Page 95 of Off The Ice

I started moving again, knowing I needed to leave. Now.

“Cassie, stop. Wait,” he said, following me through the apartment.

“If I had known, I wouldn’t have stayed this long, taking up all this space,” I said.

“Cassie,” he said, my name a plea on his lips. “Please, it’s not like that.”

I turned slightly, pausing on my ascension up the staircase.

“Who’s your girlfriend?” I asked, hating and not understanding why I felt betrayed and abandoned by this man who had no obligation to me.

“You,” he said, and his words froze me in place.

“What?”

“It’s you,” he repeated, and I stared at him dumbstruck. “No, I mean—” He ran a hand over his face, fumbling for words. “Jesus, not like that. I just mean, you’re the girl in the picture. It’s you.”

My mind whirled, trying to make sense of his words.

“Someone took it that night we were at the bar and posted it online and ran with it. I’m so sorry,” he said in an agonized tone. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d hate me for it. But it’s just a really blurry picture. I doubt anyone would be able to tell it’s you, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

My eyes were downcast, processing everything he was saying. I’d never heard him so frantic. Liam, who was always relaxed and level-headed.

“I’msosorry, Cassie. These people—they’re crazy. They think they have a right to everyone’s private lives. They don’t blink an eye about posting that shit on the internet.”

I was confused, not understanding why he kept apologizing. The only thing I could process was that Liam didn’t have a girlfriend. And that the girl everyonethoughtwas his girlfriend—that wasme.

“Please don’t leave,” He whispered, voice breaking. “I promise I won’t let anything like this happen again.”

My eyes snapped up to his, my chest aching at the desperation I found there.

“It’s okay,” I said, still reeling from the heartache, confusion, and relief I had just experienced in rapid succession. “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t mind?” he repeated, dumbfounded.

“No, I don’t mind if people think that.” I shook my head.

The article. The photo. The entire internet thinkingI, of all people, was his girlfriend. This was his life. Strangers writing things, making assumptions about him. About people he was connected to.

It should have scared me, but it didn’t.

And now Liam, standing in front of me, eyes searching mine like he still wasn’t sure I was going to leave.

“I just hate the idea of people spewing shit on the internet about you,” he said, reaching out to push a strand of hair back from my face. “You’re not up for debate.”

My heart jolted.

“I don’t care what people say.” I shook my head, realizing that it was true.

Never before in my life could I have honestly said that I didn’t care what people said or thought about me. But I was here with Liam, feeling more certain of who I was and who he was than I had ever been in my life.

It didn’t matter what people said. I knew who he was. And it seemed, impossibly, like he knew me too.

He blew out the biggest breath of relief, pulling me in for a hug. Before I knew what was happening, I was hugging him back, breathing in the scent of him.

Then, in a small voice, I asked the question that was easier to ask when my eyes were closed, and my face was cradled against his chest.

“What about you? Doyoumind? That people think I’m your girlfriend.”

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