Chapter 14
Now
Port of call: Kaanapali, Maui
Itinerary: hiking (hilly, steep inclines, mountainous terrain)
Attire: athletic, dress for the elements. Don’t forget sunscreen!
When I wake up the next morning, my head is pounding and my mouth tastes like the inside of a garbage can. I haven’t been this hungover since the night Liam and I celebrated my first publishing deal, and I woke up wearing nothing but his boxers.
I wince and flop back against the pillow, willing the throbbing pain in my temples to subside. But eventually my bladder gets the best of me, forcing me out of bed.
I swing both legs over the side of the mattress and onto the floor when something crunches underneath me. Not something. Someone.
“ARRRRRG!”
I jump in surprise and look down to find my left foot hovering over Liam’s right arm. “Oh. It’s you.”
“Of course it’s bloody me!” he cries. “Who else would be asleep on your fucking floor!”
“Sorry. I forgot you were here.”
He grimaces. “Of course you did. Because while you were sound asleep in a nice, big, comfy bed, I was tossing and turning all night on the cold floor.”
“You’re the one who volunteered to sleep on the floor first and for your information, I didn’t exactly sleep great either,” I say, wincing. “I’m hungover as fuck.”
I expect him to say I told you so. Instead, his expression softens, and he asks, in a tender voice that catches me off guard, “Are you sure you’ll be able to go on the hike today?”
A groan slips out of me. I totally forgot Jonah scheduled us for a jungle hike. RIP me.
“I can’t believe I used to chug Everclear in dirty frat basements,” I tell him. “Now I need a precautionary ibuprofen before I leave the house.”
Liam laughs. “Here. I’ve got some in my bag.” Then, almost guiltily, he adds, “And I grabbed you some granola bars and crackers last night.”
I frown, taken aback. “You did?”
Pink creeps up his neck and into his cheeks. “I figured you wouldn’t feel great after drinking last night, so I picked some things up before I went to bed. I got the ones with peanut butter that you like.”
I balk, taken aback by the gesture. Is he baiting me? Trying to prove that I did drink too much last night? But the softness behind his eyes says otherwise.
“Thanks,” I finally manage. “That’s nice of you.”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal, and I wonder why the sudden shift.
Is this about what happened in the supply closet last night?
Does he feel sorry for me? Or is it something else?
But the question is instantly vanquished from my mind when Liam sits up and shoves the blanket off, exposing what can only be described as a very—and I can’t stress this enough—very hot bod.
It’s Liam, but dialed up. Like Da Vinci took a scalpel to Liam’s chest and arms in pursuit of the Vitruvian Man.
He’s not just leaner, but more defined, and now I can’t seem to look away from the ladder of abs, or the ripples of muscles stretching across his shoulders and arms. And those veins in his forearms? They’re a phlebotomist’s dream.
I suck in a sharp breath, and Liam frowns. “What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Is there drool on my face or something?” He drags a hand along his chin.
“No…” I allow my eyes to skate up and down the length of his chest. “Have you been working out or something?”
Color floods his cheeks again. “Kevin set me up with a trainer buddy of his.”
A trainer? Liam’s always looked good, but he’s never cared that much about his appearance.
Unless…My stomach opens like a sinkhole as I think back to the condoms I’d seen in his wallet. Is this about a girl? Someone he’s trying to impress? Someone he’s fucking?
I shouldn’t ask. Not when I don’t really want to hear the answer. But what if it makes me feel better to know? At least that way it will be out in the open and I can stop wondering, right?
I go back and forth, warring between whether to ask or not until finally I blurt out, “Are you dating?”
The blood drains from Liam’s face. “What?”
“Just tell me, are you dating?” I ask again.
He shifts his weight, lips folding together. “No, not technically.”
His response leaves a lot to the imagination and unfortunately my imagination is very unkind to me. “What do you mean, not technically?”
His mouth pinches, twin parentheses forming on either side of his jaw. “Why do you care if I’m technically dating or not? You ended it.”
I wince like I’ve been slapped. He’s right. I’m the one who asked for a divorce. I have no right to care whether he’s technically dating or not. But it doesn’t stop the tightness concentrating in my core.
For a moment I consider telling the truth.
The truth that’s been building inside me like a dam waiting to burst. That of course I care.
That I hate that he’s got condoms in his wallet.
That he hasn’t been wearing his ring. That he’s moving to London.
That he took shots with some girl named Katie. That he’s gotten fucking hot!
But as bad as it feels to know Liam’s utterly fine without me, I imagine it will only feel worse to admit how miserable I’ve been. How hard this all is for me. Not while he’s clearly moved on. So I settle for a half-truth.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “I was the one who ended things.” Then in an even quieter voice, I admit, “But it’s still weird to think about you with someone else.”
As soon as I say it, I worry I’ve revealed too much, been too vulnerable, that he’ll see right through me, all the way to my splintered core. But his chin dips into a nod, his eyes weighed down with understanding.
“Yeah. It’s weird to think about you with someone else too.” He clears his throat, dragging a hand across his jaw. “Are you, uh…?” He gestures vaguely. “Dating?”
I swallow roughly. After Liam left, I tried to imagine what it might be like to date again.
To have sex with someone else. I even thought about downloading an app and sleeping with a stranger I never planned to see again just to try to dull the pain, to attempt to wash away some of the himness that still lingered in every fiber of my being.
To prove I wasn’t still his. But even at my lowest, I couldn’t do it.
It wasn’t just that I don’t know how to navigate the current climate of dating apps and hookup culture—do I tell people I’m getting divorced?
Should I walk around with a scarlet D?—it’s that I don’t know how to be intimate with anyone else.
How to not feel sick at the prospect of being touched by another man.
Not when part of me still feels like it belongs to Liam. Like my body is for him and him alone.
I wish I could leave the past behind, the way Liam appears to. That I had Abby’s confidence. That I could walk into any room with my head held high, convinced any man would be lucky to date me. But I’m not Abby. Or Liam.
And it’s even harder to dig deep and find my confidence when my own husband didn’t want to fight for me. When even he, the one person who was supposed to see me as enough, didn’t.
I shake my head. “No. I’m not dating.”
As soon as I say it, I search his face, looking for traces of emotion, a clue that the chaos that’s broken free inside me might have also broken free inside him, but his face remains purposefully blank, any hint of expression tucked neatly away, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t asked.
* * *
After slurping down cold cereal and toast at the buffet alongside a hundred other overly ambitious tourists, we’re taken ashore then picked up by a too-perky-for-this-ungodly-hour private guide named Mikayla, whose chipper voice plucks at the strings of my hangover in new and torturous ways.
After telling us all about the hike and what to expect (Spiders! Snakes! Poisonous plants! Oh my!), Mikayla ushers us into a jeep that will take us over the hilly, mud-soaked terrain into the depths of the lush Maui jungle.
Liam and I are last, and by the time we climb inside, there’s only one open seat, in the back beside Bella.
“I don’t think there’s enough room,” I say.
“Just sit on Liam’s lap,” Bella suggests.
“Oh. Uh. That’s okay,” I say quickly. “I’m sure I can sit somewhere else.”
Liam frowns. “Like where? The roof?”
Actually, yes. I would, in fact, rather be strapped to the roof than sit on his lap. But that doesn’t appear to be an option, so I delicately place myself atop Liam’s muscular thighs, trying to dissociate.
This is fine. It’s just Liam, I remind myself. Boring old Liam, whose lap I’ve sat on a million times. Who cares that my ass is nestled against his crotch. Or that every time Liam laughs at something someone says, I can feel the sticky heat of his breath on my neck.
I attempt to focus on the lush greenery outside.
The hills rising like towers in the distance.
The hazy, morning pink still tracing the skyline as the jeep rattles along the dirt road.
But it’s hard to focus when every time the jeep hits a pothole, my ass crashes into Liam’s groin with all the force of a fourteen-year-old grinding at her first middle school dance.
“Sorry, everyone,” Mikayla calls from the driver’s seat. “These old backroads can be pretty bumpy!”
You don’t say.
“You all right?” Liam asks, his mouth brushing my earlobe.
I swallow and murmur a quick mm-hm, glad he can’t see how flushed my face is.
“Sure? You’re soaking wet.”
My breath snags. “Excuse me?”
“You’re really sweaty.” He pulls back, practically unpeeling his chest from my back.
Right. Sweat. He’s referring to sweat, and definitely not anything else. Duh.
But it’s not just the closeness, or that I can feel all of him. It’s the way my heart beats faster under his touch, like some kind of primal memory stored deep in my bones. A reminder that my body still belongs to him.
You’re not his anymore, I remind myself.
But that’s the problem. We might sign papers and legally separate. Liam might even move to London and start technically dating. Even so, there will always be a part of my soul that belongs to him. An invisible string between my heart and his.