33. LIAM
33
LIAM
Three Summers Ago
I’ve wondered what it’s like to be loved by Emerson
I wondered about it when she doubled back for another look at the coffee shop. When she’d send me pictures of her day, in the mornings I’d lay next to her, when she’d send me an annotated book. And when we’d hold hands, always making sure our fingers were interlocked, rubbing the top of my hand with her thumb. I’ve wondered about it for years.
I’ve wondered about it because I want to be loved by Emerson.
I want to come home and kiss her. I want to wake up in the morning and Emerson be the first person I see. I want to go to bed at night and have Emerson be the last person I see. The first and last of my entire life.
I want to be loved by her because I know I’m in love with her.
The ache to have her in my life has become an insistent pounding. My heart beats rapidly, and I think I’m going to have a heart attack. That’s what she does to me. No one has ever had this much control over me, consuming every part of my mind and body in every facet of it—no one but Emerson Clarke.
I called Callum and asked him to grab lunch at our favorite gastropub in Southside. He says yes. I called George to inform him of our plans.
We meet up an hour later.
“Was out with Audrey when you called.” Cal gestures his head in her direction.
“And you so happen to owe me lunch.” Audrey kisses my cheek.
“Auds, probably good you’re here.” They all flash confused glances at me.
“Me?” She points to herself. I nod.
We order drinks. Enjoy said drinks. Order another round and food before any of them decide to speak.
“Spill,” George speaks bluntly, setting down his pint glass. A bit of the amber ale sloshes over the side. “Why’d you want to get lunch?”
“Do I need a reason to get lunch with my best mates and Audrey?”
No, I don’t need a reason to see them. Frankly, we usually spend Saturdays together, anyway. They don’t need a reason to see me, but today, I called them because I need them. I really need them. Need them to set me straight about Emerson.
Is it supposed to be this hard to know if you are truly in love with someone? If you should tell them?
It’s the fork in the road you ignore, knowing it’s there but ignoring it until you are forced to choose: left or right, A or B, this or that. There’s no sign, no telling you what you’ll find at the end of the road, just a force pushing you to choose one. You have to choose one.
I’m at my fork in the road with Emerson.
“You don’t, but you called us.” Cal gestures to the group. He and George look back and forth between each other and me.
“And you bailed on us last night,” George adds. “Which you never do unless it’s for her.”
“I told you I was tired. It was a long day at the office.”
“But not tired enough for her,” George says, asks—can’t tell.
“D’you forget I work with you? I can see your calendar,” Callum says at the same time his sister speaks.
“Are you tired from work or her?”
Both .
“I also own the company. I deal with shit you don’t know about. ”
“Like what. . .” He tosses me a look that says, ‘prove it.’ He’s my number two, he knows everything. There isn’t anything I keep from him because there isn’t a reason to. He’ll find out one way or another, so might as well skip the bullshit and tell him first.
“I was tired. Does it matter if I want to talk to her?”
“No, she’s your best friend,” Audrey declares.
“I thought I was your best friend,” George scoffs, leaning back in his chair and rocking on the backs of two legs.
“You are, but she’s Emerson. It’s different.”
“Oi! That’s ￡100, mate.” George rocks the chair forward, pushing Callum in the shoulder from across the table.
Callum pulls out his wallet, throwing bills in George’s way. Sitting directly in front of me, Audrey is smirking at the two of them. “Idiots,” she grumbles.
Audrey turns her attention to me.
“Did you talk to her. . . ?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I finish my drink. “She got stood up on a date. States called to debrief.”
“Huh. First person?” Cal asks weirdly.
“I’spose. Maybe? She didn’t clarify the order in which she told her friends she was stood up, but I did assume it was only a few minutes after they were set to meet.”
“She wanted a chat with you?” I’ve known Audrey a month less than I’ve known Callum. She came to visit him at school after our first term kicked off. She’s. . . expressive. . . doesn’t know how to hide any emotions or thoughts from being all over her face to a fault.
“Wherever you’re trying to get, Auds, get there,” Cal says.
“Gettin’ there, promise. Does Emerson do this after every date?”
“Possibly?”
“Yeah, she’s into you.” Audrey picks up her empty glass and flags the waiter over. “We’ll all have another.”
No one comments. I think they are waiting for me to say anything .
“Which you already know. If you didn’t, the two of you wouldn’t be inseparable every time you’re together,” Audrey adds.
“I’m into her,” I admit.
“We already know that,” George says in between coughs.
“Then why are we here, Liam?” Callum asks.
“I think I’m in love with her.”
There it is, said out loud. The sound is not as scary as I thought it would be. It came out easier than I thought it would, too.
“We already know that. . . too,” George says again.
“You do. . .”
What are they seeing that I missed?
“You are hung up on that girl—so much so that Molly called me—Molly, of all people. You told her there was someone else,” Cal elaborates.
Molly was the only girl at university I dated. She was a fit girl and extremely intelligent—it was just school, you know? We dated for a year before we decided to be friends. She came back into my life last spring and wanted to start things back up. I tried—trust me, I tried—but she wasn’t Emerson.
“I couldn’t lie to her.”
“But can you sit back and do nothing about someone else who dates guys and tells you about them? Or when we see her, you two can’t get enough of each other that it is disgustingly annoying for anyone in your presence?”
“I’m her friend. We talk about stuff, which may or may not include my opinions on the males she fancies.”
“That girl wants you,” Audrey tilts her head. “She does that because you are the scale against which she weighs them—their appearance, their actions, how they treat her, and how they make her feel. If they aren’t you, they aren’t good enough for her. I think she’s searching for your approval by telling you.”
“And you do the same, mate,” George adds .
“I’ve never once told her about a single woman I have been with.” Because I haven’t been with anyone since her, there’s no one else but Emerson.
“Maybe so, but you measure everyone up against her.”
“Ya heard the saying actions speak louder than words? You don’t need to tell her, Liam. You want Emerson for yourself, and you have since you met her.”
George laughs and says, “Even when I tried to cockblock ya.”
But Callum keeps going on. “It’s pissing obvious, it’s painful. Honestly, I’m impressed by your stupidity of being friends with her for this long.”
“I didn’t want to ruin anything between us.” I still don’t want to ruin anything between us now. That’s the problem—it’s not that I don’t want her or am in love with her. That’s becoming as clear as a cloudless night to me; all the stars point to her.
“Shagging her every time you see her doesn’t do the trick?” George asks.
“That’s. . . different.” I sigh, dropping my tense shoulders.
“Different?” George laughs and takes another drink of his beer. “Do enlighten us.”
Different? Probably not the best word to use. I’m actually not sure if there is a difference. I think we blurred our lines a long time ago and became too comfortable with the confines in which we work.
I don’t respond to George. He rolls his eyes and flags down the waiter to clear our plates from lunch and order a final round.
“I don’t know what it is about Emerson. She’s—”
George cuts in. “She’s hot. She’s fit. She’s fun. She’s got a great rump. She makes fun of you.” He’s counting on each finger. “She’s smart. She’s mad cool. She’s hilarious. She’s—”
“We get it.” Audrey stops him with her hand up.
Cal is snickering. “He’s not wrong. Emerson is it for you.”
“She’s more than that. . . she’s everything to me. Emerson lights up my life; she’s the sun around which my every thought and heartbeat revolves. There is something about her I can’t get enough of. She believes that I bring out the best version of her, but she brings out the best version of me. Shit, I watched her read for hours the second time I saw her just to memorize her in hopes that—that I’d be able to have her in my dreams. But the opportunity to have her, the real physical her, not only in my mind? It messes me up. I stop remembering how to act. Don’t know who I am. She feels out of reach, slipping out of my grasp, and if she does. . . will I fall off my axis?”
The three of them stare at me—proper shock and amusement on my best friends’ faces. None of us have ever confessed anything like this about a girl before. Callum reaches diagonally across the table and places his hand on my forearm.
“You’ve got it bad for States,” he says.
“I do.”
“Then these words are wasted on us. You should tell her.” Callum locks eyes with me.
“Yeah, I’ll just text her and say I’m in love with you; let’s be together.” I laugh off the vulnerability I’m wearing.
“Maybe something more romantic, but yeah, why not? If you feel this way, why are you holding back?” Audrey encourages me.
Once again, this is why I am glad she’s here.
“Chivalry is still alive?”
“Fair, but—”
“Don’t think she feels the same?” her brother talks over her.
“Yeah.” I frown.
“As the only female present, I’m telling you she does. Knowing Emerson, hell, knowing you two together? You are it for each other.”
“My sister is right. Knowing States, she will want, and need, you to tell her face to face.”
“We aren’t seeing her this summer—” George complains .
I don’t let him finish the sentence. Hadn’t gotten a chance to tell them about the change of plans since Emerson and I decided last night.
“About that. . . she’s coming here.”