(Hailey Miller POV)
Liam picked up the phone. This time he didn't let it buzz and die. He didn't slide it back into the couch cushions and pretend not to hear. He answered.
I froze. The room contracted around me; silence thickened until it felt almost solid. All I could hear was the distant, mechanical hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my own lungs trying to be quiet.
The voice on the other end was a shadow — I couldn't make it into words. Only fragments reached me through Liam: clipped, muffled, measured like knives against his jaw. He listened the way people listen before they step off a curb.
"When?" he finally said.
A pause so tight my teeth ached.
"No. You won't."
Another pause. His jaw tightened. His shoulders locked into a straight line. He stood so still it was as if
