Only Liam.
“Because what else were you going to do?” he says.
A tear springs loose, and I wipe it out quick. “I planned for mypurpose to be you. Andyouplanned for my purpose to beme. And yes, I was furious at the time, and hurt, but going to college for music changed the course of my entire life—my whole perspective on my future. Maybe those four years were never supposed to be ours.”
He glances over at me, smiling gently. When he speaks, his voice is a rasp. “I still thought of you every day. I ached for you. Some days it felt like I was only showing up for myself, foryou.”
I nod. “It was the same for me.”
We arrive at the hotel a while later. Liam and I pile into an elevator, our expressions sleep glazed. We schlep our things into a corner of the room, pad to the bathroom to brush our teeth.
Liam’s ahead of me, and when he stops abruptly, my nose catches on the bone of his shoulder. He spins, cradling my head to his chest.
“Paige.” His body is shaking with laughter. “There’s a terrifying creature behind me.”
“Oh my God!” I stiffen, trying to peek over his shoulder. “Is it a spider?”
“You wish. Are you prepared?”
“I mean, as much as I can be?”
Liam steps away, revealing—
“Is that afish tank?” I ask.
“Embedded in the wall of our bathroom,” he adds.
It’s the size of an elementary school child’s at-home aquarium, complete with neon rocks and plastic sea greenery. There are a few innocuous fish swimming about, but also, the oddest-looking squid-like creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s glaring at us like we’re property invaders.
I burst out laughing. “I miss our ceiling mirror.”
“Do you want me to ask if they’ve got a land-dwellers-only room available?”
I shake my head, smiling at him. “I’m so tired. And I think these guys are going to mind their own business.”
We brush our teeth, turning off the bathroom light only todiscover the tank has its own glow. In bed we do some googling, which reveals the tentacled thing to most likely be a cuttlefish.
“That’s what the plaque on our door said,” Liam reminds me. “Cuttle time.”
“Why is there an aquarium-themed hotel in Salt Lake City?” I whisper.
“Just be glad we didn’t have to stay at the C’mon Inn in Bozeman. Jacuzzis everywhere.”
“By everywhere, you mean—”
“You’re basically wading through the lobby.”
I giggle madly. Liam loops an arm over my stomach and slides my body against his, fitting me into his corners as if I’m a mold. Immediately, my body sensitizes.
The thing about the two of us we figured out early on is we’re both highly inclined to physical touch. I’ve always been that way, but I’d never found another person who liked touchingmeas much and as often as I liked touchingthem.
Until Liam.
Being told I couldn’t be that way with him when we started this has felt like a form of starvation after years of a mediocre diet. Because when Liam and Idotouch—it’s like every experienceable emotion to ever exist in the universe is here in the room with us.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” he rumbles against my neck.
“Hmm?” I can’t actually form a real word at the moment.
