26. Whitney
26
WHITNEY
I t’s been a week since the gala, and I’ve been walking on eggshells at home ever since. I don’t even watch TV in the living room anymore for fear that Liam might catch me off guard. I’ve interacted with him twice since we had insane mirror sex that left me completely and utterly ruined. The first time was when he was heading out for work. He caught me in the kitchen cooking dinner, and he threw me a hello before storming out of the door. I spent the next thirty minutes analyzing every second of that interaction. Then, yesterday morning, I bumped into him on my way to the bathroom. His hand wrapped around my arm, steadying me from our collision, and the heat from where our skin touched seemed to warm me from head to toe.
I blinked up at him and swallowed.
“Hi,” I whispered.
“Hey,” he said.
We haven’t spoken since.
Needless to say, I’m not handling the whole “it was a mistake” plan very well. I thought just once would be enough to get it out of our systems. Then I thought twice would be enough. But Liam is not out of my system.
In fact, he’s deep in my system.
Every night, right before I’ve drifted off to sleep, I’ve listened for the sound of him across the hall. Wondered if he was thinking of me. If he, like me, was touching himself, remembering the way we came apart together.
Shaking thoughts of Liam off, I pick up my phone and see my best friend calling. Unfortunately for me, Abbi is able to sniff out when I’m avoiding her like a detection dog sniffs out drugs.
“Hey,” I say into the phone.
“Come over. Shane left for preseason and I’m moping.”
“I thought you were going to join him on the road?”
“Not until December. I’m stuck all alone for the next three weeks.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, life must be so hard in your two-story penthouse that your rich boyfriend pays for.”
“ Whitney ,” she whines. “Please come over. I’ll order from your favorite Thai place?”
She’s going to get the truth out of me no matter what, so I might as well face it head-on. “Alright, I’ll be there in an hour.”
After sending off some emails, I head to Abbi’s apartment in Williamsburg. She’s only a few stops away on the L. Her apartment is a waterfront suite with a gorgeous view of the city across the river. When I arrive, she opens the door and wraps her arms around me.
“I missed you,” she whines.
I roll my eyes but hug her tighter. “I literally saw you last week.”
She pulls me inside. Once I’m settled in, we sit on the couch, and she puts our food order in.
“How’s work?” I ask.
She waves a hand. “I don’t want to talk about work. How’s your hubby?”
“I thought you wanted to talk about Shane.”
She narrows her eyes. “We’ll get to that.”
“We slept together,” I say reluctantly.
“I already knew that. No updates?”
“Again. We slept together again.”
Her mouth drops, quickly replaced by a giant grin that spreads across her face. “I knew it. You like him.”
I purse my lips. “I maybe sort-of slightly have a tiny desire to keep having sex with him. That is all.”
“You like him!”
Suppressing another eye roll, I reach for the wine between us and pour myself a glass. “I tolerate him. I like his skills in bed. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, right. You don’t do casual. You never have.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
She scoffs. “The first time for you to have a friends-with-benefits is not with your husband.”
“Stop calling him that.”
Because I like it way too much.
She laughs in my face. “What else should I call him?”
“We’re not… he’s just—” I break off, frustrated. “It’s complicated. Friends with benefits is all this can be. I told him we should just pretend it never happened.”
“That’s what you want?”
I shake my head, blinking furiously at the unexpected pressure behind my eyes. “I just said it because I thought it’s what he was going to say, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed. But now that he’s actually acting like nothing ever happened? It hurts.”
Abbi wraps her arms around me, hugging me tightly. “You’ll figure it out. I know you will. You’re the smartest, kindest, most beautiful person I know. If Liam can’t see that, he’s an idiot.”
I let out a watery laugh, tears poking at corners of my eyes. “Thanks, Ab.”
“And no more avoiding me.”
“I wasn’t?—”
“Don’t lie. Just don’t box me out. It’ll be hard enough when I’m on the road with Shane. Then you’ll really miss me.”
I wipe at my eyes. “Stop. I actually will.”
“I know,” she says, pulling me tighter against her.
By the time I get home, I’m exhausted and half-drunk. The wine has gone to my head as I stumble up the stairs and let myself into the apartment. I’d foolishly assumed that Liam wouldn’t be home because it’s a Thursday night, and he tends to be at work until the early hours of the morning.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he’s standing in the kitchen, shirtless.
I try to keep my expression neutral as I kick my shoes off and toss my keys onto the counter, mumbling something close to a hello.
“Y’alright?” Liam asks, leaning against fridge with a glass of water in his giant hands.
Hands that have touched every part of me.
“Yep. How are you?”
“Good, yeah.”
Great. So it’s going to be awkward between us until the end of time.
“Listen, about my dad coming to visit… ”
I’d almost forgotten about that. I felt too bad to turn him down, but I don’t do very well with parents. I’ve never met my dad, and my mom comes around once a year if I’m lucky, so I don’t have much of a frame of reference for how to behave.
With a jolt, I realize Liam is still talking.
“I figure I’ll move my stuff into your room tomorrow and try to make mine look like a guest bedroom.”
“What?” I squeak.
“My stuff. Into your room. Since my dad is staying in my room?”
“Wait, you told him?”
“Yes. I just told you that?—”
“You shouldn’t have told him about us.” I swallow. “It’s just overcomplicating things.”
He frowns, the first frown I’ve seen in a while. “Yeah, because us getting married to fulfill your highly specific inheritance clause isn’t complicated at all,” he deadpans. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be just like Vegas.”
I don’t want to argue with him, and I really don’t want to think about Vegas lest I spiral even more, so I nod. “Alright. I’ll be around tomorrow if you need help moving your stuff.”
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Thanks.”
Before I can say anything else, he slips out of the kitchen and down the hallway towards his room. I realize I left a pile of dishes in the sink from breakfast this morning, so I clean up a bit and start washing them. After a few minutes, Liam comes back into the room and opens the fridge, pulling a beer out.
“You want a La Croix?” he asks.
“Sure, thanks.”
“Don’t know how you drink that stuff. Tastes like fizzy piss.”
I snort and roll my eyes, holding my hand out for the can. He hands me a lime-flavored one and his gaze falls to my hand with a scowl.
“Where’s your ring?” he snaps.
My eyes widen. “Why do you care?”
His gaze darkens. “You’re supposed to wear it. I got it for you.”
I scoff, indignant. “It’s not like you wear one. I’m sure all the girls hitting on you at the bar would back off if they saw a ring on your finger.”
I realize what I’ve said too late, and Liam seems to realize it too.
He smirks, twisting open his beer and taking a sip. “Jealous, Mrs. Clark?”
“Oh my God. Don’t call me that.”
“But it sounds so good .”
“Liam,” I warn. “Stop flirting.”
A flutter runs through me at the energy sparking between us. Minutes ago, it was awkward. Now, it feels like the temperature in the room has skyrocketed with the blush I’m sporting.
“I don’t wear a ring because you didn’t get me one,” Liam says, pushing off the counter.
My smile drops.
What?
“Was I supposed to?” I turn from the sink and meet his eyes.
His Adams apple bobs as he swallows. “I’m kidding.” His gaze flickers back to my hand. “But seriously,” he says. “Where’s yours?”
I roll my eyes and point to where the ring is sitting on the counter next to the sink. “I didn’t want to wear it while doing the dishes.”
Before I can blink, he crosses over to the counter, plucks the ring up, and stands in front of me. As I dry my hands with a towel, he grabs my left hand and intertwines our fingers. Slowly, he slips the ring back on, gripping my wrist lightly as he meets my gaze.
“Promise you’ll never take it off again,” he breathes out, a low, unexpected command.
“I promise,” I reply in a daze.
Trying to shake off the intensity of the moment, I slip out of his grip and cross to the living room, settling on the couch. I turn on the TV and press play on my favorite reality TV show, forcing myself not to glance towards Liam.
“Is this Love Island ?” he asks, his voice moving closer.
“Yeah. Season five. I’m catching up,” I tell him, keeping my eyes focused on the TV.
“Why is everyone addicted to this stupid show? My dad never shuts up about it.”
I smirk. “At least we’ll have one thing to talk about. A shared love for head-turning and triangles.”
“Is that some sort of inside joke?”
I shake my head with a laugh. “Yeah. Just funny phrases they use.”
My head turns at the sound of pots and pans banging together in the kitchen. “You want cookies?” Liam shouts, hidden behind the cabinets.
“Sure?” I call back. “Why are you making cookies?”
He pops out, holding a bag of sugar. “Feeling restless.”
This is the part where I would ask him if he wants to talk about it, but every time Liam peels back some layer of himself, I feel myself drawn further and further into his orbit. That’s the last thing I need right now. I need to find my way out of Liam’s orbit.
Out of his entire solar system.
So, I ignore his comment. “I love their accents,” I say, changing the subject. “Especially Maura. She’s so funny.”
“You think my accent is funny?”
“No, yours is like… posh.”
“Posh?” He crosses from the kitchen towards me, his hands on his hips. “Are you having me on?”
I suppress a smile, flattening my lips. “They all use slang. Like ‘mugged off’, ‘cracking on’, ‘geezer’. You never say stuff like that.”
“Because I’m not from Newcastle or Essex” he mutters, crossing back into the kitchen.
“Where are you from?” I ask, curious.
“London, which by the way has a lot of different accents. I moved to Brighton when I was about four and then to the States a bit later.”
Liam stays in the kitchen for a few minutes while I watch my show, not offering any more commentary. After a couple of commercial breaks, he puts the cookies in the oven and settles next to me on the couch. He’s scowling at the TV, shaking his head every few minutes.
“Can you stop? You’re ruining the viewing experience.”
He groans. “It’s so stupid. It’s clearly fake.”
I throw my hands up. “Of course it’s fake! It’s amazing.”
He chuckles and throws one of the pillows towards me, smacking me lightly in the face.
“Did you just throw a pillow at me?”
He grins. “Yeah.”
I grip the pillow tighter and smack him with it, but the tiny thing is no match for his huge body. He shrugs me off easily, yanking it out of my hands and stuffing it behind his head. “No hitting me, or you won’t get any cookies.”
I gasp, pressing my hand to my chest as if mortally offended. “You’d deprive me of cookies?”
He rolls his eyes and goes to retrieve them out of the oven as the show comes back on. As I’m cheering on Molly-Mae and Tommy in one of the challenges, he drops the plate of cookies in front of me.
“They’re hot,” he warns me. “Don’t burn your mouth.”
“Thanks, Dad. ”
I reach for one of the cookies, but he smacks my hand away with a grin. Once they’re cool, he hands me one and I bite into it, closing my eyes with a moan.
“God, that’s good.”
When I open my eyes, Liam is staring at me, his burning gaze focused on my mouth. I clear my throat, glancing away from him. I have a sense of what he’s thinking about, and it’s a bad idea for us to go there right now.
He shakes his head and turns back to the TV. “Wait, so this guy’s not interested in her anymore? Didn’t he just ask her to be his girlfriend?”
“I thought you said the show was ‘stupid’”
“It is,” he grumbles. “What a prick. He’s playing a game with her!”
I laugh, shaking my head. “If you don’t like reality TV, what do you watch?”
“Not much of a TV guy, but I like Star Trek ,” he replies.
“Is that the one with Spock?”
He gasps in faux-horror. “You’ve never seen Star Trek ?”
I shrug. “I think I saw Star Wars when I was a kid.”
He shakes his head. “First of all: not the same. Second of all: we must fix this severe oversight.”
“Fine,” I reply. “You watch Love Island with me, and I’ll give your nerdy show a chance.”
“Not nerdy,” he mumbles under his breath, stealing another cookie, and I can’t help but laugh. There’s something so simple about the two of us sitting on our couch, watching bad reality TV. It fills my chest with an unexpected warmth, and even though Liam and I are on opposite sides of the couch, ignoring the orgasm elephant in the room, I can’t help but smile.