Trapped

  Tria dropped her gaze to the table. I felt bad for putting it all out there in the open, but it was a hell of a lot better than her spending the money on something that would just get her ridiculed. I remembered when Amanda had just started dating Ryan and showed up at a holiday party wearing something off the rack. She’d left crying within about fifteen minutes.

  Girls were mean.

  At least guys get it over with in a thirty-second fight. Chicks would harp on little things for years, whittling down the self-esteem of whatever girl was the brunt of the abuse until she couldn’t take any more. I knew Tria was fragile when it came to that kind of shit—no way would I expose her to that.

  “Liam,” Tria said quietly as her fingers drummed on the edge of the bowl of bean balls, which were still calling to my stomach, “if you are going to go to this wedding, I’m going with you.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  “Let’s see…What did you say to me when you told me you were coming to Beals with me? Not up for debate? I’m going.”

  “This isn’t the same at all. You know I’ll be back as soon as the cake is cut.”

  “Yes, it is,” she insisted. “I know there’s a lot you’re not telling me about why you disowned your family, but it doesn’t matter to me. I know this is going to be hard for you, and I am going to be there with you!”

  “It’s not going to be hard for me,” I argued. “I go in, sign the fucking book to prove I was there, say a toast, and get the fuck out.”

  “Toast?”

  “Um, yeah…” I reached up to scratch the back of my head. “He’s my cousin. I’d have to do a toast.”

  “Isn’t that the best man’s job?”

  “Well, yeah, the best man always does a toast—that would be Michael. In our family, pretty much everyone does a toast of some sort. It’s just expected. I even gave one when Michael married Chelsea, and I was just a kid.”

  I reached for the bean balls, but Tria wouldn’t relinquish them. She just pulled them closer to her side of the table as she looked at me.

  “Why does she want you to go?”

  “Who? Mandi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Amanda has been trying to get me back in the family since the day they figured out where I was living,” I said. “I guess she figured the guilt-tripping and browbeating weren’t going to work, so maybe making me go where everyone is going to be will make some difference.”

  “Your parents will be there,” Tria said.

  “Undoubtedly,” I replied.

  “You haven’t seen them since you walked out, right?”

  “For the most part.”

  “What does that mean?” Tria pressed.

  “I haven’t spoken to them since then,” I said. “I did see my dad once, but I didn’t talk to him.”

  “What happened?”

  I let out a long sigh.

  “Can I get some damn potatoes and bean balls first?”

  “Will you tell me then?”

  “Fine.”

  Tria pushed the bowl over to me, and I made sure I took a really healthy portion. They tasted so damn good, and I wanted to make sure I got as much as I wanted. It would be fucking salads and shit tomorrow to make up for it.

  “Well?” Tria prompted as I shoved a bite into my mouth.

  “You can’t starve me and expect me to be able to have a deep conversation,” I informed her as I pointed my fork in her direction.

  “That’s your second helping,” she reminded me.

  “Oh yeah. Well, I was really hungry.”

  Tria crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back in her chair, and glared at me. It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to be getting out of this, so I rolled my eyes and started talking.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” I lied. “I had been clean for about a month when Ryan tracked me down. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where I was, but he told Amanda, and she told the whole fucking family. I swear she thinks by getting into their good graces she’s going to get some huge fucking inheritance or something.”

  “So what happened?”

  “It’s pretty straightforward,” I said. “Ryan brought Dad here. I took one look at him, punched Ryan, and walked out. That was the end of it. I didn’t even find out until later that Amanda was involved.”

  “Your father came here?”

  “Just that once,” I said.

  “You didn’t talk to him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Liam!” Tria raised both hands up into the air and then brought them down hard on the table. “He wanted to talk to you! Why else would he have come here?”

  “Don’t, Tria,” I warned. “Just don’t.”

  I got up and walked out of the kitchen before I got so pissed off, I would end up running out. Grabbing my smokes off the nightstand, I crawled out onto the fire escape.

  “What’s up, crazy bitch?”

  Krazy Katie had about nine empty dental floss containers lying around her feet and had constructed a pretty intricate spider web out of the floss itself. There was a huge, tangled mess of white string all over the fire escape, which pretty much made it a fire hazard.

  Gotta love the irony.

  She didn’t say anything to me, but she kept glancing over at me with a weird little smile.

  “You are very loud, you know,” Krazy Katie said as I finished my smoke and started to climb back through the window.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, but she didn’t look over at me. She seemed completely entranced by the bit of dental twine wrapped around her fingers. She tied it into a loop and started to play Cat’s Cradle.

  “You get off on listening?” I asked with a smirk, but I didn’t get any more words out of her. I climbed the rest of the way back through the window and found Tria sitting on the couch with a big glass of apple juice.

  “I’m going with you,” she said definitively. “I’m not going to argue about it, and I have no idea what I’m going to wear, but I’m going. I’ll go in fucking sweats if that’s what I have to do, but I am going!”

  I rolled my eyes and was about to start the whole “oh no you aren’t” argument over again when someone started tapping at the door.

  “Who the hell is that?” I muttered as I went to open it. As soon as the door swung to the side, I wished I had just stayed on the fire escape. “What the fuck?”

  “Good evening, Liam,” Michael said smoothly. He looked around me to smile at Tria. “Hello, Miss Lynn. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  “Hello, Michael,” Tria replied. “Please, come in.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. As I turned around to look at her, Michael stepped to the side and entered the apartment. Behind him was an older guy with white hair down to his shoulders and a big bag over his arm.

  “Pardon my manners,” Michael said as I closed the door. “This is Carter. He’s going to get you measured for your tux, and then we’ll work on some designs for Tria’s dress.”

  “My…my what?” Tria stuttered.

  “Your dress for the wedding,” Michael said with a cool smile. “Ryan said Liam was concerned he would need a new tuxedo, and it occurred to me that we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Carter is a fabulous procurer of wonderful items from Italy and Paris. He’ll find just the thing for you, I’m sure.”

  “Michael, are you out of your mind?” I glared at him.

  “You said you were going to attend the wedding, correct?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “And I assume you are still a man of your word, regardless of the sins of the past?” He eyed me pointedly. “I’m fairly certain that was a trait instilled in you by your father and grandfather.”

  I took a long breath but gave him a single nod.

  “Then you will need a tuxedo.”

  “This has nothing to do with Tria,” I said to him as I took a step closer.

  “Hold your arm out to the side, please,” the white-haired gentleman said. He took my wrist and
guided my hand away from my body as he pulled out a tape measure and started taking measurements.

  I ignored him but let him do his job. One thing that was definitely true was my need for a tux, and since Michael would be paying for the rest of the wedding anyway, I didn’t think the price of a tux was going to amount to even a drop in that budget bucket.

  “Of course it does,” Michael replied as he smiled at her again. “We’ll want her dressed appropriately, and considering your income level, you know you can’t accommodate.”

  “My income level is none of your fucking business!”

  “Liam,” Tria said as she stood from the couch and walked over. “We were just trying to figure out how I was going to get something to wear.”

  “We were not trying to figure it out!” I snapped back. “You aren’t going!”

  “Of course she is!” Michael said with a laugh.

  “See?” Tria smiled along with him as she gestured to Carter. “And now we have the solution.”

  “Tria, you have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “Of course I do!” she said. “I’m going to a wedding with you.”

  “It’s settled then!” Michael beamed.

  “It certainly is not!”

  As Michael, Tria and I argued, Carter flitted around and measured me from every angle. It was surreal and reminded me very much of comparable positions I had been in as a kid. I couldn’t even count the number of times similar people had measured, primped, and preened me for various social gatherings.

  Their simple logic and general “gang up on Liam” tactics eventually wore me down.

  “Fine!” I grumbled. “But I’m telling you right now, it’s going to suck!”

  I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at the both of them while Carter got down on his knees and measured my inseam.

  Fucking hell.

  Two hours later, Carter was still talking to Tria about dress designs, and I had stepped out for a smoke. Michael followed me.

  “I’m glad you decided to attend,” he said.

  “Decided?” I snorted. “I was coerced.”

  “However it occurred, I’m still glad you will be there.”

  “I’m not talking to him, Michael,” I said.

  “Liam…”

  “No!” I growled. “I’ll go there because I said I would, but I didn’t say anything about talking to him!”

  “Your mother—”

  “Or her, either!”

  Michael sighed and reached up to fiddle with the silver hoops in his ear.

  “You still wear them,” he remarked, nodding toward the matching set of jewelry in my own ear.

  “I don’t want the holes to close up. Getting the piercings hurt like a bitch.”

  “You could have bought different ones.”

  “With all the extra cash I have?” I smirked. “Yeah, food and rent are a little more at the top of my list.”

  Michael took a slight step back, eyed my left ear for a moment, and then gave me a half smile.

  “Are you making excuses to me or yourself?”

  Fucker.

  I was never one to agree with Michael, but the idea of removing the earrings was abhorrent.

  Chapter 12—Run the Gauntlet

  “Tria, the car is here.”

  I climbed back into the window and stepped over my growing pile of laundry. Tria was shoving shit into her purse—a bottle of hand lotion, an umbrella, an empty water bottle, and a cookbook, for fuck’s sake.

  “What the hell do you need all that for?” I asked, then immediately thought better of it. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. The car is out there and probably already drawing a lot of attention. We should hustle.”

  “I’m ready,” she said as she tossed the bag over her arm. “Let’s go.”

  The Rolls was deep black, sleek, and totally out of place, parked out in front of our dilapidated building. Tria’s eyes went wide as the dark-haired man in a suit and customary chauffeur’s hat opened the back door for us, and she slid into the seat.

  “Mister Teague, may I say it is wonderful to see you again?”

  “Good to see you, too, Damon,” I replied as I got in beside Tria. “This is Tria Lynn. Tria, this is Damon, Michael’s driver.”

  “Hello, Damon,” she said quietly.

  “A pleasure, Miss Lynn.” Damon tipped his cap to her and gave me a wink before closing the back door with a click and taking his position in the driver’s seat.

  Damon pulled out into the street and headed for the highway as Tria and I settled back against the luxurious interior. I focused on her face to prevent the familiarity of the scene from bringing back memories. However, Damon was less inclined to avoid the past.

  “It’s good to see you looking so well, Mister Teague,” he remarked as he glanced in the rearview mirror. “I haven’t driven you anywhere since you received your temporary driver’s license!”

  “You’ve known Liam a long time?” Tria piped up.

  “All his life,” Damon said with a smile. “I drove Michael to the hospital when young Liam was born.”

  “What was he like as a child?” Tria asked.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake…”

  Damon laughed and adjusted the mirror to see Tria better.

  “Headstrong, independent, obstinate—my guess would be the same way as he is now.”

  Tria snickered.

  “I’ll take that as a confirmation,” Damon said. From the view in the mirror, I could see his cheeks raised in a smile.

  “Nice,” I muttered.

  Damon drove us to Michael’s, where Ryan’s side of the wedding party would be preparing. I continued to watch Tria’s reaction to the surroundings, especially Michael’s house, and wondered if she had ever seen places like it before. Her eyes just about popped out of her head when she took a good look at the floor in the foyer and realized it was marble.

  Not long after we got there, Tria was whisked away by three ladies in Carter’s employ, and Ryan dragged me to the den for shots of whiskey and bowtie tying.

  “I fucking hate these things,” I said as I pulled the knot out and tried again. It had been way too long since I had worn a bowtie, and I had apparently lost the knack to tie one properly.

  Ryan laughed.

  “Didn’t you teach me how to tie one?” he asked.

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  My cousin walked up, smacked my hands out of the way, and tied my tie for me.

  “You’re here,” he stated, “because you belong here. You’ve shut everyone out for too long.”

  “Don’t you start.”

  “Start what?” Ryan said.

  “You know exactly what,” I snapped back. I looked in the mirror at his handiwork, and my tie was pretty straight. “I get enough of that from Tria as it is. Besides that, you also know better.”

  “And Tria doesn’t?”

  I shrugged and fiddled with my platinum cufflinks.

  “Christ on a cracker!” Ryan growled softly. “She doesn’t know?”

  “She doesn’t need to.”

  “Liam! What the—? You—?” Ryan stammered as he grabbed fistfuls of hair and pulled at them. “What the hell? What if you decide you want to get married and have kids someday?”

  “Not doing that.”

  “You’re living together, right?”

  “Yeah,” I replied with narrowed eyes. “So?”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Fuck.” I turned around and walked across the plush carpet to the window. From there, I could see the border of the hedge maze and the slight outline of the river beyond. It felt all too similar, too common, too normal.

  But it wasn’t. Not anymore.

  “Well?”

  “What does that shit even mean?” I mumbled as I turned back to him. “I don’t know. She’s important to me.”

  “Sounds like a lot more than you’ve had since Aimee.”

  Instinctively
, my eyes closed. I wished I could have done the same with my ears, but it was too late—I had already heard her name. My stomach tightened up, and I felt like vomiting. Waves of memories flooded my senses until I could not only see her soft curls and hear her soft sigh, but I could also smell the scent of her skin as she ran see through the maze and feel the burn of the wind on my cheeks as I chased her, laughing.

  Then tears, yelling, pounding, blood, meat, screaming…

  Loss.

  I barely made it to the trashcan before emptying my stomach. With a muddled head and cramping stomach, I barely registered Ryan helping me over to a long leather couch—dragging the trashcan with us—and repeatedly apologizing.

  I pulled off the damn tie so I could breathe.

  With my head in my hands, I leaned over my knees and panted. Ryan rubbed the back of my shoulders as I tried to get myself together again. I pressed my palms against my head, as if physically pushing on my temples would drive back the memories and constrain them to the back of my mind. After a few minutes, I swallowed back the taste of bile as I swallowed down the thoughts of the past.

  “Dude, it’s been ten years,” he said quietly. “You still can’t hear her name without—”

  “Shut up!” I tried to yell it, but the words came out as more of a plea. “Just stop…don’t say anything else.”

  For a long while, we just sat on the couch in silence. Finally, I took a deep breath and looked at him. My head hurt, and my eyes felt sore, but I had generally calmed down. Ryan reached over and retied my bowtie again.

  “You can’t live like this forever,” he said as he finished with it. “You can’t just not tell Tria. If she really means anything to you, you have to tell her about it sometime.”

  “Why?” I snapped back. “Has Amanda told you she only wants you for your money?”

  “It’s not the only reason,” he said.

  “But it’s a big part of it.”

  Ryan’s eyes flickered over to the door, then down to the floor, and then back to me.

  “I know,” he said. “She came from nothing, Liam. Scraping for every last breadcrumb. Too many kids, not enough food, no place to sleep but cardboard boxes. Yeah, she wants the money, and she needs the security, but it’s not the only reason.”