Malcolm crossed his arms and adopted an intimidating stance. “So that’s it? You’re not even going to fight for her?”
“There’s nothing to fight for. She made it clear that she wants nothing to do with me.”
“Bullshit,” Del barked. “There has to be more to it than that. Liv wouldn’t send you packing over this.”
Gavin let out a heavy sigh and sank into one of the chairs at the island. “I don’t know, Del. Liv just might. She has a vindictive streak a mile wide.”
Mack narrowed his eyes. What kind of bullshit was that?
Gavin leaned on his elbows. “Look, I love my sister-in-law, but she drives me crazy. Sometimes I don’t even understand how she and Thea could possibly be related. Thea is kind and nurturing, and Liv is sarcastic and cranky.”
Mack’s hands curled into fists as his blood pressure spiked.
“I mean, I admire you for trying to get past all her bullshit, Mack. Because that girl . . .” Gavin shook his head and let out a hoo-boy. “She makes it awfully hard to love her.”
Mack had heard enough and shot to his feet. “Gavin, out of respect for our friendship, I am going to give you exactly one second to take that back before I break your fucking face.”
Gavin cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Liv is the easiest person to love I’ve ever known. She’s funny and smart and kind and brave, and if you spent any time actually getting to know her, you’d see that her sarcasm is just a way to push people away before she gets hurt. It’s all a front for a mushy heart that’s afraid of being broken. If you can’t see that, you don’t deserve to have her in your life.”
The guys all exchanged another one of those annoying all-knowing looks. Gavin sat back in his chair and tilted his head. “So why exactly aren’t you fighting for her, then?”
And that’s when Mack realized he’d been played. Sonuvabitch. “You didn’t actually mean any of what you just said, did you?”
Gavin grinned. “Not a word.”
A blood vessel seemed to burst in Mack’s temple. “Get out of my house. All of you.”
He spun and stomped to the opposite counter where his phone was still dead and black. Mack planted his hands on the edge of the granite and squeezed until his knuckles turned white, until the flesh of his palms stung.
“Dude, for someone who has spent years lecturing us on how to adapt the manuals to our own lives and relationships, you sure suck at taking your own advice,” Malcolm said behind him.
Mack flipped off the room over his shoulder.
There was a scrape of wood against the kitchen tile followed by Gavin’s voice. “What did you tell me when I said I couldn’t understand Chase’s actions in The Protector?”
Mack squeezed the counter tighter. “I don’t want to talk about the goddamned book.”
“You said I was missing the subtext.”
“It’s a fucking book!”
A fist lightly bounced on his shoulder. “You’re missing the subtext of your own actions, Mack,” Gavin said.
Mack shrugged him off. “She ended it, Gavin. Not me.”
“Did she, though?” Malcolm asked, his feet scuffing across the floor as he, too, approached. “Or did you just walk away without a fight?”
Mack stiffened, his chest tight from a sudden sense of being caged in—not from his friends but from a truth he didn’t want to face. “She told me it was over.”
“You said yourself that Liv pushes people away to protect herself,” Gavin said quietly.
“You knew she would react defensively,” said Del, who now joined their small huddle. “That she would put her walls back up.”
“You knew that, and yet you did exactly what she expected of you,” Malcolm said.
Mack stared at his phone and willed it back to life, but the screen remained dark. Maybe that was for the best, because what if it powered up and he saw zero messages from Liv? Ignorance really was bliss. In so many ways. What he wouldn’t give to be ignorant of this feeling, this agonizing pain, this soul-sucking fear that the guys were right.
The vise around his chest tightened again.
“You let Liv push you away instead of staying and fighting for her,” Gavin said. “Why?”
Mack closed his eyes. Fear is a powerful motivator.
“Come on, man,” Del said. “Talk to us.”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t form the words.
“Mack—”
“Because she’s better off without me.” It came out quietly. Maybe because he was saying it more to himself than to them. Maybe