Chapter 19 Liam
Liam
It’s six a.m., the air smells of burnt bacon, and someone is running down the hall with all the grace of a baby rhino.
Even before she yells, “Get up, bitches, it’s go time,” it’s pretty easy to guess it’s Pen. I roll over, covering my ears with a pillow.
A fist pounds at my door, rattling the hinges. “Liam!” Pen yells.
“It’s too early for this!” I shout back.
She cracks open the door and leans in the frame. a steaming mug in her hand. “Too bad, our trees have been ugly because we had to wait for your sorry ass. Take a nap after we’re done; I made coffee.”
“Do you ever sleep?” I take the mug and sip the contents. It’s nothing special, just a dark roast, but after last night I’ll need at least two more cups to get through the day.
“Don’t need to. That’s why I’m better than you.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m so glad you asked,” she says and walks to my bed before sitting on the edge. “So, you know how it’s impossible to get a good run in after ten with all the over-confident tourists taking on slopes that are too hard for them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I agreed to take on a café shift because a ton of the college students who usually run it are off for the week. But look outside and tell me that snow isn’t begging for someone competent to snowboard on it.
” My eyes follow to where she’s pointing out the window.
It snowed at least three inches last night—perfect dry powder formed under the ideal conditions that come frequently this time of year.
Just looking at it reminds me of mornings where I clung to a thermos of black coffee as my body carried me to the slope, and that first run that shot pure adrenaline through my veins.
Pen continues, taking my silence as rejection. “It would also show Dad that you’re a good, loyal worker bee. There’s also the fact that I’ll keep your fake relationship a secret if you do me this favor.”
I jolt upright, coffee sloshing over my fingers and I hiss at the contact. Dark spots fleck the navy comforter over my legs. “What the fuck, Pen? How do you know?”
I have to hold myself back from saying that, after last night, I don’t think it’s really all that fake, but explaining what happened in the hot tub to my little sister is the last thing I want to do. Ever.
“The internet?” she says and then looks at me like I’m an idiot.
“I saw the damn article, Liam. It was hard not too, it was everywhere. And you might not talk about your work with us, but it was pretty easy to figure it out when a journalist has the same first initial and last name. There are also pictures of you two together at the Spitfire party.”
“So you’re blackmailing me before I even get out of bed?”
“If I have to. But also it’s kind of a shame. She’s hot and nice.” She pats my knee and all but jumps from the bed back to the door. “Now, get up. I’m not above using a spray bottle to get you out of bed.”
“Fine. Fine. I’m moving.” I kick off my covers. “Happy now?”
“Extremely.” She nods and takes her miasma of chaos with her. “And the shift starts at seven-thirty! Thanks, you’re the best.”
I tug on socks and throw on a hoodie, knowing that if I don’t hurry, she’ll be back.
Across the hall, a door creaks, and Henri steps out.
Her blonde hair is fluffy from sleep, and red crease marks from her pillow are pressed into one cheek.
When she yawns, she stretches her arms over her head, revealing a strip of pale skin.
Fuck. She’s amazing.
The memory of her panting against my shoulder, fingers digging into me, making indentations in my flesh, floods me, and I have to rein in the memory so I don’t risk walking downstairs with an erection.
“Like the view? I can do some yoga if you need to keep watching. I’ve got a killer downward dog, and my ass isn’t bad either.” Her voice is scratchy from sleep. Does she know how her humor steadies me? Keeps me from sinking into a corner and hiding away?
“I wouldn’t mind. But I think we might get yelled at if we don’t join everyone downstairs.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting a complimentary wake-up call, but who am I to complain about an added luxury?”
“Pen asked me to cover a shift for her at the lodge—the cafe we have in the lobby. So after this, if you wanted to go back to bed, feel free to.”
“You’ve been back less than a day. How’d that happen?”
“Blackmail.”
“Makes the world go round. But, seriously. How?”
“I’m not joking. She knows about us.” I stop as we reach the top of the steps and lower my voice.
Jazz renditions of Christmas songs are playing loud enough I’m sure no one will hear us.
“Yes, Pen figured us out because she knows who I am. And it made me realize how publishing that article put you at risk. Say the word and I’ll write a check to cover all of your losses. ”
“Don’t.” She puts a hand up. “Not if you want to keep doing what we started last night. It would be uncomfortable for me. It would feel like you’re paying me to be here.”
“I get it. I just still feel like shit.”
“Ease up on yourself. Let’s go have fun decorating a tree.”
We’re the last ones in the living room. Everyone else is clutching coffee mugs, curled up under blankets. A fire blazes in the fireplace, crackling through the silence. Plates of burnt bacon and blackened toast sit on the table, untouched.
The couch dips under me as I take a seat, leaving enough room for Henri next to me, but instead, she sits on my lap, looping an arm around my neck.
“Greedy,” I whisper into her ear, echoing her from the night before even as I hold her closer.
Six days. That’s all I have left and damn if I won’t do my best to stretch them as far as I can.
Something about that timeline seems to have flipped a switch in her too. She has an easy out at the end of this now, which is something she seems to need. A runner—that’s what Jasmine called her.
“Liam, if you have time later, I’d like you to come by my office.
It’s the busy season now and it would be good for you to get a look at the basics of what we’ve got going on, especially leading up to the gala,” Dad says.
He’s the only one, other than Pen, who manages to look alive this early.
I bet he’s already cleared his email inbox and put out a few fires.
This place is his life. It gives him meaning, years after his retirement from skiing. Old clippings of his wins hang in the office, as well as pictures of Mom and him holding June and I as he waved a camera with a metal around his neck.
“We have plans; Liam was going to show me around the lodge,” Henri says.
“And he’s going to take my café shift,” Pen chimes in.
“Well, getting your footing again will be just as helpful. Everyone respects a boss who isn’t above working odd jobs,” Dad relents.
“And this time next year, you’ll be running around non-stop like a chicken with its head chopped off, like your sister, so you better soak it in.
” He cocks his head to where June is pacing out front.
She’s pinching her brow and shaking her head as she takes a phone call.
“Next year, I’ll make sure she’s not so overwhelmed,” I say as guilt wracks through me. I know she loves what she does, but I hate how stressed she looks.
Dad reaches over and grips my shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”
“But this is the last time you’re going to bother him about this, Peter.
I know how excited you are to have him back here, but you can wait a week.
” Mom comes in with two fresh mugs of coffee.
Dad reaches for one but she pulls it away.
“Here, Henri, I wasn’t sure how you took it so I just put a splash of cream in it. ”
“Thank you, Ally, this is perfect,” Henri says as she takes it, wrapping her hands around the mug and holding it close to her chest as she gently blows on the steaming surface.
The door opens and June comes inside. There’s a rustle of a coat being hung up on a wrack before she comes around the corner.
“Finally!” Pen says.
Instead of sitting with the rest of us, June impatiently leans against the doorway. “Come on, let’s get this going.”
“Okay, Henri, since you’re new, we have a few rules,” Pen starts. “You get twenty minutes. No adjustments until after the photos are taken. Decorate the entire tree. First touch on ornaments.” She pauses. “Shit, but it wouldn’t be fair if Liam has a teammate.”
“Does it matter? It’s not like we care who opens presents first anymore.”
“It’s tradition, Juniper. You don’t fuck with tradition. That’s how you get cursed.”
“Well, Penelope, that sounds made up.”
Henri tenses as the girls continue to bicker, less like someone who’s stressed, and more like a cat ready to pounce.
“I’m not the one who’s been having shit luck lately, so maybe you should listen to me,” Pen counters.
There’s a second gap before June says something and Henri takes full advantage of it, “You know what would be fun? There’s six of us and three trees. Nothing says we can’t all team up.” She turns to my parents. “Come on, have fun with us. Or do you think we’ll beat you.”
This woman not only jumped into my sister’s petty argument at six in the morning, she has also done the one thing that would get us back on track: created a challenge. It was one thing to watch her at work over Thanksgiving, and another to be in the middle of it.
“Oh you don’t know what you’re asking for,” Dad says.
“Sounds like you’re scared to me,” Henri taunts, but maintains an air of innocence all the same.
Dad claps and that’s it. “Girls, you two work things out as you work together and get ready to learn what some good decorating looks like.”
We all start at our respective trees, Mom and Dad to the left of the fireplace, June and Pen to the right, and Henri and I in the hall, bracing like sprinters waiting for a gun to go off.
Tinsel garlands overflow past the lips of the bins that have been placed as equidistantly as possible.
Due to the nature of our decorating, nothing inside is fragile.
I mean, if you slammed the plastic ornaments hard enough they’d crack, but it would take effort.
The phone timer we set as the countdown blares and I run, grabbing a string of silver tinsel and darting back to Henri who meets me halfway.
“Red, gold, and green, Pen. Put that back,” June instructs, frowning at the white sparkly deer in Pen’s hand. They’ve both opted to run back and forth instead of the relay style Henri and I are opting for.
“Just let me have this one thing,” Pen snaps back. “You’re wasting time being picky.”
Dad breezes by, moving in lethal silence, and scoops up an arm full of hand-painted ball ornaments.
In and out. That’s what I need to focus on.
A smile blazes across my face, broadening each time I turn the corner into the hall and see Henri waiting for me.
“Go. Go. Go,” she cheers me on. And for the first time in years, I want to win this.
Our tree starts to fill with an eclectic assortment of decorations. My goal is to go for object-shaped items not just classic orbs and bulbs—all things fun and bright. But by the final stretch, the pickings are slim and I have to dig.
June is doing the same, both of us up to our elbows in the same green tub.
There.
A red felt star with thick yarn needle work, trimmed with old thread. We’ve had it for as long as I can remember, and it’s probably older than I am. I grip it and stand, ready to bolt back to my tree, but my arm is yanked back toward the bin and I nearly lose my footing.
“What the hell, June?” I pivot and grip my edge of the star with both hands.
“I was digging for that!”
“How was I supposed to know you had this one in mind?” I tug but June digs in her heels. “We grabbed it at the same time.” Something in me snaps. Why do I always have to give something up? Why do they expect me to just let go and give them what they want when I have every right to it?
“If you had just paid attention, then you would have figured it out.”
“It’s just an ornament.”
“If you don’t care about it, just let go.”
“But it matters to you?”
“I put in the work. I earned it.”
Riiiiip.
The star splits down the middle, fabric giving way. June and I both rear back, each of us landing on our asses. I grunt as the air is knocked out of me. Cloudy white fluff flies into the air before landing on top of the stack of ornaments between us.
“Why couldn’t you just let me have it?” June asks, despondent, looking at the limp scrap of hand-embroidered fabric in her hand.
“Is everyone okay? I heard a thud.” Henri slides into the room as she skids across the smooth floor on her socks, overshooting the door just a bit. “Shit, that’s gnarly. Let me go get my sewing kit.”