“Great, I’m looking forward to it.”
“Wonderful,” I grit.
With a flick of his wrist, he motions for me to proceed. I flash him a pointed you’re-pushing-it,-buddy look, but he remains undeterred, acknowledging my annoyance with a slight raise of his shoulders.
It’s time to go all in or bust.
I reach for his left hand, delicately resting it in my grasp. Drawing slow circles into his palm with the pad of my thumb, I gather what I’m going to say. Again, my lack of improvisational skills means leaning closer to the side of truth will serve me best.
“I’m sorry if I don’t communicate my feelings well, but the truth is, most of the time, I don’t have the words to describe how you make me feel. But you’re the only one who manages to stir these strong emotions in me, and—I don’t know.” I shrug. A light tremor in his grip gives me pause, and I meet his eyes, catching a brief nervous shiver. It draws me closer, curious to uncover the crack in his usual confident demeanor. “But if I can assure you of anything, just know, I’ve been dreaming about there being an us for as long as I can remember, and I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not going to change anytime soon.”
The tightness in my chest lightens like a burden I’ve carried for years has finally been released, even if it’s under false pretenses.
Liam considers me with a hooded stare. He struggles to open his mouth as if what he has to say carries similar weight. “I—”
“Oh, is that why you haven’t dated anyone in five years?” Harmony cuts him off with a patented, seemingly benign question laced with passive-aggressive poison. “Because I just assumed you were too tall for anyone over here to be interested.”
I don’t bite, stuck in a trance, dying to hear what he was about to say. My gut screams it was important, and I almost ask himyou were saying?But this close, the pull to Liam’s orbit controls my breaths, my chest rises and falls at a speed to match his own, and I get lost in the arcing energy between us.
A loose curl falls to my cheek. I let my grip on his hand drop and whisk it behind my ear as his hand lifts to do the same.
His fingers brush over my skin, sending a rush of shivers down the nape of my neck in their wake.
My lips part.
His left dimple makes a subtle appearance. He leans, and I forget the basic mechanics of operating my respiratory system independently. His stubble presses against my cheek, his breath hot against the nape of my neck. Maybe he feels the same way, maybe—“Say you have to get back to work, and the torture ends, Peaches,” he whispers.
His warmth withdraws, and my entire being yearns to follow.
Maybe, nothing.Hope deflates with his words. I don’t know why he’s helping me, but I can’t let myself get lost in some unfulfilled high school fantasy of mine. People don’t use the word torture for something they enjoy unless they’re masochists.
“I, uhm—I should get back to the bar.” I hastily smile, slowly detaching my fingers from his and smoothing down my apron.
“I have to go meet a friend too,” Harmony says with less pep than usual. “But a bunch of us are going barhopping if you want to come, Liam.”
Liam’s eyes meet mine briefly. His thumb rubs the skin on his palm where I touched it, and he swallows, peeking over my shoulder at Harmony and opening his mouth to reply.
“I get off in an hour, Harmony. Why don’t we meet up with you then?” I intercept, wincing as the words leave my mouth. I had accepted, in some capacity, that Eli was right and I should trust Liam more. But my kneejerk reaction is still to expect the worst, and Liam running around Paris with Harmony after I all but declared my fake undying love to him, well, there are very few scenarios where that ends well for me, and a great many ending with Liam jumping ship for far less troubled, far more harmonious waters.
Waters that don’t come with a propensity to accuse him of malicious ulterior motives at the drop of a hat.
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I’m not the enemy before you actually believe it.
You’re never going to see anything else, are you?
Liam’s words over the past week play in my mind, and I sigh. The first thing he did when he came in here was check on my head, and then he rescued me from an awkward situation, however annoyingly he accomplished it. He’s not the Liam I used to know. That much is certain.
I glance at Harmony, now a clear relic of my past. And I’m not the Evie I used to be either.
I need to break the habit of coming at him with my former expectations, for my sanity’s sake, sure. But I also try not to be a terrible person, and I can’t say with certainty that I’ve been the best version of myself the past few weeks around him.
Harmony’s expression sours into her patented sparkling scowl, but I’ve left her little room to maneuver her way out of my suggestion. “Oh yeah—no, that sounds great.”
“Super,” I say through a tight-lipped smile.
“See you then.” She presses her cheek to mine and clacks right out the door.
I ignore the glare from Liam searing into the back of my skull. “I’m starting to think you might be a masochist, Peaches.”
