Chapter 14 Liam
Liam
Two weeks since the hallway kiss, and I kept waiting for something to go wrong.
It didn’t.
For the first time in years, things were just… good.
I woke up with Riley beside me, her dark hair spread across my pillow like spilled ink, and had to remind myself this was real. That she was here by choice now, not just arrangement. That the woman curled against my side, one hand resting on my chest, had kissed me in a dark hallway and meant it.
I let myself look at her. Really look. The way you do when you stop guarding the exits and finally admit you’re not leaving.
The soft curve of her cheek, slack with sleep in a way it never was when she was awake. Awake, she held herself tight—jaw set, shoulders squared—like rest was something she had to earn. Sleep stole that from her.
The small scar cutting through her left eyebrow, pale and clean, like it had healed fast but not quietly. I’d never asked about it. I could picture the answer anyway.
Her lashes lay dark against olive skin, one cheek pressed into the pillow, her breath slow and even. The faint line between her brows—always there, even when she smiled—had finally smoothed out, like whatever she carried during the day had loosened its grip.
Her lips were parted just slightly, the bottom one fuller than the top. I watched them move with each breath, rise and fall, a rhythm so steady it made my chest ache.
She was beautiful. I’d known that from the first day she walked into the firehouse, all sharp edges and warning signs, daring anyone to underestimate her.
But this—
This was the version she didn’t offer freely. The quiet one. The unarmored one. The Riley who slept curled into someone else without bracing for impact.
The Riley who was starting, slowly, to trust me.
She shifted beside me, a small sound catching in her throat, and I closed my eyes immediately, going still.
Like if I pretended hard enough, she wouldn’t catch me memorizing her.
“You’re staring.” Her voice was rough with sleep. “I can tell even with my eyes closed.”
“Wasn’t staring. Was admiring. There’s a difference.”
She snorted and burrowed closer, her nose cold against my neck. “Semantics.”
“Important distinction.”
We lay there as the room slowly lightened, the gray of early morning thinning into something warmer. A pale line of sun crept along the ceiling, inching forward like it had nowhere else to be.
Outside, the ranch stirred. Hooves shifted in the barn, a low huff of breath, the sound of wood settling. Birds started up one by one, tentative at first, then louder, as if testing whether the day was really allowed to begin.
There were things waiting. Feed to carry. Gates to check. Coffee to make strong enough to cut through the night. A whole day lined up and tapping its foot.
Neither of us moved.
Riley’s head rested against my chest, her breathing still slow, still deep. I could feel the warmth of her through the thin fabric of my shirt, the quiet weight of her there like an answer I hadn’t known I was asking for. My hand lay at her back, steady, familiar already.
“We should get up.”
I stared at the ceiling, at the slow march of light.
“Probably.”
She shifted just enough for me to feel it, a small exhale against my skin.
“Mia will be awake soon.”
“Probably.”
The word settled between us, heavy and unconvincing.
Still, neither of us moved.
A few seconds passed. Maybe more. Long enough for the light to climb higher on the wall, long enough for me to realize my hand had settled at her waist and wasn’t going anywhere.
Then she tilted her head back to look at me. Slowly. Like she was checking something. Her dark eyes were still soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges, the sharpness I knew so well dulled into something gentler.
“You’re not moving.”
I huffed a quiet breath through my nose, the corner of my mouth lifting despite myself.
“Neither are you.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. I was learning to read those almost-smiles, the ones she gave when she was satisfied but not quite ready to admit it.
Eventually, we did get up. Made coffee together, moving around the kitchen in the easy rhythm we’d developed over months of sharing space. Her mug sat next to mine on the counter now. Her boots by the door, next to my boots.
Small things. Ordinary things. The kind of things that built a life without anyone noticing.
Riley hummed while she made eggs, some song I didn’t recognize, slightly off-key. She’d started doing that lately. Humming. Like happiness was leaking out of her in ways she couldn’t control.
Mia came downstairs in her school clothes, hair still tangled from sleep, and didn’t even blink at finding us together in the kitchen.
Didn’t comment on the fact that Riley had clearly come from my room rather than hers.
Just grabbed a piece of toast and asked if she could visit Honey before the bus came.
Like this was how it had always been. Like we were a family.
Maybe we already had been.
First shift back at the station since Riley and I got together. Or whatever we were calling it. Together felt too small a word for what we were, but I didn’t have a better one yet.
I tried to act normal. Failed immediately.
It started with my phone. When I checked it, Riley had texted—nothing important, just a picture of Honey nosing Mia’s pocket for treats. I smiled at the screen without thinking, and when I looked up, Owen was watching me from across the apparatus bay.
He didn’t say anything. Just nodded once, a quiet approval in his expression, and went back to checking equipment.
Cal was less subtle.
“All right, what happened?” He fell into step beside me as I headed to the kitchen. “You’re smiling more than usual, and that’s saying something.”
“I smile a normal amount.”
“You smile more than anyone I know. But this? This is different.” He studied me with that knowing look, the one that said he’d already figured out whatever I was trying to hide. “This is the smile of a man who’s got something good going on at home.”
“Maybe I just had a good breakfast.”
“Liar.”
The bay doors opened before I could respond. Riley walked in, already in uniform, pulling her hair back into its usual tight braid. Our eyes met across the apparatus floor.
Just a second too long.
I looked away first, tried to focus on the coffee maker, but it was too late. The damage was done.
“Ha!” Kowalski’s voice echoed through the bay. He was one of the newer guys, six months on the crew, still young enough to find everything entertaining. “Pay up, Reyes. I told you it would happen before the six-month mark.”
I turned to find half the crew grinning at us. Reyes, Kowalski’s partner in crime and fellow rookie, was already pulling out his wallet with an exaggerated groan.
“Seriously?” Riley crossed her arms, but I caught the small smile she was trying to hide. “You had a bet going?”
“Have had,” Owen corrected. “Since about week three.”
“Week three?”
“You should’ve seen the way he looked at you during that warehouse fire.” Kowalski was counting bills now. “Man was gone. We just had to wait for him to figure it out.”
I thought about denying it. Thought about playing it cool, maintaining some dignity.
Then I remembered last summer, when I’d been the one collecting on the bet about Cal and Lucy. When I’d been the one ribbing Cal about the looks he gave her when he thought no one was watching.
Karma, apparently, had a sense of humor.
Cal clapped me on the shoulder, leaning in so only I could hear. “Told you it would be an interesting year.”
For once, I didn’t argue.
That night, after shift, I found myself at my grandmother’s dresser.
The velvet box was where I’d left it, buried in the back corner under socks I never wore. I hadn’t touched it since Claire gave it back. I hadn’t been able to look at it without feeling the weight of everything it represented. Everything I’d wanted and lost.
I opened it now.
Gran’s ring caught the lamplight, simple and elegant. A modest diamond in an antique setting, the gold worn smooth from fifty-three years on her finger. She’d pressed it into my palm the week before she died, her hands papery and thin, her eyes still sharp.
“For the woman who chooses this life with you,” she’d said. “Not someone you have to convince. Not someone who sees the ranch as a burden. Someone who looks at this land the way I did. The way your grandfather did. Like it’s worth fighting for.”
I thought about Riley’s hands.
Calloused from ranch work and firehouse labor.
Capable hands that dug fence posts and hauled hose and gentled spooked horses.
Strong hands that held her sister through nightmares and gripped mine in courtroom hallways.
The hands of a woman who worked for everything she had, who never expected anything to be given to her, who’d built a life out of nothing but stubbornness and love.
The hands of someone who belonged here. With me. On this land.
The hands this ring was always meant for.
I thought about the simple gold band she wore now.
Not cheap, but not what she deserved either.
I’d bought it at the only jeweler open on a Tuesday afternoon, three days after a desperate proposal in a firehouse kitchen.
The woman behind the counter had asked about sizing, and I’d described Riley’s hands from memory: small but strong, calloused fingers, a woman who worked with her hands.
She’d guessed a size six, and somehow she’d been right.
The band was real gold, a proper ring, but it had been chosen in a rush for a marriage that wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It was a symbol of convenience, not love.
She deserved something chosen with intention. Something that meant forever.
She deserved this.
I closed the box and held it in my palm for a moment, feeling the weight of it. The promise it represented.
Not yet.