I shifted on the couch.
This was bad. This was worse than bad. This was someonefeedingme, and I was letting him.
I told myself I could stop it at any point. I didn’t.
I couldn’t believe I was being taken care of by a practical stranger I had met at a B&B. Why had I put him down as my emergency contact?
Oh, right, he happened to be upright and competent during a moment of poor judgment.
I was only now processing the humiliation of it all: the doctor asking who was staying with me; Liam answering before I could rearrange the truth into something less pathetic.She doesn’t have anyone else.A clean sentence. A useful sentence. A sentence I still wanted to fight on principle.
I was old enough to know a person should have a list of people who cared about them. Someone local. Someone whose number didn’t come from a temporary card handed over after an incident at a lake. Instead, when something went wrong badly enough to require fluorescent lighting and medical supervision, all I had was Liam. Not my mother. Not a friend.
It was strange for me to be the one in an emergency. Usually, I was one who handled them. I was the one who stayed clear-headed. I was the one who absorbed impact and chaos and figured out the next steps. Emergencies were mine to manage, not mine to have.
So, it was a deeply unpleasant experience for me to be in this position, sitting on my couch with my foot elevated, looking—and feeling—concussed and helpless, while a man I barely knew prepared a meal for me. Apparently, the universe had decided I was finally going to experience the deeply cursed vulnerability of being the problem instead of solving it.
He cracked eggs carefully, then stirred them. He rummaged through a box I’d cut open but hadn’t unpacked yet. He took out a jar, read the label, then shrugged and used it anyway. He moved like someone who followed instructions even when he didn’t agree with them.
The savory scent hit me next, and I was annoyed that it comforted me.
Liam plated the eggs with more care than necessary, then carried the plate over to me. He handed it to me, then took one full step back, hands loose at his sides.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
He frowned. “You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“I’m not talking about the food,” I said. “I mean the whole situation. Being taken care of. Sitting here while you cook in my kitchen.”
“You need food,” he said.
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“It does tonight.”
I stared at the plate of eggs and toast. It looked wrong. The eggs were aggressively seasoned, like the man had read exactly one article about the importance of salt and taken it as gospel. The toast was burnt on one side and pale on the other.
I looked up at him.
He was watching me patiently, looking like he would accept whatever verdict I handed down without argument.
I hated that more than I hated the food.
I took a bite.
Instant regret.
“Oh no,” I said, gagging.
He straightened a little. “Bad?”
“Worse,” I said. “This tastes like you believed in yourself too much.”
He winced. “I don’t really cook much.”
“That is evident,” I said.
He leaned in, sniffed the plate once, then pulled back. “I can fix it.”
