“You don’t have to listen to anything that guy has to say.” Liam clenches his jaw. “Fuck him.”
I put my hand over Liam’s mouth to silence him, his anger with Max threatening to unleash the tears that are clamoring at the backs of my eyes. There was a side to Liam he didn’t show everyone, a part that took time to find, like a shell you finally unearth after digging through the sand. On the exterior, he was a guy’s guy, slapping high fives when Hanley Ramirez hit a grand slam or when Liam went for a layup on the basketball court like he was still twenty-one years old. But underneath, he could be sensitive, like the time he’d grabbed my hand and sat silently beside me as I wailed like a toddler after my favorite TV show was canceled, something he could have told me wasn’t important, but he didn’t because he understood it mattered to me. And I was the only person who knew he’d cried while reading The Notebook, a secret he’d made me promise never to reveal, information I’d been proud to protect because it represented my favorite part of him.
Our friendship just worked. I understood him and he got me. We never pushed each other to fix our neuroses. He knew I needed to scrutinize ten nearly identical photos before uploading one to Instagram, always willing to weigh in on which picture made my arms look the least fleshy. And in return, I understood he wasn’t interested in showing his “secret sensitive side” to the women he dated. The Liam he gave them was the thirty-four-year-old hilarious computer programmer by day who went on acting auditions at night, even landing a couple of national commercials, not the man whose parents had divorced when he was ten and whose dad hadn’t been in the picture much since, the man who fiercely protected his own heart as much as he looked out for Jules and me.
As I regard him now, a scowl settling into his chiseled face and loyalty blazing in his hazel eyes, I know he’d do anything to take my pain away.
“It’s okay. I want to hear what he told Jules.” I recognize that familiar feeling that’s been rising and falling within me every day since he canceled our wedding—hope.
Jules inches her body closer to me. “He wants to talk . . .” She pauses, squeezing my palm, and suddenly I’m picturing my mom’s warm hand over mine as she choked back her sobs, telling me that she and my dad were getting a divorce. Was the pain I was feeling only a fraction of what she had experienced? There had always been a part of me that had resented her bitterness. But now I could see why it might be easy to wallow in it.
“Kate?” Jules notices I’ve drifted away.
“Sorry,” I say, snapping my attention back to her.
“I was saying that he wants to talk as soon as you are ready. And he wanted me to tell you again that he’s sorry.”
“Did he sound sincere?” I ask.
Jules presses her lips together in a tight line.
“Jules?” I ask again, sinking back into the sofa’s plush cushions, remembering when I’d bought it after the feng shui consultant deemed my old futon full of bad energy, feeling excited as the movers unloaded the sofa in the center of my living room, imagining all of the possibilities this new piece of furniture represented. But why had I focused so much of my attention on the good fortune some inanimate object would bring my relationship?
“What a prick,” Liam says, his tone a sharp contrast to Jules’ motherly inflection. “I can’t believe he’d try to get to you through Jules—put her in the middle like this.”
Ignoring Liam, Jules finally nods her head. “He did sound like he meant it. But who cares what I think. You should talk to him and decide what you think. I know you’re hurting right now, but the sooner you do face him, the faster you can start picking up the pieces.”
“Ugh. I hate it when you’re right.” I release an exaggerated sigh. “And even though he’s got his tough-guy thing going on right now, Liam does have a point,” I say as he peers at me over the top of his flask, nodding his head in agreement. “It’s not fair of either of us to make you the middleman any longer.”