“Figured he would be,” Stella laughs and sticks her tongue out when Dani huffs.
“So then what happened?”
I look over at Maddi and smile. “Paintball happened. ”
She gives me a look, not following. Stella gives a ‘huh’ and Dani oddly smiles all wonky.
“Did you say, paintball?” Stella questions.
I smile, mine feeling just as wonky as Dani’s is.
“Well, I guess the bar night happened first. He showed up and laid it out that he was done with me avoiding him—which I had done since that night—and thus began the annoying persistence. ”
My smile, which had started out smallish on the wonky scale, was full out cheek hurting now.
“The next day he had told me he would be around my house at noon. I, of course, made it my mission to be gone. He tracked me down at Target an hour before noon and, well . . . then paintball. ”
Maddi tilts her head. “Paintball?”
“It was the most fun I had had in years, Maddi. It’s like Liam knew just what I needed. The rush, that feeling of adrenaline tipping over until you’re so full of it that you might explode, it was incredible. ”
“All right, so paintball,” Stella stammers. “So weird. ”
“Then what happened?” Dani says a little too excited.
My cheek-burning smile slips. Then Dani’s follows.
“Then I proceeded to flip out after he brought me home. Well, after Nate had brought Molly home. ”
Dani’s shoulders drop. “I know, I told you I was sorry about that, but you try fighting off a man over a foot taller than you when he locks you in your son’s bedroom and yells through the door that he’s taking the cutest girl in the world on a date. I swear, he kidnapped her right from my house. ” She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in a huff.
She had explained to me earlier in the week that her ‘time out’ had been more like Nate imposed jail time while he stole my kid. I can’t be mad about it. I know Molly is safe with him and he took her carseat out of Dani’s car so that she would be safe in his truck.
I give her a smile, “It’s okay, really. Molly loves Nate and honestly it was the best thing that could have happened. ”
“Now explain that!” Stella gasps.
With my eyes never leaving Dani’s so that she knows I mean what I’m saying, I continue. “Seeing Molly, so innocent and happy while playing around with Liam and Nate, I realized that by keeping myself closed off from everyone, that I was keeping her locked away from those relationships too. I was, in a sense, keeping her in that limbo I was in. Long story short, she brought it all to light while two grown men acted like my house was a wrestling mat. It was time for me to move on. So, yeah . . . I broke down and Liam found me losing my mind on my bathroom floor. He wouldn’t give up either. I may have come to the self-realization that I was teaching my daughter to fear life, but he hammered the nail home when he helped me see she was breaking free no matter how hard I held her back. I was just too far in my head to see it. ”
They don’t speak but I can tell the room had lost all traces of earlier hopefulness. It dawns on me, in that moment, that they haven’t just wanted me to hook up with Liam, they really want me with him. They’ve been rooting for us long before they let on to it.
“It’s okay,” I tell them. “I’m okay. ”
“Sorry, babe, but all that doesn’t really give me the reassurance that you’re okay. We worry about you,” Dani states.
“I really am, Dani. It hurt, God it hurt, but it needed to happen. Things got a little heated between us, and not in the good kind of heated. I said some things I didn’t mean and he once again was all Liam. Fully honest and didn’t hold back. He gave me the words I needed to help me take the final step. ”
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Dani’s brows curl in, her beautiful face turning from worried to confused. “Final step to what?”
I hear Liam’s parting words filter through my mind and with a smile I tell them, “Grab the rope. ”
AFTER THE HEAVINESS OF OUR conversation earlier, the girls all agree that we need to lighten things up. Mainly, Dani decides that we need to have some time to just relax and laugh.
So that leads us to now. Another attempt at girl’s night, this time it’s more like girl’s night plus chaperones.
We decided to head to a local bar that caters to more of a mature crowd and not so many college kids looking to get drunk.
Mike’s, has been one of the places that we’ve often spent a Friday or Saturday night. The music is always good and the bar is big enough that a group our size has enough room to lounge. The bar opened about four years ago, from what I understand, and since its opening night, has been one of the top karaoke joints north of Atlanta.
I never joined in on the actual singing, but it really was too much fun to watch some of our crew get up there and belt it out like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Dani called Lyn and Lila to see if they wanted to come before we left my house to head over to the Reid’s to drop Molly off with their parents. Lyn was all in, but Lila had plans already and promised to come next time. When we got to Dani’s parents, Cohen was already there and after we said goodbye to the kids, we headed out. When we got to Mike’s, Zac, Zac’s little brother Jax and his girlfriend, Ivie, had been waiting in the huge back corner. It was blocked off like some kind of VIP area, holding two couches and four chairs that formed a closed off square.
Zac, always ready to have a good time, was surprisingly quiet without his sidekick, Nate. We got a chin lift from Jax, but otherwise he was too busy keeping the blush on Ivie’s face. She gave us a wave, but was distracted when Jax shoved his hand up her shirt. They were sickly cute, high school sweethearts that everyone was convinced would be married before they graduated college.
I used to see them and just hurt with how close they were. Same with Dani and Cohen, but now—it’s so much easier to see their love and not feel a pang of depression wrap tightly around my neck. The fact that I can see them now and feel nothing but happiness that they’ve found that person that makes them whole, is a testament for how far I’ve come in the last year.
I look around our little corner, sip my third heavy-handed drink, and let myself enjoy this newfound sense of life. One where I’m able to laugh a little easier and sit a little straighter without that damn cloak of pain holding me back. I can’t explain the way that feeling makes me feel. It’s like I’m reaching for something and I’m just a touch away from it. Like my glass is just a breath away from being full. I guess that’s part of healing the gap, in a sense. I’m almost there—so close—and I’ve never felt better.
Well, that’s a lie.
I close my eyes when Liam’s face pops in my head. His eyes bright with happiness and that smile that makes me weak at the knees blinding me with his power. I let my lips tip up with the thought and slowly let my lids open.
And gasp.
“Boo, darlin’. ”
I look down at my almost full glass, trying to figure out if I had enough drinks that I’m starting to hallucinate. Surely I’m not drunk enough to be conjuring up
Liam’s face just a breath away from my own.
The couch dips and I move my eyes from my drink to the large body that joined me. My view is blocked temporarily by a tan arm that is corded with muscle as it comes up slowly. My eyes follow the limb as it moves up and over before I lose it and feel it’s warmth like a burn when the weight settles against my shoulders. When I move my gaze down from where the arm had been, I see Liam’s handsome face so close to my own.
He doesn’t say a word before his handsome face moves and his lips touch mine lightly. “Hi,” he breathes against my lips.
“Hey. ” My voice comes out on a wisp of air. I know with the music floating around us that there’s no way he could hear me, but his smile grows all the same and I have to shift in my seat when the throbbing starts between my legs.
“Don’t you two look all cozy like? Any room for this stud?”
My eyes don’t leave Liam as he turns and flips off Nate. I study his strong jaw, stubbled with hair. My eyes roam over his skin drinking him in with every inch. When he swallows, his jaw clenches and I can feel my body responding to just that small movement. His hair is stylized in that sexy way, the thickness tamed with whatever product he shoves in it, slightly longer at the top and I just know he effortlessly must run his hands through it, almost as an afterthought while getting ready.
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His head turns and those dark eyes of his meet mine. He studies my face for a beat before one brow arches, and if I didn’t know better I would swear he could hear my thoughts. He knows, with just one small look, how badly I want him.
My hunger spiked so high, I’m mad with my cravings for his body.
When a shiver runs through my body, one corner of his thick lips tip up and he gives me a small nod before turning his head back to the group.
Mutely I turn and stare at Dani across from me on the other couch, where she’s settled on Cohen’s lap. She gives me a wink and I watch as her hands come up, thumbs sticking high, and relax slightly as a laugh bubbles up from deep in my belly. Liam’s hand, the one resting against my shoulder, curls into my skin and my eyes widen, as my panties get wet with my arousal.
It’s going to be a long night.
With no choice but to run with it, I give the new Megan a mental shake and vow to take each moment as it comes.
Fifteen minutes later, a new drink in my hand, and I’m faced with the first test to my newfound resolve of living in the moment. The old Megan, the one living in fear, would have bolted the second that Liam was called to the stage. But the new Megan, the one that’s determined to climb the rope and leave rock bottom for good—that new version of me is shocked still.