Chapter 72

Aria’s POV

At some point in the evening, I must have drifted off, because when I blinked my eyes open, the sun crept through the curtains and the sound of Joe’s laughter echoed up from downstairs.

Glancing left to right, I realized that I was alone in the massive king bed, but the spots on either side of me were still warm. I’d overslept, but not terribly so.

After a big stretch to help wake myself up, I crawled out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Once done, as I stepped out into the hallway, I inhaled the scent of pancakes.

Since when did Liam know how to cook? Unless he hired a housekeeper?

Downstairs, I found Joe watching cartoons in the living room. He was stretched out comfortably across the couch, lying on his stomach, with his legs bent up into the air, kicking. He appeared entirely at home, as if he had lived here all his life.

“Morning, Mom,” Joe said.

“Morning, Joe.” I walked over to him and, bending down, kissed the top of his head.

“Aria? You up?” Liam called from the kitchen.

Leaving Joe to his cartoons, I followed the sound of Liam’s voice into the kitchen, where he was whisking a large bowl of batter. A few round pancakes were already cooking on the skillet.

“Can you flip those for me?” Liam asked. “I’ve got my hands full here.”

I moved forward to the stove top, grabbed a spatula, and immediately got to work, watching the pancakes and flipping them when they browned on one side. As I did so, I noticed that there was already a bowl of batter on the counter. Why was Liam making a second batch?

“We’re not expecting anyone else for breakfast, are we?” I asked.

“No.” Liam moved toward the refrigerator. Holding the door open with his foot, he leaned down and plucked a small container from one of the shelves inside. “But this batch is going to be blueberry.”

My stomach gurgled with excitement. “I love blueberry pancakes.”

“I know,” he said, which surprised me. He never acted like he knew any of these things when we’d been married. Sometimes I had felt like he didn’t really know me all that well at all.

Sometimes I had wondered why he’d even married me.

Pushing those thoughts away, I continued to tend to the pancakes. This entire sleepover brought old memories and feelings to the surface. Even now, making breakfast, felt… domestic. And somehow nostalgic? Even though it had been rare for Liam to help in the kitchen back then, I’d wanted him to.

My heart was happy, finally getting its wish.

Six years too late, I reminded my heart. It didn’t listen.

“I’ve been thinking about things lately, between you and me,” Liam said.

I both wanted to talk about this and desperately didn’t, both at the same time.

“Liam…” I started, not sure where to go from there.

Placing down the bowl of blueberry pancake batter, Liam turned to face me. “I think we should make our marriage public.”

I looked back at him incredulously. “Now?”

“I know it’s something that you wanted from me, and that I was too cowardly or too selfish to give you. I’ve given it a lot of thought, Aria. Please let me fix the mistakes I made in the past.”

“Maybe we aren’t officially divorced, Liam, but we certainly aren’t married,” I told him. “You can’t just change your mind on our old arguments and expect the past six years to be magically mended.”

“I don’t think that. I know it will take time and effort to make up for all the crappy things that I’ve done to you and repair the damage to our marriage, but, Aria, I want to try.”

“And you believe that announcing publically that we are still married will… what?” I turned my head, giving him a sideways look. I couldn’t understand what he was thinking right now. Even if he was being honest about wanting to repair things, he was skipping several important steps.

There wasn’t any point in announcing our marriage if we were getting divorced, and I still wasn’t fully convinced that we were going to be able to resolve things.

“Repair things,” Liam said. “Repair us. Or at least be a step in the right direction.”

Shaking my head, I focus on the pancakes. In my distraction, this current batch burned a little on the bottoms.

“I’m not ready for that,” I said.

In the corner of my eye, I watched as his shoulders slumped slightly. He’d been so confident with his suggestion. I almost felt bad shutting him down so thoroughly, but I wasn’t about to go along with something I wasn’t comfortable with.

I knew better than to immediately tangle myself with Liam again.

If he meant his words, he could prove it over time.

“Is this about Logan?” Liam asked suddenly.

“Not entirely,” I said. “But he is part of it. When I needed him most, he stepped in to be Joe’s father. I’m not going to just throw his feelings aside without carefully considering them.”

Liam’s voice went low. “You are considering him?”

Liam’s POV

I could understand that Aria needed time and space to sort out her feelings, especially after how badly I messed up for so long. But to bring Logan into the equation made my blood boil.

That man had wedge himself between Aria and me, and though I had been working toward securing a potential future with Aria, Logan still somehow found a way to interfere.

Sure, Logan had stepped up when it counted, but only out of spite for me. I should have been the one to be there for Aria and Joe. I knew I’d pushed her away, but if she had only confided in me…

No. I couldn’t honestly say that I would have done the right thing back then. I had been an entirely different man six years ago. Standing in the spotlight, I had been blind to everything else, so focused on myself that I missed how much I had been hurting the woman I loved.

Aria had been right to leave me back then. And maybe she was right to be hesitant now.

But to include Logan in her consideration at all made anger spike within me, coiling around my chest like barbed wire.

“I understand,” I told Aria. It wasn’t a blatant lie. I did understand one thing.

Logan and I were past due for another chat.

As much as I tried to enjoy the rest of my morning with Aria and Joe, I was admittedly very distracted. Logan and I had pretty similar schedules these days. Oftentimes, I would see him at the gym.

The moment they left to return to their own home next door, I changed into my gym clothes.

As I suspected, when I walked into the gym, Logan was already there, lifting weights near the mirror.

“Hey, asshole,” I snapped as I stormed toward him.

When he saw me, he frowned and his brow lowered in annoyance. Good. I wanted to be annoyance today.

“Hello to you too,” he said in reply. “Are you going to tell me what I’ve done this time to earn your anger, or am I supposed to guess?”

I could not believe I ever considered this man a friend.

“It’s about Aria.”