I feel my heart sinkat the worry on Liam's face. “Is it your mom? Is she okay?” I squeeze his hand a bit tighter before he shakes his head gently.
“She's okay; I just need to talk to you about something, but before I tell you, I want you to know that my intentions were pure, Sage.” He shakes his head, clearly lost in his thoughts. “Well, notpuresince I wanted to sleep with you from the moment I saw you in that lingerie set, but I saw your sweet smile and innocent soul first, then the way you said please made me want to give you the sun and moon, but nothing between us had to do with your family, I swear, Dory, and-”
“Wait,” I stop his quick rambling as my brain catches up. “What about my family?”
He looks down at where our hands meet before visibly growing anxious.
“Lee, what is it?” I ask again, getting a bit scared now.
“When you asked if I knew your brothers, I didn't tell you the whole truth, Dory.”
I feel my brows pull together as I watch him, but his eyes don't meet mine. “You lied?” I try to pull my hand away, but his grip tightens as he looks up at me.
“I didn'tlie.I just didn't tell you everything…”
“That's lying.” I pull my hand away harder. “You always go on and on about how disrespectful it is to lie, and you've been lying?”
He looks like he regrets saying anything which makes me more upset. “What's the whole truth?” Whatever he wants to say clearly isn't good since he has that look on his face.
His shoulders drop before he turns to me. “I met your brothers in college. We went to rival schools.”
He watches me carefully, but I'm clearly missing something. “That's it? You already told me you went to UCD. I didn't think you knew my brothers, but I thought the rivalry between those colleges was over something silly. Either way, that was years ago; why lie to me about that?” My mind races with a hundred other questions as his worry grows.
“Because your brothers and I aren't the best of friends, and it's more than college rivalry.”
“Okay… what does that mean?”
He shakes his head now as he grabs my hand. “It was stupid, Dory. They did some fucked up shit, I did stuff back. It's dumb and doesn't matter. I just wanted to tell you because I realized today that I want to be with you for a very long time, and I didn't want you to hear it from someone else.”
I watch him for a beat, but if whatever happened was so dumb, he wouldn't have lied. “Tell me what happened, and let me decide what matters.”
“Sage-”
“Tell me, Liam,” I say more sternly. After needing to confront Helena tonight and now hearing he's been lying to me for months, I'm done playing nice when it's clear no one cares enough to return it.
He keeps his eyes on me, and when he realizes I'm not backing down, he gives in. “Your brother tried to create peace between our schools, specifically between the baseball teams.”
I don't ask which brother since I can guess who put in that effort.
“I guess he thought the rivalry between past classes was dumb, and at first, our schools didn't want to go with it, but most of us came around. I was hanging out with your brothers a lot, playing scrimmages, practicing, racing with Sire on our cars and with August on our bikes.”
“You werefriends?” I almost don't believe him because it's so rare for my brothers to fall out with any of their friends. “What happened?” I almost ask what he did, but I don't want to place blame.
“When the season started, they were winning games left and right. There was foul play involved, so we flipped the tables.”
My brain tries to make sense of what that means, but that doesn't make sense. “I highly doubt my brothers were cheating in a sport they were recruited by the best college to play.”
He looks offended now as he leans away to look at me. “You think I'mlying?”
“I never said that, but I know my brothers and-”
“And you know me.”
“Not as well as I know them, and you've been lying to me,” I counter, and as much as it hurts me to say it, it's true.
He lets out a scoff as he faces forward. “They were cheating, and no one was doing anything about it, so we made sure they went down for something else.”
I watch him for a minute, but he's being serious. “That genuinely sounds so silly. What do you mean youmade sure they went down?” I try to voice another question, but he continues.
