29. LIAM
29
LIAM
Six Summers Ago
“What time is your flight today?” I ask Emerson as she crawls up my body, out from underneath the sheets.
Laying on top of me, her arms resting on my chest, I use my thumb to swipe remnants of me from the corner of her mouth.
She sucks my thumb into her mouth. Circling her tongue around it while keeping eye contact with me.
Releasing my thumb, Emerson kisses me and climbs out of bed.
“Not until three this afternoon. I’m going to call an Uber by noon.”
“Hours away, States. Hours away from now.” I flick her a smirk. “Come back here.” I pat the space next to me.
Across the room, she stops pulling out her clothes from the dresser. Only in my t-shirt, the one she stole the first night she stayed over, her hips sway in a teasing but lustrous way as she turns to face me. Her lips pout as she walks back over to the bed. Pulling back the white, cloud-like covers, she climbs in next to me, braiding her bare legs between mine. Her smooth skin is silk against me.
We’ve shared a bed since that night in Paris. Even in a room with two beds, I booked it on purpose after she recounted an incident from earlier in her trip, we’d cram our bodies into one. I loved those few nights when there wasn’t space between us, and we were forced to be skin-to-skin. Emerson doesn’t cuddle when she sleeps. She’ll start curled up into me but eventually ends up wiggling her way to the edge. She says it reminds her of college and sharing a twin bed.
I tried not to think about who she was sharing it with .
Untangling our legs, rolling on top of her. I take hold of her hands, pinning them over her head. I’m inside of her as quickly as I watch her thoughts go everywhere else.
EMERSON
I enjoy being next to him. It’s why I didn’t mind when Liam rearranged all of my hotel arrangements. It doesn’t hurt that he’s in the industry and knows the best places to stay.
I like the proximity it forced us into.
Breathing in the same oxygen as him. Breathing him in as oxygen.
That’s what it feels like right now.
I’m breathing him in.
Each thrust an inhale. Each release an exhale.
The air my body needs to function at the capacity of who I want to be when I’m with him—not just when we are in this position.
I’m not ready to go home. To leave all of this, Liam and us , behind.
My mind keeps drifting further out, like I’m in the ocean that separates us. We live on two separate continents, and after today, we will never see each other again. I’ll return to my life breathless without the source. I’m nervous I’ll suffocate. Gasping for air, gasping for this version of me that he’s given life to.
I don’t love Liam . I love me with him.
I try not to let the emotions get confused.
We finish, and Liam lies beside me on his side. We’re facing each other. His fingers draw small circles on my upper bicep.
“What’s running through that bright, exquisite mind of yours?” he asks me.
“How incredibly hot you are.”
“You’d suck at poker,” he teases.
I release a deep sigh .
If emotions are the lock, then I’m the key to a door of all the ways I’ll never be enough for love. But that’s not us. Since I’ve met Liam, we’ve never been the type of strangers to keep our emotions hidden.
“You can tell me, Emerson.” His voice is gentle.
“I know. Easy answer? I don’t want to leave.” I release another sigh. “Truthful answer? I don’t know how to go back to pre-summer Emerson.”
“What do you mean?” His brow furrows with genuine confusion.
“If you had told me eight weeks ago, I’d have stayed in another country alone. I would have laughed in your face and told you how wrong you were. This,” my hand gesturing to myself, “is not me.”
“You mean lying in bed across from a fit and wildly charming male specimen?”
“Exactly.” I roll my eyes at him, but he isn’t wrong. I wouldn’t have, ever. Well, ever isn’t true. I would, but not night after night and spending the days in between together. “I wouldn’t have allowed myself to fall for you. I know that’s what you’ve been trying to do for the past four weeks. You were trying to show me that love is real.”
“Did it work?”
“No.” I shake my head. “But I’m open to the idea.”
That doesn’t satisfy him—his smile wavers.
“This girl, you know, isn’t the girl who showed up here eight weeks ago. That girl was afraid—afraid to be enough for someone. I thought that to get others to like me, want me, and stay, I had to be the person they wanted me to be.”
Liam doesn’t say anything, only listens. His eyes don’t leave mine.
“With you though. . . I’m finally the Emerson I want to be. This version of me is someone who is enough for you—enough for myself. At first, I thought I was crazy, but the more time we spent together, the easier it became to be her. Less guarded, more open to l—” I don’t finish the L word. “I want to be who you’ve allowed me to be when I go home.”
“Allowed you to be? States, I haven’t done anything. You are this person already.”
“Doesn’t feel that way,” I breathe out.
“Why?”
“I. . . I don’t know. . .”
“Please don’t get mad at what I’m about to say. But—” Liam stops talking. Eyes roaming my face. I think he’s searching for a green light to continue.
“But?” I shift my head forward, urging him to continue.
“I’d never lie to you. . . or want to say anything to hurt you. But I think you allow your parent’s divorce to haunt you. It altered your thoughts, causing you to believe that you’ll never be enough for anyone. If you weren’t enough for them, the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally, then why or how could you be enough for anyone else? It’s dominos. That started it, and now you have this insistent part of you to put others ahead of you. Not in a compassionate or generous way—which you genuinely are, by the way—but ahead of who you truly are.” He reaches out to brush away a tear I didn’t realize was there off my cheek. “Appease me on something. That list of yours that we completed the past four weeks. Tell me which of those items were your ideas.”
I stare at him, blinking away the additional tears forming.
“I was right, none of them. There’s a reason for that.” The intensity of his gaze is driving me wild.
“I’m assuming you are going to tell me the reason?” I don’t doubt he isn’t going to tell me. I’m trying to give myself the extra moment to prepare myself for another truth bomb Liam is going to detonate on me. Whatever he is going to say, I probably already know deep down. That’s what sucks about all of this. I’m not oblivious to it. If a stranger can see it, I can see it.
“Your desire to be loved—which I know you don’t believe in, so you say.” I roll my eyes at him. “Allows you to be walked over. Your friend? She’s learned exactly how to get whatever the hell she wants. Using you because you believe that if you don’t, she won’t be there for you.
“You said it yourself: you think you must be someone you aren’t to keep people. Those parts that make you you will go dormant at some point. Who is pushing you to be Emerson? Your ideas, interests, this side of you, Emerson, is fucking fascinating. Quite marvelous, truly.”
“Even the sass?”
“Might be my favorite part of you.” He smiles.
“How could you possibly know all of this?”
“Because from the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew exactly who you were.”
My heart skips a beat. “That’s not a valid answer. You just knew?”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you that morning, right?”
“Right.”
“It wasn’t only because of your beauty, which please, know you are the most. . . shit. . . beautiful person I’ve laid my eyes on. I could easily stare into your emerald eyes all day. Tangle my hands in your hair if I can get them away long enough from your delicious curves.” He gives me a sexy smirk I know too well at this point. “If I could lose myself even more than I already have in you, I would.” He leans forward to kiss me gently. “Your wall might be tough for others to crack, but I saw right through it. Getting to know you the past few weeks? That confirmed every remarkable notion I had about you. You are so easy to love, Emerson.” It’s precisely what he told me that day in Paris when I told him about my parents. And now, I get this tickling sensation that he might love me. “Anyone who doesn’t know that, that’s their loss. But you also have to give them the opportunity to love you for exactly who you are in there.” He reaches out and taps my heart, then my brain, and then my mouth .
“Liam. . .”
“Don’t. Let me finish. This woman that you want to be, no are, she’s going to burn out.” Ouch, that sounds harsh. True, but harsh. “And that would be a loss. She’s in there. She’s in you. You have to try. Shit, not even try—just be you, States. And if you forget, think about me. I’m case study number one. An exemplary example of what it looks like when someone loves you for who you are.”
LIAM
That’s because I love her. I love Emerson Clarke.