15. Liv
Chapter fifteen
Liv
Josh doesn’t move.
For one second, neither do I.
The bullhorn hangs at his side, bright and ridiculous and full of the first night I met him. His thumb shifts once on the handle.
I should say something else. A correction. A joke. One of the safe, polished sentences I use when a room starts moving in a direction I didn’t approve.
Nothing comes.
I did miss him. I've had seven years of missing him.
The admission is still in the room, and I cannot take it back without making the whole thing worse.
Josh lowers the bullhorn to the arm of the couch.
Slowly.
He says my name once.
“Liv.”
I face him.
“I missed you too.”
There.
The answer I wanted to hear.
I know what to do with jokes. I know what to do with distance. I know what to do with a man who gives me something to argue with.
I do not know what to do with Josh standing three feet away and meaning it.
If he smiled, I could dismiss it. If he stepped closer, I could step back. If he made the moment less careful, I could be careful for both of us.
He does none of those things.
He only stands there, giving me the space I need and the answer I did not mean to ask for.
Which is worse.
“I should check Iris,” I say.
The monitor is silent.
Josh checks the monitor before coming back to me. He knows exactly what I’m doing and lets me do it anyway.
“Okay,” he says.
No push. No argument. No hand reaching for mine.
He gives me precisely what I asked for, which leaves me with no clean reason to be upset with him.
So I go.
***
I wake to Josh’s voice in the kitchen and stay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling.
A cabinet opens in the kitchen.
Josh says something low. Iris answers with one of her small, serious noises.
A minute later, the smell of coffee reaches the room. I do not get up right away.
I still do not get up.
Last night, Josh let me go.
I should be grateful.
Instead, I am lying in his guest room, listening to him make coffee for both of us, while Iris holds a kitchen conference before eight in the morning.
Daniel is covering the Hartley deposition schedule. I am technically on PTO. There is no reason to open the case file before I open the bedroom door.
The file cannot say my name the way Josh did.
The file cannot stand three feet away and mean it.
The file cannot ask me what I meant.
I open it.
Facts. Dates. Citations.
Daniel has it handled.
Still, a second set of eyes couldn’t hurt.
Besides, checking a brief is easier than walking into the kitchen, where coffee is already waiting and Josh might act like last night is still in the room.
I take the file, a highlighter, and my laptop.
By the time I reach for the door, my hands are full.
Good.
I open the door quietly and step into the hall.
Josh’s voice is still coming from the kitchen, which means the living room is empty.
The coffee table is clear. I open my laptop and plug it in. The phone goes face-up on the cushion beside me, in case Daniel calls.
He won’t.
He knows I am on PTO.
From the kitchen, Iris makes a sharp, short sound. Not distress. More like she’s spotted something she wants. I hear Josh’s voice, low, a word or two, and her sound settles.
I go back to page five.
Josh comes into the living room with Iris on his hip and a mug. He sets it down on the coaster to the left of my laptop and sits in the armchair.
His own mug is already on the side table.
I nod toward it. “I’m sorry — did I take your spot?”
He looks at me, then at the couch. “No.”
I didn’t ask for coffee.
I hadn’t thought about coffee yet.
“You didn’t have to make me coffee.”
“I know, but I was already making myself some.”
He sits in the armchair with Iris. He adds, quieter, “Plus, I remember how you take it.”
Iris twists toward the window, both hands fisted in his collar. He shifts without looking down, giving her the angle she wants.
The coffee is three-quarters full, with a splash of oat milk.
Exactly the way I like it.
I pick up the highlighter before I can reach for the mug.
Page five is safer than the coffee.
Josh doesn’t watch me.
That should make it easier to ignore him.
It doesn’t.
I go back to the brief and read the opening paragraph. It’s better than I expected. I read the second one slowly. Iris turns away from the window and fixes on me. I hold still for a moment, wondering what her next move is going to be. She goes back to the window.
He’s five feet away. Iris still has his collar.
I said it.
He said it back.
Now I am pretending page five has a fighting chance.
My phone lights up on the cushion.
The office.
I close my eyes for one second.
Of course.
When I open them, Josh is watching the phone, not me.
I look at Josh.
“I’m on PTO.”
His eyes drop to the screen.
“Apparently not.”
It is almost a joke.
Josh stands before I reach for the phone. He shifts Iris to his hip, picks up his mug, and goes to the kitchen.
He gives me privacy before I have to ask for it.
I answer.
“Olivia, it’s Kathy. Quick question on the Hartley deposition—”
“Kathy. Daniel is handling the deposition while I’m on PTO. Can you call him?”
A pause. “I know. I’m sorry. He’s just in court, and I thought you might remember off the top of your head.”
I do remember.
Which is why I have to be careful.
“Please call Daniel,” I say. “If I answer, I’m not really letting him handle it,” I say. “If he needs me, he’ll loop me in.”
Another pause. “Okay. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She hangs up.
I lower the phone. In the television screen across the room, I can see the kitchen doorway reflected. Josh is there with Iris, his back toward the living room.
I set the phone down on the cushion and turn back to the brief.
Page five is still there. The third paragraph is still there.
My attention is not.
Josh comes back carrying Iris in one arm and the bouncer in the other.
He sets the bouncer beside the coffee table, then pauses and looks at the space between my laptop, the file, and the edge of the couch. Iris has one hand buried in his shirt and the other reaching toward the papers.
“I’m going to set her here,” he says, turning the bouncer toward me. “She can see you, and she can’t reach the brief.”
I look at him.
He buckles Iris in and adjusts the frame another few inches from the table. “I know you’re supposed to be off. But I also know that call probably isn’t the last one.”
The back of my throat goes tight before I can stop it. “I’m not planning to work today.”
“I know.” He glances at the file. “But if you have to answer something, this gives you both hands.”
He checks the space between Iris’s hand and the file, and moves the bouncer back another inch.
“That works,” I say.
I look at the brief.
I have lost my place again.
Iris settles as soon as she sees me.
Josh moves the mug closer to my side of the laptop.
“And that gives you coffee,” he says.
Oat milk. You remembered.”
His hand is still on the handle. “Some things are easy to remember.”
When I reach for the mug, my fingers brush his.
He lets go slowly.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Liv.”
I meet Josh’s eyes.
He leans down and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
It is quick. Quiet. Barely anything.
I feel it everywhere.
Josh straightens like he did not just rewire my nervous system, picks up the burp cloth from the armchair, and heads toward the nursery.
Iris watches him go, and looks back at me.
The brief is still open beside my laptop, but I can't read another word.
Iris kicks both feet in her bouncer.
I wrap both hands around the mug and smile.