Chapter Twenty-Three [Liam]

"I can't believe you, Mackenzie Pruitt!"

Mack arches an eyebrow at Gus's guise of pure shock.

We are all sitting around in my room over The Lodge. I tried to ask them to hang out at my house instead, but they like the freedom this room provides, away from parental supervision. Pff. Like we get any of that in my house.

It's been three full weeks since the last time I was in this room and, to be honest, there's a lot I'd rather not stir back to the forefront of my brain.

Mack's lounging on a rustic loveseat that usually stays outside on the porch by the hot tub, but they dragged it inside so we could all sit. Gus is perched on one of the wooden armrests, peering at her phone screen.

Chloe and Nat are hidden away from my sight, stretched out on the bed amidst textbooks and note cards. I sit with my back to them, on the floor, leaning against the wooden chest at the foot of the bed where we keep clean sheets and some of my clothes.

I really don't want to look at that bed. I am not even sure what would be worse — jogging back the memories of a night that has no business enduring so vividly in my mind, or tainting those memories with the sight of anyone but him on that spot we claimed for a night. A spot that was left empty the morning after, when he was gone.

There's a Trigonometry textbook open at my feet, but I can't even see it over my knees, hugged loosely to my chest. Is it weird that triangles and tangents make me think about him, or just pathetic?

I can see Mack press her phone against her chest, sitting up to shoot Gus a properly outraged look after he kept trying to snoop. "Were you always this nosy or did puberty make it worse?"

Gus rolls his eyes. He finds me looking at the two of them and fixes his gaze on mine. "She's texting Dean Miller," he says pointedly, like that piece of information was supposed to trigger an alliance between us to rile up Mack.

I guess, any other day, it would have.

"What's it to you who I text?" Mack retorts, a little too affected.

"Are you two a thing now?" I ask.

She shrugs noncommittally, still trying too hard to hide the fact she's not totally unconcerned in regards to this topic of conversation. "We're something."

"Thought you weren't looking for a serious relationship."

"I wasn't. And I'm not."

"Dean's the kind of guy for serious relationships, though," Nat chimes in from behind me. I can't see her face or posture, but her tone his calm and reasonable.

Mack scoffs. "What. You date his best friend for a year and now you're the official expert on Dean?"

"No," Nat says evenly. "But I do know him a little better than you do. We used to talk a lot when I was dating Eli, and we still talk."

I shift in my place on the floor, uncomfortable at the mention of his name. And annoyed that I can't do a better job at hiding my discomfort.

"Oh, yeah?" Mack smiles somewhat cynically, but there's an honest curiosity hidden in there. "What do you talk about? His earnest wish for a committed relationship? Did he show you a wedding album with pictures of his dream tuxedos?"

"No, but he asks about you. He did just yesterday."

That peaks both Mack's and Gus's attention. And maybe mine a little too. I put a hand down on the carpet so I can twist around to look at her.

Nat sits cross-legged, with a half-moon of papers scattered around her and her back to the headboard, and I try not too think too much about the way a pair of strong, hockey-roughened hands held on to the mahogany of that headboard twenty-one nights ago while I—

Get a fucking grip, Astor.

Chloe's lying in front of her, on her stomach, across the width of the bed. She has a book open in front of her — one of her English class mandatory readings — but her eyes don't seem to be following along the stream of words anymore.

"Why were you with Dean yesterday?" Mack asks.

Nat glances Chloe's way, who instinctively focuses her eyes back on the book in front of her. The perfect image of cool indifference. Right. As if.

Nat sighs. "Chloe and I hung out with a few of the hockey guys last night."

"Where?" Mack asks, almost at the same time I ask, "Which guys?"

Chloe shrugs. "Just my brother and some friends."

I narrow my eyes suspiciously. "James?" I drag the name out in vicious pettiness, because I need the shallow cruelty to help me get my mind off my own afflictions.

"And Owen and Dean," Chloe adds casually.

"Eli wasn't there?"

Damn you, Gus.

"No. He had work and Trey had other plans," Nat says.

"How long have you been hanging out with James, Chloe?" I ask.

"Where was this?" Mack questions, almost simultaneously.

Chloe calmly lifts her eyes off the pages to look at Mack. "James's place."

"And you two didn't invite the rest of us?" Mack asks.

"Yeah, I wanted me some hockey eye candy too," Gus protests.

"How many of these little hang-outs at James's place have you had?" I coo, impishly.

"It was James's house. It wasn't really our place to invite other people over," Nat says. "We were just sitting around in his living room, eating pizza and talking about school."

"Except you just said you talked about me," Mack shoots back.

"No. Dean asked, I said you were fine, we moved on," Nat clarifies.

"Is this a recurrent thing? Does James like to invite Chloe over so he can wave and stare at her with a dopey smile on his face?"

"Fuck's sake, Liam, grow the fuck up," Chloe mumbles. She looks at me with a defiant look. "Yes, he invited me. Yes, it's happened before. Yes, Nat and some of the guys are usually there too. And, yes, he likes me. Guess what? I like him too."

I arch my eyebrows at her words.

Chloe shrugs. "He's nice. I know you think he's quiet and boring, but I like that. He's sweet, and I like him."

It takes me a second to let that sink in. I move around to sit with my torso fully facing them on the bed. Chloe keeps her eyes on me as I get my shit together.

"That's okay," I say. "Sorry if I was a dick." I'm just dealing with a lot of pent-up emotional frustration over a boy I wasn't ever meant to care this much about, who won't even look at me whenever we cross paths anymore, which is a lot, seen as we go to the same school and train in the same rink — if my dad hadn't lifted my punishment at the end of last month and I had to see him at The Lodge five days a week, I think I would've offed myself.

Yeah, that last chunk of information I keep to myself.

Chloe nods to my apology. That means she's over it and we're cool. She's a girl of few words.

"Man, this really sucks," Gus whines over the somewhat weird silence that settled afterward.

"Your personality or your face?" Mack quips.

Gus rolls his eyes, glaring at her. "Ah! — hilarious. Seriously, Mackenzie, you crack me up."

She gives him a cynical smile that makes me feel a tinniest bit better because, hey, at least I'm not the only one taking my emotional frustrations out with petty jabs at my friends.

"I can't believe it's our senior year and it's the same old shit," Gus complains, powering through Mack's bad mood. As one should. "Everyone's getting some, and here I am perpetually single."

I shoot him an inquisitive frown, trying my best not to look too tense.

He rolls his eyes again with a huff. "Mack's got her hockey boy toy, Chloe and James are totally getting together before we graduate, and you have Rafael — the epitome of all boy toys."

Oh, yeah. That.

"What about Nat?" Chloe asks, sounding like she doesn't actually care.

"She's busy with school," Gus answers dismissively.

"At least I use my year without boys productively, instead of weeping and whining," she muses.

Nice. And, honestly, who knew Nat had it in her.

Mack's eyebrows furrow as a thought comes to her head and she looks at me as she asks, "Wasn't he suppose to come visit on spring break?"

"What?"

"Rafael."

Gus's eyes widen. "I can't believe you got your dad to agree."

"Yeah, about that... I haven't really brought up the subject in a while," I say.

"Why not?" Mack asks, tilting her head curiously.

I shrug, trying to look unbothered. "We kinda fell out of touch."

"What?" Gus squeaks. "I thought he was smitten. He looked smitten. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. We just stopped talking. He was a summer fling, it was kind of bound to happen," I say.

Mack's lips curl up into a knowing smile.

"What?" I huff.

She shakes her head. "You love raining judgement on me, but you're no better. You had your fling, got what you wanted, then got bored and dumped him."

"That's not what happened."

She rolls her eyes. "Just admit it."

"I didn't get bored with him. The conversation just died out. He's in California and we haven't seen each other in months. It would've been a miracle if we stayed in touch."

That's mostly true. I haven't texted Rafael, the Malibu pool boy, in ages. I think we stopped talking around winter break. He texted me a few times, but I had my head somewhere else. Rafael eventually stopped trying, after I left him on read three nights in a row.

Maybe if I hadn't been too engrossed in Eli and what we were doing, Rafael and I would still be talking and he would come to visit in a week. And then he would've been the one I took to the hot tub, and then...

Yeah. No. That didn't happen. Instead, I got completely caught up in the most immediate pleasure I had at hand. This oddly closed-off hockey player who got under my skin before I could realize what was happening and stop it. This tantalizing boy who ignored me after we had sex, leaving me feeling like a stupid teenage girl after her one night stand promises he really likes her and isn't just trying to get in her pants.

***

Did you miss Liam's friends? Did you miss Liam? Are you tired of the glum tone of the past couple of chapters?

Sorry about that last one...

What do you think about the way Liam's coping though? Also... how are you coping?

If you liked this chapter, please consider leaving a vote or a comment. And thank you so much for reading!