Page 24 of Hold
Chloe shrugged. “You never brought Kane up. I didn’t know if you guys were on the outs or something.” She looked around her. “Making it on your own kind of thing.”
Thea laughed. “We’re on the outs every other day. But we’re family. We don’t do that not-speaking thing.”
“You’re related to Kane Fielding?” Zahra said, who had a hand to her chest as if her heart were pounding. “Can you get me a photograph? For a friend, of course.”
“Ew, Zahra,” Thea complained. “That’s my brother you’re talking about. And he’s married. With children.”
They all looked at her like Liam probably had the other day. Assessing. Finding similarities. And differences.
Thea fake-grinned that giant Fielding smile he’d glimpsed at class last week. Now he knew where he’d seen it before. Her brother had been on the news a few years ago, and his cheesy grin had always annoyed Liam.
But on Thea…
Liam looked away. The others were still staring at her.
“Holy crap,” Chloe breathed.
“Moving on!” Thea almost shouted.
“But how do you… why do you…?” Zahra stammered.
“Live like this?” Thea grimaced. “Life decisions. Stubborn pride. Gabe.”
“Jesus.” Liam didn’t know why he was pissed, but tonight was apparently fuck-it night. “You don’t live in a fucking tent, Thea. You have a great house and a pretty good life. Quit acting like you’re on food stamps.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair, and he hated himself. She’d told him her financial situation, and he’d just thrown that small amount of trust back at her.
“Damn, Liam,” David said. Liam couldn’t look at him.
Thea scowled through her blushes. “Happy now? Got that off your chest?”
He scrubbed at his beard. “Pretty much.”Asshole.
“So, Liam,” she said, her voice now suspiciously bright. “How’syourlove life?”
So that was her revenge. She was taking her pound of flesh, and it was going to hurt. But he deserved it.
Still, he tried to dodge the question. He folded his arms. “Nonexistent,” he said shortly.
Her eyes turned almost black when she was pissed. “Aw,” she teased. “Married to your work, are you?”
His brows lowered even farther. “Married to a coworker, yes,” he said. He sounded as though his jaw had locked in place. “She slept with my mortgage rep. So I stopped being married to her. But one of us had to quit. I made it me.”
♦
A profound silence blanketed the room. Even Chloe’s hair was still. Thea watched the tautness of Liam’s body, the thin line that was his lips. So much for any intimacy they’d developed over the last few weeks. Tonight he’d taken what she’d shared with him and chosen to read her as a trust fund baby playing at being poor. He seemed to have no emotion of his own except for snark and judgment. So she’d pushed back, because everything about him made her do that.
But here was the evidence of a Liam who felt and hurt and lived. They all could see it in the clipped, cold way he described it, in the hand that drew down his beard, and the slight pink that came into his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Liam,” she said.
He unfolded his arms. “Yeah, me too.” He looked at her, and Thea’s heart ran a little lap around her chest. He wasn’t just saying that about himself, about what his ex had done to him. He was apologizing for what he’d just said about her.
He’s been burned, too. That means he and I are definitely off-limits.“Okay,” she said brightly, ignoring the disappointed jog her heart had settled into. “Enough sharing for one week. Who’s going first with their lesson plan?”
Chapter 7
Liam drove up to the house in a Pat the Plumber van. Thea, peeking through the living room window, found herself missing the blue monster baby, but she supposed it couldn’t carry all the supplies his father might need.