Chapter 41
I’ve officially lived with Liam one month today, and I had no idea life could be this good, that love could feel so sweet.
We live our own lives, working, spending time with friends and family.
I try to see my mom at least once or twice a week, and things are slowly getting easier. Dare I say, fun at times?
There are nights Liam works late at the studio or bar, but we always find each other at night twining our bodies together, becoming one until we drift to sleep.
With each passing day, Liam has shared more of his truths and I hoard them like the priceless treasures they are.
I crave every detail about his life, from the most memorable moments to the crumbs that he would consider unremarkable, but I consider precious because they’re part of his story.
It’s funny when I look back on the months since we first met. I should have known immediately Liam was never, could never be just a friend. No, that’s not true. I knew, but life has a funny way of taking its time, shaping us into who we each needed to be for the other.
The bed is empty next to me, bright morning sunlight spilling in through the window, letting me know it’s still early. Rolling, I inhale the scent of Liam on his pillow, smile into the soft fabric, and crawl out of bed to start my day.
A mug of tea sits on the kitchen counter, like Liam knew I’d be up any minute and he wanted it to be perfect for me. I bring it to my lips, testing the temperature. Still warm. Perfect.
Scanning my surroundings, I listen for any sounds indicating where Liam might be in the house when my eyes track movement on his back deck.
Liam stands, shirtless, arms braced on the deck railing head tipped to the sky.
I think about the time I watched him play piano, how he looked like an angel.
But right now, with the sun shining on his skin he looks like a god, a deity who has earned my devotion.
I make my way outside quietly so as not to disrupt his moment of peace. At the sound of the door, Liam glances back, and a smile breaks across his face.
“Want some company?”
“I always want your company,” he says, taking my hand and guiding me to a chair.
He situates me onto his lap, just the way we like it.
Even when we’re doing nothing but sitting, we want to be as close as possible.
I quietly sip my tea, content to listen to the birds singing to one another from the trees.
“What were you thinking just now, before I came out? It looked intense.”
I coast my fingertips along his jaw, the shell of his ear, the hair at his temple, and his eyes fall closed. He doesn’t answer me right away, leaning into my touch.
“You. It’s always you.” Opening his eyes, he takes my hand and presses it flat against his chest, where I can feel the steady, insistent beat beneath my palm.
“I’ve read hundreds of poems about love.
Memorized some of them. And I still couldn’t find the right words for what happens to me when you walk into a room.
Tell me this isn’t magic,” he says. “Tell me there’s another word for whatever this is, because I’ve been trying to find one and I can’t. ”
I don’t tell him it isn’t magic. I press my hand harder against his chest and feel his heart. “I stopped trying to break the spell months ago,” I whisper. “Now, I just fall deeper and deeper with each passing day.”
Liam studies me, emerald eyes moving between mine and he smiles softly.
I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of his smiles.
The ones when he’s trying to charm the pants off me, that lopsided one when he’s being a big goof, and the one that’s reserved just for me, like he’s wearing right now.
That’s my favorite smile, like he’s got nowhere else to be and no one else he’d rather be looking at.
He kisses my nose, and pulls me closer to nuzzle into him.
“What are your plans today?” he asks after several long seconds.
I sigh, an exaggerated beleaguered sound. “Laundry. I’ve been slacking since somebody can’t keep their hands off me.” I squeeze his ticklish spot that I only recently discovered and he yelps. “What about you?”
“It’s a beautiful day. Thought about taking a ride. Wanna come?”
Going on a ride with Liam sounds like a slice of heaven, but the laundry really is piled high. If I don’t wash clothes soon, I’ll have to walk around naked. Then neither of us will ever get anything done.
“You go without me. I’ll whip us up something for lunch when you get back.”
I climb from his lap and he stands, pressing a quick kiss to my lips, then to each cheek and heads inside. Sitting in the spot he just left, I watch Mutt in the field and finish my tea.
“Mutt is a good boy, yes he is. The bestest boy with the sloppiest kiss,” I sing, while folding T-shirts. Mutt watches me from his bed, tail wagging in approval.
Heading to our bedroom, I’m still humming my silly little made up song while I put clothes away.
As I pass Liam’s nightstand, my eyes land on his phone still lying there, plugged into the charger.
Liam’s always leaving his phone lying around.
I bet his screen time is insanely low in comparison to mine.
I’m just stepping away when it lights up with a text notification.
Liam’s never given me a reason to be nosy. Once he started opening up to me, I trusted him, full stop. But my eyes betray me by reading the words on the screen anyway.
Rhonda Pierce
We miss you in Nashville. The kids ask about you all the time.
What. The. Fuck.
I drop onto the edge of the bed, phone trembling in my hand, and scan the words over and over.
Who is Rhonda? And who the hell are these kids that ask about Liam.
You read all the time about men who have entirely separate families in other cities and take years to get caught. That’s not what this is, right?
I feel like I might vomit, and all I can hear is the sound of my pulse, the hammering of my heart and a sharp ringing sound. Squeezing my eyes shut, I work to gain composure.
“Stop it,” I say aloud. “Think rationally about this.” I know this is me projecting. My body is responding like this because of a lying ex-boyfriend. But Liam isn’t Alan.
As calmly as possible, I walk back to the living room and open my laptop. It takes me three tries to get the words typed correctly, but when I hit the return button, several articles populate. I click the first one and skim the page.
Rhonda Pierce, founder and director of the One Note Foundation, will host a fundraising gala this fall. The Nashville-based nonprofit connects at-risk teens with professional musicians for mentoring and music instruction.
Relief, an all-encompassing feeling, washes over me. Rhonda isn’t some long forgotten significant other raising kids that look like Liam. But why not tell me about something this special?
I jump at the sound of a door opening and closing, then Liam shouting, “Honey, I’m home.” He chuckles aloud and comes around to sit next to me. “You watching that hockey show again?” he asks, motioning at the laptop perched on my thighs.
Wordlessly, I turn the screen for him to read the article.
His eyes skim down the screen and his face falls slack.
“Why is someone named Rhonda texting that the kids miss you? Then I google and find this.”
Liam slumps so his head is in his hands. “It’s just something I used to help with. Nothing, really.”
“Liam.” I close my laptop and he straightens to look at me, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“I used to volunteer. Taught some kids guitar, mentored them, whatever they needed. It was good for a while.” He pauses, and I can feel the shame radiating off him before he says the next part.
“Then it wasn’t. Back in the fall, you know I was in a bad place.
” I nod. “Well, I took it out on the kids. Lost my patience. Snapped at a few. Rhonda asked me to leave.”
“Have you talked to her since?”
Liam shrugs, and takes a deep breath. “She’s texted. That’s about it. Whenever she calls I send her to voicemail.”
Standing, I grab his forearm and pull him up. “I want to see it. Will you take me there?”
“Take you?”
“Yes. This laundry can wait. This Rhonda woman obviously cares about you. By the way you’re acting, this place meant a lot to you. Take me.”
Liam follows me to the bedroom, but hovers in the doorway while I change from my pajamas.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks.
“Of course.”
Liam walks over to the nightstand and unlocks his phone and grimaces. “I thought we might take the bike since it's so nice out, but the weather app is showing a few patches of rain later on. My truck needs an oil change. Mind if we take the G-wagon?”
Two and a half hours and a fast food stop later, we’re pulling into the parking lot of a warehouse, garage doors painted electric blue. A handful of kids mill about outside and before we’re even across the parking lot I hear drums and the strum of a guitar.
The entire drive, Liam regaled me with stories about kids he’s met over the years. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him lit up with so much pride.
He takes a minute to speak to the kids outside before he opens a metal door and guides me inside with a hand pressed gently to the small on my back.
“Liam!” two boys shout from a worn-out couch. Both of them are holding electric guitars.
When the boys say his name, more heads snap up. Several kids start talking at once surrounding us.
“Liam, where have you been?” a red-haired boy, face covered in freckles, asks. “You’ve been gone forever.”
“Yeah, dude, what’s up with that?” the kid next to him adds, hands up in a question.
“Allie and I decided you joined a cult. Everyone’s joining cults these days,” one girl drawls.
“Yeah, a sexy cult,” the tiny blonde next to her says through a giggle. Her audacity draws a laugh from me.
Liam tries to speak to each one of them, but we’re interrupted when a petite woman with the most beautiful silver pixie cut pushes through and steps right up to Liam punching him on the bicep.
“Damn, Rhonda,” Liam says, rubbing at the spot. “What did you do that for?”
“That was for worrying me.” Then she punches him again, this time lighter than the first one. “And that’s for not returning my phone calls.” Liam rubs at his arm while the woman plants her hands on her hips. “That’s the last one for now.”
I think I’m in love with Rhonda.
The kids have gradually scattered back to what they were working on, leaving Liam and me with Rhonda.
Turning to me, she extends her hand. “Pardon my rudeness. I’m Rhonda Pierce.”
“Cassie,” I say, taking her firm grip in mine.
“Cassie’s my girlfriend,” Liam explains, and the tiny “sexy cult” blonde girl groans audibly.
Sorry, kiddo, but he’s mine.
Rhonda walks us around, showing Liam all the changes she’s been able to make from donations. They’ve increased the amount of instruments and even walled up one area. The start of what will eventually be a mini recording studio can be seen through a window.
“And you still don’t know who the donations are from?” Liam asks.
“Not a clue. They come from an LLC with a name I didn’t recognize. Either way, I’m grateful.” Rhonda pauses, pinning Liam with a look. “Does this mean you’re back?”
Liam scratches at the back of his neck. “I dunno, Rhonda. I’d like to be, but—”
“But what?”
Liam opens his mouth to speak, but she puts a finger up.
“Let me finish. If you genuinely don’t want to help out here anymore, that’s one thing.
I’ll respect that. But if you’re doing this out of some sort of misplaced self-flagellation, well, that’s just silly.
There’s work to be done here, and you’re great at the job.
” Lowering her voice and talking from the corner of her mouth, she adds, “Between you and me, you’re the best volunteer we have. ”
“At least I still sent money.”
Rhonda shoots him a withering look and he winces.
“Look around us, Liam. We have money. What these kids need is your presence. Your time. Do you want to be part of this or not?”
Liam rolls back on his heels and looks around at the room, his face breaking into a smile as he watches the kids with the electric guitar, shredding away to an old Guns N’ Roses song.”
“Yeah, Rhonda. I’m back.”
“Good,” she says, and turns to me. “Now, what about you, missy. Will you be joining him?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her I’m not musical, but then I think of Austin. He’d have loved a place like this growing up. And I have plenty of knowledge and experience to bring to the table.
“Unless Liam needs a break from me, I’ll be here.”
Liam reaches out and links his pinky with mine. “Not a chance that’s happening.”
“Well, that settles things. Let’s run that background check. It only takes a few minutes.” Rhonda dusts her hands together like her work here is done.
Liam and I spend the next couple hours chatting with the teens in a happy cacophony of music that surrounds us. He’s already built up rapport with a lot of the kids, but I’m the newbie. I took my chances with the girl who wants my man, and gradually she’s warmed to me.
Earlier, Rhonda told me to store my purse in her office so I didn’t have to carry it around, and at the last minute I stuffed my phone in the side pocket so I could be fully present.
“Hey, somebody’s phone is going crazy in here,” one of the volunteers shouts from the doorway. “I think it’s from this little brown purse in here.”
I’m the owner of that little brown purse.
I tell the girls I’ll be right back and head to check my phone, an uneasy feeling settling in my gut.
Right before I slip it from my purse, Liam steps up behind me. “It’s Penny. She’s in labor. They’re at Creekwood General.”
No. It’s too soon. Penny’s just ending her seventh month. I know that’s not horribly early, but it creates a risk I don’t want for Penny or Austin. I rush to grab my purse, and Liam takes my hand which is shaking.
The volunteer who now stands right outside the office obviously heard everything. “I’ll let Rhonda know y’all have an emergency.”
Liam and I dash to the G-wagon, and as quickly as I can, I skim through my texts as Liam steps on the gas to get us to Penny. Most are from a very panicked Josie, so that’s who I respond to first.
We’re in Nashville. We’re heading back now.