The 90-Day Experiment (The Expiry Date Diaries #1)

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Liam

M y hands were still damp from the bathroom sink when I wiped them on my jeans. The hallway lights buzzed and flickered overhead, but the effect was different at night. Like some kind of horror movie set, minus the blood and gore. Just poverty and shame.

Then I turned the corner, and my heart stopped.

Emerson.

She stood there in the middle of my sad excuse for a home, and even though this was practically her second home, she looked so out of place it hurt. Like a diamond in a garbage dump.

Her eyes were huge, shocked, and something else that made my gut twist—betrayed.

Guilt and fear crashed over me, threatening to drown me where I stood.

"You've been living here? Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice was so quiet, barely there, but it sliced through all my defenses like they were tissue paper. No room for bullshit now. No more hiding.

My stomach churned with shame as I shuffled toward the bed—if you could even call it that. Just a sorry excuse for a mattress that made my back ache. The springs creaked under my weight as I sat, the sound almost obscene in the heavy silence.

Nothing like her place, with its fancy memory foam mattress where I'd spent countless nights tangled with her, pretending the real world didn't exist.

"I... I didn't want to add to your stress." The words felt thick in my throat, clumsy and inadequate. "Money's been tight, and I didn't know how to tell you. It wasn't part of our deal."

She hugged herself tight, like she was holding something in. Those eyes—Christ, those eyes. I'd seen them dark with desire, bright with excitement, sharp with determination.

But this? This raw hurt swimming in them? It gutted me.

Something cracked in my chest. She looked simultaneously more vulnerable than I'd ever seen her and stronger than anyone had a right to be. It made me want to break every rule we'd set, to spill all the feelings I'd been choking back for months.

The words burned in my throat, desperate to escape. Three simple words that could either save us or blow everything to hell.

My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my fingertips, in my temples, everywhere. The fluorescent lights overhead made her look almost otherworldly, highlighting the shock and hurt on her face.

"Why didn't you come to me for help? I thought we were..." Her voice trailed off, but that unfinished sentence hung between us.

Partners. The word she couldn't bring herself to say mocked me, made my skin crawl with both want and resentment.

The shame of her seeing me like this, in this pathetic excuse for a home, mixed with months of pent-up frustration. It sparked something dark and angry in my chest, something I'd been holding back for too long. My ears rang with the sound of my own rushing blood.

"Partners?" The laugh that tore from my throat was ugly, bitter. I pushed myself up from the mattress, the springs screaming in protest. My legs shook, but my anger made me steady. "That's cute coming from you, Doc. Real fucking cute."

She took half a step back. Good. Let her feel uncomfortable for once. Let her feel something real instead of analyzing everything through that clinical lens she loved so much.

"You're the one who wrote the rulebook, remember?" My voice came out harsh, each word carrying the weight of every time she'd pushed me away.

"No strings attached. Keep it casual. Keep it simple." I could taste the sarcasm on my tongue, bitter as coffee grounds. "The almighty 90-Day Challenge. Kind of hard to ask for help when you keep reminding me I've got an expiration date stamped on my forehead."

Her eyes widened, those beautiful eyes that haunted my dreams, now filled with genuine surprise at my outburst.

For once, she wasn't the one in control, and I felt a twisted satisfaction watching her composure crack.

"You really want to know why I didn't tell you?" I closed the distance between us, drawn by some magnetic pull I couldn't fight. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to break free.

"Every single time I try to get close, you slam those walls up. When I show you anything real, anything genuine, you treat it like it's just another data point in your little experiment."

She flinched at that, but the dam had broken. Months of frustration poured out of me in a torrent I couldn't control.

"And yeah, maybe I am embarrassed about this place." I gestured at the sad little corner I'd been staying in for the past couple weeks. "Maybe I'm ashamed that I can't afford a real place. But at least I'm honest about what I feel. Can you say the same, Emerson?"

My voice cracked on the use of her real name, raw with everything I'd been holding back.

The air felt thick, charged with electricity, making it hard to breathe. She stood there, beautiful and unreachable, like always.

"You're so terrified of actually feeling something that you've turned us into some kind of sterile science study. But here's the thing—life isn't one of your controlled experiments. And I'm not some lab rat you can observe from a safe distance."

The tension between us filled every inch of space in the tiny room.

I watched emotions war across her face—hurt, anger, fear… a million other things. For once, that cool mask she wore like armor was cracking.

"That's not fair," she whispered, but her voice shook, betraying her.

"Isn't it?" I raked my fingers through my hair, tugging hard enough to hurt. The pain helped ground me, kept me from reaching for her like every cell in my body screamed to do.

"You want to talk about partnerships? Then stop treating me like I'm just another test subject in your relationship study. Stop acting like caring about someone is a weakness that needs to be controlled and measured and contained."

Her eyes, usually so carefully guarded, blazed with something raw and real.

Finally. Finally, I'd broken through that perfect exterior she worked so hard to maintain. The scientist was gone, and the woman—the real Emerson—was right there, close enough to touch.

The space between us crackled with everything we'd never said. Part of me wanted to grab her, press her against the wall, and show her exactly how real this was between us.

But another part—the part that was tired of being the only one who was all in—wanted her to feel this ache, this frustration she'd been putting me through.

I wasn't her lab rat. I wasn't some younger guy she could experiment with and discard when her timeline ran out.

I was a man who'd fallen hard for a woman who was too scared to admit she might feel the same way.

And right now, even standing in my humiliating mess of a living situation, I wasn't going to apologize for any of it.

The silence stretched between us like a rubber band pulled too tight. I could see the moment it finally snapped in her eyes—that instant when everything I'd said hit home and she realized she couldn't hide behind her clinical distance anymore.

It seemed to physically rock her back on her heels.

Her lips parted, but no words came out. I could see her throat working, could almost hear the gears turning in that brilliant mind of hers, trying to formulate the perfect logical response. But logic couldn't save her.

"I need..." She wrapped her arms around herself. It made her look smaller somehow, more vulnerable. "I need to process this."

My stomach dropped. I knew that tone. It was the same one she used in the lab when something didn't fit her hypothesis, when she needed to step back and reevaluate.

"This wasn't supposed to…” She shook her head. "The variables weren't supposed to?—"

She cut herself off, and I watched her physically stop herself from slipping into science-speak. "I just need to think."

The distance between us grew wider with every backward step she took. The room suddenly felt colder, emptier. The walls seemed to close in as I watched her retreat.

"Don't," I said, but it came out as more of a plea than a command. "Don't do this. Don't run away just because this is getting real."

She paused at the door, one hand on the frame. For a moment—just a moment—I saw everything I felt reflected in her eyes. Fear. Want. Need. Love.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just... I need time."

Then she was gone, the sound of her heels clicking down the hallway echoing like gunshots, and as each step grew fainter, it took a piece of me with it.