Released (Caged #3)(33)

“I don’t think I could have found the right end of the pen if I were high,” I said. “It was after that. Baynor didn’t give me the journal until I was leaving the hospital.”

She nodded and moved her fingers over the last sentence.

“You’re not going to fight anymore?”

“No,” I said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to get a job with my family’s business,” I said, “setting stones in one of the workshops.”

“Setting stones?”

“You know, putting the pretty rocks in the settings for earrings and necklaces and shit. I’ve done it before, and…well, I’ll probably get it since Michael’s my reference. I don’t like doing shit that way, but I have to have a decent job with health benefits and all that.”

She sniffed.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.

She dropped the journal in her lap and reached out to wrap her arms around my neck. She started sobbing into my shoulder.

“Tria! What is it? What’s the matter?”

“You’re doing all of this for me!” she cried.

“Well, yeah,” I responded, still confused.

She kept crying, and I just didn’t get it at all. Women were weird—that was all I had. I just held onto her, and when she was done, I grabbed the box of tissues off the nightstand. I kept my arms round her as she blew her nose and collected herself.

“Where will we live?” Tria asked as she tossed the last tissue into the trash.

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch at the word we.

“I’d be working on the northwest side of town,” I said. “It’s kind of an industrial area, but there are apartments around. It would be easy enough to bus to work.”

“How would I get to school?”

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I really hadn’t thought about that. “The bus probably heads that way, too. Um, is school out for the semester yet?”

“Finals are next week,” she said.

“So it wouldn’t matter so much until fall, right?”

“I still have my job at the library,” Tria reminded me. “Right now I’m only two days a week, but they said I could pick up extra hours over the summer if I wanted to. It would help. If the bus line near the apartment went to the school as well, it would work.”

“Two sets of bus fares,” I said as I shook my head, “twice as much cost. We should find a place near campus instead. There is plenty of housing there. I’d have to take the bus a little farther to work, but you’d be able to walk or take the campus shuttles.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to find a place?”

“We’ll start looking right away,” I said. “As soon as I get a couple paychecks, we’ll be able to get a place. Michael said I could stay here until I was ready. I’m sure he won’t mind one more person.”

She nodded, but she was still worrying her lip with her teeth. I pulled her close to me and kissed the top of her head. I inhaled deeply, surrounding myself with her scent.

“I love you, Tria,” I told her. “We’re going to make this work, and I’m not going to f*ck up. I want everything to be right for you and…and the baby.”

It was still really hard to say that word for some reason.

Tria traced the edge of my jaw, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes again.

“Oh, Liam,” she said softly, “I love you, too.”

Her words hit me in the center of the chest, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if I’d just been hit in the gut with a dodgeball.

“When?” I asked.

“When what?”

“When did you know? I mean—know for sure?”

Tria smiled gently.

“That’s easy,” she said. “The first night I moved into your apartment and I woke up with you holding on to me. I knew then.”

My eyes probably bugged out of my head.

“You never said anything.”

“No,” she replied. “If I had, you would have freaked out on me. You certainly would have then, but even later, I knew you wouldn’t be ready to hear that until you said it yourself.”

“That didn’t bother you?”

“I knew how you felt,” she said with a shrug. “That was all that mattered.”

“When did you know that?” I asked.

“When you punched Michael for calling me a hooker.”

I laughed.

“You are a very observant woman,” I informed her. I grabbed onto her hips and pulled her on top of me. “But there’s no way I’d let anyone say something about you to make you feel less than what you are. You are too wonderful for anyone to…”

A lump lodged itself in my throat, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.

I was such a f*cking idiot! I hadn’t even considered what all of this meant—what had to happen and happen quickly before…

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as I sat up in bed.

Tria squealed a little and grasped my shoulders to keep from toppling off of me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Shit, shit, shit!”