Page 32 of Gravity of Love
“I was drunk, not that that’s an excuse. It’s still sexual harassment and?—”
“No, it’s not.” Liam stopped her there. It was one thing to be embarrassed, it was another to feel like she’d done something wrong.
“Yes, it is. It doesn’t matter that I’m a girl, unwanted sexual advances are?—”
He pulled the SUV over to the side of the road, causing her to stop talking as she grabbed onto the armrest.
When he came to a stop, he turned to her. She was staring out the windshield.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She turned her head towards him, her amber eyes wide, her perfect cherry lips parted, her cleavage spilling over the hem of her white scoop-neck t-shirt as her chest rose and fell in short breaths. The space between their bodies hummed with a magnetic pull that made his skin prickle and his breath catch in his throat. He wanted so badly to reach across the console, thread his hand through her hair, pull her into him, and show her just howwantedher sexual advances were, but he couldn’t do that.
“It’s not,” he stated as firmly as he possibly could. “Drop it.”
She nodded slowly.
He turned back and pulled onto the road, trying to get the way her lips felt against his the night before, even for a split second, out of his head. A few seconds of silence filled the space between them. It felt heavy. He wanted so badly to know what she was thinking. Normally, she just told him. At least, she had when she was younger, but that was the thing: she was a grown woman now.
She shifted in her seat and turned towards him. “Um, there’s something I need to tell?—”
A text from Poppy appeared on the display of his dashboard in the middle of her sentence.
Poppy:Did u make sure Frankie got home safe? I’ve been texting her all morning, and no answer. U r my brother, and I love u, but I will turn you in if cops show up at my door looking for her.
Frankie laughed as she pulled out her phone from her backpack. “Ha ha, your sister likesmemore thanyou.”
“I don’t think refusing to lie to police and cover up a murder is a reliable metric of her affection for me.”
“Well, I guess we’ll never know.” Frankie held up her phone to the side of his face. “I just texted her and told her that I did, infact, get home safe and sound. I left out the part that I sexually harassed?—”
“Frankie,” her name came out as a warning.
He looked over and saw the smile she had on her face, indicating she wasn’t serious.
“Too soon?” she asked, eyes twinkling with mischief. Her expression changed when she put her phone away. “Wait! Was I looking at photos on your phone last night?”
Shit.He wanted to lie, but he knew he couldn’t. Frankie wouldneverlet it go.
“Yes.”
“Of us growing up, right?”
He nodded.
“Can I see them? I don’t remember.”
That was why he’d shown her last night. He didn’t think she’d remember. Against his better judgement, and with a sinking sick feeling in his stomach, he took his phone out and opened up the photos app before handing her the device.
“Oh my gosh! These are…I didn’t know you had…I haven’t even seen half of these.” After she’d gone through them all, probably a few times, she asked. “So, what is the deal with Poppy being your sister? And why don’t you talk to your dad and Tristan?”
He wondered when that was going to come up. He was actually surprised it wasn’t sooner. He knew he was going to have to talk about this, but he’d never actually told anyone the whole story, never said it out loud. Not to Poppy, Niko, or AJ. No one. His pulse was racing as he turned onto the road that would take them to the base of the trail. He had about five minutes until they were there.
“There are a lot of reasons. At this point, I don’t even know how to be a part of that family. You know that my dad and I never got along. He always treated me differently thanTristan, whether or not he’d ever admit he did, that’s just a fact. Tristan got away witheverything. It didn’t matter what he did, the expectations on me were always higher. Then the fact that Mom had a brain tumor that her own husband, an expert in that field, knew nothing about, and she died when he saved how many other people’s lives?” Liam tried to take a breath, but he couldn’t. Both his chest and his throat were tight. He knew, academically, nothing was wrong with him, that what he was experiencing was all in his head, but he’d never actually said these next words out loud before.
Frankie reached over and put her hand on his forearm. As soon as he felt her touch, his anxiety didn’t disappear, but it went from blaring loud to a manageable level. “It’s okay, if you don’t want to?—”
“The night before Mom died, I went up to her room to see her, and I heard them arguing. I stood outside the door, and I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but I heard my dad clearly say, ‘I want to tell him he’s not my son’, and my mom sobbed and said, ‘You promised you’d love him like your own.’” As soon as the words left his mouth, Liam felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest.
