding hurting his.”

“I know,” I whispered, and my shoulders fell with the weight of the decision that was looming over me.

“Dude number one, tell me something, ’kay ’kay?”

“All right.”

“When you met the ex-boo, what was it like?”

I shrugged. “Easy. We both fell hard and fast, and I was so sure at that time—and even for years after—that I would never again experience what I had experienced with him.”

“And my boy? When he found you here in his dad’s gym, what was it like for you?”

“Terrifying,” I answered with a laugh.

Brian nodded and took another bite of his burger with a smirk on his face the entire time. “That’s all you need to know right there.”

“What? What is?”

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