Ten
Tabitha
Liam is ShreddingPages. And vice versa.
To say I walked away from the town square a different person is an understatement. Liam flipped everything on its head. Including me.
I’d like to say I’m quicker than this, but I honestly had no idea. I actually felt a little bad that I so easily abandoned my quest to meet ShreddingPages, but it was never about that, no matter what I told myself. I just wanted to have some control over something in my own life.
Irony. As Liam would say. Welcome to my own personal Gift of the Magi, only no one ended up with any cool gifts.
Actually, that’s not true. I told Liam the truth about my crush on him and no one died. The sessions with him did in fact boost my confidence, but not in the way that I expected. It’s funny how when you lose something valuable, nothing else matters. Not even your own pride.
That’s why it was so easy to forgive him, which was not a line, by the way. I hadn’t been honest with him about my crush, either. Nor had I told him how much stronger my feelings have grown, until today. I have room for grace.
But it doesn’t matter. He still let me walk away. As he should have. I doubt we have the option to never see each other again, not in a town of two thousand and his sister is my best friend besides.
I can handle it. I think.
With nothing online to occupy me—because I will log into the book club app over my own dead body—and no more sessions with Liam, my evening stretches out before me, long and boring. And kind of sad.
I miss him.
Definitely not a shock. I’ve spent more time with Liam MacLellan in the last six days than I have with anyone else in a very long time. Other than Valerie, of course, but she works for me, so it doesn’t count. If I’d known how much I would enjoy doing a simple thing like eating dinner with him, I would have savored those moments more.
Now I regret telling my mom that I had plans for the evening. My family unwrapped presents, ate ham, and did all the requisite Christmas stuff earlier, so Mom and Dad made plans to drive back to Denver with my sister and her family.
I collapse at my small kitchen table, averting my gaze from Liam’s hideously empty chair and that’s when it hits me. The whole day crashes in and the tears start.
Because this is what it feels like to have your heart torn out. Intellectually, I knew my feelings for Liam had gotten a lot stronger over the week, but it isn’t until right this minute that I understand I’m hopelessly in love with him.
I’m not okay.
Plus I have nothing to eat in the house and everything is closed. This makes me cry harder.
A knock on the door scarcely pulls me out of my funk. I’m not expecting anyone, so I have zero intention of answering. But it’s probably Lyra, who got an earful from me already and likely snuck out of the family thing I made her swear to go to. Because I’m fine. Or I was a couple of hours ago when I talked to her.
“Do you have some kind of radar that tells you when I’m having a meltdown?” I joke, swiping at my face as I swing open the door to admit Lyra.
Only it’s not Lyra.
Of course it’s not. Liam is on the porch, his eyes liquid and apologetic and searching.
“I had a feeling, yes,” he tells me solemnly. “And I also suspected that you needed dinner, so I brought Orange Chicken.”
I eye the bags through my watery eyes. “From Mandarin Wok?”
“You say that like you’re surprised I would still take the time to make sure I do this right.”
I am surprised. Bowled over even. That’s the only reason I can fathom for why I step aside so he can come in. I follow him to the kitchen. “We’re not a…thing. An anything. There’s no reason for you to be here.”
Liam sets the bags on the table and faces me, his hands shoved into his pockets as if he can’t figure out what to do with them.
I know the feeling.
“I have every reason to be here,” he tells me quietly. “A thousand of them, but the only one that matters is that there is nothing else on this earth more important to me than you. I’ve spent the last week doing everything but showing you that, so I came up with this plan. It’s six days until New Year’s Eve and I’d like to meet the woman I love at midnight. Will you help me get ready so I don’t blow it?”
My stupid eyes won’t stop leaking tears. “What are you saying? That you want me to help you get another woman?”
“What other woman? There’s not one on this planet who can compare to you. It’s always been you, Tab.”
Sincerity practically drips from him but I have no idea what to do with this nonsense he’s spouting. “Your reputation precedes you, so there’s no point in denying that it’s earned.”
“So, here’s a secret I thought I’d take to the grave.” Liam flattens his lips. “That’s why I drop girlfriends so fast. None of them have even the remotest chance of measuring up to you.”
“You have a funny way of showing this.” My lips do not tip up because it’s not actually funny at all.
Liam goes through women because he secretly wants to be with me. Sure. And reindeer really fly.
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, which is tousled as if he’s done this exact action multiple times today. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes but being here is not one of them. I should let you go, let you get over the misery I’ve caused you, but believe it or not, this is me stepping up. I haven’t told you how I feel because…well, there are a lot of reasons that sound stupid out loud, so let’s just say I needed to find my courage too.”
For whatever reason, that sends a sliver of heat to my frozen heart. It’s not thawed, not quite yet. But maybe it’s not a solid block of ice.
I heave a huge breath. My lungs might work after all. “The food is getting cold.”
Liam shoots me a tentative smile and bustles about getting plates and silverware. From my kitchen. Because he knows where stuff is here. In my apartment. I don’t hate this—though my brain tells me I should. He screwed up, big time.
Intellectually, I’m aware, but in my heart, I want to see what he plans to do to fix it.
That’s what this is, right? He’s making a grand gesture. It won’t kill me to let him. My heart might not thaw all the way and then he goes home. No big deal. Just romantic permafrost and free orange chicken.
We sit at the table, but before I can pick up a fork, my brain wants to have a whole conversation about what is going on.
Liam is here.
After telling me that he lied to me for months . Granted, the most egregious of these transgressions occurred over the last few days, but pretending to like The Rosie Project so he could pull one over on me is almost as bad.
I put my fork down. “Have you even read a book in your life?”
Liam puts his fork down too and gives me his undivided attention. “Many. There’s very little about our conversations that’s fake. I actually own Sandman . You picking that out unprompted is one of the reasons I’m here.”
He’s probably making this up on the fly.
My heart takes over my brain and throws that idea in the garbage. My connection with ShreddingPages is real. So is the one I have with Liam. That much I know and nothing can erase that.
I don’t want to get to a place where I think any of what he did is okay. But I can’t help remembering the parts that were so, so good between us.
And whatever else has gone on, it’s Christmas and I can’t hold onto my mad. “Tell me the other reasons.”
When Liam picks up my hand, I’d like to say I don’t melt into a puddle of goo, but we’re not telling lies anymore. Even to ourselves.
His smile has a million emotions wrapped up in it. “Because I wanted to tell you how I feel about you. But also to give you my Christmas gift myself. I can’t return it and…well, I just prayed a lot on the way over here that you’d still accept it.”
He turns my hand over and lays an envelope on it.
This is a present? For me? He bought me a gift without knowing whether anything he said would make a difference in how I feel about him?
A whole lot off-kilter, I tear open the envelope. Pages and pages fall out.
My eyes scan the official-looking document on top. It’s a certificate with bold letters proclaiming Thistledown Books as a site of historical significance in Kilt Valley.
“What is this?” I ask even as my gaze shifts to the next batch of papers, a bunch of legal documents.
“Your bookstore is officially recognized by the Kilt Valley Heritage Trust as a historical landmark,” Liam says quietly. “So if you want to do renovations and expand, it will be considered a project in cooperation with the Trust.”
“What?” I croak, my thoughts spinning like wind turbines in upside down world. “How—this had to go through my mother. And my dad.”
“And mine,” he acknowledges with a nod. “My father has a lot of the town’s records. Comes with being a direct descendant of the founder.”
Wait. Liam went to his father for me? None of this makes any sense. “You don’t get along with your father.”
“I do not,” he says with another nod. “And I had to agree to spend four hours a week learning how to manage the recreation facilities at the resort in exchange for the documentation I needed to take to your parents.”
“Why would you do that, Liam?” I whisper, my heart turning over in my chest, beating a whole new way as I internalize what he’s telling me. What he’s sacrificed.
“Because I wanted to give you a compromise, Tab,” he says simply, his gaze warm and full of emotion. “Something you and your father could live with.”
He talked to my dad about this. My dad knows and is apparently okay with me easing into a place on the Heritage Trust by working on the bookstore. It’s…a Christmas miracle.
“That’s the same deal I struck with mine too, by the way,” he continues. “I never thought that could be possible. But the last week has shown me that I’m suffering due to my stupid choices. You helped me realize that I want to do everything differently.”
“Like what?” I murmur, mesmerized by the spell he’s weaving. The earnestness spilling from his expression.
“Like telling you the truth. Always.”
He reaches out, palm up, but stops, waiting for me to give him a sign that I’m softening. I can’t ignore what I’m feeling and reach back, sliding my hand into his. My whole body sighs. I’m pretty sure I’m not getting out of this with my heart intact. But then it’s belonged to Liam for a while anyway.
“Tell me a truth about you I don’t know,” I say.
“I’ve spent most of my adult life pretending,” he responds immediately. “Pretending that I’m a player. And a slacker, for that matter. Pretending my mom forced me to the table when you came over. Pretending to be someone else in the book club app. I learned a long time ago that I can’t be myself. That the me I choose to be is not good enough. I hid behind the shell I created. A lot. Our romance sessions gave me one more outlet for that. But at the same time, they served a secret purpose. In what is yet another round of irony, I could be with you in the most authentic way possible. Everything I said to you is true. I’m here because this is me stripped down and you’re the only person I want to see me that way.”
Good grief. I might be biased, but this is no act. I thought I walked away from him for the last time in that square, but my heart thinks differently. “What’s supposed to happen now?”
He smiles. “You kick me out and tell me to never darken your door again. Or…”
Everything inside me knits together with light and air and joy as I yank on his hand, bringing him to me. We’re a breath apart, sharing the same space. “Seems like you owe me a Christmas kiss first.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, tracing it with intensity that sets me on fire. “Are you sure? Your Christmas kiss is supposed to be with your dream man.”
I stare into his bottomless hazel eyes brimming with emotion for me. “That’s what this is. I held out for the man who wants me more than anything in the world, who is willing to sacrifice everything. I’m asking you to kiss me, Liam MacLellan. For real, this time.”
And then he’s kissing me, filling me with something I had no idea I’d been missing. His fingers tangle in my hair, and I can’t do anything other than cling to his back. Otherwise, I’d crumple to the floor in a blissful swoon. His mouth is warm and welcoming against mine. Perfect.
When he pulls back and tilts his forehead to mine, my lips turn up automatically because I can’t contain the joy inside. “Okay, now I’m kicking you out.”
He laughs softly, realizing I’m joking. “I’ll go if you want me to.”
I lace my fingers together behind his back, a hold he could easily break, I’m sure, but it’s symbolic. “Stay. Tell me another truth about you.”
“I love you,” he murmurs. “If you let me, I’ll tell you that every day. Multiple times.”
I pretend to contemplate. “I heard something about six dates between now and New Year’s Eve. Maybe you’re getting ahead of yourself.”
He swings me around and folds me into his embrace as if he plans to never let me go. “Every night from now on belongs solely to you, if you’re willing to let me spend a very long time proving that I am that guy you can talk to about everything. No more secrets.”
“I believe I can clear my calendar for that.” I smile up at him. “I love you too, by the way. I have for a long time. Merry Christmas, Liam.”