Chapter 4
Sophie
My crush on Liam Blake started the first day my brother brought him home for dinner when I was ten years old. And I didn’t understand why one of my stupid brother’s stupid friends made my tummy feel weird.
They were the only two freshmen on the varsity baseball team—Cal made it because he was tall, and Liam because he was a better baseball player at fourteen than most of the seniors.
Back then, Liam had a mop of dirty blonde hair, a smattering of freckles across his nose, and he called my mom “ma’am. ”
But now Liam Blake is lying in my brother’s bed, naked except for a very small pair of black boxer briefs that do absolutely nothing to hide his enormous erection.
His chest is broad and tanned, his thighs thick with muscle.
He has the same messy hair and freckles he had as a teen.
As I stare at him, trying to make sense of what the hell is happening, I realize he still makes my tummy feel weird.
“Soph?” Liam says, blinking and climbing out of the bed.
“What are you doing here?” His voice is soft and filled with concern.
He reaches a hand across the bed to me, and a strange part of me wants to go to him, to have him pull me against that sturdy chest and tell me everything is going to be okay.
“What the hell are you doing here?!?” I shout instead. “And can you put on some fucking pants?” I cross my arms over my chest and attempt to tear my eyes away from his body, but fail miserably. I can’t stop staring.
“Sophie, I’m so sorry,” Liam says, fumbling with his jeans. “I didn’t know you were…it was…I didn’t mean to,” he tries to get out. I can’t help but notice he’s having trouble buttoning his jeans. Suddenly, my mouth goes a little dry.
“Why are you here, Liam?” I ask again, not making eye contact.
“Cal’s letting me stay here while he’s on assignment,” Liam says. “He didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Yeah, well,” I wrap my arms around my body a little tighter, “I didn’t tell him I was coming.” My voice tips up a little at the end, and I swallow before my eyes can fill with tears.
“Are you okay?” Liam asks, and there is so much care in his three little words.
“Yeah,” I steel myself, “My living situation just got a little…crowded. Cal told me if I ever needed a place to stay, I could come here.”
“Of course,” Liam nods, “I’ll get my stuff packed up.”
“And leave?” I ask, suddenly not wanting that to be the case.
“Um, well, it's four am,” Liam says, biting his bottom lip and looking around. “Maybe I could chill on the couch until the sun comes up, and then I’ll get out of your hair?”
“Were you going to stay here the whole time Cal’s away?”
“Yeah, I’m kinda…between things right now.
” Liam stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets, a lock of hair falling over his downcast eyes.
I think about the house in Santa Cruz—and Marshall’s delusional, pretentious, faux-spiritual justification for why I should be okay with him sleeping around—and I know I’m never going back there.
So I guess I’m kind of between things right now, too.
I go into Cal’s walk-in closet and come out with a stack of blankets and an extra pillow. I hold them out to Liam.
“Okay, well, we’ll figure it out in the morning.”
Liam nods and takes the stack from me. Our fingers brush, and I remember the way his hands wandered all over my body just moments before.
The way he squeezed my boobs just this side of painful, and how he whispered that he wanted to make me come.
My whole body shudders, and I hope it’s still too dark for Liam to see. “See you in the morning.”
Liam nods again and turns to the bedroom door. Just before he leaves the room, he turns back around and smiles a lazy half-smile that instantly makes heat pool in my core.
“Nice sweatshirt, Soph,” he says and walks out, closing the door behind him.
I look down at the oversized Iron Cats hoodie—the minor league team he plays for.
I’ve been following his career for years.
He’d made the All-Star team in his first year in the minors and led the league in on-base percentage for two consecutive seasons.
I wonder why he’s crashing at Cal’s in the middle of the season?
I tuck my nose into the neck of his sweatshirt. It smells a bit like beer, but mostly like the musky, spicy scent I’d woken up wrapped in. I should probably change now that I know it’s not my brother’s sweatshirt.
I glance at the bedroom door before crawling into bed and turning off the light.