"My sister probably left a few things lying around after her visits."
Liam managed to scrounge up a few sets of clothes. I had my choice between a hot pink bodycon dress, a pair of tiny running shorts and tight tank top, and a pair of black yoga pants with a loose black shirt cut off at the midriff.
I decided to pair the hot pink dress with the shirt. I could totally rock a bodycon dress with a black crop top.
While Liam got ready, I examined more of his house. The kitchen was still a bit of a mess. We'd gotten distracted before we'd finished cleaning up. I decided to be a good houseguest and put some things away.
After loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counter, I looked around for anything else that needed taking care of. There were some papers lying around, so I decided to sort them, seeing what was important mail and what was just junk to be recycled.
I had just picked up the papers when I noticed one of them was a crumpled piece of heavy folded card stock. It looked like it had been crushed, and then smoothed out again.
Curious, I unfolded it. It was a wedding invitation. Paula and Chad. I didn't recognize the girl's last name, so she probably wasn't anybody in the industry. But I did recognize the guy's name.
Chad Emmerson, the guitarist of Liam's old band.
I frowned. They'd had a falling out, hadn't they? Why would he have sent Liam an invitation to his wedding? Unless he was just being polite and inviting everyone. Maybe there weren't any hard feelings on Chad's part. Maybe it was just Liam who was still affected by it.
Maybe that was why he'd crumpled the invitation. But if that was the case, why hadn't he thrown it out? Why had he smoothed it out and kept it? It was odd. I wanted to ask Liam about it, but it was probably still a sore spot. Best to just pretend I hadn't seen it. I slid the invitation back among the pile of papers and left them sitting on the counter.
I went back up to Liam's room, waiting for him to finish getting ready.
When he came out of the bathroom washed and fully dressed, I had to suppress the urge to push him onto the bed and get him dirty all over again. Damp hair, tight t-shirt showing off inked arms, dark denim skinny jeans…
I squinted at his shirt.
"You're going to wear that?" I asked.
He looked down at himself. "What's wrong with it?"
"Do you know how much a shirt like that costs?"
He shrugged. "I don't really remember."
"You do know where we're going today, right?"
"That youth center you talked about…?" he trailed off with a questioning tone.
"Think about how it's going to look when you walk in wearing a brand name shirt like that one."
He continued to look befuddled. "Do you not like the shirt?"
I gave up. Let the rich bastard learn the lesson on his own.
Liam drove us through town under my directions. The buildings became steadily more run down and graffiti became more prominent the closer we got.
"You grew up here?" he muttered under his breath as we drove by a block of abandoned storefronts full of broken windows.
"This place has actually been cleaned up since I last lived here."
He grunted and hit the switch to lock the car doors from the inside. I suppressed a snort.
This was going to be an interesting afternoon.
