Page 31 of The Perfect Deal

My head on her shoulder, I sank down, completely spent. Liberty wrapped me up in a tight embrace. I wanted to tell her how I felt at that moment, how important she was to me, how I’d been in love with her for as long as I could remember, but I knew if I opened my mouth at all, only a whimper of emotion would come out. So I lay there, still, soaking in the feeling of her all around me.

Exhausted from a long day and overcome with my own feelings, I felt myself beginning to drift off. I barely noticed when Liberty squirmed from beneath me to resituate the both of us under the blankets. I felt her hand on my back as I fell into a comfortable sleep, no longer worried about anything, including the fact that I’d just broken my best friend’s trust in a way I could never re-earn.

What seemed like only a few moments later, a soft glow began to emanate beyond my eyelids. I turned over, pulling a pillow over my head as I fought the light of day. But when I realized it was morning, another realization hit me as well.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered, my hand shooting out across the bed as my eyes flew open. I’d slept with Liberty.

My palm met only cold mattress. No Liberty. Sitting up, I looked around the cabin for her, wondering if maybe she’d gone back to the bunks in the other room. I’d been asleep so soundly, I had no idea if she’d slept with me or if she’d left in the middle of the night.

“Liberty?” I called out, but I heard nothing. I noticed the shirt I’d loaned her folded neatly and set on the top of my dresser. Clearly, she’d left. That was a relief because no one needed to know she’d been here at all. I only hoped she’d been able to sneak back into her cabin without anyone noticing. Karrie was likely asleep all night, the way she was snoring, and if the girls had in earplugs to try to drown that noise out, they might not have noticed Liberty coming back in either.

Dragging a hand down my face, I contemplated what had happened. What I had done. I was in really deep shit at this point. If Landon found out about this, he’d kill me. Ever since the situation with Grady, he’d made it very clear that his sister was off limits. That hadn’t stopped me from taking her, though.

It wasn’t as if Liberty didn’t want me just as badly. I’d always known that the feelings I had for her were mutual, that she wished things were different so that we could be together. But Landon was her brother. He wasn’t going to murder her for sleeping with me the way he’d want my head for having sex with his little sister. No matter what happened, they would always be siblings. I was the one who’d betrayed his friend.

With those thoughts in my head, I quieted my alarm just as it went off and headed to the shower. It was bad enough that I’d kissed her the other night. This was unthinkable. Under the lukewarm water I hoped would jar some sense into my idiotic head, I recommitted myself to being a better friend. I just needed to stay away from Liberty. If I’d never indulged myself in allowing her to get so close to me in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.

At breakfast, I did my best to keep the same smile in place I always had. I was tired from staying up so late, and my head throbbed from the stress all of this had placed upon my shoulders, but I had a camp to run, and I needed to be there for the kids.

With a plate of pancakes and a glass of milk, I found a seat at one of the girls’ tables furthest away from Bear House. I hadn’t even glanced over to see if Liberty was there, though I knew she was. I could always feel it when she was nearby. I prayed she’d feel the same way I did and would stay away from me today. She had to understand the gravity of what we’d done.

“We’re starting soccer today, right, Coach Joshua?” a girl named Kenna asked me, snapping my thoughts back to reality.

“That’s right,” I told her with a forced smile. “Are you excited?”

“I am,” she said with a sharp nod. “I can’t wait to get out there.”

“You’re going to do great,” I said with confidence. She was one of the kids that played soccer for her high school team, and I was excited to see what she’d learned recently. “Are you still working on that backheel pass?”

“I’ve been practicing,” she said with a nod. “It’s harder than a forward pass, for sure, but I’ve been using the technique you showed me last year, and it’s been helping.”

“Great to hear. I knew you would get it,” I encouraged her. A few other girls hopped into the conversation, and before long, my mind was back on sports, where it should have always been.

After breakfast, we led the kids out to the soccer field, and I gave them a speech about how the soccer practice and tournament were going to go. We had more soccer fields than basketball courts, so every team would get to practice with a goal for the next couple of days before we started the tournament. As I spoke, I heard the clicking of a camera in the background and did my best not to look in that direction. It was too painful to even see her face.

We were about halfway through the morning session the first time Liberty tried to talk to me. Her voice was cheerful as she approached. “The girls are doing great today,” she said with a big grin.

Quickly, I mumbled a response and stepped away, not meeting her eyes. I felt like a total douche, but she had to understand I couldn’t just suddenly forget everything her brother had told me. It’s not like the fact that we’d had sex changed the situation. It didn’t. She was still forbidden.

“Joshua?” Her voice sounded meek, and I knew I’d hurt her, but I needed to find a way to walk away from her and not let the pang in my heart distract me.

At lunch, she grabbed a bag with a sandwich and settled onto the ground with the same group of boys I was sitting with. Immediately, one of the kids started asking questions about her camera, which gave me the opportunity to excuse myself. I felt Liberty’s eyes boring through me as I went over to pretend to have something important to say to Coach Sam.

Later that afternoon, before we went in for dinner, she tried one more time. This question was at least about the game. “What does offsides mean in soccer again?” she asked.

Immediately, I started to answer her. It was just second nature for me to do so. After all, coaching was my life. “It just means that a player—” I stopped, meeting her eyes. I could see hope behind her irises as she practically begged me just to stop being an ass and talk to her.

I couldn’t do it. If I allowed myself to drop back into that realm of familiarity, I was just setting myself up to be sucked back into her world, and if I did that, Landon would literally kill me.

Liberty waited for me to continue, but I only shook my head, saying, “You should ask Myra. She can explain it better than I can.” With that, I turned around and walked away from her, the irritated grunt I heard from her stabbing me through the heart.

It wasn’t enough to make me slow my pace or turn around and face her. I knew I was being a dick. I knew she would think that I had just used her for sex and now I was ignoring her. I hoped that I could get through to her that this was for the best, but I didn’t have those words to explain the situation to her right then. Hopefully, in a day or two, I’d be able to speak to her again, and then I could let her know that I cared too much for her and her brother to let any of this happen.

We’d danced around one another for over a decade. Why not continue the dance? As long as no one got hurt in the end except for me, that was all that mattered.

20

LIBERTY