15. Zoey #2
His expression had gone still, focused. He was looking at me the way he looked at something he intended to remember.
The attention rolled across my skin, making goosebumps jump up along my skin. My body reacted before my brain could intervene. A dangerous amount of heat pooled low in my stomach, and I had the immediate and deeply inconvenient urge to jump him again.
Stop it. I scolded myself. Absolutely stop that.
Liam moved again; three calm steps carried him across the kitchen.
He stopped in front of me.
Up close he smelled like what I had come to know was him. Soap and cedar. Clean, salty sweat.
Before I could react, his hand was on my waist, and he was kissing my cheek.
“You’re stunning, Zoey,” he murmured.
I smiled. Just enough. “Thank you.”
That was it. Because if I gave him even one inch of emotional engagement right now, my brain was going to start doing extremely irresponsible math about the rest of my life.
He watched me for a moment, then stepped back.
“I should get back to Pine Hollow,” he said. “I’ve got a few things to check before guests start moving around.”
Relief and something else I didn’t want to think about twisted together in my chest.
“That makes sense,” I said.
He nodded once.
Then his attention shifted to my laptop. “Work waiting?”
“A horrifying amount.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Good luck.”
“I’m going to need it.”
He grabbed his keys off the counter and walked to the door. “Can I text you later?”
My brain attempted to overanalyze that question immediately. I shut it down.
“Sure,” I said. “But I’m going to be buried in tickets all day.”
“I figured. No rush to respond.”
From the living room, Markie shouted suddenly, “BYE, DOG.”
Liam looked over.
Markie leaned forward on his perch. “GOOD DOG.”
Liam nodded once in solemn acknowledgment. “Bye, Markie.” Then he looked back at me. “Bye, Zoey.”
“Bye.”
The moment the door closed behind him, silence descended on my apartment.
I stood there, holding a mug of coffee and wearing nothing but underwear while my life attempted to reorganize itself around the concept of that man walking out the door.
“DOG,” Markie said thoughtfully.
“Yes,” I muttered.
I stared at the closed door for one more second, then I walked back to my desk and opened my laptop.
Slack exploded again immediately. Exactly what I needed.
Work.
Work was safe.
I was knee deep in a ticket when my phone buzzed on my desk. I glanced down automatically.
Mom.
I stared at the screen for a moment. The cruise had apparently reached cell service again. Markie leaned over the back of the couch.
“INCOMING PROBLEM.”
Apparently, he could sense my emotional state.
“Accurate,” I muttered before I answered, “Hi, Mom.”
Her voice arrived at full volume. “Zoey! Finally. I’ve been trying to reach you for ages.”
I checked the call log.
One missed call.
“Yes,” I said. “It must have been a very dramatic forty-five minutes.”
“I was worried,” she said immediately. “You never don’t answer your phone.”
There it was. Not hello. Not how are you. Immediate escalation into concern, which in my mother’s hands usually meant I was about to be made responsible for managing the fact that she had feelings.
I rubbed my forehead. “I’m at work.”
“You work from home.”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re home.”
“That’s… technically correct.”
Markie flapped his wings once. “TECHNICALLY.”
I shot him a look. On the other end of the line, my mother sighed in the long-suffering way that suggested she had personally carried the burden of my entire personality for twenty-seven years.
“You should see the boat,” she said suddenly. “It’s enormous. Twelve restaurants. Twelve, Zoey. I didn’t even know what to pick.”
“That sounds very stressful.”
“I had to make reservations three days in advance.”
My Slack notification pinged again.
Mom continued talking without pause. “And the buffet is unbelievable. Seafood, carving stations, desserts everywhere. I keep thinking you would love it.” She paused briefly. “You should have come.”
The familiar tug of guilt slid quietly into the conversation.
Not enough to be obvious. Just enough to hook. That was one of her better skills. She rarely came at me directly. She preferred implication. A soft little line laid across the doorway so I could trip over it myself.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” I said carefully.
“Well,” she said, “it would be better if you were here.”
Markie leaned forward. “GUILT DETECTED.”
“Please stop narrating my life,” I hissed.
“What was that?” my mother asked.
“Nothing.”
She sighed again. “I just hate the idea of you all alone out there.”
I stared at the wall. “I’m not alone.”
“Well,” she said, in the tone that meant she absolutely believed I was. “You know what I mean.”
Yes, I did. My mother had spent most of my life treating solitude as a temporary problem that needed solving. She preferred solutions that involved me rearranging my life around whatever situation she currently needed help with.
It had been like that when I was a kid too, just in smaller, meaner ways.
We were “close,” which in practice often meant she had access to me at all times.
My attention. My labor. My ability to stay calm when she was not.
My willingness to handle all the practical things she didn’t want to deal with.
The story she liked best was that it had always just been us.
The less flattering version was that “just us” had mostly meant there was no one else between me and the responsibility.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I was thinking you could come stay with me for a while when I get back.”
I closed my eyes. There it was. The reason for the call.
“Mom,” I said gently, “we talked about this.”
“I know, but?—”
“I moved here because I needed some space.”
There was a short silence.
My mother was very good at hearing boundaries. She was less enthusiastic about respecting them.
“I just don’t understand why you’d want to be so far away,” she said.
I wanted to be so far because if I stayed close, every small crisis would become my responsibility again. Because I had spent years solving problems that were never actually mine to solve. Because sometimes loving someone meant not letting them lean on you for everything.
None of those explanations would get me anywhere with her.
“I’m doing well here,” I said instead.
Another pause.
“Well,” she said finally. “If you say so.”
She’d perfected that particular sentence over decades. It meant I disagree and will revisit this later. It also meant I was being filed temporarily under difficult, ungrateful, or confused.
“Text me when you’re done with work,” she added.
“Okay, Mom.”
“All right,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Slowly, I put my phone down.
Markie tilted his head at me. “SUCCESS.”
“That felt suspiciously like setting a boundary,” I said.
“BOUNDARY.”
I rubbed my face with both hands.
The conversation hadn’t been dramatic. Still, I could already feel the familiar aftertaste of guilt settling somewhere in the back of my brain. It was amazing how a five-minute phone call could make me feel like I had just failed a test I didn’t remember signing up for.
My laptop chimed again, and only then did I realize I had been pacing.
Right. Slack, work.
Normal life.
I exhaled slowly and picked up my coffee.