11
It is one of those perfect fall days I’m always dreaming about.
I’m infused with the type of energy that usually comes only from a new idea. Except, I realize, as Liam chats happily while
we walk down the street, I don’t have an idea yet, and that’s a problem. I have zero clue what I’m going to create for Rita
Clementine.
I grip Liam’s elbow, and he stops.
“What am I going to make?”
He smirks. “You’ll figure it out. I know when I’m trying to start something new, I head outside, away from it all. That’s
actually when I get my best work done.”
I agree. A lot of the magic happens in thinking about the project, not in the doing. I pepper him with questions about Rita:
what she likes, what she expects to see, what would make her gasp in surprise. Liam is annoyingly tight-lipped and tells me
not to create from a place of expectation but a place of inspiration. I sigh because I know he’s right.
He takes me to a corner deli, and we eat the best roast beef on rye I’ve ever had. He shows me his favorite local museums, his go-to theater that plays late-night classic ?80s and ?90s movies, and the corner where he interviews the homeless population for an ongoing photography series. This side of the river is bright, colorful, dirty, and real. It’s everything and nothing like Chicago, and I love seeing it all through Liam’s eyes.
When the sun starts to descend and my feet are tired, we stop under a tree by a park to rest. “So, is there anyone special
in your life?” My words are light, but inside I’m desperate for him to say no.
He shrugs. “There was someone, yeah, but not anymore. You?”
I almost laugh. If he only knew. “I’ve never been in love.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stuff them back in,
but instead of feeling embarrassed, I feel relieved. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud before.”
“I won’t tell anyone.” His voice is soft, his lips are full, and I suddenly want to kiss him. “Though I do find that hard
to believe,” he adds.
“Why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure plenty of people have been in love with you.” His eyes are focused on my lips again.
My chest flutters at the word love on Liam Hale’s lips, but I just smile and tuck an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “You must have me confused with someone
else.”
“I don’t know, Harper. I think you could be a heartbreaker.”
My throat immediately goes dry. Liam Hale doesn’t know me. How can he see me as anything other than a loft crasher, a pest,
an interruption to his schedule? “Let’s hope so,” I joke.
He taps the back of his head gently against the tree trunk as he stares at me, and there is something pensive in his eyes, a secret I want to extract.
“Do you believe everything happens for a reason?” I ask. I’m not sure I believe in fate or destiny, but it seems possible
now. Everything seems possible today, as if I’ve stepped into another dimension where time and limitations no longer exist.
“Well, I try not to buy into clichés whenever humanly possible, but yeah, I guess I do believe everything happens for a reason.”
He smiles. “What about you?”
I move in closer, my knee brushing against his. “I’m beginning to think maybe yes.” When my knee touches his, I feel a jolt
in my stomach. I feel everything .
He rolls his head to gaze at me again, and my breath stops. Time stops. I want Liam to keep staring at me. Instead, he turns
away, then stands. “Are you up for a little more walking?”
I nod, too afraid I’ll blurt out something embarrassing. That my life in Chicago is so small: two roommates I don’t really
like, a job I’m not crazy about, no family close by, no real tethers or roots. Half the time I feel like I’m floating, like
I’m circling around what I want to become without any sort of plan or anchor in place. And now, in the span of a single day,
I have reunited with Kendall, I have an opportunity to change my career, and I have a connection to Liam that I’ve never felt
with anyone, male or female. Is it because I’m outside my comfort zone? Or is this where I truly belong? Do I want to keep
walking and figure out what all this means? Yes, I do. Yes.
Liam offers his arm, and I take it. We talk the whole way, until we cross over into Manhattan and grab falafel from his favorite street vendor. He buys a bottle of wine for later and we make our way back to Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge. He brings out his camera and snaps a photo of me. I don’t like having my picture taken, but with Liam, I find that I don’t really mind. I love the way he looks at me, studies me. I ask to take one of him, and then he expertly positions the camera to snap one of the two of us. My cheeks are flushed and cramped from so much smiling and talking.
We sit on a bench, and he asks for my hand. I give it to him willingly, as I’m coming to understand will be the way I am with
Liam: giving, open, trusting. So opposite of how I’ve been in the years since college.
“Close your eyes,” he says.
I do as I’m told, and he begins tracing words in the palm of my hand. I’m so caught off guard by the sensual zings ricocheting
off every nerve ending of my body that I miss the first three letters and ask him to begin again.
I concentrate and make out each letter, one by one. M-A-Y-I-K-I-S-S-Y-O-U? My eyes snap open and I nod, because it’s what
I’ve wanted him to do all day. I don’t understand why this is so easy or why we’ve been brought together, but when he cups
his hand behind my neck and pulls me closer, I melt.
His lips touch mine, and there is an entire other world there, one where I am not Harper in Chicago or Harper the artist but Harper the woman, being kissed by someone I’ve only just met. But we kiss as if we’ve been kissing our whole lives. Liam’s hands roam the length of my body, snaking under my jacket and sweater onto my bare, hot skin. I pull him into me, my fingers tugging on the hem of his shirt, and I am hungry for him in a way I’ve never been hungry for anything in my entire life.
Finally, I break free. My lips are swollen, my body hot. “Take me home,” I say, realizing that for the next week, his home
is my home too.
“As you wish.” He quotes my favorite movie, The Princess Bride , though he cannot possibly know how much I love that line. He extends his hand and I take it, the two of us walking back
to his loft, hand in hand.