Chapter 12
twelve
MAYA
Liam is glaring at me.
Seething. I think that’s the word. What the hell? Did I accidentally send him a picture of…I don’t even have any offensive pictures in my phone. It’s all travel sites and baby Stevie. Why is he so mad?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Ever since we met, our interactions have been strange. One minute I think we’re flirting and the next he’s scowling at me. It’s kind of our thing.
But right now, his stare is so intense I feel like I’m about to be vaporized. I quickly open the message app on my phone to try and puzzle out what he’s looking at.
And then I see it.
Unknown Number:
Hey it’s Liam. I’m so sorry I didn’t call sooner. There was an emergency with Popp and I’ve actually been at the hospital since I left your place. I’ll explain everything, just call me back when you can
Me:
Sorry you have the wrong number. Good luck though! I hope your Pop’s okay
Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god . Is Liam the man I wished to forget?
With all the confusion and endless possibilities rattling through my head today, I never ever thought this was one of them. I look back at him. Swallow. The best sex of my life? That is…actually…very believable.
“I…” I start to say, but I have no idea what words should come out. How can I ever explain this?
“What the fuck, Maya? I thought…” He trails off and I would give anything to hear what he was about to say.
“Tell me,” I beg. But he looks at me like I barely have the right to speak to him, let alone demand his words. “Please. Please tell me what you were about to say.”
A range of emotions passes over his features. It’s obvious he wants to give me nothing, but that maybe he just wants the words out too. Like once he says them, he can be through with me forever.
“I thought that night meant something. I told you things. I…nevermind. I was obviously wrong about you then. And I’m clearly still wrong about you now.” He brushes a hand through his hair again, and starts pacing around the room. At first I think he might leave, but then he remembers Poppy is here and it seems as though he’s going to go wake her up. Like I can’t even be trusted to keep his daughter safe while she sleeps.
“It did.” He stops moving, and just barely meets my eyes. “Mean something, I mean. At least, I think it did. I’m pretty sure. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have…” Cared enough to make myself forget.
“Wouldn’t have what , Maya? Can we just stop pretending for one goddamn second? Be real with me, please?”
And I really want to. I want to tell him more than I’ve ever wanted to tell anyone. Because I may have developed a crush on Liam these last few days. He’s so nice to look at and he always makes the perfect snacks and seeing the way he is with Poppy just does something to me. But it’s the way he’s looking at me now that has my bones turning to jelly.
It’s the hurt in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. Hurt that never appeared when I left Greg, hurt that was definitely missing from Ryan when I escaped our wedding day, the kind of hurt that only comes from feeling deeply for someone.
The broken-hearted kind of sad.
I remember how badly I wanted honesty from Ryan, how my stomach churned with unease just knowing something was off. Is that how Liam feels now? Can I really deny him the truth?
“I want to,” I say. “I want to be honest with you. But I’m afraid you won’t believe me. I’m afraid you’ll think I’m actually insane.”
We’ve been circling the kitchen island for the last several minutes. At my words, he sinks to the floor, leaning against the cabinets. He tucks his knees into his chest and tilts his head back.
“If you’re honest, I’ll believe you.” He says it so matter of factly, like maybe he has the power of lie detection. Could he? If anyone understands that anything is possible, it’s me.
So fuck it.
“All my wishes come true.”
I let the words hang between us as I slide my body down to sit across from him. His brows knit together, trying to find the hidden meaning from what I said.
“I need more than that, Maya.”
“I’ll tell you. I will. But I need to know if you believe me. It’s been happening my whole life. Any time I wish for something, as long as I say it aloud, it comes true. Pretty much instantaneously.”
“Can you show me?” he asks. Well, at least he hasn’t told me I’m crazy.
“No, that’s…that’s the problem. When I realized they all came true, I also learned that they always backfire, bear some kind of consequence I wasn’t prepared for. I never wish, not intentionally at least. But sometimes…they slip out.” I shrug, thinking of Ellie. The one successful wish. I think. I hope .
Sometimes I even wonder if that wish wasn’t real. Maybe it was only in my head, and her coming to California had nothing to do with me. Then, we’d be safe from the magic forever.
“Okay. I still don’t understand why you’re telling me this. Why does?—”
“Because I think I wished to forget you.” There is probably a better way of leading into that, but I blurt it out anyway.
“You what?”
“I know. It’s horrible. And I obviously don’t actually remember making that wish, so there’s no way to know for sure. But…well, Ellie was telling me about this conversation we had two years ago. I guess I told her about this guy and the best sex of my life and then how he ghosted me and I seriously had and still have zero recollection of what she was talking about. And then, she mentioned I said something to her like ‘I W-I-S-H I could forget I ever met him,’ and then never spoke about it again. So I kind of figured I made myself forget the guy, but I had no idea he was you until?—”
“Hey. Breathe.”
His hands find mine and hold them steady on my knees.
“Sorry. It’s just, I can’t believe I wiped my own memory. Like I needed further reminding that my wishes all turn out horribly. And now I’ve hurt you and I don’t even know why. And I’m sure you don’t believe me, but?—”
“I believe you.”
I suck in a sharp breath and bite my lip to stop from rambling on again. My gaze meets his and he’s not mocking me. Everything about his expression is sincere.
“You do?”
“Honestly, ever since you showed up here, I’ve been trying to think of any plausible scenario for why you’ve been acting like we didn’t know each other. And nothing ever made sense. This…does.”
Whoa. I can’t even imagine what’s been going through his mind. He probably thought he was going insane.
“I’m so sorry I did that to you. Being forgotten is…”
“Something I’m used to, actually.”
“What? Why would you say that?”
“Just…my family, Poppy’s mom…nevermind. I get why you may have made the wish, not realizing you’d actually forget. It did take me almost two weeks to call you, when I said I would later that day.”
“Oh,” I say. Somehow, I’m at a loss for words. I still feel like I need to explain myself, apologize, find a way to take it back. But I can’t. “I’ve thought about wishing to remember. I want to, I do. But I’m scared. I never know what might happen.”
“That’s okay,” he murmurs, his voice almost coaxing. I realize his hands are still on mine, but now one is moving, his thumb sweeping across my skin. “Can you let me explain?”
And then I realize what I saw earlier. “The text. You meant to write Poppy…”
“Yeah. Look, part of the reason I didn’t call right away was because she was sick. It was…rough. But I also felt so fucking guilty. I did for months if I’m honest. When I was leaving your place that morning, all I wanted was to come back and spend the whole day with you. I’d left my phone in the kitchen and when I grabbed it to call the nanny, I saw about a hundred missed calls and texts. Poppy had been throwing up all night, sometimes losing consciousness, and I wasn’t there. I had to meet them at the hospital where she’d been waiting for me for hours .”
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been. I wish I would’ve—” I gasp, covering my mouth tightly with my hand. I do wish I would have known. I wish I could have been there with him for that, knowing how alone, how hopeless he must have felt. But I really don’t want to fuck around with changing the past right now. Jesus.
“That must be hard, to never say it,” he offers.
“It really is. After talking to Ellie about it, I sort of spiraled, wondering if there were other wishes to forget that I didn’t know about. I mean, how would I ever know?” I pause, catch myself before I go into a dark place of what-ifs. “But, can you finish telling me what happened? I mean, obviously Poppy’s okay now.”
“She is. That was when we first discovered she had type 1 diabetes. It was just…a lot. Learning all about insulin and glucose monitors and…she had just turned five. It felt like I’d never be able to leave her alone again. I sold the restaurant and begged the nanny to move somewhere outside the city. I remembered coming to Vermont once as a kid and thought, why not check it out? As soon as Poppy was stable we drove out here and I just happened to meet Theo when I took Poppy to see the horses at his animal sanctuary.
“Honestly, it felt like fate. He was almost finished building all the cabins in the village, said they were going to be rentals but he’d sell me one. Didn’t even blink an eye when I told him I wanted to expand the layout and build a greenhouse and a vegetable garden. He just offered to help. And when my nanny decided Vermont wasn’t for her, Theo’s whole family really stepped up to help with Poppy. Ellie and Ezra watched her all the time while I was getting the diner up and running. Ezra could tell how much I was struggling with her illness. He practically lived with us for two weeks when she got really sick. And–now I’m the one rambling. Sorry.”
“I’m so glad you found this place. Ellie’s the best person I know.”
“Funny,” he says. “She says the same thing about you.”
Emotions clog my throat but I swallow them down.
“Do you think you could tell me the rest?” I ask. Partially, because I want to change the mood of this kitchen, but also, I’m kind of desperate for this information. Nothing with Liam seems casual. That night we shared must have been special. There must have been something different. About me? Him? Us?
To say I’ve been unlucky in love is an understatement. One night stands have never been my thing, but I’ve definitely been in a casual hook-up situation thinking it was much more. Hoping , really. I need to know why this night was different for me.
“Well, you asked to meet the chef,” he begins, a grin forming in the corner of his mouth. A smirk, actually. God, his dimples should be illegal. “Then you told me how attractive I was.”
“What?” I feel my cheeks burn as he watches for my reaction. “Please don’t embellish.”
“I would never. You were very taken with me. Practically begged me to meet you for a drink.”
Now I know he’s lying. I would love to be that brazen, but alas…
He waits for my response but I purse my lips.
“Okay, maybe you phrased it as wanting to interview me for your blog. But you did beg me to get drinks.”
“That sounds…reasonable. I was actually wondering why I never featured your restaurant. It’s still the best meal I’ve ever had.”
His dimples appear again and he bites his lip. What is he thinking about?
“Maybe I could try to make you an even better one. Would you…” He squeezes both my hands and winds our fingers together. “Let me make you dinner one night? Try for the date we never got to go on?”
His green eyes shine back at me, hopeful and a little reckless. Of course I want to go on a date with this man. As crazy as it sounds, I probably would have said yes to a date with him the minute I got here, in my torn up wedding dress and all. But something feels off. There’s still too much I don’t know. Information that only he has.
Best sex of my life, according to Ellie. We slept together. He has seen me naked. Can we just go on a date? Start over? Pretend like the past doesn’t exist?
“I need to know the rest,” I plead, hoping he understands how muddled I feel with my memories stolen by magic. “All the details I forgot about that night. I want you to tell me everything.”