Page 85 of Veiled in Brick

The relaxed atmosphere had allowed the drama to settle to the back of my mind, and the idea of delaying the inevitable was an enticing one. More than enticing, really…but it was a nonstarter. As lovely as it sounded to allow the reality of the now to disappear for just a little while longer, there was no use in procrastinating.

The ocean air blew, filtering its way through the open windows in the establishment and into my hair, and I sighed.

“We have shit to do,” I noted somberly.

“You mind if I take your car?” Liam asked. “I’ll just go; I won’t be long.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “I’m sorry?”

“Stay here,” he muttered down to me. “Have a drink. Relax for a little.”

“You want to go see Carter alone?” I replied incredulously.

Liam’s head bobbed up and down. “He lives maybe ten minutes away—”

I smiled sweetly at the waitress who was lingering at our sides. “Give us just a minute.”

“Alrighty!” Tense moment unrecognized, she bounced away.

“I was planning on going with you for this,” I murmured.

“Um,” Luke leaned forward to speak up, “we all were planning on going with you for this.”

“What are you guys gonna do?” Liam spoke to Luke and Claire, “Stand there and watch while I ask Carter a few questions? There’s no need.”

Claire began to argue, “Liam—”

“I don’t want you or Luke there,” he stated plainly, and Claire promptly shut her mouth. He added, “I don’t need your help. I’ll swing by and pick you back up when I’m done.”

His tone was insistent—uncharacteristically demanding—and Luke and Claire both sat back in their seats, pressing their lips tightly together in defiance, but saying no more.

“Okay,” I spoke, “well, I’m going—”

Liam chuckled, the sound biting and harsh. “No.”

“Liam.”

His returning, false smile was forced. “I’m not gonna crash your car, Zo’, I promise.”

“You and I both know that it’s not about my car, Lee—”

“And I don’t need you to navigate, this is my neck of the woods, remember?”

“Liam.”

“Liam,” Claire interjected gently, understanding that his upcoming interaction with his father was a nerve-wracking one, “I get me and Luke hanging back, I do…but it may be important for Zoey to be there…what if she has questions to ask him?”

Liam sighed loudly, glanced at me with an exhausted gaze, and asked, “Do you have questions for Carter?”

“I mean, none that you don’t have, but—”

“Then you have no reason to be there,” he stated. “Ya don’t need to show up so you can, what, chuck something breakable at his head again if he’s being…the way that he tends to be?”

Claire’s eyes went wide, for I had purposefully omitted that particular detail when I described the altercation with Carter earlier in the day.

She inquired rapidly, “You did what?”

I sneered, “I missed.”

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