Chapter Four: Almost Doesn't Count

Liam's POV 

I step back so fast I nearly trip over the stick I'm holding.

"Bridget. Hey." My voice does the thing it always does around her, easy, light, a register I've practiced so long it barely feels like acting anymore. Except right now it feels like everything. Right now it feels like I've been caught with my hand somewhere it shouldn't be, even though nothing happened, even though we were just standing there, even though...

Even though.

Bridget's looking between me and Kai, her smile faltering just slightly, that quick recalibration she does when something doesn't match the story in her head.

"I texted you like five times," she says. "I was worried. Your mom called my mom asking if you were with me, and I had no idea where you were, so I figured I'd check the rink, and..." Her eyes land on Kai. "Oh. Hi. You're the new guy. Kai, right?"

"Yeah." Kai's voice is flat. He's not looking at me anymore. He's looking at his skates, at the net, anywhere but at me, and I feel something in my chest twist hard.

"Liam was just helping me with my shot," he says, before I can say anything. "Coach said it's off. He noticed."

"That's so nice of you," Bridget says, and she means it, she's not being sarcastic, she's just being Bridget... warm and easy and completely unaware that she just walked into the middle of something she has no idea existed. "Liam's the best, he's always helping people."

"Yeah," Kai says again. "Lucky me."

There's something underneath it, something sharp, and Bridget doesn't catch it but I do, I catch every bit of it, and it lands like a hit I didn't see coming.

"We should head back," Bridget says, looping her arm through mine the way she always does, the way that used to feel like nothing and now feels like a brand, like she's marking territory she doesn't even know is being contested. "It's freezing out here. Kai, you should head in too, it's late."

"Sure." He's already turning away, already gathering the pucks into the bucket, already putting distance between us with every movement of his body. "Night."

He doesn't look at me, not once. Not as Bridget pulls me toward the door, not as I glance back over my shoulder, not even when I say his name, quiet, just once, an apology disguised as a goodbye that he either doesn't hear or chooses not to.

Bridget talks the whole walk back to the dorms. Something about her mom, something about the holiday plans, something about a dress she's deciding between for some event I'm apparently supposed to attend as well. I make the right sounds in the right places. I've gotten so good at this that I genuinely don't know anymore how much of it is acting and how much of it is just what's left of me after years of practice.

"You're quiet," she says finally, stopping outside my building. "Are you mad about something?"

"No. Just tired."

"Okay." She studies my face the way she does sometimes, like she's looking for a door she knows is there but can't find the handle for. "Liam, can I ask you something?"

My stomach drops. "Sure."

"Do you actually like me?"

The question hits different than I expect. Not accusatory. Just quiet. Just real, for once, instead of the script we both usually follow.

"Of course I do," I say, and it's not even a lie, not exactly. Because I do like her. I like her the way you like a friend, the way you like someone who's been kind to you your whole life. It's just not the kind of liking she means, and we both know it, and neither of us has ever said it out loud.

"Okay," she says again, softer this time, and there's something sad in it that makes my chest ache with guilt I can't fully name. "Goodnight, Liam."

She kisses my cheek, quick, and walks away, and I stand there in the cold watching her go and thinking about Kai's face when he said lucky me, thinking about the way he wouldn't look at me, thinking about how I just stood there and let Bridget pull me away like Kai was something I needed to hide, like he was the secret instead of me.

I go up to my room and I don't sleep. I lie there staring at the ceiling replaying the moment on the ice, the heat of him, the way his breath caught, the way my name sounded in his mouth for the first time, and underneath all of it the cold, sick feeling of knowing I hurt him and didn't even have the courage to say so.

The next morning he's not at breakfast.

He's not in the hallway before first period either, and by the time practice rolls around that afternoon, the knot in my stomach has turned into something close to dread.

He shows up to practice exactly on time, not a second early, gear already on, and when Coach pairs us up again for drills, Kai skates toward me with his face arranged into something perfectly neutral, perfectly professional, perfectly closed.

"Whitemore," he says. Not Liam. Whitemore.

And something about the careful distance in that single word hurts more than I'm prepared for.