Chapter Eighteen ZOE
Chapter Eighteen
Z OE
Rolling over the next morning, I was pleasantly surprised that I wasn’t immediately greeted by a pounding head and a dry mouth. What I was greeted by was a rambunctious Mira crawling up into bed with me.
“Good morning,” I whispered, opening my arms as she pushed herself under the blankets.
“You sleeped for so long,” she said.
I kissed the top of her head. “I know. I went to bed later than I usually do.”
She pulled back from my embrace and gently tugged at the hairs around my face. “You see some friends?”
I smiled. “Yup. They were very nice,” I told her. “We laughed and talked and had a girls’ night.”
“I’m a girl,” she proclaimed. “I come too.”
“Maybe when you’re older.” I tapped the tip of her nose with my finger. “Did you have a good sleepover on the couch?”
Mira nodded, then leaned in close and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I hold Liam,” she told me.
My heart squeezed, warmth seeping into my veins. “Did you?”
She nodded again, her fingers gently twirling a lock of my hair.
If I had seen a parade of naked men walking through the house, I would’ve been less shocked than by what I saw on that couch when I sneaked quietly through the front door.
I would’ve been less turned on too.
Why was it so stupid attractive that he was slowly letting her in? It had been easier when Liam fit into a tidy little box. When my definition of him was clear and crisp and left no room for negotiation.
But everything felt just a little muddier today. A bit more unclear.
From the outside, it didn’t look like much had changed. He had taken charge when I didn’t realize I needed a push, and he had given this precious little person a bit more space in the heart he kept hidden. But my entire perspective was altered. Again.
It was almost like someone had dialed in the focus on a camera. The details, hidden before by all the other things blurring my view, had become more precise.
“Did you have breakfast yet?” I asked Mira. A glance at the clock on the bedside table had my eyes widening a bit. I hadn’t slept past eight in months.
She nodded. “Liam made me cereal.”
I smiled. “What kind did you have today?”
“Toasty Crunch,” she said.
I leaned in to blow a raspberry on her neck, and she giggled. “Yum,” I told her. “Maybe I’ll have that too.”
Mira returned the gesture, attempting her own version, and I ended up with far more spit on my skin and much louder laughter. When I tickled her enough that she pulled back, I realized we weren’t alone anymore.
Liam was standing in the doorway, one broad shoulder braced against the frame and his arms crossed over his chest.
His face was inscrutable, and something about his eyes had my cheeks going warm. I thought about what Rochelle had said the night before.
Liam is a tough nut to crack because he never wants anyone to see what’s on the inside. You’ll know what that man feels when he does his damnedest to hide it from you.
“Morning.” I sat up, slowly extricating myself from Mira’s octopus arms. With hair everywhere, no bra on, and probably rocking some really great smudged mascara, I could only imagine how I looked to him.
And he was looking.
“Sorry if she woke you,” he said, voice a low rumble. “She sneaked upstairs when I had my back turned.” His green eyes followed the movement of my hands when I attempted to wrangle my hair into submission.
“It’s fine. I need to get up anyway.”
“Have fun?” he asked.
I nodded easily. “Thank you for arranging it.”
Instead of a “You’re welcome” or a peppering of questions, Liam grunted.
A small laugh escaped my lips.
“What?” he asked.
With him, it would have been so much easier to say it was nothing. In the past, that’s what I would have done. It’s what I did with Charles for years—brush aside what I was thinking because it was easier. Because it kept the peace, and we were both too busy and stretched too thin to add arguments into the mix.
With Liam, I didn’t want to do what I always did. So I took a deep breath and let my gaze linger on his.
No bullshit.
“I was wishing you came with a translation guide.”
At my admission, his face gave nothing away. Only the tiniest tic of his jawline and a slight inhale through his nose.
“What’s the fun in that?” he asked, then backed out of the doorway to head downstairs.
I flopped back into bed, a sigh escaping my lips and a few errant butterflies fluttering in my chest.
“No sleeping, Zoe,” Mira said, bouncing on the mattress. “Time to get up.”
I turned toward her. “Swim lessons today, right? Are you excited?”
“No.”
With a laugh, I rolled out of bed and tossed the blanket back over her head. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
But three hours later, I wanted to take back every word I’d said.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
On the other end of the phone, my mom whispered back: “I can’t see what we’re mad about.”
I’d called her to make sure I knew what to expect at Mira’s first appointment with the counselor, but I quickly got derailed when the backyard swim lesson turned into a never-before-tapped nightmare.
“Hang on. I’ll switch it around so you can see.” I flipped the camera so that it was aimed into the backyard. “The swim teacher is here,” I said. “Liam told me he’d handle the whole thing, so I’m trying to give him his space.”
My mom’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to see what I was showing her. When I panned the camera to the left, her jaw fell open. “Holy shit. Look at her ass.”
Yeah, I was looking. I couldn’t help it.
It was a work of art.
“I bet she does a lot of squats.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”
“What? She’s hot.”
Indeed, she was. The swim teacher, in the most basic terms, was a ten. Maybe an eleven.
Long, flowing brown locks that shone under the sun. Flawless golden skin over impressively toned muscles. Her legs were long, and underneath her simple black one-piece was some tasteful cleavage that had even me tilting my head to the side to study her proportions.
She slid into the pool like a mermaid, coiling all that hair onto the top of her head with a neat flick of her wrist. And when Liam said something, she tipped her head back and laughed, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth.
“Oh, sure, he’s so fucking funny,” I muttered.
He was sitting on the edge of the pool, his legs in the water and a dark shirt covering his chest. Mira was clinging to his arm, refusing to get in.
I chewed on my bottom lip, fighting the urge to go out there to help.
“What are you thinking so hard about, my girl?” Mom asked.
I flipped the camera around. “Nothing.”
She eyed me. “Lying helps no one, Zoe.”
“I bet she wakes up with her hair like that. Not a single strand out of place.”
Mom smiled. “Yours looks ... nice too.”
“I went out last night, and I haven’t showered yet.”
“I can tell.”
The instructor moved toward Liam and Mira, leaning in and speaking softly until Mira begrudgingly let go of Liam’s arm, then reached her hands out to the teacher.
She had a name, of course. And that was beautiful too.
Lizette De Luna.
Like angels and moonbeams and glitter all rolled up into one neat little package. With really great hair and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of.
“What’s the face?” Mom said.
I dredged up the words because there was no point in lying. “I feel like I’m in high school again. Watching the pretty girl get the attention from the popular athlete.”
My mom hummed. “I didn’t know that bothered you so much.”
“It didn’t,” I said truthfully. “But I was still aware of it. Knowing something is true doesn’t always mean you’re mad about it, you know? I was the quiet girl who was more focused on my homework than the boys. So they didn’t really notice me.”
Mira said something to Liam before she conceded her edge of the pool, and he listened before giving a short nod.
Into Lizette’s arms Mira went, but she clung to the woman’s neck.
Lizette backed into the pool, clearly trying to soothe a very nervous Mira. And, I swear, I would’ve watched them like a hawk, but Liam reached a hand behind his neck and tugged his T-shirt off.
I almost dropped my phone into the sink.
His back was all rippling muscles, his ink-covered arms and shoulders carved with a friggin’ chisel. His shoulders were wide and strong, his waist trim, and when he hopped down into the water and turned toward Mira, I caught my first glimpse of his chest and stomach.
The smattering of dark hair over his pecs and the thin line that led down the stacks of ab muscles had my heart fluttering unevenly deep inside my chest.
My mom cleared her throat, and I blinked a few times. “What did you say?” I asked, only slightly out of breath.
“Nothing.” Her eyes were knowing and the smile clear in her voice.
I covered my face. “Shut up.”
Despite my embarrassment, I couldn’t unglue myself from the window. Lizette was instructing Mira to kick, helping aim her body toward Liam, who waited with a patient almost smile and outstretched hands.
My mistake was moving slightly to the side, because the movement caught Liam’s attention. His eyes snapped to mine, and I couldn’t move out of sight quickly enough.
He arched an eyebrow, his lips curving up on one side when I narrowed my eyes.
Begrudgingly, I walked out of the kitchen and flopped onto the couch. “This is not me, Mom. I don’t get jealous of other women. Especially not for something as superficial as their looks.”
She hummed knowingly again. “No, but you’ve also never been in this kind of situation before.”
“No shit.” I rubbed my forehead. “Until last night, I didn’t realize how I’d slipped into a tired-mom rut until I was out with some other moms. All I was thinking about was surviving the day-to-day.”
“Taking care of yourself is vital when you’ve got a little human depending on you.” She had her counselor face on.
“I know. It’s just ... easy to forget. I feel guilty.”
She made a sound of understanding. “Guilt is just a feeling, honey. It’s not a bad feeling that we have to avoid. It means you care about Mira. But just don’t get so stuck in it that you can’t move forward.”
I nodded. “Feelings aren’t facts,” I said, something I’d heard from her for years.
She smiled. “I’m glad he did that for you,” she said.
I dropped my hand and stared for a second. “I am too, but ... it’s confusing. I’ve always known certain things to be true about Liam, and now ...” My voice trailed off.
“Now they’re not true?”
“That’s the thing. He’s still kind of a dick. But he’s not. Or he pretends like he’s a dick, but he’s actually a very thoughtful person.” I groaned. “That’s what I don’t know.”
“From what you’ve told me, he’s got very high walls up. He’s probably never had to let them down before.”
I sighed. “The highest walls. I’ve heard him say over and over that he never wanted a family, that it’s not for him. But I have no idea why he says that or, even worse, why he genuinely believes it.”
Silence bloomed between my mom and me as she studied my face. I had her eyes, and it was unnerving to see them pinned on me with such precision.
“You like him. That’s why this is triggering you.”
There was no accusation in her voice, but it wasn’t really a question either. Just a statement of fact.
This time it was harder to slip into the no-bullshit mode. My mom could always read my face, which was a double-edged sword. She was also a therapist, so I couldn’t talk my way around something she knew to be true.
“I don’t want to like him, if that helps.” Maybe I sounded a little petulant about it.
She smiled. Then she left me space to continue.
“And I don’t know that I trust what I feel about him.”
“That’s an interesting distinction. Tell me more about that.”
“Are you shrinking me right now?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I laughed. But the smile faded quickly. Next to me on the couch was the blanket that I’d used to cover Liam and Mira when they slept the night before.
“Rosa and her friends have this book club,” I told her. “And they read all these spicy books. She always tells me about them because, until recently, I never joined in. Every once in a while, I pick one up because I like to read a little bit before I fall asleep.”
My mom smiled. “I can’t tell you how many times I found you with a book on your pillow when you were little.”
I loved that she didn’t ask where I was going with this story.
“I read one last month where the hero and heroine get snowed into a cabin together. He’s this tattooed bad boy, you know? Absolutely not her type. But they’re stuck in this place, and she has no choice but to see him for who he really is.” I swallowed. “And of course they have great sex with simultaneous orgasms—which I still highly doubt happens in real life. But they never would have if they hadn’t been trapped there. The forced proximity makes it impossible for her to write him off anymore. Even if the real world is waiting to mess everything up once they walk out the door.”
Understanding filled my mom’s face.
Cynicism was new for me, the product of a messy divorce and a fizzled relationship that hadn’t been able to survive those equally messy real-world things.
I didn’t want to be cynical. I wanted to feel hope and excitement and butterflies. I wanted all the things that came with them.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Or I couldn’t fully trust it when the flutterings of hope appeared.
Absently, I rubbed at my breastbone. “But how do you know it’s real? Outside this house, Liam and I could hardly stand each other. I’ve known him for over a decade, and not once have I felt a spark like this.”
“Not one?” she asked gently.
A burst of sound came from the pool—Lizette’s angelic laughter—and I pinched my eyes shut. “Okay, some little ones. But I was practically married when I met him. And afterward ... I was so focused on how much he aggravated me that I never let myself stop and think what was behind it.”
Mom had a soft smile on her face while she listened. “First,” she started, “simultaneous release is not a myth—”
“Stop,” I interrupted. “I swear, if you say anything about your sex life with Dad, I’ll chop my ears off.”
She laughed. “And second, there’s nothing wrong with being cautious about Liam. A guarded person usually has a reason for being that way, and they can hurt people whether they mean to or not, simply because they’re so used to protecting their own heart.”
“I sense a but coming,” I told her.
“But just because you two are in this situation with Mira doesn’t mean that real, beautiful feelings can’t blossom from such an unexpected place. Don’t let the unlikely nature of it keep you from the possibility of the kind of love and family you’ve always wanted.”
There was an ache I’d had for so long that it was almost impossible to find the words to name it. Like I was missing a vital piece of myself, but I wasn’t sure where to find it.
Even with everything I’d experienced, it was elusive. Frustratingly out of reach.
My whole life, I’d wanted love and family, to be surrounded by that unconditionally safe feeling. My parents had it, and even before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I wanted that.
Thankfully, my parents had raised me to believe that I was enough on my own, and I’d never doubted that. Charles hadn’t chipped away at my self-esteem; he’d simply made me mourn the time I’d wasted with someone who wasn’t right for me.
“ Unlikely is right,” I said. I stood and wandered over to the slider. “ Impossible seems more accurate.”
When I saw Mira push off the step, her eyes covered in bright-pink goggles, her head straining to stay above water as she kicked toward Liam, I couldn’t help but laugh.
She was smiling so big that she kept swallowing water.
Liam, with his big arms outstretched, snatched her up and tossed her into the air. She shrieked with delight.
“Something changed last night,” I said.
“What do you think that is?” my mom asked.
I watched them for a few more moments. “I don’t know, exactly. But he’s different with her.”
And maybe with me too, if I was willing to admit that out loud. I didn’t, though. Because when Liam pressed a quick, impulsive kiss to the top of Mira’s head, I couldn’t help the soaring, elated feeling from taking wing under my ribs.
The sheer weightlessness of it was savage and relentless.
Terrifying in its intensity.
And I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to stop it.