Chapter 18
Eight years earlier
“So let me get this straight,” Liam says, reaching for the popcorn bowl between us. “Rachel McAdams doesn’t remember that Channing Tatum is her husband, so he has to remind her?”
“Isn’t that so romantic?” I say.
Liam snorts. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How could she not remember her own husband?”
“She was in a car accident and has amnesia,” I tell him. “Which you would know if you were paying attention to the movie.”
His mouth curls upward, his eyes shining in the dim half-light of the laptop screen. “I’ve been paying attention.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I am paying attention,” he whispers, his hand climbing the outside of my thigh, giving me a possessive squeeze.
“I just didn’t say what I was paying attention to.
” His gaze flares mischievously, but I can see the tired creases around his eyes.
Creases that have become a permanent feature since starting residency.
We were supposed to go out tonight for a date—our first in weeks—but Liam’s exhausted from twenty-four-hour shifts at the hospital in addition to the full-time master’s degree in clinical research he’s working toward, and my feet are killing me after a double shift at the restaurant and the extra catering gigs I’ve been picking up.
That, and we’re broke, so we decided to stay in and watch a movie on the couch instead.
Not that Liam’s been paying much attention to said movie.
“You know,” he says, eyes flashing to mine. “If you ever forgot who I was, I’d remind you.”
“Oh yeah?” I lift an eyebrow. “How?”
Liam’s hand moves from my thigh to the waistband of my sweats, then lower, grazing the top of my underwear.
“Like this.” He plants a rough kiss on my neck that sucks all the air from my lungs.
“And this.” His tongue sweeps back and forth, painting velvety strokes against the hollow of my throat.
“I’d always make sure you knew you were mine. ”
His mouth migrates upward, capturing me in a searing kiss, and I kiss him back, a fraction of a kiss, then more, want striking hot against my core.
It’s been over a week since the last time we were intimate and the ache between my legs is almost painful.
He’s pulling me onto his lap, needy hands carving into my waist, when his phone buzzes from inside his pocket.
The sound catches us off guard, but it’s not enough to derail us. “I’ve been thinking about this all week,” he rasps, his voice like sandpaper against my skin. “I’ve been imagining you under me, on top of me, every way possible.”
“That’s funny,” I tell him. “Because I’ve been imagining that too.”
We move more quickly, our desperate hands traversing skin to bring us as close as our clothes will allow.
Pressing my chest to his, I draw our mouths together and grind against where he’s hard. I’m working up a rhythm that has us both gasping and panting when his phone vibrates again. And again.
A tiny, pathetic whine slips out of me when Liam pulls back.
“Sorry,” he says, voice thick and groggy, like he’s just been pulled from a deep sleep. “It might be the hospital.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him, trying to hide my disappointment.
“Hopefully it’s nothing big, maybe I can even be back by—” But Liam doesn’t finish because he takes one look at the screen and his whole demeanor shrinks.
“What?” I ask, sitting up straighter. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to take this,” he mutters. And before I can ask who it is, he’s rushing off into the bedroom, where he shuts the door with a tight thud.
A moment later I hear the low murmured hum of his voice behind the wall.
Whoever it is, they talk for nearly thirty minutes before Liam finally returns, looking exhausted, like he’s been drained of his life force.
“Who was that?” I ask as he takes his spot beside me on the couch.
“No one,” he says, not looking at me.
“You were in there for thirty minutes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says tightly.
“So it wasn’t the hospital?”
“No.”
He gives me one long look like Please, can we drop it, before reaching for the laptop to resume the movie.
As much as I’d like to ignore what’s just happened and go back to our much-needed date night, I can’t pretend like Liam’s guardedness doesn’t bother me.
Since we’ve been together, Liam’s avoided telling me almost anything about his past.
Sure, we talk about residency and our dreams for the future, but never about his life back in England. Nothing about his childhood, or his family. Things most couples talk about. Should talk about.
I’ve tried to ask, but he usually shuts the conversation down within the first few seconds, making it clear it’s not a subject he wants to broach. At least not with me.
I understand that whatever it is, it’s upsetting to him, and I want to be sensitive to that. But I hate feeling like I’m left on the outside looking in, like there are parts of himself he’s not willing to share with me.
We live together. We love each other. We talk about getting married someday. Shouldn’t this be something he opens up to me about? Isn’t that what a relationship is all about? Confiding in each other? Being transparent? Messy parts and all?
I place my hand over his. “Liam, please. Can you just tell me what the phone call was about?”
He shifts his weight, trying and hesitating to speak before finally he says, “It was my sister.”
My stomach leaps into my throat, surprise stealing my breath.
Liam has a sister?
I think of all the times he could have mentioned this. Not even a casual Hey, I have a sister, or One time my sister and I…? My skin prickles, a heavy discomfort settling behind my navel.
“You have a sister?” I ask.
Slowly, he nods. “Felicity is seventeen years younger than me. Probably a last-ditch effort to save my parents’ marriage,” he adds with a humorless laugh.
I sit back on the couch, digesting this new particle of information. But I’m not sure where to start. With the fact that whatever his sister said is upsetting him. Or that we’ve been together for over a year, and this is the first time I’m hearing of said sister.
“Are you close?” I ask.
“She’s eleven, so we don’t exactly have a lot in common,” he says. “But I try to check in when I can.”
“Why did she call?” I ask. “Did something happen?”
His gaze dips into his lap, and I can feel him slipping away. The man I was about to have sex on the couch with moments earlier is somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere I can’t reach him.
“She says my parents are fighting again and she wants me to come home,” he says. “But she knows I can’t.”
I frown. “Why not?”
He rubs his palm down the side of his face, dragging the skin with it. “When I was eighteen, right before I left for uni, my dad and I got into a fight.” He pauses, swallowing. “He told me I wasn’t welcome back home. Ever.”
My insides clench. “Ever?”
His eyes darken, the muscles around his mouth tightening in confirmation.
“Why? What happened?” I ask.
Liam’s whole body stiffens as he draws in a long breath then pushes it back out. “My dad doesn’t treat my mum well.”
My chest throbs, blood pounding in my ears. “Does he—?”
“Let’s not talk about this anymore.” His voice is calm, even, but I can feel whatever door was momentarily opened shutting and locking between us. This conversation is over, his narrow eyes tell me, loud and clear.
Part of me wants to demand he let me in and that we continue this conversation whether he wants it or not.
It’s not fair to keep me in the dark like this.
But I also don’t want to push on buttons that I know are fragile, so I nod and pretend to return my attention to the movie, watching as Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum find their way back to each other.
But even later, as we brush our teeth in front of the mirror and climb into bed together, I can’t shake the sense that Liam feels further away than ever.