“I have to leave a few walls up,” he continues. “For my sanity. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be sorry about needing to keep your body private. It’syourbody.”
And I really do mean it. But Liam’s caveat also pares open our different realities in a way nothing else has yet.
He’ll be holding himself back from me. I’ll be offering myself up to him.
If I’d only asked him to love me from the start, instead of asking him to break me, would that have been more honest? And is it horrible of us to consider that even if we crumble, he will still have re-earned my faith in him, and I will still have a pile of songs to remember him by?
“For now,” Liam murmurs, like he can hear my brain spinning, “why don’t we focus on the falling in love part?”
“The falling in love part is already working,” I manage throatily. “You make a really good breakfast plate.”
Liam smiles, a little sadly. “We should establish a baseline.”
I blink. “A what?”
“To track our progress. For the project. To see if you ever get to ninety percent or beyond.” When I only keep staring, he rolls his eyes and asks, “How in love with me are you today?”
I think on it, tilting my head. “One percent?”
“One percent?” Liam repeats, offended.
“Okay, like, eight percent, objectively. Due to, you know, our history, and current feelings and whatnot. Sorry, I thought you wanted a baseline!”
“Eight percent,” he says, “is a perfectly fine baseline.”
“Great. Eight percent it is.”
Liam’s eyes change, burnishing from brown to amber. “When the tour stops in New York, we should get VIP tickets to the concert for Maren and Zara.”
“Fine. Nine percent. Your competitive streak is showing.”
“Same thing for Candice and her fiancée in Chicago.”
“Ten, and you’re maxed out for the day.”
Liam laughs, and it sounds like my ribs arealreadycracking open. Wide enough for him to reach for my heart and pull it right out of my chest cavity for good.
Chapter 9
March, Four Years Ago
My regret is immediate and existential when I hear Liam’s knock.
Time speeds up, the seconds flattening. I’m frozen in my living room, staring blankly at the front door to my apartment.
Liam knocks again. “Paige?” he calls out, voice muffled. “You in there?”
Am I? Or has my mental health, at the very least, vacated the premises?
The doorknob jiggles.
“Hang on!”
I stiltedly walk toward the door, sucking in a breath. When I pull it open, Liam’s in casual clothes holding a plastic bag full of peaches. His hair seems to lengthen, and his skin goes tanner, every time I see him.
“There was a stall on the side of the road,” he explains.
