Kennedy let my words hang in the air for a few moments, then nodded once and cleared her throat. “Okay. This is still weird—too weird. But what I want to know is, if you’ve known I was here since Friday, why are you just now approaching me?”

A short, hesitant laugh left me, and I took my time figuring out my answer. “Because I didn’t know what to do about you being here. I denied it at first, and then was in shock that after a year you were close enough to touch again. I kept wondering if you would remember me . . . that led to me again wanting to know why you left, and then I just got mad. I was mad you left, I was mad that I was being put in a position to be near you when there was a possibility you wouldn’t remember me or want to be near me, or you would be the sister who had a boyfriend. I went back and forth between telling Eli that I knew you and that I was the wrong person to help you, but eventually I decided that I couldn’t have you this close and not try to talk to you again. After that, it took a few days to finally figure out how to approach you without scaring you . . . but I still did it the wrong way. Obviously.”

“We can’t tell my uncle. There’s no logical way to explain how I could’ve met you before this, and there’s no way in hell I’m telling him or the rest of my family the truth.”

“Okay.”

“And we can’t tell your family,” she added. “I wouldn’t be able to face them again if they knew.”

I looked away for a second and tried to brace myself for her reaction to what I was about to say. “My dad knows.” Kennedy’s eyes widened, and I said, “The truth. I told him today.”

“Oh my God,” she said on a breath.

“My sister won’t know, neither will my mom. But I have a different relationship with my dad than most people. I tell him everything. He’d already known about you last year, and I knew there was no way he wouldn’t eventually put things together.”

“Your dad thinks I’m a whore, Liam!” she whispered harshly, her eyes darting around to make sure no one was listening to us. “I can’t go back to that gym now.”

My eyes narrowed at her assumption. Sure, my sister would automatically think something along those lines because that’s just the way she was. But it was pissing me off that Kennedy would think I’d make her out to seem like a whore. Then again, we still didn’t know each other.

“No, he doesn’t. That’s the last thing he thinks, I can assure you. And yes, you can go back to the gym. He was mad I hadn’t told him before he hired you, and was worried you would both quit if I talked to you tonight. So if anything, he’s on your side right now.”

Kennedy shook her head slowly, her eyes on me, but not seeing me. Our food was brought to the table a couple minutes later, but neither of us made a move to touch it, and Kennedy still looked like she was somewhere else.

“Well,” I said, and cleared my throat, breaking the silence between us. Her eyes finally focused, and I decided that now was the time for me to leave everything up to her. “That was what I needed to tell you. Being in the same city and being connected by your uncle was purely coincidental. You and Kira working for my dad wasn’t, although my dad didn’t think he would hire the two of you before you came in for the interview—so I don’t want you or Kira to think you got the job because of your uncle or me. Dad really liked you both. But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t try to talk to you without you knowing how this all came about. Regardless of what happened between us after I approached you in the gym, I knew it wouldn’t be fair to you to let you go on thinking that we had just run into each other out of pure coincidence.”

“I appreciate you letting me know, and I appreciate dinner,” she mumbled as her eyes became unfocused again. After a few beats of silence passed, she straightened and looked directly at me. Her next words held no emotion. “But as I said earlier, nothing will come of us. This is not that moment where everything changes and we realize we’re meant to be together. That night last year was fun, but that’s all it was . . . a night.”

From her detached words and the way she immediately looked down at her plate and began eating, I knew there wasn’t one ounce of Kennedy that even believed the bullshit she’d just given me.

5

June 3

Kennedy

AS SOON AS dinner was over, Liam drove me back to the condo as a heavy silence fell over us. I still wasn’t sure what to think about the fact that he was here . . . right next to me. Parts of that night in Vegas had been replaying in my mind since I first saw him that afternoon. And every single one of them left me wanting one thing.

More.

But I couldn’t. Not wouldn’t . . . couldn’t. From what I remembered of him, and what I was already seeing in just speaking to him today, he was the kind of guy who had me letting down walls faster than I’d originally been able to build them, and had me willingly giving up every ounce of control to him. And I hated that feeling. I was the type of girl who had to be in control at all times. I was the way I was because I stayed in control. There had only ever been one other guy in my life who had made me feel the way Liam did, and it had ended in a disaster. Liam would be no different.

The second Liam had pulled the car up in front of my building, I offered him an abrupt “thanks” and stepped out. Anything more, any extra time with him, and I would start forgetting why I couldn’t explore possibilities with him—for the thirtieth time in just a handful of hours.

As soon as I was in the condo, Kira was racing out of her room and up to me.

“You ditched me, traitor!”

“Seriously, ‘holy shit’ isn’t big enough for today! Tell me what happened!”

“You tell me what happened!” I demanded as I walked over to fall into a chair at the kitchen table with Kira not far behind. “I don’t even know how to begin wrapping my head around all of this!”

“Seeing as I wasn’t there with you two, I can’t. Just start from the beginning and I’ll try to help you fill in the hows.”

“The how is the easiest part,” I mumbled, and rubbed a temple with my fingers. “He works for Uncle Eli—”

“No shit?”

“That’s exactly what I said. But, yes, he does. Apparently he doesn’t just work there . . . they’re really close. Liam said that Eli’s his mentor. Apparently Uncle Eli and Uncle Mason both approached him about us moving here and needing to meet people or get jobs. They wanted Liam to help—”

“So he already knew that you were here? I bet he jumped on that chance before they could get out the question!”

“Kira! Let me explain first, then you can cut me off however much you want to.”

Kira sat back in her chair with her hands raised in surrender, but her face still showed how eager she was to hear everything.

I finished telling her the rest of my conversation with Liam at the restaurant, and true to Kira’s personality, she didn’t let me get more than two sentences out at a time without interrupting and throwing in her own assumptions about what happened next. The entire playback of Liam’s explanations ended up taking about twenty minutes longer than it had when he’d been the one telling it.