Page 8 of Off The Ice

“Maggie saidwhat?” His reaction was immediate, his reflexes even faster as he spun to face me.

“I mean, she didn’t make you sound desperate!” I held my hands up quickly, not wanting to offend him. “I just mean, she told me how long you’ve been looking for one and that I would do as good as anyone else,”

“Maggie told you that I wasdesperatefor a roommate?”

The intensity in his eyes was extra unsettling when accompanied by the knife he held in his hand. Of course, logic would lead me to believe that he was going to use it to dice the tomato in front of him, but frankly, I didn’t know him well enough to be a hundred percent sure.

I swallowed, my cheeks flaming furiously. The downfall of my pale complexion was that it showedeverything.Fear, anger, embarrassment. My face might as well be a display screen showing the world the inner workings of my mind.

“I mean, yeah?” I shrugged. “She told me you had this big apartment and all this empty space and that you’d been wanting a roommate to feel less lonely… so, here I am.” I made a hand motion as if to say, “Ta-da.”

Liam threw his head back and laughed out loud, and I giggled along with him because I didn’t really know what else to do. When he finally caught his breath, I realized Liam found this situation about as funny as I did, which was to say, not at all.

“Let me make this very clear. I’m not lonely. I have never wanted a roommate. And the only reason I agreed to this is because I’ve been a bit of an ass to my sister lately, and she begged me to let you crash hereshort term.”

My heart dropped, plummeting into the deepest parts of my stomach. I was humiliated. Not only because he didn’t want me here and the way he put it so bluntly, but because it exacerbated a feeling that had already been gnawing inside of me all day long: that no one really did.

He didn’t want me, my boyfriend didn’t want me. My mom was too wrapped up in her own issues to really pay me any mind. It was all too much. I hated myself for being so fragile and weak. How come some girls could rock the whole independent, I-don’t-need-anyone thing, but I found myself constantly craving love from all the people who wouldn’t give it?

My ego had been bruised more than enough for one day, so I went to work attempting to repair it on my own.

“Oh, okay.” I painted the fakest of smiles and hoped he couldn’t see my lip tremble. “No biggie. It’s just a misunderstanding. I get it. And, lucky for us, it turns out I actuallydon’tneed a place to stay after all. So, thank you for, you know, letting me stay here, against your wishes and all that,” I trailed off, not entirely sure how to thank someone for something they hadn’t actually offered. “But I’ll be heading out now.”

With my thumb pointed toward the door, I took off, scurrying away like a mouse being chased off by a fox.

I’d nearly reached the door when his sigh thundered through the kitchen.

“And where will you go?”

“Well.” I turned, smiling brightly at him because the last thing I needed was fake pity from a guy who clearly couldn’t care less. “I actually was going to go home and make up with my boyfriend. I think it was all just some silly mistake. Nothing we can’t work through.”

I hope.

Liam replied with an answering snort. “Isn’t this the guy who called you at work and broke up with you over the phone?”

“Yes,” I said, hating him for shattering my pride all over again. “But—”

“And how long have you been dating?”

“Six years.” I crossed my arms defensively, narrowing my eyes at him while waiting for him to get to the point.

“And not only did he not think you worthy enough of an in-person conversation, but he also toldyouto find somewhere else to live without even discussing it?”

My cheeks were on fire, but this time not only from shame but also fury. How dare this guy rub my breakup in my face when he didn’t even know the full situation?

“Well, I’m glad that you and Maggie are so close that she thought to share every humiliating detail, but you don’t know the full situation.”

“Oh?” he said in a way that invited more details.

“He’s been under a lot of stress, trying to figure things out with life, and work has been hard for him lately, and—” I rambled, listing off the reasons I’d spent the night convincing myself of.

“Fuck that,” he cut me off, fixing me with a glowering stare.

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t treat your partner of six years like that. Hell, you don’t even treat a stranger like that.”

I stared at him, mouth agape at the harshness of his words. “Look, I don’t know what type of relationships you’ve had, but things aren’t always black and white. Sometimes people make mistakes, or they get scared—”

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