Read Online Because of His Name by Kelly Favor - Free Book Online Page A

emerging through that same back exit that they’d
originally entered through.
    When they emerged into the parking lot,
they could see cop cars pulling up out front on the street.   “Hurry,” Liam said, running toward the
car with her.
    They got into his Porsche and he gunned
the engine, leaving the parking lot through a different exit and coming out
onto a narrow alley, then taking that to another street and leaving the madness
behind them.
    “Open my glove box and grab me a
napkin.   I think there’s a few in
there,” he said, downshifting as they hit traffic on the main thoroughfare.
    She did as she was told and was able to
scrounge up a few old, crumpled napkins, which Liam held against his nostrils
while he continued driving.
    “We need to go to the hospital,” she
said, watching him anxiously.
    “Fuck no,” he said.  
    “You’re hurt, Liam.”
    “I’m fine.   Never been better.”  
    She was worried for him, but also deeply
gladdened just to be with him again—to be talking to him, and to know he
was mostly all right.   “That was
insane,” she said.
    “Yeah, but it was a blast.”
    “You mean to tell me you enjoyed that?”
    “Didn’t you?” he said, laughing.   “That was the best thing I’ve ever done,
Grace.”
    She shook her head.   “Okay, now I know you’re officially
nuts.”
    “Look at me,” he said, glancing at
himself in the rearview mirror as they stopped at a red light.   “I’m a damn mess.   I can’t go back home like this.”
    She looked at him.   “Your family has no idea about any of
it, do they?”
    “Not so much.”   He sighed, taking the napkin away from
his face and looking at it—the napkin was soaked with his blood.   “I think my nose is broken.”
    “Liam, we have to go to the Emergency
Room.”
    “If my nose is broken, there’s not much
they can do anyway.”   He put his
head back momentarily, closed his eyes, and then the traffic began moving, and
he looked at the road again, hitting the gas.  
    “You should be checked over by a
doctor.   That guy hit you about a
thousand times in the head.”
    “Luckily, I have one of the hardest heads
in the world.”
    “I’m not sure if I should be inspired by
what you did today, or if I should see about getting you committed to a mental
institution,” Grace told him.
    “Oh, definitely committed.”   He glanced at her and grinned.
    “What are we doing now?” she asked.   “Where are you driving?”
    “I don’t exactly know.”   And then he looked at her as they hit
yet another red light.   His eyes
were intent, and she saw an expression on his face that made her heart jump.
    “What is it?” she said.
    “I think we should go to your place.”
    “No way,” she told him, shaking her had
emphatically.   “That’s off-limits.”
    “I need to go somewhere, and I definitely
can’t show my face at home.”
    “Liam, this is silly.   If you can’t be honest with your
family—“
    “Don’t tell me about my family,” he
snapped, and his jaw set.   The
friendly, happy atmosphere had been sucked out of the car and now he drove for
a bit in silence.
    Grace felt bad.   He’d just won a big fight and he’d been
trying to celebrate a little.   After
all, what he’d done—although truly stupid and irresponsible—had
also been magical, like a real live Rocky moment.   He’d come back and fought, against all
odds, and beaten a man who should have killed him.
    It showed that Liam had something
special, something Grace hadn’t often found in men she’d come into contact with
in her life.
    Liam Houston had character.
    “Okay,” she said, softly.
    “Okay, what?”
    “Okay you can come and stay for a little
bit,” she told him.
    He started to grin.  
    “Please don’t make me regret this,” she
said.
    But she already knew that she would, for
a million different reasons.
     
    ***
     
    Not long after, Liam Houston was settled
into her bed, watching The Wolf of Wall Street on