I was thinking all about that, sure. But I couldn’t let the stares of these people wash over me. So I stared back. I glared back.
Wasn’t it polite to look away when someone had evidence of pain they couldn’t hide? All these people had secret pain that they got to hide away from prying eyes and I bet they wouldn’t like me gazing at it in the middle of a Walmart.
I really considered throat punching one woman who actually stopped, whispered to her fricking kid and made him stare too.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, moving to sip my coffee with an aching arm.
He leaned against the table beside the TV. “That you’re in pain because you refuse to ride easy, and now we have no choice but to ride hard because we’ve got a deadline to get back to the club?” he asked. “Yeah, it fucking bothers me.”
I sucked down my too hot coffee, relishing the sugar scalding my throat because that was better to focus on than the comfortable warmth I felt with Liam’s words. His gaze.
“Not once in fourteen years has my ride been easy,” I replied. “I’m used to hard, more comfortable with it.” I swallowed and my unintended innuendo and the flare in Liam’s eyes. “I’m used to deadlines too.” I paused. “I mean, yesterday, in Walmart, the people…” I trailed off.
He laughed. “Staring at the monster?” he finished for me. “No, babe, it doesn’t bother me. Not just because I’ve had years of practice going out in public. Didn’t exactly plan on entering any beauty pageants anyway.” He shrugged.
On screaming limbs that didn’t belong to me, I moved from the bed, put my coffee down and walked over to where Liam was leaning.
He watched my approach. From head to toe.
I was wearing an oversized shirt I’d gotten at Walmart, it went down to the middle of my thighs, but I felt naked.
Liam made me feel naked.
In every way.
His body tightened as I moved inches from his body, lifting my hand to trail my fingers across his face.
It was the first time I’d done it. The skin was ribbons of tissue, evidence of something almost tearing his fucking head off.
I swallowed bile.
He lifted his hand,
He touched his face. “This wasn’t as pretty as it is now, people shied away from me, as they should’ve. I didn’t want to be around people. It’s how I found myself at the club. Men in the club don’t shy away from monsters, from ugly.” He stared at me. Into me. “I didn’t want to come back to you a monster.”
The brokenness of his tone got to me. It really fucking did.
But I couldn’t let it get to me all the way.
“You could never have come back to me a monster,” I said. “No matter your demons, your scars, inside and out.” I paused, tracing the jagged and ruined skin of his face. “The fact you didn’t come back at all, that’s what made you a monster in my eyes.”
He didn’t speak. Just stared at me.
“We’re going back home, you’re going to have to face it.”
His body turned to stone. His eyes shuttered. “No, you’re going home,” he corrected. “I’m going to a shitty small town in Alabama that used to be something to someone I used to be. Someone you buried.”
“You need to stop this,” I hissed. “The people out there, they would feel nothing but joy to have you back.”
He shook his head. “At first, sure. That joy would trump whatever anger has been fueling you. It would trump whatever disgust they had seeing the scars, the ink, everything that’s changed about me.” He gestured to his body violently. “But that joy is temporary. It washes off. Eventually their eyes will clear, and they’ll realize the man they’ve been mourning is gone.” His eyes emptied. Hardened. “Like you have. And then they’ll find themselves wishing I had died, because that would’ve been easier. And because my family are good people, they’ll torture themselves for that ugly but human wish. I’ll torture them with that.”
He picked up his coffee. “I’ve already tortured you with it. And I’ll live with that because I’ve got no other choice. But I won’t do it to them. Nothing you say, no accusations you sling will change that. Because even you can’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
I opened my mouth, to say what, I didn’t know. To tell him I didn’t hate him. But I wasn’t sure that was true.
“Get showered,” he ordered, voice dead. “We’ve got a long drive.”
He turned and left me standing in the hotel room.
A single tear trailed down my cheek.
Then I showered.
Or I tried to.
Because it wasn’t until I was under the spray that I realized this conversation with Liam had distracted me so much that I forgot.