Chapter 3
August, Six Years Ago
“This one,” Zara says, pulling a gold-spined book off a shelf. “You should read this one.”
“What’s it about?” I grab the brick of a novel from her and inspect it. “Star Daughter?”
“It’s about Galileo’s middle child.” Zara’s cool brown eyes sparkle as she faces me, her hands wrapping into passionate fists between our faces.
“It’s so good, Paige. So. Good. She’s locked away in an Italian convent, but she makes a deal with this bad boy to break her out, and together, they discover Galileo’s research on stars can be converted into magic. ”
I pass the novel back to her. “I told you I don’t want another fairy book.”
“You specified you didn’t want another fae book,” she retorts, “and this isn’t that.”
“I need a change of genre, Z. Can’t you recommend something from the real world?”
“I cannot,” Zara admits.
The ding of a customer entering the bookshop pulls my sister’s attention off me.
I escape the fantasy section while I still have a chance.
My fingers run over book spines as I migrate into hobbies.
Mindlessly, they tug on a book about musical composition for beginners.
I leaf through it, quickly ascertaining there’s nothing here I didn’t learn in AP Music Theory, before replacing it on the shelf and wandering on.
I notice the top of his head first. It’s just visible from the next aisle over, bobbing along as he walks behind Zara. His hair is dark brown, raindrop speckled from the deluge outside. If I can see him from here, he must be well over six feet tall.
“It’s a fantasy epic with dragons,” Zara begins, and I snort from my aisle, slapping my palms over my mouth.
“Shut up, Paige!” Zara calls. “He said he wanted something fast-paced and full of adventure!”
That’s when our eyes catch.
Not mine and my sister’s. Mine and his. Somehow, he manages to stoop and find me through a sliver of empty space on the shelf.
He has thick brown eyebrows, a jawline that isn’t quite sharp but somehow finds plenty of definition. His eyes are, at first glance, simple brown, but the fact that I noticed them so quickly is a true credit to his features. His mouth is cut off from my view, but I think he might be smiling.
“Didn’t say a word!” I shout back to Zara, cutting the cord of connection between her customer and me while I wander deeper into the bookshop.
I grab a thriller with a pair of bloody scissors on the spine and settle into an oversized armchair near the foggy window, the damp heat outside held at bay. I pull my headphones over my ears and thumb over to a Spotify coffeehouse playlist.
Time lapses as I read.
Only once the chapter is finished do I look up and realize he’s beside me.
Sitting in the other armchair, reading too.
But while I’m curled up with my knees drawn against my chest, my chin resting in the valley between them, and the book dangling in front of me, he’s all sprawling limbs—long legs bent, gangly elbows resting on his thighs as he reads with concentration.
A square-shaped face. Sun-drenched skin.
His hair is curly, too, even more so than mine.
His body looks too small for him, like he’s growing out of it by the day. He must be my age or thereabouts.
The minute I shift, so does he.
Our eyes lock again, and a blush forms at the base of my neck.
He notices instantly. His not-so-simple brown eyes draw to the exposed skin around my collarbone before they flash back to my face with amusement.
“Hey,” he says. Or I think he says.
I pull my headphones down to my neck. “Sorry?”
His lips kick up. “I was just saying hey.” His voice is singular. It’s him. I think I’ll never forget the sound of it as long as I live.
My brain cannot fathom why he’d want to make conversation with me, rain drenched and off-putting as I’m presenting with my book and headphones.
Are Knoxville boys known to be friendly?
I only moved here from Bristol a few days ago.
I haven’t even unpacked all my things yet, and the only person I’ve spoken to besides Zara is my new boss at the restaurant where I just picked up a waitressing gig.
“Hey,” I say back.
“I’m Liam.”
After a beat of absorption, I say, “I’m Paige.”
Liam reclines, resting his book on his stomach. He’s wearing a rain jacket and jeans, his feet stuffed into waterproof boots. My gaze snags down to the sweating plastic cup of iced coffee at his feet, untouched.
“Are you going to be a freshman?”
The blush returns, scintillating and violent this time. Liam’s eyes move down to my neck again before dipping back up. But instead of smiling like he did before, his gaze holds steady, almost searingly so.
“Yes,” I say.
It’s a lie.
I’m not enrolled in college at all. But Zara is, and now, so is my high school best friend, Maisy, which means I’m familiar with the school.
Part of me wishes I’d considered college more seriously back in the fall when Maisy was applying. But my middle sister, Folly, was still living at home back then; she and Dad easily convinced me college was an unnecessary extravagance.
Since then, Folly has all but vanished into thin air, running off with some guy she met, and after I graduated high school this past May, my dad decided to spend some time abroad.
I couldn’t stay in Bristol alone. Not when everybody I’d ever loved, who had ever loved me, was gone from that place.
Where else was I supposed to go but here?
When I floated the idea of moving to Knoxville to Zara, she was over the moon. We’ve always been the closest—she’s only two years older than me, compared to my oldest sister, Maren, who has me by ten years—and immediately suggested we get an apartment together.
“What dorm are you living in?” Liam asks, voice deep.
“Brown,” I fib, giving him Zara’s freshman-year dorm.
“The scholarship dorm,” he says.
“The smart people dorm,” I counter.
“The smart people and athlete dorm,” he throws back.
“That’s where I lived last year. There’s this secret study room on the fifth floor.
” His fingers rap on the cover of his book, and I study his dexterous hands, hardly cataloging what he says next.
“If you go past the coed bathroom and take a right after the janitor’s closet, you’ll find it. ”
“Thanks for the tip,” I say.
“Course.” His lips kick up again, so softly.
Part of me feels guilty for letting this lie drag out, but what are the odds I ever see this boy again? He’s too handsome not to have partners lining up for him, too easy to talk with to get in his own way.
“So which are you?” I ask.
His brow lifts. “Which am I of what?”
“Are you smart, or are you an athlete?”
“I can’t be both?” His spine straightens.
“Well,” I say, unconsciously leaning in his direction, “you are in a bookshop. My mind’s going where it’s going.”
He laughs musically. “Naturally, I play baseball for the university.”
“Oh. Cool.” My boy-girl conversation has been stunted since birth, but it’s desperate to keep trying. “I know nothing about baseball, but I played softball for one year when I was nine.”
“What position?” he asks.
“Juicebox passer outer.”
“A vital role,” Liam says.
“I thought so. What position are you?”
“Beer passer outer.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or if he really is a second-string player. Something tells me it’s the former. That he’s talented, but also self-deprecating.
“Do you have a walk-up song?” I ask.
“‘Good Day’ by Greg Street and Nappy Roots.”
My face breaks into a grin. “That’s a great choice.”
“I thought so.” He’s grinning now too.
“When did your season end?”
“Late June. But we train year-round.”
“Yeah, you look like it,” I say, then clap a hand over my mouth.
“Your neck is blushing again,” Liam says, smirk firmly in place.
“I just admitted you look fit.”
“Yes, it was very flattering. My ego is somewhere in the rafters.”
“I am mortified right now.”
“Do you want me to flatter you back?”
I shake my head. “I think that might make it worse—”
“I followed you in here.”
Silence stretches out like warm taffy between us. The blush on my skin calms, replaced by a cold rush of air that pushes against me from nowhere. “You did?”
He nods, expression level. “I saw you come in here when I was heading to the coffee shop next door. After I got my drink, I followed you inside.”
“Why?” I ask. My voice is a ghost, and my eyes graze back up to Liam’s.
“Guess.” His voice drops lower.
Fill in the blanks, he says but doesn’t. Catch my drift. Get there.
I shake my head in denial, and curly, wet locks of hair fall into my eyes. I push away my bad attempt at bangs while my eyesight blurs out, while my heart skitters.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with me. But this would be a first (since nobody from my hometown ever tried it), and I don’t want to embarrass myself if I’ve got it wrong.
“You’re going to have to spell it out for me,” I admit. “I don’t … I’m not…”
“I’ve noticed you before.”
I shake my head again. “That’s not possible. I’ve only been in town two days.”
“Yeah, it was two days ago,” Liam elaborates. “At the welcome cookout.”
Oh, right. I’d gone to that with Maisy. It was on a sprawling lawn in the heart of campus surrounded by academic buildings.
All the students were invited, and everyone had paper plates piled high with chips, store-bought burger patties grilled up on stale buns.
Maisy’s roommates hadn’t moved in yet, so she’d asked me to go with her and keep her company.
But soon, she got to chatting with some girls from her floor, and about ten minutes later they were talking rush strategies. I’d bailed without her noticing.
It took me a while to fess up to Maisy that I was moving to Knoxville the same week she was.
I was worried she’d think I was following her around, and it turned out I was right.
It was like I could actually see the bitter thought flash across Maisy’s mind the moment I told her the truth about getting an apartment with Zara.
Maisy never outright said she wished I’d decided to do something different, but I’ve known her my entire life.
For most of July, it was patently obvious she was frustrated with me.
But I’d already signed the lease, and I promised myself I wouldn’t burden her.
If Maisy didn’t want to hang out anymore, I would respect that.
I’d even understand.
But then, toward the end of summer, her attitude completely changed.
Where before she’d avoided talking to me about her future outside of Bristol, it became all she wanted to discuss.
Restaurants, bars, lake trails, football games.
All the things she and I could do together, in our new city, two hours from home.
“You were with this red-haired girl,” Liam says, and everything clicks into place.
He wants her. Maisy Morgan.
This is a familiar refrain. How many times in high school did boys approach me as a means of getting to Maisy?
Daren, my next-door neighbor, who asked me to put in a good word.
Max, one of my sister’s friends. Meyer, who I sat beside in study hall.
That kid at Dollywood when we were fifteen, who kept me company while Maisy rode a too-scary roller coaster.
And I always did put in a good word for them, of course. Because Maisy is my best friend and why wouldn’t I?
“Oh, right,” I say, trying to disguise the way I deflate. “That was Maisy.”
“Sure,” Liam says. “Maisy.”
This is the first time it’s felt like this.
Like jealousy, and disappointment. I don’t want to resent my best friend, and I really hope it never feels this way again.
I wonder if this is how Maisy felt when I told her I was moving here. If it was something she had to stomach.
Fishing a loose piece of paper and a felt-tip pen out of my bag, I scribble down her phone number. I’ve had it memorized since we were old enough to get our first cellphones. When I hand the note to him, surprise lights Liam’s expression.
“Oh.” His voice is rough with pleasure. “I was prepared to work so much harder for this.”
I shrug. “You seem nice, so.” I stand, snapping my book closed. “I should probably head out. Unpacking and whatnot to do.”
“Can I give you a ride back to campus?” Liam stands too, and yep, he’s tall. “My car is—”
“No need,” I say. “I drove.”
Another lie. It’s terrifying and thrilling, realizing that in this new place, I can get away with them.
His gaze shifts, evaluating me more guardedly now. “Paige, did I overstep?”
“Not at all.” I paste on a smile. “It’s just that I really do need to get going. But it was great meeting you. Best of luck.”
His head tilts. It looks like another question is poised on the tip of his tongue, but I turn and flee before he can speak it into existence.
Union Avenue Books in downtown Knoxville becomes the first place I learn to tamp down the way I want him.