“I will kill you if you finish that sentence,” I said, cutting her off, the warning in my tone clear.
Kira raised a challenging eyebrow. “Starting to see the resemblance in the two?”
With a shake of my head, I reached for the handle of my door and tossed the keys onto Kira’s lap. I didn’t exactly want to go hang out with Liam and a bunch of his friends after what happened between us the other night, but right then I would have done anything if it meant having space from my sister. “I don’t know what’s happening between you and Zane, but Jesus Christ, he has turned you into such a bitch.”
Stepping out of the car, I shut my door and began walking toward the sand without looking back. I knew after what I said, it would take Kira a few more minutes to leave the car—if she left it at all—and for a second I felt bad about using Zane against her just then. But then I remembered who she’d been using against me, and it didn’t take me long to get over it.
“Hey!”
I looked up to find Liam jogging toward me, and my body froze. Part of me wanted another taste of what he’d given me not forty-eight hours before, the rest wanted to run from him while I showed him how little he meant to me.
He stopped suddenly when he got close to me, and his eyebrows slanted down. “Whoa, are you okay? And where’s Kira?”
“She’s in the car.”
I’d taken a step to walk around him, but he caught my arm and pulled me closer. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” I tried yanking my arm from his grasp, but he never loosened his hold.
“You’re lying to me. It’s all over your face.”
“Well then, it’s the sun getting in my eyes.” After another yank, I glared up at him and took a step back.
“Kennedy, why—”
“Will you let go of me?” I asked, my voice rising.
He immediately released my arm, but those ice-blue eyes still held me captive. “You need to tell me what I’m missing here. I know after what happened the other—”
“What happened Thursday night was a mistake.”
“Mistake,” he stated, his voice low and flat. “Are you—God, Kennedy, what do I need to do? Where am I going wrong, because even though you shut down again, I know damn well that ‘mistake’ is not even close to the way you looked after. You looked scared.”
I couldn’t respond to the last part, because even though he and I both knew he was right, I wasn’t about to admit it. “What you need to do is stop trying to make something happen—or stop thinking that there’s something happening. I told you the first day that nothing was going to happen between us. That hasn’t changed.” I started walking past him again, but hadn’t made it more than two steps when I was pulled back. “Liam—”
“Tell me why you’re doing this!” he demanded, but the harsh whisper of his tone had my automatic response dying in my throat. “Tell me what it is that has you running from me.”
The way his eyes were pleading with me was almost enough to make me crumble right there. The truth was bouncing around and around in my mind, begging to be voiced, but I couldn’t allow it. Getting Liam to think that nothing could happen between us was the only way to keep my heart safe. The only mistake I made on Thursday night was that I had given in and kissed him and, in that moment, had fallen for him a little more. That moment had made all of this harder. I hated seeing the pain and confusion on his face, but I couldn’t let myself fall in love with him.
Wait . . . love? That thought snapped me back to the present and to the way he was silently begging me for an honest response. That was the problem right there. Being around Liam had me entertaining the possibility of love again, and I knew better than anyone that love wasn’t real. It was an idea made up for couples. I knew if I let something happen between us, I would stop remembering that, I would let myself believe in it again . . . and then my world would be ripped from me. Just like it had been years ago.
“Kennedy, please.”
With a shake of my head, I pulled my arm away from him—this time there was no resistance. “I don’t know what you want me to say that I haven’t already said.”
When I began walking again, Liam didn’t try to stop me. I wanted to go back to the car and leave, but I knew doing that meant facing Kira—and I wasn’t sure either of us was ready for that yet. As I got closer to Liam’s friends, I continued walking straight ahead instead of joining them. I didn’t know if I knew any of them anyway, and being there meant facing Liam again too soon and without the distraction of my sister. The only reason I’d even agreed to come after what went down the last time I was on this beach was because Kira had told him we’d be there. And despite my own discomfort with the situation, I would do anything if it meant getting her away from the condo. Because the longer we were indoors, the more she fell into her Zane depression . . . not that I’d done much to help that by what I’d just said in the car.