Chapter 40
Now
Port of call: Honolulu, Oahu
Itinerary: family breakfast in main dining room followed by a pool day
Attire: casual, swimwear
When I wake up the next morning, Liam’s arm is slung over my waist, the rhythmic push and pull of his warm, sleepy breathing feathering across my cheek. An ache sweeps through me as memories of last night come back to me like grains of sand falling through an hourglass.
Liam’s speech.
The fight.
Dancing under the stars.
I love you.
Everything else filters away as those three little words burst through my mind in blinding Technicolor.
He still loves me. And I still love him.
No, not still, I think. Always. I always loved him and always will.
I keep my eyes closed, replaying last night over and over. The way we kissed and touched, writing love notes with our fingers, our hands, our tongues. The way our bodies moved together, performing choreography only the two of us knew.
It was raw. Messy. Real. But was it enough? Enough to survive the catalog of hard conversations we still have to have? Enough for whatever is next?
I should probably wake him so we can talk about last night, about where we go from here.
But he looks so peaceful with his face smooshed against the pillow, and I’m not ready for this perfect moment—this liminal space before reality comes rushing back in—to end, so I curl against him, relishing his warmth, his sturdiness.
I’m not sure how long we lie there, drifting in and out of sleep, but eventually the furious red glow of the clock tells us we’re now five minutes late for breakfast. I shake Liam awake.
“We should get up,” I tell him. “Everyone will be wondering where we are.”
“Let them,” Liam says, his lips grazing my bare shoulder.
Heat stirs in my belly. I desperately want to give in.
To lie here. To make this moment last as long as we can.
But my phone buzzes with a text from Jonah asking where we are.
I can feel reality clawing its way into our bubble, so I climb out of bed and put on a bikini and cover-up in preparation for a day at the pool.
When we arrive at the breakfast table in the main dining room, everyone else has already gone through the buffet and finished eating.
“Well, well, well,” Bella says, eyeing us over the rim of her coffee mug. “Look who decided to join us.”
“Sorry,” Liam says, offering everyone apologetic smiles. “We slept late.”
“Suuuuure,” Bella sings. “And is that why you two snuck off last night? So you could get some extra rest?”
Maybe I imagine it, but her eyes zip to the bite mark Liam left on my neck.
“We were tired,” I tell her.
“Very,” Liam agrees, planting a quick kiss on my temple as he pulls out my chair.
We take our seats, and the rest of the family goes back to talking about some medical conference in Boston. It’s the type of thing Liam would typically join in on, but he remains quiet, his hand placed firmly on my inner thigh.
The gesture feels heavy, laden with meaning, and I can’t help but feel like I’m in the waiting room, anxiously anticipating the results to a biopsy. Are we going to make it? Or is it terminal?
I know what I want. I want him to come home. I want to try again. I want everything we promised each other five years ago. But I also know there’s still a lot more to talk about. That it’s not as simple as that.
After breakfast, Liam gets a phone call that he says he has to take. My sister, he adds when I give him a questioning look. He says he’ll meet me back at the room with a glance that says, We should talk, then he disappears onto the deck while I hang back to play with the kids.
Twenty minutes and three extremely humbling crayon drawings of my face later, I head back to the cabin.
When I open the door, Liam’s hunched over his suitcase, packing up his things. His back is to me, but I immediately sense something is wrong.
“Liam? What are you doing?”
He jerks around, revealing hard lines around his mouth and eyes.
“It’s my mum,” he says, his voice so low, I can feel it putting down roots in my belly. “She’s in the hospital.”
My vision swims, everything going hazy around the edges as I rush to his side.
“Is she okay? Did something happen?”
“She’s okay,” he says quickly. “Or at least she will be.”
Panic strums my nerves. “What happened?” I ask.
He sits on the bed, his head dipping toward his knees like he’s trying to decide whether he might throw up or not. “I don’t know,” he says to the floor. “But she left him.”
I sit beside him and I reach for his hand, lacing my fingers through his. “Can you tell me what Felicity said?”
He blows out a steadying breath as I stroke the inside of his wrist with my thumb. “She said there was a fight, and Mum was trying to leave him.” He winces like the words taste bad. “Felicity didn’t give many details. She knew I’d panic.”
He holds his eyes shut and I can tell the not-knowing is worse for him. I squeeze his hand tighter, my other moving to his back, where I rub in slow circles.
“Is Felicity there with her?” I ask.
Slowly he nods. “She’s there. Which makes me feel better. At least Mum’s not alone.”
My palm pauses at the base of his neck, damp with sweat. “How do you feel about her leaving him?”
“I don’t know,” he says, his voice a cracked whisper. “I’ve thought about this for years, and now that it’s actually happening, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Scared that she’s in the hospital? Relieved that she finally got out?”
I cup his jaw, drawing his forehead to mine. “Hey,” I say softly. “It’s okay to be scared. This is a lot all at once.”
His gaze meets mine, wide and vulnerable. “She’s asking for me,” he whispers. “My mum wants to see me.”
I pull back enough to search the worry lines bracketing his mouth and eyes. “Is that what you want?” I ask. “To see her?”
He swallows, his eyes distant like he’s already gone, thousands of miles from here. “I don’t even know how to process this. It’s been fifteen years. It’s all happening so fast.” He drags his knuckles over his forehead. “But I think this is something I need to do.”
An uneven breath cracks against my chest, unfurling inside me as I look to his hastily packed suitcase, then back to him, understanding washing over me in swift waves.
“So you’re going to London?” I ask.
Hollowed-out eyes meet mine in confirmation, and my blood turns thick.
He needs to do this. I want him to do this. But all I can think is, He’s leaving before we’ve even had a chance to talk.
I chew on my bottom lip, hesitating before I finally ask, “Do you have to go right now?”
“I think so,” he says hoarsely. “She’s finally left him, and it feels like I should be there. It feels like something I need to do, for them and for me.”
The realization that he’s already made this decision weighs like a band across my chest, binding my breath.
“I understand, and I support you,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “But what about us?”
He takes my hand in his, slanting his forehead against mine. “I want you to come with me, Ros.”
The words jolt inside me, reshuffling all my thoughts.
“What?”
“I want you to come with me,” he says again, this time stronger, firmer. “To London.”
My heart pounds in my throat. “Now?”
He nods, a kind of nervous energy coursing through his movements, exaggerating each feature. “I know that I haven’t done a good job of letting you into the messy parts of my life, that I should have opened up to you, been more vulnerable, more honest. But I want to, if you let me, starting now.”
My mind races. Everything races.
I think about last night, this morning. How we touched and tasted and had all of each other.
How we said words I never thought I’d hear again.
And how intense it all felt. But we haven’t even talked about our marriage, about what we want, what’s next.
And now suddenly he’s asking me to travel across the world with him at a moment’s notice?
This feels like too much, too fast.
“But we haven’t talked yet,” I say, trying to coax the panic out of my voice. “Shouldn’t we talk first?”
“The travel time from here to London is twenty hours. We’ll have plenty of time to talk,” he says.
I stand up, feeling light-headed. “This is so fast, Liam. I need time to think.”
Liam checks his watch. “The flight leaves in a couple hours, which means we need to leave for the airport…” He frowns at the face on his watch. “Now.”
“Now?”
“Now,” he confirms.
My ears ring. Blood pounds in my skull.
He’s not exactly asking me to decide what I want right now, but it feels like it. Like the future of our marriage hangs in the fragile balance of a decision I have to make in the next handful of minutes.
I start to pace the length of the cabin. “How long do you think you’ll be gone for?”
“I don’t know. Weeks? Maybe months?”
Months?
“What about work?” I ask.
“I’ll ask for a sabbatical.”
I glance at his hastily packed suitcase.
“What about the job in London?”
“I won’t take it.”
My vision frays as the implication becomes clear.
He’s choosing me.
It’s what I’ve always wanted. But I feel like I’m spinning out with no time to gather my thoughts.
“I want to be there for you,” I tell him, pushing past the wedge in my throat. Then in a smaller voice, I ask, “But what does this mean?”
He drags a hand through his messy hair, his eyes lifting to mine. “It means I want you back, Ros.”
He blurs in front of me, a fuzzy, Liam-shaped blob.
It’s exactly what I hoped he’d say. What I’ve dreamed about for months. And yet all I feel is stomach-churning fear.
Liam’s about to do one of the hardest things he’s probably ever had to do, something that would be challenging even if our relationship was rock-solid. But it’s not.
We’ve only just begun to sift through our issues. Only just started to heal the deep wounds between us. And I’m terrified that my going with him is too much, too fast. That whatever foundation we’ve only just started to repair will crumble under the pressure.