He chuckled. “I need you to trust me right now.”
I used the corner of my T-shirt to wipe under my eyes. “I’m trying!” I exclaimed.
He read my lips. “Well, try harder.”
I rolled my eyes. If he only knew.
“Now, stop freaking out. Hang up. I’m gonna send you an address. Come straight here. And I’m gonna warn you: You’re probably going to freak when you get here, but take a deep breath and do it anyway.” He smiled teasingly. “Stop crying, crazy. We’re good.” His dimple danced on the screen, easing my nerves.
I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“Hurry up. I have an asshole to kill in two months. I actually do need to work out today.” He laughed before ending the call.
I was still trying to collect myself when my phone pinged with an address.
I recognized it immediately.
Quarry had been wrong; I didn’t even need to arrive before I started freaking out again.
IT WAS COLD AS BALLS, but I was sitting on the front steps when her car pulled through the security gate I’d left open. The last few weeks had been a crazy roller coaster of emotions, and this moment right here was either going to be the highest of highs or yet another terrifying low. Who the hell knew with Liv though? She’d been all over the place recently. I never would have guessed that she would have flipped out the way she had when she’d realized I wasn’t at On The Ropes. The jealous bit was usually my thing. And that was the only reason I’d calmed down while we had been texting. I hated the way she’d reacted. But I fucking loved the idea of Liv getting all cavewoman possessive over me. I would have acted way worse if I’d thought she was lying to me, so I had to cut her some slack.
Plus, it’d damn near broken me when she’d called me out on the nothing-changes-between-us promise I’d made her. I refused to fail on the very first test, even if it meant spilling a secret I’d been hiding for several years.
When she cut the engine, I stood up and walked over to her. Pulling her door open, I found her just as I’d expected—scared as fuck. It made me an asshole, but I laughed.
“Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like that,” I said. Taking her hand, I helped her from the car.
“This isn’t the gym,” she said, craning her head back to look into my eyes.
Throwing an arm around her shoulders, I curled her into my side and strolled up the front steps. “Nope.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief until I pushed the front door open.
Then she got all kinds of stiff.
Her hands flew to her mouth, and she gasped my name.
The house was a fucking mess. My shit was everywhere. Boxes upon boxes of products my sponsors had sent over sat unopened in the massive foyer. One side of the split staircase was lined with my shoes that no longer fit in my closet at our apartment. The other side served as a filing cabinet for all the paperwork, news clippings, and fan mail I didn’t know what to do with. I had a cleaning lady who came in every two weeks, but even she didn’t know how to organize a virtually empty six-point-four-million-dollar house that was being used as nothing more than a glorified storage unit.
“Soooo.” I scratched the back of my neck. “I was kinda hoping to get things cleaned up before showing you this place.”
Her face had paled. “Did…did you buy this?”
Pressing a kiss to the top of her hair, I mumbled nervously, “I did. You still like it?”
She quickly stepped out from under my arm, heading directly to the huge living room that ran the length of the house, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the large backyard nestled against a private lagoon. It was the room she couldn’t stop talking about when we’d first looked at the place years earlier. I swear she and the realtor had fully decorated that room before we’d even stepped foot into the rest of the place.
When I’d first walked into that house, I’d had zero intentions of buying it. It was nearly twice what I’d wanted to spend and about ten times bigger than I’d ever need. It was a home in every sense of the word. The kind you raised a family in. The kind Till had bought for Eliza the minute he’d had the money. The kind Flint had bought for Ash even while she had still been running away from him. The kind a bachelor like me had no business even looking at.
But, for some inexplicable reason, after I’d seen Liv’s excitement as she’d raced from one end to the other, sucking the oxygen out of each room as she’d oh’d and ah’d, I’d put in an offer the same night.
I had been confident when I’d bought the place, but now, watching her exploring the room—running her hand over the back of our old couch, which appeared miniscule in the massive space—I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“When?” she whispered.
I drew in a sharp breath. “Two years ago.”
Her confused eyes immediately lifted to mine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. Remember when we came to look at it a second time and I asked you which bedroom you’d pick?”