I snort. “Let me guess. Seeing a dozen women in wet t-shirts?”
His grin flashes, but it fades just as quickly into something quieter. Deeper.
“No,” he says, voice low. “I remember your old-ass professor looking at you like he was gonna devour you. Like he had any right to look at you like that.”
I blink, stunned.
Of all the things he could've remembered—all the chaos, the shouting, the soaked clothing—he remembered me.
“Is that why you cockblocked me?” I say, grinning.
Liam doesn’t even crack a smile.
He’s deadly serious when he answers, voice low and sure. “Damn straight. You weren’t going home with him.”
The conviction in his tone punches the breath from my lungs. I moisten my lips, the question slipping out before I can think better of it.
“If you felt that passionately about it, then why didn’t you take me home?”
His gaze locks onto mine, steady and unflinching.
“Because I wanted you in my life, Olive,” he says, voice roughened with something that sounds an awful lot like regret and hope. “I knew you were going to be more than a fling. I didn’t want to fuck things up.”
A small sound catches in my throat.
And then he smiles and says, “I got the best end of the deal, if you ask me.”
I snort, trying to deflect the emotions clawing up my throat. “Why? Because you got to screw Amber and then use me for my brain?”
But he doesn’t take the bait. He just looks at me, patient and unshaken.
“No,” he says simply. “Because I got you. Period.”
The air between us goes heavy, electric. His gaze holds mine like he’s daring me to look away. I don’t. I can’t.
He shifts closer, his voice dropping even lower.
“I remember how pissed Amber was when I broke up with her. How she demanded you quit. How she made you pick.”
My throat tightens.
“You stood by me,” he says, “even though it cost you a friendship.”
I reach up without thinking, brushing my fingers lightly along the inside seam of his jacket. I feel him shiver under the touch.
“It would’ve cost me more if I hadn’t chosen you,” I whisper. I swallow hard, fighting the lump in my throat. “Amber… she was never a good friend. Not really. But you? You were.”
His jaw clenches, emotion flickering hard and fast across his face. And then he leans in, voice rough with something wild.
“Well, for that,” he says, “you get a kiss.”
My lips part on a gasp and Liam seizes the moment.
His mouth covers mine. It’s not a kiss filled with hunger or heat. It’s a claim. He kisses me like I’m something sacred. Like he’s been waiting a lifetime for this. And for the first time, I let myself kiss him back like I believe I deserve it.
At first, the kiss is soft. Careful. A whisper of everything we’re both too scared to say out loud. But the moment I lean into him and my fingers curl into the front of his jacket, something shifts.
The air thickens, charged and electric.
