Chapter 7
Liam
Sophie emerges from Cal’s room, all sleep rumpled and wild curls, and walks straight to his overcomplicated espresso machine, which I still haven't figured out.
She carries two perfect lattes into the living room, silently placing one on the coffee table in front of me, then settling into the chair, tucking her legs underneath her, and taking a long sip.
Her eyes close, and I watch the way her chest rises and falls with her breathing.
Over the past week, we’ve fallen into this weird little rhythm.
I make sure she eats something that doesn’t come from a box, and she makes sure we don’t die of dysentery—I swear she scrubs the counters within an inch of their lives every day.
I keep track of where she drops her keys and her phone charger.
And every morning, she makes me the perfect caffeinated shot without a word, like it’s no big deal. But I kind of think it is.
She opens her eyes, and I quickly avert mine, back to my laptop. She looks around the table. “Do you see my—”
I hold up her ridiculous pink pen that she tucks into her messy bun, but it always falls out when she leans over.
“Thanks,” she says.
I’m still dying to ask her about her art.
As a kid, she was always drawing or painting—not just the typical kid stuff.
She created full-blown masterpieces and sophisticated concepts when she was barely fourteen.
After Cal and I went off to college, Cal told me that she had gotten into a private art high school and had her first solo gallery exhibit before graduating.
However, her pile of art supplies hadn’t moved since she arrived.
I didn’t understand this ‘content assistant’ thing she was doing, which didn’t seem related to art, but I didn’t ask.
After all, I hadn’t exactly been open about being dumped from the Iron Cats, so I guess neither of us was ready to talk about what was really going on.
Whatever this domestic routine was, it was temporary. Convenient. Two people crashing at the same place. Nothing more.
“We’re pathetic,” Sophie says, standing up after we’ve both been rotting on the couch, hands on her hips like she’s gearing up for a full-blown intervention. “We need to put on real pants and leave the house.”
I glance up, caught somewhere between amused and intrigued. “Yeah? Got somewhere in mind?”
She shrugs, but there’s a spark in her eyes that’s new. “Let’s walk down to that bar on the corner. One drink. Pretend we’re real people.”
The thought shouldn’t excite me this much, but it does. Not just the chance to get out—but getting out with her. “Alright,” I say, pushing upright. “But I need a shower first.”
“Same,” she says, cringing a little. “I honestly can’t remember the last time I showered.”
“Probably another sign we need to leave the house,” I reply, trying not to picture her in the shower—but now it’s all I can think about. And because there’s no way I’m standing up now without making things weird, I add, “You go first.”
“Welcome back, kid,” Frankie says as Sophie and I enter Bar None. “I wondered if you’d ended up in a ditch after the last time I kicked you out.”
My eyes dart to Sophie, but she seems unbothered by Frankie’s assessment. The truth is, after spending hours a night here the first week I was in town, I hadn’t been back in the two weeks since Sophie showed up. “Good to see you too, Frankie,” I say and don’t elaborate.
“Your usual?” Frankie asks.
“You have a usual at this bar?” Sophie asks, but it’s more of a tease than a judgment.
“I mean, it’s just a beer,” I say, then add, “And a shot of tequila.” Then repeat until I pass out in Cal’s bed, I think, and I feel a little embarrassed by past Liam’s drinking behavior.
“Make it two,” Sophie says to Frankie.
Frankie sets our drinks on the bar. Sophie passes me a tequila shot before picking up her own.
“To leaving the house,” she toasts, and we clink our glasses.
I watch the creamy column of her neck as she tips back to shoot the drink.
Her curls spill down her back, and her cheeks flush when the alcohol hits her tongue. My mouth goes dry.
“What?” she asks, setting the empty glass down on the bar and sucking the lime between her teeth.
“Nothing,” I say quickly and take my shot.
“Liam!” a woman calls from the back corner of the bar. Cal’s downstairs neighbor, whom I’d met before he left.
“Is that Liv?” Sophie asks, waving back. She grabs her beer and heads towards the booth where Liv is sitting with her eccentric roommate and some other guy.
“Sophie?” Liv stands as we approach the table, pulling Sophie into a hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh,” Sophie says. “Cal said I could stay at his place any time I needed, so…I’m crashing there while he’s away.”
“I thought you were crashing there?” Liv turns towards me, and my insides tighten.
“Liam and I go way back,” Sophie explains before I can answer. “He’s like another brother. We’re coexisting.”
I can’t explain why Sophie’s assessment stings.
It’s one thing for me to remind myself we’re just coexisting—it’s another thing to hear her dismiss us so casually to someone else.
We are just coexisting. I’m sleeping on the couch, and we just circle each other all day.
So she’s not wrong, but do I want her to be?
“Yeah, it’s cool,” I say.
“You two want to join us?” Liv asks, and as she gestures toward her companions in the big round booth. “You remember my roommate Andy?”
The perky blonde waves from the booth. “Hey.”
“And this is Owen, my fiancé.” Liv gazes at him with hearts in her eyes. “I can’t believe I get to say that for real now.”
My eyes snag on the guy—the same one I met in Cal’s lobby, the so-called fake boyfriend.
Except judging by the way he’s glued to Liv—and the rock on her finger—there’s nothing fake about it.
Sure, I’ve spent most of the past few weeks drunk or hungover, but I’m sure it was only three weeks ago I was giving her some pathetic baseball-as-love pep talk. Guess it worked.
“You’re engaged?” Sophie asks, grabbing her hand and inspecting the ring.
“We kind of did things a little backward,” Owen says sheepishly, holding out his hand to shake mine. “Good to see you again, Liam.”
“Perfect for us,” Liv corrects. “Pretending to be engaged was exactly what we needed to figure out we wanted it to be real.”
“Yeah, I have to listen to how real it is every night,” Andy says, making a gesture with her hands I haven’t seen since middle school, but everyone else seems to be used to her antics and ignores her.
Before I can suggest we find our own table, Sophie settles in by Liv. Leaving me to take the seat next to Andy, who greets me with a wink.
“I met Sophie,” Liv explains to Owen, “when Cal invited Andy and me to her gallery exhibition here in the City, what? Almost three years ago?”
Sophie nods, tight-lipped.
“Three years ago?” Owen asks. “That’s impressive for someone so young.”
“That wasn’t even her first one,” Andy supplies. “Sophie is an art prodigy.”
“Cal likes to blow things out of proportion.” Sophie takes a casual sip of her beer, but I’m confused.
Sophie is an art prodigy. She was taking college-level art classes in middle school, and her parents had a framed ink drawing of hers that looked like a photograph—one she’d done when she was six.
Even if she hasn’t painted in a while, that doesn’t change her skill.
“What kind of art?” Owen asks, taking a sip of his own drink.
“Large-scale abstracts as a visual interpretation of emotional memory,” Sophie answers, but her voice has lost all its warmth. She sounds like a robot repeating a well-rehearsed speech.
“Huh,” Owen muses, “Sounds interesting.”
No, it sounds like bullshit. Sophie is so much more than a cliché academic stereotype.
Liv swipes through her phone before handing it over to Owen. “This is her work.”
Sophie’s eyes flick towards the door like she wants to escape. I try to catch her eye to let her know I’m ready to bolt with her if she gives the word.
“Wow, these are really striking,” Owen says, scrolling through the photos. He looks up at Sophie. “I might know someone who’d be interested in commissioning something like this—my client, Senator Langford, is furnishing her DC apartment.”
Sophie shifts in her seat. “I mean, I’m not really…I haven’t been taking on new work lately.” She takes a sip of her beer.
“Just thought I’d mention it,” Owen says. “She’s got great taste and a good budget for the right piece.”
Sophie nods noncommittally. “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.”
Her posture shifts, slumping forward a little, as she picks at the label of her beer.
The light in her eyes has dimmed. Owen scrolls through the photos on Liv’s phone, tossing out comments about his client’s taste for high-end abstract art.
I don’t know why his praise rattles her, but I want to reach across the table and reassure her. Instead, I fist my hands in my lap.
“How is your brother?” Liv asks, seemingly not noticing Sophie’s shift in demeanor. “Have either of you heard from him since he left?”
Cal still doesn’t know Sophie is living in his apartment, much less with me, and I’m not sure how he’ll react when he finds out. Or maybe I do.
“Oh, you know Cal,” Sophie says with a shrug. “Radio silence for weeks, then suddenly he’ll FaceTime, and you better be available. Everything’s on his terms.”
“Older siblings,” Liv laughs. “We’ve got them too,” she gestures between her and Owen. “Same controlling energy, just without the humanitarian mission. What about you, Liam?”
“Just me,” I say, tipping my beer. “My mom said I was all she could handle. That’s why I practically lived at Cal and Sophie’s growing up.”
“Cal mentioned you’re a big-time ballplayer?” Owen says.
Sophie’s eyes snap to mine. “Liam was a high school All-American, and no one’s beaten his home run record at our high school to this day,” she starts, not looking away.
“He played varsity all four years, got recruited by a bunch of top D1 programs, he hit over .300 in college, and got drafted after his junior year—third round. And he can still gun a runner out at home from the outfield.”
I can hardly swallow. I won’t lie, listening to Sophie list off my stats makes my dick hard, but it also makes my insides flip a little, and that’s a feeling I’m less accustomed to.
Sophie finally breaks our gaze, turning to Owen. “So, yeah, he’s a ballplayer, not an exaggeration.”
“Clearly,” Owen nods. “You still play?”
I open my mouth with the same answer I’d been using for weeks—I’m taking a break—but the words die on my tongue.
But something about the way Sophie looked so deflated—like the fact that she was a little uncertain, suddenly changed her value—made me want to tell the truth.
“Actually, I was just cut,” I say, and Sophie’s breath catches. “My agent says there’s still a shot I could get picked up mid-season if a roster spot opens up. But I’m thirty-one, I’ve got a nagging knee injury, and I’m too much of a risk for teams to take seriously anymore.”
I shrug and take a long sip of my beer. Out of my periphery, Sophie’s hand opens and closes, almost as if she wants to reach for me. An uncomfortable silence settles over the table. I didn't mean to drag down the mood, just to tell Sophie that whatever she was going through was okay.
“What about you, Andy?” I say, trying to change the subject. “Any siblings getting in your business?”
“Probably,” she says, popping the pineapple chunk from her very pink beverage into her mouth.
“Probably?” Sophie asks, eyebrow lifted.
“Andy had a less-than-traditional upbringing,” Liv explains, smiling.
“My parents are part of a traveling performance troupe,” Andy says. “I grew up on the road, and I can still walk on stilts.”
“What?” Sophie asks, laughing. “What kind of traveling performance troupe?”
“Count Voltaire’s Cirque des Merveilles.” Andy drags her hands through the air like she’s illuminating the marquee.
“Like a traveling circus?” I ask, and Andy nods.
“But how does growing up in a circus relate to siblings?” Owen asks, and I admit, we are all hanging on her explanation.
“I think this conversation is going to require another round of drinks.” Liv chuckles. “I’ll grab refills.”
Sophie stands to let Liv out, and I can’t help but notice her gaze flick to the sliver of space next to me, like she’d like to move to my side of the booth. And, damn, I want her to. I want to feel her body next to mine, to tuck her close. But she changes her mind and sits back down.
“My parents think their partnership was created on a higher plane,” Andy begins.
“They’re deeply in love but also consensually non-monogamous.
They believe sex and love are separate experiences.
My mom had other partners in the troupe—like Marv the illusionist. If I couldn’t find her in our RV, she was in his.
My dad, though, liked the townies. He’d go out with the other musicians on our last night in each town and disappear until sunrise, stumbling back just as the caravan pulled out.
A few times, my mom had to pull over and scoop him up from the roadside.
They’d kiss hello, and we’d roll on to the next town.
So while I don’t know of any siblings, I’m pretty sure there’s a mini Edward Vale in Albuquerque or Des Moines or somewhere. ”
Liv returns to the table, expertly balancing five shot glasses between her fingers. She sets them down on the table and holds one up. Everyone else grabs a glass.
“To siblings!”