Chapter 7
When Liliana steps outside, it feels like the entire backyard brightens. Even though she’s trying to sneak past everyone’s perception of her, I wish all my friends would stop and just look at her. Her beauty is all-encapsulating, and it’s a miracle she doesn’t bring every man she meets to his knees.
My heart soars when she makes a beeline for me. She’s holding a plate of food, so I pull out a chair next to the table I’m standing at. Charlotte and John are already seated there, but they won’t mind sharing with Liliana.
“You’re just now eating?” I ask as she sits down with a grateful smile.
“Wasn’t quite ready to earlier. This all looks delicious, though.”
“Well, I’d say thank you, but I had it all catered,” Charlotte says with a little chuckle. “Made the day go by much more smoothly.”
Our conversation goes on, and I watch as Liliana slowly relaxes. Char, being the welcoming host she is, manages to slip into the conversation that she was invited to last year’s New York Fashion Week. That unleashes a flood of questions from Liliana, and I smile at her enthusiasm.
“I was worried she wasn’t enjoying herself,” John murmurs to me after a half hour of fashion talk, and I realize he got up and is standing right next to me.
I shrug. “You know how it is. Everyone likes to be included, and she’s a little out of her element here.”
John smiles. “Char is good at that. Including people, I mean.”
“She is.”
My heart squeezes as I watch her and Liliana together. There’s a reason Charlotte prioritizes making others feel welcome. Her own family rejected her over her love of a good, caring man. She had to find her own support system, although she was never truly alone. John was always there.
When her family realized their mistake years later, it was too late. Charlotte wanted nothing to do with them, and she didn’t need them anymore. Her life is full of people who’d never abandon her like that, and I’m glad Liliana is getting to experience a small slice of that.
The music switches to an upbeat song, and Lori sashays her way across the patio, her eyes on Charlotte. “You know what time it is, girlfriend.”
Charlotte groans playfully. “Always keeping me on my toes, aren’t you?” She stands. “Come on, Liliana.”
“What are we doing?” she asks.
“What do you think?” Lori shoves her wine glass into my hand. “Dancing, darlin’!” Grabbing both their hands, she hauls Charlotte and Liliana into a near-empty part of the patio.
John and I watch while they move to the music. For a second, I think about joining them, but then I stop myself. Putting my hands on Liliana would be a level of temptation that’d be too difficult to resist, even in front of my friends.
Even when she’s my son’s girlfriend.
Even when I should know better.
Once the song is over, the girls don’t stop. John leaves my side and puts his hand on Charlotte’s waist.
“You mind if I steal my wife away? Anniversary dance and all.”
Lori pushes Charlotte into John’s arms. With all her attention on Liliana, she spins her around. Liliana’s skirt flares out, and satisfaction blooms in my chest at her flushed cheeks. As she dances and laughs with Lori, she looks so full of life. So happy. It’s the first time since she and Nate arrived that I’m not worried about her.
After a minute, Lori catches my gaze. “You ready?”
“For what?”
Lori twirls Liliana around again, but this time, it’s in my direction. Before I know it, the only woman I can’t touch is in my arms, her fingers splayed across my chest. She looks up at me with wide eyes, as surprised as I am when I lock an arm around her waist.
Dammit.
My pulse picks up at having her so close. When Lori plucks her wine glass out of my hand, I barely even notice, save for the fact that I’m able to run my fingers through Liliana’s hair now.
I don’t. No matter how much I want to, I can’t.
But I won’t leave Liliana hanging, either. So I start moving to the music, grateful that this song is much slower than the last. Liliana follows along, her body swaying in time with mine, and I slide my hands down until they’re resting on her hips.
Liliana’s lips are parted, and she hasn’t looked away from me since Lori twirled her into my arms. It feels so right to have her against me like this, even if it feels wrong at the same time. Her body fits perfectly against mine. Too perfectly.
And the way she’s looking at me… god, what I’d give to be able to take her into my bed tonight and kiss her until that pretty lipstick is smeared and her eyes are watering from too many orgasms.
“Dad? Lily?”
At the sound of my son’s voice, Liliana goes rigid in my arms. I step back, not too quickly but not too slowly. It was just a dance—we weren’t doing anything wrong—but the longer I let my hands linger on Liliana’s waist, the more the suspicion in Nate’s eyes will grow.
“Nate!” Charlotte rushes forward just as the song ends, closely followed by John. “There you are. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course. Happy anniversary. Levi and Matt told me about your Italy trip. You had fun?”
I grit my teeth. At this rate, Nate is showing more enthusiasm toward his friends’ mother than to his own girlfriend.
“Oh, it was wonderful. Some other time, I’ll show you all the pictures I took. But for now, where are the boys? Everyone’s starting to leave, and they said they’d help with cleanup.”
Now that Char has mentioned it, I realize she’s right. The party is dying out, and the crowd has thinned. I don’t even know when the last time I checked my watch was.
“We can help with cleanup. Oh, I mean—” Liliana glances between me and Nate. “If you guys are okay with that?”
“I don’t mind one bit,” I say with a smile. “I usually help out at least some.”
Nate gives a noncommittal shrug, and I thank whatever magical force is out there that my son isn’t a complete ass.
We get started, gathering up dishes, putting food away, and righting the patio furniture. We keep the music going, although Char turns it down since it’s getting late. For me at least, it doesn’t even feel like work. Based on the way Liliana is laughing with my friends, she feels the same way.
I find myself smiling at how well she fits in here, but then Nate walks into the kitchen with Liliana. They’re holding hands—no, he’s holding her wrist—and it doesn’t look like she’s too happy about getting dragged around. Seeing them together is like getting dunked in a basin of ice-cold water. Immeasurably unpleasant, but also needed.
“Ready to go?” Nate asks. “I think they can handle the rest, and I want to get to bed.”
“Sure.” I hand off the last of the containers to Char, who puts them into the fridge.
“Happy anniversary, Charlotte.” Liliana extracts her wrist from Nate’s grip and draws her into a hug. “This was a lovely party.”
“Oh, thank you, dear. You had fun?”
“Tons.” Liliana’s grin is still genuine, but it’s muted compared to her expressions a mere hour ago.
I can only think of one reason for why that could be.
We say our goodbyes to everyone else, and as we’re heading out the front door, Lori calls, “Think about what I said, Liliana!”
Liliana’s cheeks turn bright red. She casts a worried look in Nate’s direction, but he’s still finishing up saying goodbye to Levi and Matt. “Um, I will. Have—have a good night.”
Char elbows Lori in the side and gives her a scolding look, which only makes me more curious, but I don’t pry. Maybe I’ll ask later, but for right now, the way Liliana turns and quickly makes her way down the driveway is amusing enough.
“See you in the morning,” Matthias calls once we’re halfway down the driveway.
“In the morning?” Liliana asks Nate.
He nods. “Yeah, we’re going on an overnight backpacking trip. Getting an early start so we can—”
“You’re doing what?” Liliana stops in her tracks.
“We want to hang out! You know, catch up and all that.”
“You’re supposed to be hanging out with me. That’s what this trip was for. That, and spending time with Marcus.” She waves in my general direction.
He shrugs. “You can come with us.”
“You know I don’t like backpacking!”
“Well, that’s a you problem. We’ll have the rest of the week together, babe. They’re my friends, and I haven’t seen them in ages.”
Watching Liliana, I’m able to see the exact moment that the fight in her eyes fades into resignation. Her jaw snaps shut, and she crosses the street to my car without another word. Once she’s inside, she buckles in and stares out the window.
As I drive home, a tense silence fills the vehicle. Nate at least has the common sense to not strike up a conversation and act like everything is normal. He’s not apologizing, though, nor does it seem like he’s going to.
Not for the first time since they arrived, I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from lecturing my son. He’s showing his true colors, and dammit, I’m not going to tell him how to make this better. All that’ll do is get Liliana’s hopes up, only to have them dashed into the ground at some point in the future.
The near future, probably.
I wish I’d had more of a hand in raising Nate, but I didn’t have much time with him when he was growing up. Maybe I should’ve tried to step in more. His mother didn’t want me to have custody at all—wanted to pretend I didn’t exist—but I refused to let that happen. She fought against every parenting tactic I used or suggested, but so what? I could’ve fought back.
Once we’re home, Nate hops out of the car the second it’s in park. He’s inside the house before Liliana or I have even undone our seat belts.
Running from his problems like usual.
“You all right?” I ask.
Liliana doesn’t respond immediately, and I don’t push. She’s allowed however much time she needs to collect herself.
When her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, they’re filled with tears. “Do you—” She sniffles. “Do you have peanut butter?”
“I believe so.”
“And honey?”
I nod.
“And…” Her voice falters, and she looks down. “Chocolate chips?”
That one I have to wrack my brain for. “I’m not sure, little star. We can check, though.”
With a nod and another sniffle, she gets out of the car. I follow quickly. By the time I’ve taken off my shoes, Liliana is already raiding my pantry. She finds a bag of mini chocolate chips before I can even begin to help.
I watch in silence as she spoons some peanut butter into a bowl, pours honey onto it, and then mixes in some of the chocolate chips. It looks like a dip of some sort, and if I’m being honest, it sounds like a delightful combination of flavors.
“Pretzels?” Liliana asks.
I stop her before she’s even taken two steps toward the pantry. “I’ve got it.”
She doesn’t answer, just turns away. I’m not quite sure what she needs right now—silence, a listening ear, for me to tell her that my son doesn’t deserve her—but pretzels? I can manage that.
When I step back into the kitchen, bag in hand, Liliana is still stirring the peanut butter dip. It’s thoroughly mixed by now, but based on her agitated movements, I’m not sure she cares.
I set the pretzels on the counter in between us, and she grabs a few and scoops some of the dip onto them. All I do is watch. She’s managed to stave off her tears for now, but I’m not sure if that’ll last. I don’t mind either way. She needs someone to be there for her, and I’m fine with that person being me. I want it to be me.
“He’s an ass,” she says after she’s downed a few pretzels.
“He is.”
She shoves the bowl toward me, and I swipe a pretzel through the mixture. As soon as I’m done, she does the same, but she hesitates with her hand halfway to her mouth.
“Do you think I’m being naive, Marcus?”
I swallow. Seeing her like this—confidence shattered, full of anxiety, and so hurt—breaks my goddamn heart. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think, though?”
“Liliana…”
She stares at the peanut butter-covered pretzel in between her fingers. “If one of my friends’ boyfriends cheated on them, I’d tell them to leave immediately. That they’re worth more than an asshole like that. I thought I believed the same thing for myself, too.”
“I think you still do. You’re just scared to let go.”
“Do you think I should?”
“That’s… for you to decide.”
She huffs out a frustrated breath.
I smile. “I could tell you exactly what I think you should do, Liliana, but that’s not what you want. It’s not who you are.”
“Oh? And who am I?”
I ignore the annoyance in her voice and lean forward, my elbows placed on the island between us. “Remember the weekend Nate introduced us? I took you both out to dinner on that ferry, and I said you wouldn’t need a long sleeve because it was the middle of summer?”
She nods.
“You brought a light jacket anyway.”
“And I ended up using it. It was windy.”
“Or how about the cookie incident last Christmas?”
She rolls her eyes.
“I told you we wouldn’t need that many, but you made them all anyway.”
“Yeah, that one you were right about.” She grimaces.
“My point isn’t who was right and who was wrong. It’s that you do whatever you think is best, regardless of other people’s opinions. I could tell you to keep trying with Nate, or I could tell you to leave. Either way, you won’t listen. You’ll come to your own conclusion and make your own decision.”
“That’s not true. I listen to what other people have to say.”
“Of course you do. You’re a reasonable person. But how many of your friends told you to leave Nate?”
She’s silent.
“All of them?”
Another beat of silence, and then she nods.
“I’m not saying you didn’t listen to them, Liliana. I’m saying you took what they said into account, along with various other factors, and made your own decision.”
“But do you think I’m making the wrong one?” she presses.
“That doesn’t—” I stop at the desperation painted onto her features. Unlike last night, the look in her eyes isn’t rooted in hurt. It’s based on something else entirely.
“What?” she asks.
“You care about what I think. That’s what this is about?”
Her gaze drops. After a second, she nudges the bowl across the counter. “You can have more.”
“You seem pretty attached to it.”
“I don’t mind sharing with you. Made too much for myself, anyway.”
“Liliana.”
Her movements are slow, like she’s forcing herself, but she finally looks up at me again.
“I don’t think you’re stupid for giving Nate another chance. I think he’s stupid. I don’t think you’re naive, either. On the contrary, I think you’re more intelligent than you’re giving yourself credit for right now, and I know you know I’m right.”
Doubt flickers in her eyes.
“I mean it, little star.”
Her cheeks flush, and something forbidden and possessive wraps itself around my heart. I like that she cares about what I think. I like that my little pet name does something to her, too.
Thoughts of bending her over the kitchen table fill my mind. I could fuck the sadness and insecurity out of her. Make her scream loud enough to wake Nate up so he has to face the same feelings he forced onto her. And god, she’d look so pretty with that little dress pushed up and her panties bunched around her ankles.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I round the counter until I’m standing right beside Liliana. She turns to face me, a question written on her face.
“Got something,” I murmur, swiping my thumb across her cheek and getting the little bit of peanut butter that was there. Eyes connected with hers, I suck it off, enjoying the sweet and salty taste on my tongue.
Her blush deepens, and her voice is regretful as she whispers, “I should go to bed.”
There’s no denying what she feels for me now, but I have no doubt she’ll try to. As she should.
“Goodnight, Liliana.”