35. Liam

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

liam

I check the time again and the app tracing April's whereabouts. I won't blame her for being a bit late this morning. She was in a sex induced coma when I left her place around 3 am.

Me? I'm used to only getting a few hours of sleep. And I'm more than happy to cut those down if I'm trading it in for time well spent with the good doctor.

As I make my way to the club's reception to fake a chance encounter, I see a man on the sofa I recognize, but I can't quite put a name to him. I'm sure I've seen him somewhere. I pick my brain to remember who that is while I chat with Bernie, the oldest security guard in the building. He secures nothing, but he's the nicest person around and he'll have a job here as long as he wants to carry on working.

The reception is always busy, with tours of the stadium going on daily. People have come and gone, but the not-that-stranger-to-me and I have stuck around, waiting for someone.

Well, mine has just arrived.

The sound of April's laughter spilling out of the car's open door tugs at the corners of my lips. I can't help it. It's delicious, irresistible, infectious.

Thank fuck it's Bernie—old, na?ve, oblivious Bernie—and not Noah I'm chatting with, or I'd be getting roasted. The self acclaimed comedian wouldn't miss a chance of taking a dig at my newest acquired ability to smile.

April says something back to Terry and shuts the car door. I shake Bernie's hand and prepare to head to the elevator in sync with the doctor. But something stops her in her tracks. I see her turn around and sprint back to the car, but Terry has already left to park it.

She marches outside, and for a second I wonder if she's avoiding me. The self-centered thought is corrected when the man, whom I still can't remember where I know him from, chases after her, yelling, "April, wait." What the fuck? Of course, I follow them. "April, please talk to me."

"No! Get away from me! Terry? Teeeerry!" She's running for her life now, trying to reach the car, and that desperation unleashes a beast in me.

The man is much older than me and not fit at all. I get to him in a couple of strides and almost pull his shoulder from its socket, turning him to me.

"Out!" I snarl at the word, flecks of spit hitting his face as I over-pronounce the 't.' "Now!" I point to the gate, even though I'd rather send him off through the sewer hole if I could have it my way.

"I'm her father," the red-blotched face man exclaims, and I'm taken aback. He's what? My brain doesn't have time to unscramble this information.

April stops running and faces us. "I don't have a father." That's right. That's what she said on our first date. No dad, mom died when she was young.

The man has the nerve to tut at her and brushes his hand where I still have a firm grip on his shoulder. I don't move a finger. "I'm also Sterling Hughes. Take your hands off me, boy." That's who he is. The artist.

"I don't care if you're Jesus Fucking Christ coming back for judgment day. If she tells you to stay away," I inch my face close enough to bump noses, "you stay the fuck away. Got it?"

In my peripheral, I see Terry dashing his way to us. "Gunn." Motherfucker isn't even out of breath. He waits for my instructions.

"Take the trash out, Terry." I push Hughes in the bodyguard's direction and he catches the man by the lapel of his jacket. "Collect his data, biometrics, and ban his access here."

"Sure thing, boss."

Terry marches out, dragging the man who pleas for just five minutes of April's time.

"Are you okay?" She looks nothing but. I rub her arms and she's quivering like a plucked guitar string.

April's staring at nowhere, but this feels too out in the open to pull her into a hug. "Doctor, your office. Now."

My stern tone jolts her into action. "What?"

"Let's go inside. I can't hold you in the middle of the parking lot."

"Great."

"Great?"

"Yeah. Great. That was my father, Liam."

"Sterling Hughes is your father? One of the most famous painters in the world?"

"No, that would be my mother, but the world doesn't know it."

Grey scrambled eggs. That's what my brain feels like now . I'm finding it hard to even put a question together and it must show because April fills in the blanks for me.

"Both of them were artists, but they never found success. Got day jobs to pay the bills. Had a baby." She points at herself with the bitterest smile I've ever seen, and the heart I didn't think I had, cracks. "Dad was ambitious, but too lazy to do anything about it. Mom was lonely and submissive. They fought a lot. Then mom got leukemia."

"I'm so sorry, April." I take her hand, but she pulls away, checking our surroundings.

My brain is mush, there's a tear in my heart and I have a feeling my gut is next.

The worst is yet to come.

"She stopped working. Dad got other jobs to pay the medical bills. Mom got back into painting. Poured her pain into the canvas. Said the smell of paint eased the sickness."

April speaks in short, fragmented sentences, as if breaking her thoughts into small phrases so she won't have to feel the whole thing. "When she died, there were so many paintings. Paintings I saw her create, because I sat by her feet. Nursing her, feeding her, loving her. Making the most of every minute I had of her on this Earth. I was eleven when she passed."

We nod and wave to people who pass at a distance, arriving at the stadium. We fake normalcy, as if we're not closer to heartbreak than a ‘good-morning-to-you-too-smile'.

"He had the paintings appraised, signed them as if they were his own, and became famous overnight. Said we'd go bankrupt if he didn't do that. Threatened to put me in a psychiatric hospital if I told anyone." Tilting her head to the side, she adds, "Not that people would believe a grieving child, anyway."

"What a demented fucker."

She kicks a rock and shrugs her shoulders, hands deep inside her pockets.

"Yeah, it took me too long to realize that. But I did. Got out of his house, cut him and his last name from my life, emancipated myself, and the rest is history."

When she looks up, the fire in her eyes is almost out and my newly found heart cracks further.

"This," she gestures a finger between us, and one corner of my mouth inches higher. "This distance." Aaaand it drops back down. Okay, not where I thought she was going. "Is how I honor my mother." What? Back to scrambled brain again.

"You lost me."

"I don't date. I won't ever depend on a man. And I'll never let a man rob me of my possibilities."

I really must be fucked up in the head because all I hear is a list of challenges. Yes, I've been called stubborn my entire life, but the need to prove her wrong in each of her statements is something primal.

It's not out of the usual, familiar desire to simply be right.

It's much more than that this time.

Especially because I want to be the exception.

I want her to date me.

I want her to depend on me . Not out of need, but because she knows she can count on me.

And more than anything, I don't wish to rob her of any possibility. Heaven forbid.

I want to see this woman take on the world. I'll multiply her opportunities and serve them to her on a silver platter. Be by her side as she conquers all she sets up to do. Hold her hand as she climbs the steps herself.

April should honor her mother in ways where she gets to indulge in everything she can get out of life. Not retreat and be a doctor alone.

Yes, my prediction was right. The idea of April living a long and lonely life makes me sick to my stomach.

"Good thing we have our contract, then," I say instead, and she nods like she's in the military. I'll leave it at that now. Because she's still shaking. Because words won't be enough today. And because I need a better plan than ‘ me Liam, you April' , and dragging her by the hair into my cave.