“With Liam.”

My brows slanted down over my eyes, and I shook my head once. “I don’t—what?”

Kristi smiled and rolled her eyes. “It’s not hard to see that he has his eyes set on you. Anyone could’ve seen it from that first day he ran into you here. I’m going to be straight with you and tell you that for him, girls are more of a . . . when-he-wants-them type of thing. And Liam is incapable of loving anyone who isn’t family.”

“I don’t believe in love.”

“Well then, looks like the two of you would be perfect if you wanted to be with him, and if he was the kind of guy who did relationships. But I can honestly say, I haven’t seen a girl turn him down since sometime in high school. Once he has his mind set on a girl, it’s only a matter of seconds before he has her. It’s disgusting, really. But like I said, I’m surprised you’ve held out this long.”

Lovely. “Well, I won’t be giving—”

“We’ve all made bets.”

“I’m sorry . . . what? Who has?”

“Everyone who works here,” she said matter-of-factly. Like the fact that they were bidding on my will to continue pushing away her brother was nothing more than what day of the week it was.

“Well, I hate to break it to everyone, but it won’t be happening. Your brother already knows that.”

Kristi drummed her hands against the countertop for a few seconds before backing away and saying in a singsong voice, “If you say so!”

As if I wasn’t already having my own problems trying to stay away from him, I now had every person I knew in California waiting for me to give up and give in. If only they knew I was doing it to protect myself because of a past that still felt too present . . .

If only I could remember my reasons for needing to stay away when he was near me.

EIGHT HOURS LATER and I was at the fucking bonfire. And trust me . . . it wasn’t by choice. Honestly. Kira and I had sat down and had a long talk when we’d gotten home from work about why I couldn’t be with Liam—as well as why I wouldn’t be with him. Because as I’d come to find out while talking with her, there were differences between the two.

Kira had actually seemed sympathetic once I laid it all out for her, and finally agreed to stop pushing the whole thing on me. An hour later, after more talking about work and California, she’d asked if I wanted to go out to dinner since our only other options were ordering in or going to the grocery store. We’d already ordered in almost every night that week, and on a Thursday night, grocery shopping was the last thing I wanted to do.

Well, second to last, as I’d come to find out another thirty minutes later after we’d gotten ready and driven to the restaurant—a restaurant that at that moment was conveniently and suspiciously disguised to look like the beach with a bonfire not far in the distance.

Unfortunately for me, Kira had immediately gotten out and taken the car keys with her.

So I was now standing there surrounded by a few people I’d met over the previous week, and many others I was almost positive I’d never seen before. And what made it even better? Kira had taken off an hour before because Zane had called her, as I’d found out from Liam. Which meant that not only was I stuck at the beach until Liam gave me a ride home, I was also wondering if I actually loved or hated my twin, and contemplating all the ways to shatter and destroy her beloved phone. All the while trying not to go cross-eyed from the one-sided conversation I was a part of.

“You look like you could use another one of these,” a gravelly voice said in my ear, and I turned to look up at Liam. He was standing just off to my side holding a beer in his hand, and right then I wouldn’t have cared if he were offering me sand. I would’ve taken anything from him if it meant I got a few seconds of distraction from the guy in front of me.

“Thank you. Is there another one for you?” I asked unnecessarily. One, there was only one can in his hand, and two, I already knew Liam wasn’t drinking since he’d driven.

“Nah, I’m good.” Liam’s ice-blue eyes stayed locked on mine for a few silent seconds, and just when I was about to look away, they drifted to the side and a smile crossed his face. “And he’s gone.”

I looked quickly in front of me to find that the guy I’d been talking to was in fact gone. Well, if you could consider five feet away gone. But at least he was focused on someone else now. “Seriously, thank you so much!” I whispered in relief to Liam, and sank down onto the blanket I’d been standing on. Shoving the cool can of beer into the sand, I took a sip of the one I’d already had that was still completely full.

Liam sat down in front of me, but kept his eyes averted. “I figured you needed to be saved from him, and I couldn’t think of a good enough reason.”

My eyebrows rose once in confirmation, and I laughed softly. “He was . . . well, he’s something else,” I said as I glanced back at the man in question.

“I don’t know why he comes to these things. He never drinks or eats, he never brings anyone with him, and he only talks to people about how his radish is going to save the world—”

“Avocado,” I interrupted. “He said the radish wasn’t going to produce the right kind of energy. He’s trying an avocado pit now.” Liam rolled his eyes, but his smile was contagious. “How do you even know him?,” I said.

“We don’t! He just joined in on a party one day when we were out here, and it never fails, if we’re at the beach he’ll show up at some point. I don’t think I even know his name, we all just try to avoid getting stuck in a conversation with him,” I said.

“Howie,” I answered before taking another sip. “He has an employee ID card clipped onto his shirt from some company.”

“Well, you’ve now met Howie. You can consider it a rite of passage here.”

“Yay me,” I mumbled sarcastically.

Both Liam and I were silent for a few moments as we watched Howie go into an overly excited and detailed explanation to a girl who looked like she couldn’t get away fast enough, and I laughed when her expression clearly showed she’d given up on trying to find a way out.

“I want to know more about you,” Liam muttered, bringing my attention back to him.

My smile faded and I shook my head faintly. “Liam, I—why? Why do you keep pushing for something between us?”

“I just want to know more about you, Kennedy. Friends do that—hell, strangers do it. So why can’t we?”

“Because you and I both know your real reason for wanting to know. You know just as much about me as you do about Kira, and probably more than your other friends know, at least the ones I’ve met. You asking for more is just—”

“It’s just a request as a friend, Kennedy. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I watched his expression carefully, and knew that it was anything but a friendly request. Before I could come up with another reason not to tell him more about myself, he leaned closer, and the movement had my dismissal getting caught in my throat.

“You already know where I went to school and what I majored in; why don’t you start there for me?”

I released a heavy breath and began shaking my head again, but found myself saying, “I went to Florida State, and majored in psychology.”