Chapter 2
Liam
Her eyes widen. She’s staring at me, confused—if I recognise her expression correctly.
“What do you mean ‘I can’t do this anymore?’ I don’t understand,” she says.
The dressing room is large and square, and she’s standing near the door. But where Ryan’s cubby is, it’s only a few strides away. I debate for a moment if I should step towards her, or prompt her to sit down next to me. But she paces, and that tells me her mind is working overdrive and she could decide to do absolutely anything, so I stay where I am.
“This, Vic. Whatever the fuck it is we’re doing. You want me, you don’t want me, you want me, you don’t want me, you flirt with me, you don’t talk to me for months. I can’t cope with it anymore. I can’t—”
She halts and looks at me. “And you didn’t want to mention this before you came with me into the equipmentstorage room. I can still taste your come!” She raises her voice at the last part, then she blinks, tears forming in her eyes.
Shit. Right. That’s on me, but she did that thing she does to my neck and hell—I can’t be held responsible for my own actions when I’m that worked up. But I get it. I’m a dick. A huge one.
“Or is this your way of getting back at me? Getting me to feel like you felt? Because I suppose it’s what I deserve,” she says.
“I didn’t plan on doing that,” I offer. “I’m sorry, I—”
“What happened this morning, Lee?” she cuts me off. I take a deep breath which prompts her into a rant. “What happened? Did Johnny say something? Or was it Ryan? Because I thought things were fine last night. I thought…” She halts and steps towards me. A single step.
“Look, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, Vic. We can’t keep doing this, and you can’t keep doing it either. I mean, why the hell did you have a complete meltdown at Ryan? He said you were convinced he was me or something.”
She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket and looks down at the nails on her left hand. “I just… I had a moment, I said I was sorry. Oh, my God!” Fresh tears fall down her cheeks and seeing her like this is breaking my heart, too. I can’t see her like this. I don’t know what else to do but stride towards her and pull her into me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but she pushes me away with all her strength, causing me to stumble backwards.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” she snarls.
She turns and flings open the dressing room door, and she’s gone in a flash before I can react.
I take a few moments to figure out what to do next. But I decide to take off after her, entering a completely empty corridor. Where the fuck did she go? I look around, craning my neck—left, right, left, right, but she’s gone. Only the smell of Chanel lingering in the area.
I hear my brother’s footsteps growing louder. I can always tell it’s him.
“What’s going on?” Ryan paces towards me.
“Have you seen Vicky?”
“No.”
“She couldn’t have gone far.”
“What happened?”
I sigh, then I compose myself before giving him a brief run-down of the conversation I had with her. I run my hands through my hair and pace in a small circle before letting out a growl.
“Did you tell her you’re coming here next season?”
“I didn’t get a chance.”
“Yeah, but you had time to take a trip into the equipment cupboard. I’m sure you didn’t go in there for a look around, did you?”
“Whose side are you on?” I growl.
“Yours, obviously. But all I’m saying is, you shouldn’t have gone and done whatever you did, knowing that you were going to call it off. It’s a dick move. Any guy knows that, especially when you’ve got history. You could be seen as—”
“Shut the fuck up, Ryan. There wasn’t anything to call off!” I know he’s right, but who wants to be kicked while they’re down?
“Vicky didn’t think that!” Ryan raises his voice too.
