Faked (Ward Family #2)(65)

"Will Bauer be there?" I asked carefully. "It's not that I'd ... I don't know, avoid going if he was, but I don't know if that's the place I want to see him for the first time."

Lia gave me a squeeze, and my heart gave a weird hiccup thinking about Bauer doing the same thing. "I'll check with Finn, but I've never, ever known him to show up at an event there. Ever."

"Okay." I yawned. "What would I do without you, Lee?"

She was quiet, and I looked at her face.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. What?" she said too quickly.

"Lia," I warned. "You paused. Why did you pause?"

She scrunched up her face. "Did I?"

I sat forward. "Oh my gosh, what is it? Are you moving out? Are you leaving? Are you sick?"

"Slow your roll, crazy," she said on a laugh. "I'm not sick, good grief."

My heart settled back into a normal rhythm. "Well, it's something."

"I didn't want to say anything with all the feelings." She gestured to me. "But I might be going to London."

"What?" I shrieked excitedly. We'd done a bit of traveling over the years, but we'd never been to England, and for someone like Lia, it was her dream to visit. "When? With who? For how long?"

Lia laughed. "Margaret Atwood sort of ... invited me to study there …" She paused, gauging my face. "For a semester."

My face fell. A semester away from Lia. We'd never been apart for that long. "Lia," I whispered. "That's incredible."

Her eyes filled, and so did mine. "It's a long time, I know."

The other half of me across the ocean for months. It sounded like an eternity. But oh, the elation I could feel coming from her made me so happy.

She let out a watery laugh. "I haven't said yes yet. I wanted to make sure you'd ... be okay."

I grabbed her hands. "If you don't say yes, I will really never forgive you."

Lia wrapped me up in a tight hug. "Nothing we need to worry about right now. Let's get some of that alcohol that will make you feel better, okay?"





Chapter Twenty-Four





Bauer





"Well, that was stupid."

I rolled my eyes at Scotty's tone, wincing as I poured hydrogen peroxide down the road burn on my calf. It hissed and bubbled, and Scotty leaned in to look at the damage.

"It wasn't stupid," I told him. "I've biked that trail a thousand times."

His gray eyebrows, bushy and out of control, rose incrementally on his wrinkled forehead. "A few days after a monster snowstorm just melted down, and they're covered in mud?"

I straightened my leg, satisfied when the muscles stretched without further pain.

"You're lucky you didn't break a bone, you moron."

"Who invited you here again?" I muttered.

Scotty walked out of my tiny kitchen, waving his hand at me like I was a lost cause, only stopping when he saw the empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting on the floor next to the trash can. He shook his head but didn't say anything.

Which was good, because for four days, I'd been one hair shy of snapping at anyone who came too close.

I felt like Agnes.

"Thanks for checking on my cat while I was gone," he said as he sank into the leather chair next to the loveseat. He always took my chair. I really needed to stop inviting him over.

"Oh, it was my pleasure." My tone was caustic, and I couldn't stop it. For four days, long and endless and horrible, I'd done my very best to ignore everything that had preceded it.

Eventually, I'd be able to get the thought of her out of my head.

Eventually, I'd be able to drink enough that I wouldn't dream of her.

Eventually, I'd work myself hard enough that all the blood in my veins would be focused on keeping my heart working instead of screaming at me that I was the biggest fucking idiot in the entire world for how I'd acted.

But it wasn't happening yet.

When I ignored Finn's calls all week, I hadn't felt the slightest shred of guilt.

When Scotty's went unanswered too, he showed up at my doorstep, and now guilt was all I felt.

"You're a peach today," Scotty said. From the end table next to him, he picked up a dirty plate and grimaced at what was left on the surface. "What happened while I was gone?"

I slammed the kitchen cupboard closed once the peroxide was back on the shelf. "Nope. Not talking about it."

He hooted. "Oh man, whoever she was, she did a number on you, didn't she?"

Coming around the corner, I pointed a finger at him. "Old man, did I just say I didn't want to talk about it?"

"Tough shit, kid." He held up his hands. "I don't see anyone else lining up to help you with your problems."

"I don't have any problems, except that I left half my leg on the road."

Whistling under his breath, Scotty folded his arms and gave me that stare that I hated so much. It was a stare he reserved for moments when he thought I was being unnecessarily stubborn, when I wouldn't work on a trick that he thought I was ready for. When I wouldn't push myself as hard as he knew I could be pushed. Normally, it took a while, but I'd begrudgingly admit he was right. Do the trick for the thousandth time until my body knew every tuck and hold, and my muscles burned from the exhaustion. Do a course one more time even though my knees and back burned in protest.