Page 25 of Tiebreaker

“And you owe me half that money they paid you,” she hisses under her breath.Her eyes narrow. My guts turn to ice, and possibility that it was a mistake evaporating in the full fledged sun of truth. Sheknewand now she’s standing here like I owe her.

A simmering heat in my gut is telling me I owe her a slap. I breathe out slowly, trying to find my ballast.

“Miss?” the concierge asks, glancing between the two of us with concern. “May I help you?” My gaze snaps to his.

“Yeah. I need to go to Macy’s,” I say, turning away from her, completely blanking her presence. She can get fucked.

Mariah makes a noise a fury in the back of her throat.

“Are you fucking ignoring me?” She asks, inhaling like a noisy kettle, “you get your ass inside the coffee shop and put on your apron. Now, or you're fired.”

I stand there, staring at the concierge helpless to respond to her.

My tongue is thick in my mouth and refuses to move, my whole body feels heavy through and through. I want to scream at her. But I can’t.

And it's like I'm swimming through honey.

I’m begging my body to move. Just to shift away from her so I'm not so close to her. The concierge frowns at her.

“Mariah,” I croak out.

The gentlebong-bongof the elevator arriving interrupts my thought process, splinters the frost that’s gathered over me and kept me from even blinking. I glance up as Kai emerges from the elevator, looking determined.

He walks right up to me, and Mariah goes from furious to wide-eyed.

“Oh, there you are,” he says, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Let's go. Sorry I kept you waiting.”

Just like that my muscles become unstuck and he guides me away from her.

Her mouth opens, and she makes a squeaky noise of rage.

I move to look back at her. Kai sighs, a noise under his breath.

“Don’t,” he says, “she's not worth it.” My belly flutters. How does he know?

Someone gets the doors for us and we're outside, fresh air thawing the pit of ice in my stomach.

That's when he drops his arm from around my shoulders.

“What were you doing down there, talking to her?” He asks, and off look in his eyes. So he knows about her, who she was. Okay.

Okay Liv, breathe Liv.

“I am, I was-” I can't form a sentence, and I take another deep breath.

“I was trying to figure out how to get to Macy’s,” I say. His eyebrows rise.

“Doing some shopping?” He asks.

I lift my phone up, where it's clenched in my hand.

“Yeah, I've got, well, Everett asked if I could go to this dinner thing with him tonight and I guess I need a new dress because nothing I have would probably work. I don't think...”

Kai's expression turns stormy in an instant, and he looks away.

He presses his lips together and sighs.

“All right, well why don't I take you to Rodeo Drive?” He lifts up a hand and before I can argue a black Town Car appears in front of us.

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