Does it all again.
Falters.
I crouch patiently, realizing that whether he does this or not, it’ll change everything.
Eventually, Liam drops his glove, his ball, and walks back to me. I stand, and Liam pulls the helmet off my head, pushing back my hair, his eyes desperate. His whole body bends over mine like a second guard, a bigger shield.
“I can’t do it, Bristol,” he admits, voice like gravel. “Not without a little more practice. I can’t risk hurting you. I would die if I hurt you.”
I step into him, onto home plate, and plant my mouth on his.
His lips are pillow soft, damp, late-afternoon warm. When I break from him quickly, all nerves, Liam inhales, then chases me down, locking our mouths together and tasting back. He traces my bottom lip with his tongue, pulls it between his teeth, and pinches softly. I gasp in miniature, and he pinches harder. Our mouths slide against each other, all fumbling, distracting exploration, while sparks shoot down my spine.
At some point, Liam lifts the chest guard over my head and tosses it carelessly. His hands move to my neck, into my hair. The slight but firmtugsends a bolt of feeling to my core. My lips go swollen under his heavy attention, fattened and too sensitive.
Change. Everything.
Finally, Liam rests his forehead against mine, both his hands still tangled in my hair. I pull back to watch his eyes as he pants, fascinated by the drastic change in his irises, the bitten look of his red lips. A sense of possession I’ve never experienced, not ever, sweeps over me.
He rubs his lips together and cups my cheeks, head rocking. “I want this so bad.”
“This?” I pant.
“Us,” he clarifies in a rasp. “I tried to be your friend. I really do promise that I tried, that my intentions were honest when I suggested it. But you dumped your boyfriend, and I stopped talking to other girls the same night I saw you at that party, and I think it’s because we knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask softly.
“Thatthis,” he says, thumb coasting over my cheekbone, “was it. But I need you to tell me what you’re feeling, because—”
“Scared,” I say. “I’m scared the minute I give in, you’ll change your mind.”
Complete bafflement steals his expression. “Change mymind? I amobsessedwith you, Paige. You’re the only girl I’ve ever met I want to be around all the time.”
He kisses me again, wildly, and mumbles against my lips, “My mind isn’t changing. It can be good, Paige, I promise, I swear.” His lips trail over my cheek, toward my ear. “Let’s see what happens if we just let it be this good. Do you want to try? Try it with me?”
He sucks on the side of my neck, and I feel like I’m unraveling.
“We can try it,” I say weakly.
“Yeah.” His voice is gruff, almost a groan as he noses along my throat. “We can and we will, and it’ll work. We’re going to work.”
The intensity in his voice, and the hope in his eyes, has me actually considering that whateverthisis might even last longer than being friends did.
Chapter 13
July, Now
When I wake the next morning, my brain groggy as the Spokane hotel room comes into focus, I shoot my arm across the bed to feel for Liam only to be met with cold sheets. The steady drip of the shower comes next, followed by filtered light streaming through a crack in the curtains when I force my eyes open.
It smells like a Liam concentrate in here. His favorite shampoo, aftershave, deodorant.
Immediately, my mind tracks back to the words I typed in my notes app before falling asleep. I reread them, then bolt for my guitar.
The melody stuck in my head right now would sound better on a piano, but I couldn’t justify packing a keyboard, so I pluck the notes out on strings, humming the words.
This part has always been easy. The beginning. The seed of an idea. That sound. Those words. Put them together, then make it all flow.
When I first meshed my lifelong love of playing music with a poetry affinity fostered by my English teacher, I kept at it despite never knowing if the songs were any good because the beginning part of the processalwaysscratches an itch in my head. But it wasn’t until I got an education in music that I realized what you think you have at first is almost always wrong.
