Liam
The glass slipped from my fingers, shattering against the countertopmas I tried to pour myself a glass of whiskey
“Shit.” I stared at the spreading yellow puddle.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Why was I so jittery since yesterday?
Since when I had seen Aleena in that dress and I could think of nothing else?
Suddenly I heard an hesitant knock on the door.
I tossed the ruined towel into the sink and wiped my hands on my jeans.
The knock came again, harder this time.
“Coming,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
I pulled the door open and the air left my lungs.
Aleena.
The sight of her hit like a physical blow, sharp and disorienting.
She stood in the hallway with her arms crossed, her hair pulled back in a messy knot that exposed the elegant line of her neck, the same neck I used to trace with my fingers in the dark.
Dark circles shadowed her eyes, the very same eyes that were widened in shock
“What are you doing here?” I finally asked.
She opened her mouth to answer but before she could answer, footsteps sounded behind me.
Steph appeared at the end of the hallway, wearing the thin silk robe she’d thrown on after we’d spent most of the afternoon having sex.
One side of the robe wasn’t properly tied, exposing a sliver of bare shoulder and the curve of her collarbone.
Her eyes landed on Aleena.
She stopped dead, one hand frozen mid-motion where she’d been tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
Aleena’s eyebrows shot up, her mouth pressing into a thin line.
Steph looked at me.
Then at Aleena.
Then back at me, her gaze sharpening with something that looked a lot like betrayal.
“Who is she?”
“No one, Steph.”
“Really?” She stepped closer, clutching the robe around herself like armor, “Then why are the both of you looking at each other like you know each othe.
Is she your ex?”
She couldn’t have been more right, it was only missing a couple of more details.
“Keep your voice down.”
“So she is.” she said calmly, even though I knew she was anything but.
“Am I missing something here?
Did I miss the memo where ex-girlfriends get to just show up unannounced?”
Aleena’s jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in her cheek.
She didn’t say a word, she only turned to leave m, clearly not in the mood to exchange words with Steph but I knew better than to let her go.
I caught her wrist.
She looked down at my hand and then slowly looked back up at me.
“Let me go, Liam”
I didn’t, instead I shut the door behind her as Steph stared at us, her mouth slightly agape.
“Liam.”
“Go back to the room.”
Her mouth fell open fully.
“Are you serious?”
“Steph.”
“You’re telling me to go back to the room while she stands here?”
“Now.”
She gave a humorless laugh, “Oh, fuck no.”
“Steph.”
“Who is she?” She jabbed a finger in Aleena’s direction.
“And why the hell are you acting like I’m the one who’s interrupting something?
“Steph.” I held her gaze, letting the weight of my stare do the talking.
“Back.
To.
The room.”
Her nostrils flared, her jaw working as she fought to contain whatever words were building behind her teeth.
For a moment, I thought she’d argue again but she spun around.
“Fine!”
She stormed down the hallway, muttering under her breath.
I turned toward Aleena.
“Would you care to explain what just happene”
I dragged a hand over my jaw, “It’s complicated.”
“Looks pretty fucking simple from where I’m standing.” She gestured vaguely toward the hallway.
“Girlfriend in the bedroom.
Your other girlfriend’s friend at the door.
That’s not complicated, Liam.
It’s called two-timing, you asshole.”
There it was.
That tone.
The one that always made something inside me tighten.
I stepped closer, closing the distance between us.
“Why are you here, Aleena?”
She looked at me, “Sophia told me to come here because I wanted to see her.
Clearly, she had no idea of what you have been doing behind her back.”
“Aleena…”
“What?!
You’re dating Sophia and you’re here with some..some girl?”
“I know where I am.”
“Do you?” Her eyes snapped back to mine, accusatory.
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve forgotten entirely.
You’re cheating on her.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then explain it.” Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“No,” she said, her voice dropping.
“You don’t.”
She moved toward the door, her hand reaching for the handle.
“But Sophia does.”
My hand shot out before I thought better of it, my fingers closing around her arm.
I pulled her against the door, caging her between my hands.
She stopped, going rigid at my proximity.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re not going anywhere until we finish this.”
“You can still do that if you step back.”
I didn’t.
Instead I moved closer, close enough that I could see the tiny crease between her brows, the one that appeared whenever she was trying to sort through her thoughts and catch the faint familiar scent of her that transported me straight back to a different time, a different place.
My eyes dropped, just for a second, to her mouth before I forced them back up to her face.
I let out a short breath, the accusation sat between us, accurate and inconvenient.
I didn’t particularly care for Sophia the way she wanted me to.
The relationship had started easily enough, convenient, low-pressure, something that filled time without demanding too much.
But the feelings she was developing were already more than I had signed up for, and the longer it went on the more the gap between what she wanted and what I could give became obvious.
I shrugged, the movement small and deliberate.
Her eyes stayed locked on mine, unflinching.
“Why are you with her if you don’t even like her like that?
Why are you letting her be all over you, all lovey-dovey, while you’re here doing this?”
I held her gaze.
The truth sat closer to the surface than I usually allowed.
There was someone else.
Someone I had never fully managed to get out of my system no matter how much time passed or how many other people I put between us, someone standing right in front of me now, angry and tired and still somehow able to pull at the same old place in my chest that I preferred to keep closed.
I didn’t say her name.
I didn’t need to make it that obvious, the implication was enough.
“I love someone else,” I said quietly.
The words hung there in the narrow space between us.
Aleena’s expression flickered for half a second, something unreadable moving behind her eyes, but she pushed past it almost immediately.
Whatever she thought she heard, she wasn’t going to give it room.
“That’s not my problem.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.
I don’t care what’s going on here,” she said.
Her voice had hardened.
“I’m telling Sophia.”
I leaned in just slightly.
“If you tell,” I said, “I’ll tell her everything that has happened between us.”
Her eyes narrowed, with the anger in them sharpening.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
I smiled without humor, “There are a lot of things I would dare, Aleena.”