A Love Song for Liars (Rivals #1) - Piper Lawson Page 0,23

She came, then she crashed.”

She stares at me a long moment, and I nod to the table, impatient. “It’s still your shot.”

Annie misses.

I circle the table before lining up my shot across from her.

I sink the five.

There are a million things I could ask her, but the one I’m most interested in is, “Tell me why you’re really pissed at your dad.”

She screws up her face. “Because he won’t let me anywhere near music.”

“You can’t blame him for that.”

“I don’t. I blame you.”

Surprise has me stiffening.

“You were better at everything, always, than I was,” she continues. “Since you moved here, all of his time that he’s not working, or with Sophie, or with Haley, he’s with you.”

It’s still my turn, but Annie circles the table, never lifting her attention from the possible shots, even when she has to step sideways to avoid me.

“But I realized something tonight,” she goes on. “It’s not your fault. He wouldn’t have let me in anyway.”

“I couldn’t come between you if I wanted to.” There’s a sense of urgency beneath my words.

She chalks up her cue, oblivious, and I step between her and the table.

I take the cue from her hands so she’s forced to meet my gaze. “You have to know that,” I press.

Her expression shifts from determined to resigned. “It’s not only about the music. At my dad and Haley’s wedding last summer, a woman approached me and said she was my biological mother.”

My stomach ices over. “What the fuck?”

“She handed me a letter that’s sat unopened in my drawer for a year. I haven’t told anyone except for you right now. Maybe it’s like the voicemails from your dad. I want to believe it says that she loves me, that she’s proud. That we should get brunch sometime in New York or wherever she lives.” She shrugs a shoulder, the simple movement conveying way more than apathy. “But what if it says something terrible? Some secret I can’t unknow?”

The confusion in her voice rips at me. I hate that she’s had this burden for a year, even if it’s partly my fault.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I murmur even though I think I know the answer.

She puts a hand on her hip, cocking her head. “You were busy being too cool for me.”

“Maybe I’m done being too cool for you.”

Annie sucks in a breath but recovers fast, angling her chin up. “Maybe I’m done caring.”

She starts to step away, but my fingers wrap around her upper arm, and her gaze flies to mine. She’s close enough I could pull her into my arms, and against my better judgment, I want to.

“She can’t say anything that changes who you are,” I tell her. “Who your dad is.”

I release her arm, brush a thumb over her cheek, and watch the conflicting emotions scroll across her face.

The scratch has healed, like my hand, but we can’t go back to the way we were before.

There was always a connection between us, and I’m starting to see why.

We have the same pain even though we’ve never talked about it. Even though we deal with it differently.

I bury mine so deep it can’t get surface, but hers…

She breathes it every day. Lives through it, makes the world more beautiful despite all of it.

Annie grabs her cue back from me but doesn’t step away. “I don’t want your pity, okay? I want to play pool. And laugh. And pretend I’m some college freshman out late on a school night and I shaved my legs for a good reason.”

“Fine. Don’t move.” She wants to play grown-up, I can do that.

I turn back to the table, rounding the felt and making quick work of the two ball before returning to exactly my previous position, inches away from her. I can smell her shampoo or body wash, something simple and floral, and I want to drop my face to her neck so I can figure out which it is.

She lifts a brow in amusement, as if she notices how close I am, too.

“What happened with Kellan Saturday night?” I ask. “Until you stumbled into my pool house, you looked like you wanted his hands on you.”

She swallows, her full lips parting. The vulnerability on her face slices through me. “I was never into Kellan. I thought he saw me.”

Fuck.

No matter what I promised Jax, if I’d met her tonight, looking like this?

I’d lead her into one of these shadowy corners and show her I see her.

In the dark, I see this girl.

Laughter