The Rebel - Raleigh Ruebins Page 0,4

think the last time I really felt like myself was when I was with you, when we—”

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to read it out loud,” Liam said, standing up and giving me his fiery gaze again.

“Who is Colin?”

Liam pulled in a breath, looking at the floor. “A guy I broke up with when I left LA. A... very shitty guy.”

I paused, watching him. I hated how shellshocked he looked. “Did Colin hurt you?”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Did he hurt you?” I repeated, my voice firm.

“No,” Liam said. “I’m okay, Red. I mean it when I say I don’t want to talk about him, though.”

I took a deep breath. “Well, it finally got you out of my damn chair,” I said. I pocketed my phone.

He scrubbed his palms over his face, then ran a hand through his hair. “I was… pretty wasted when I wrote that one. I’m sorry.”

If I had a nickel for every time Liam had told me he was pretty wasted.

“I thought you said you don’t drink anymore.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Not since that night.”

My heart twisted in my chest. The email had been from about a month ago. Had Liam really gone that long without drinking?

Liam Hardy had been one of the biggest partiers I’d ever met. Pills and liquor, over and over again on an endless loop. He was constantly surrounded by a group of people who offered him free booze, stimulants, downers, whatever. He tossed back shot after shot every night. Sometimes he’d black out. Sometimes he’d be incoherent. Every night was a gamble.

I was a drinker, too, of course. I’d opened up Red’s Tavern for a reason, and I loved every minute of owning this bar. But Liam had always been on another level. A level that approached out of control more often than not.

I couldn’t imagine what a sober version of him even looked like.

“I don’t have any money to give to you,” I said. “If you spent your buckets of porn money on drugs, it isn’t my fault.”

“Ouch,” he said. “And no, I don’t need your money. I have enough, for… a little while. In this town, at least. Turns out rent is cheap in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. No wonder you moved out here to the sticks.”

“Rent? The Golden Goose isn’t that cheap—”

He shook his head. “I’m not at the inn. I’m renting a house. Indefinitely.”

I stared at him, frozen in place. I understood the words he was saying, but I couldn’t imagine them coming out of his mouth.

Liam Hardy, a man who lived and breathed city life, was indefinitely renting a house in Amberfield?

Liam Hardy, a man who I had cut out of my life a long time ago, was indefinitely going to be in my small town?

“I meant it when I said I’ve missed you, you know,” he said, his voice soft again. My heart squeezed, as much as I knew it shouldn’t.

I puffed out a hollow laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you actually sounded genuine just then.”

“It’s because I am being genuine,” he said. “I had to get out of Los Angeles. But there’s a reason I came here.”

“Because you wanted me to do porn for you.”

“Because I wanted to be around you.”

“Bullshit,” I said, shaking my head. I felt like I had been snapped back into some alternate version of my life, like against my will, Liam was sucking me back in.

“You were the only one who ever actually cared,” he said quietly.

My whole body was hot. I couldn’t be here anymore. Liam’s eyes, and his face, and his entire fucking being was way too much.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I walked out of the office, making my way down the hall and returning behind the bar. Sam was looking at me wide-eyed as I grabbed a shot glass and poured myself some Maker’s.

As I tossed back the shot, Liam emerged, leaning against the end of the bar, still watching me. He wouldn’t leave me alone with those beautiful eyes.

“You’re the reason Liam Hardy exists, Red,” he told me as whiskey burned at the back of my throat.

The name had been invented over a decade ago, when he and I had been tossing back shot after shot of a much cheaper whiskey. “Liam Henderson-Briggs just doesn’t have the same ring to it, when people are searching for jerk-off material,” I had told him. “You gotta find a punchier name if you’re gonna do porn.”

Liam had chosen the name Liam Hardy, and a