“It was on risers and he wasn’t as burly then. In case he was wrong, he didn’t want me getting in trouble.”
“So he stayed. What happened?”
“Nothing. I thought that would be the end of it. But Liam wasn’t willing to let it go that easily. Bless him, he slept under my bed for a week, sneaking out every morning before breakfast. The first night was…weird. I mean, my best friend’s big brother was sleeping under my bed. After that, though, we talked. Late into the night. Stupid, inconsequential stuff at first. I think he was trying to put me at ease. I don’t know that we’d ever had any real conversations before that.” And those talks had given her a whole different view of Liam.
“The weekend after the party was some anniversary or celebration or other. Cliff brought home a bottle of wine to drink with dinner. My mom’s never had a head for alcohol, but he just kept refilling her glass, until she’d had about three-quarters of the bottle. She passed out. And he came after me.”
Autumn had gone pale. “Oh Riley.”
Riley shook her head. “He never got to put a hand on me. Liam was on him the moment he unbuckled his belt.” She closed her eyes, remembering the thud of fists on flesh as Liam beat Cliff with a terrifying precision and efficiency. “Liam made sure that he left. Packed his stuff and got him out of the house before my mother ever woke up. And he made it clear that if Cliff came back, came anywhere within a hundred feet of me, he wouldn’t stop with a beating.”
“Jesus. What did your mother say?”
“Nothing. She never knew. As far as she’s aware, he decided he couldn’t handle an insta-family and bailed on her.”
“Riley! How could y’all not tell her? What if she brought someone else into the house?”
“Because she didn’t believe me when I tried to talk to her about it before.”
“You had Liam as witness.”
“I had Liam as a vigilante who beat her fiancé to within an inch of his life. I was terrified he’d get into trouble over it. So we didn’t tell anybody. Ever.”
“Didn’t you worry it could happen again?”
“Of course. I was scared to death of every guy my mom went out with for a long time after that. But Liam looked out for me, taught me self defense, until he was sure I could take down a guy twice my size. He made me feel…safe. He was the first guy I could depend on since my dad. Which, actually, isn’t accurate. I could absolutely depend on his dad, too.”
“But it wasn’t the same.” Yeah Autumn would get that, given her relationship with Judd and his family.
“No. It wasn’t the same. And then he enlisted. Without telling me. I found out from Wynne. And I couldn’t even say a word about how I felt about it because she didn’t know he and I were…whatever the hell we were.”
“You must’ve been devastated.”
Riley shook her head, though she had been. “I was furious. Looking back, I didn’t have a right to be. Not really.” She’d thought a lot about that over the years. “We weren’t friends like you and Judd. We weren’t…anything, really. And just because he saved me from a would-be rapist once, didn’t make me his lifetime responsibility.”
“I’m sure none of that made you feel any less abandoned.”
“True enough,” she admitted. “But I wasn’t mad because of that, so much as terrified that he’d be killed like my daddy. I was so angry that he deliberately put himself in harm’s way, I wrote him this letter and shoved it into his bag before he left for boot camp.”
“What did it say?”
Riley shook her head. Some details were better kept to herself. “A lot of things I had no right to say. A lot of things I’m ashamed of and embarrassed about.”
“So you’ve been avoiding him all this time because of a letter you wrote him when you were fifteen and upset?”
“In a nutshell? Yes.”
Autumn paused, an eyeliner pencil in her hand. “And here I thought it was because you have the hots for him.”
Riley barked out a laugh. “That complication didn’t get added to the equation until he came home for good.”
“Well, we’re going to dial up the complication on his side tonight.” She leaned in, stroking the pencil along Riley’s eyelid.
“Are you sure about this? I feel like a painted lady.”
Autumn continued shading Riley’s eyes. “Something you may not know about Liam—he has a deep love of old movies. So this vintage look you’re rocking is totally going to work for him. You are exactly his type.”
“I don’t want to manipulate him.”