“Are you sure?” I narrow my eyes. Jules has had a lot to drink.
“Come on.” Liam tugs on my arm and leads me back to our table. “She’s fine. We can keep an eye on her from here,” he says as he mixes us each a vodka and Red Bull.
“I really don’t need this—I’m already drunk,” I say, taking a deep sip anyway.
“Reminds me of old times,” Liam says wistfully. “When did we get old?”
I slap his shoulder. “We are not old! We’ve just grown up a bit. Or at least some of us have,” I say as I wink at him.
“At least I’m still having fun.”
“And I’m not?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“I just said I was having a great time!”
Liam’s eyes cut through mine, the speckles of brown in them disappearing as he squints, making his normal hazel hue appear dark green. “I’m not talking about tonight.”
We sit for a moment, me not sure I want to ask him what he means and him not sure he wants to tell me. Finally, I break eye contact and search the dance floor for Jules, spying her at a table across the room with the man she’d been dirty dancing with, sipping her drink, her knees touching his. “Are you sure we shouldn’t do something about that?” I set my drink down and nod in their direction. Something about the way he was looking at her didn’t feel right to me.
“Yes,” Liam says definitively.
“But don’t you see what’s going on over there?”
“I see it.”
“And?”
“And what?” He shrugs.
“You’re acting like they’re just over there chatting about the weather or trading recipes!” I start to stand up so I can intervene, but Liam pulls me back and I fall awkwardly into his lap. “Liam! Come on. Let me go!”
I feel his arms tighten around me. “When will you learn that sometimes you need to let people live their lives the way they want? To let people make mistakes? To let yourself make them? If she decides to cross a line, that’s her decision to make—not yours.”
“So I just need to sit here and let her possibly make a mistake that could cost her everything?” I turn toward Liam, his face just inches from mine. The stubble on his chin is so close that I almost reach out to touch it.
“Don’t you get it? This isn’t about Jules and what she may or may not do with that guy over there. This is about you!”
“Me?” I say. “How does this have anything to do with me?”
“Because you are so damn scared.” He rakes his hand through his hair, his face contorting as he strains for his next words. “Jesus, don’t you get it? You are so petrified to make a mistake, to not seem . . .” He pauses to make air quotes. “Perfect . . . that you’re putting that pressure on others too—that if you turn your back for a second Jules might willingly jump off the throne you’ve placed her on. It’s too much, Kate. We’re all fallible.”
“You think I care more about being perfect than being happy?” I challenge, my cheeks burning with anger and embarrassment. Liam had never talked to me this way before.
“Think about it. You’ve wished your life exactly how you want it. You didn’t like what happened with Max, so you’re back here fixing it so you can have things your way. And you’re still not happy—so maybe there’s something to be said for life just working out as it should. Maybe we should just let Jules make whatever choices she needs to make—right or wrong.”
Feeling as if the wind has been knocked out of me, I take a shallow breath, trying to decipher what Liam means. Is he saying I should have let Max leave me without trying to stop him? I stare at Jules, now flipping her hair over her shoulder and smiling the way she did back when she met Ben, and I try to remember the last time I have seen her flirt with her husband.
Liam’s voice jars me out of my thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is people lie, people cheat, people leave people.” His eyes lock with mine. “And sometimes you just have to accept that you can’t edit life the way you do online. This isn’t Facebook. It’s the real world, for Christ’s sake. Sometimes you just have to let your arm look fat in the picture.”
I swallow hard, letting his words sink in, remembering all the pictures I’d scrutinized, retaken, filtered. “Well, you certainly didn’t have a problem when I edited your life. When I made it possible for you to be with Nikki Day! Like she would have even looked at you twice in this real world we’re living in,” I shoot back, instantly wishing I could pull the words back after I see the hurt look on Liam’s face, his grip on my waist slacking slightly.
I start to apologize when I hear a voice behind me. “Liam?”
Liam stands so quickly that I fall off his lap to the floor, Nikki Day standing above me, her hands glued to her hips. “What exactly is going on here?”