Chapter 41 Andrea
Andrea
Liam had been quiet most of the way, his fingers tapping lightly on the steering wheel like they always did.
“The trees have grown,” he said as we pulled into the driveway. “It looks different. Don’t know why I didn’t think it would.”
I put a hand on his knee. “Okay?”
“Yeah. I just … it’s overdue.”
I nodded and tightened my fingers around his as he knocked on the door.
Eleanor’s house was large and expensive-looking—much bigger than Mum’s.
There were pink and yellow flowers in tubs on the step, and a pair of wellies with an umbrella sticking out of them.
He looked down at me and smiled, but it was a little weak around the edges.
“I can’t believe I’ve only seen her once in four years,” he said quietly.
Liam’s mum opened the door, and her gaze fell first on him, then me. She was tall, like he was, and very pretty, her graying hair pulled into a soft ponytail at the nape of her neck.
“Hi, Mum,” he said. “You look well.” She was slender, her wrists almost fragile. She hadn’t looked so slim in the pictures he’d shown me of her at Christmas a few years ago, carrying a turkey into the dining room and laughing.
She held him for a long time, and I saw a small, soft shake like she was trying to hold in a sob.
I’m so glad he decided to visit her. You never know how long you’ll have with someone.
“It’s good to see you, darling,” she said gently, pulling back to look at him. “And this must be Andrea.”
“Eleanor, lovely to meet you,” I said.
I held out a hand, but she reached over and hugged me too, and I heard a small sniff escape her.
Inside, it was warm, and there was the faint smell of baking. Books were piled up on the hall table next to a vase of slightly tired pink lilies—orange pollen had fallen onto the mirrored surface underneath.
“Wow, these are interesting,” I said softly, looking at the framed black-and-white photographs on the wall. They were mostly people caught mid-expression, as if they’d been interrupted.
“Mum took them,” Liam said. “She’s got a good eye, hasn’t she?”
“She has, yes.” I stopped, looking at a teenage girl, her features hovering between awkwardness and humor. “She’s captured them before they remembered how they’re meant to look.”
I paused at a small frame on the table and picked it up.
It was a boy on the floor with a Batman comic spread open in front of him.
His wavy brown hair was longer and lighter than it was now, and he looked completely lost in whatever world he was in.
His shoulders were skinny, his teeth slightly too big for his face.
Oh my God. That’s Liam.
The little boy Wilhelm von Roth had never been proud of. Who knew his dad thought his interests were silly. The one who’d rather read than perform.
“You look happy,” I said.
“He was about twelve there,” Eleanor said. “Right before he went off to boarding school. Much more studious than Ben. You used to spend hours reading. Do you remember, Liam? All those comics and adventure stories, the books about King Arthur?”
Heroes and villains, imaginary men who always knew which side was the right one. Would we have been friends if I’d known him then? It was hard to think he had a whole life before we’d met in the lift that day.
Now I couldn’t imagine a life without him.
“Yeah, I remember.” He walked over and took the frame from me, looking at the photo for a few moments before he put it back on the table and took my hand, leading me into the living room.
“Please, sit down,” Eleanor said. I moved a blue woolen throw to one side and sat on the sofa next to Liam. Mum’s place just had a small patio with a couple of benches and a few flower beds, but Eleanor’s garden dropped away in soft green tiers, fading into the distance.
Had it made Liam feel better, buying her this place, even though he never visited her here?
“Well,” I said. “I’m relieved to see proof he was once small and harmless.”
Eleanor laughed. “Hard to imagine, isn’t it?”
“He’s definitely in his full Batman era now, though,” I added, nudging him gently. “You should see what I had to do to his bat cave to brighten it up.”
Liam looked at me with half a smile. “Yes, the pink scatter cushions really messed with the repressed billionaire psycho vibe I was going for, unfortunately,” he said, without missing a beat.
“He might be leaning more Deadpool now.” I placed a hand on his knee. “Just much better looking than Ryan Reynolds, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Eleanor said, laughing.
“I assume you mean character depth and not complexion?” he said.
“I was sort of thinking … protective and funny,” I said. “But you interpret it how you want.”
Liam rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling as if he was asking a higher power for patience, but I knew he liked it really.
“So,” Eleanor said, after a pause. “Can I make you both a cup of tea?”
“I’ll make it, Mum,” Liam said. “Where are the—”
“Teabags are above the sink,” she said. “Mugs in the drawer under the toaster. Thank you, darling.”
“He looks better,” she said, once Liam had gone. “Like he’s been eating properly. And more relaxed than last time I saw him, too.”
“I hope so.” We’d had so much fun in France, and now back in London. Being with him had softened a knot that had sat tight inside me, since I could remember. I hoped I’d been able to do the same for him.
“Do I have you to thank for that?” Her smile was small, her eyes soft.
I smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know, Eleanor. But I hope so.” I liked seeing more of the funny, quick-witted man I’d first met. Every day I seemed to see a little more of him.
“He’s never brought someone special home before,” she said. “He stayed away for so long, I wasn’t sure if he would—”
I nodded. From the kitchen, I heard the mugs rattle against the stone counter and the kettle start to boil.
“I hope you don’t think badly of him for staying away,” she said. “I think he thought he’d upset me, and it was hard for him—”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t.”
“He could never bear to think he’d upset someone,” she said. “But I wasn’t upset with him. I just worried. I suppose that’s just how mothers are …”
I nodded, feeling a lump pressing into my throat.
“When he went off to school, he changed a bit,” she said. “He got quieter, more serious. It was very expensive, and all the other kids were—well, Liam wasn’t raised with money, you know. I think he struggled a bit—”
“Here you go.” He placed two mugs down and went back to the kitchen, then came back with a plate of warm oat cookies and his own tea.
We stayed another hour, and I couldn’t help noticing where he got his dry wit from.
His mum was funny. This was his real life, not the polished version, and I liked him more for it.
When his mum showed us the garden, I felt both sad and happy, watching him talking and laughing with her.
I hadn’t seen Liam that soft with anyone before—apart from me.
This was the part of him that never made it anywhere near a boardroom.
At the door, his mum pressed a tin of cookies into my hands.
“Make sure he eats those,” she said under her breath. “But not all at once.”
“I’m a thirty-three-year-old CEO of a pharmaceutical company, Mum,” he said, rolling his eyes again. “And I can hear you.”
When we were about to leave, she hugged him first, then me. She held me for a long time, maybe longer than him.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’d forgotten what he was like when he was happy.”
We walked back to the car in the late afternoon light, and I tried not to think about how easily something this gentle could be taken away.
The car filled with silence and he didn’t turn on the engine straight away. It felt … comfortable. Easy. This was the version of Liam Roth I loved the most. When he smiled without thinking. When he showed the depth of his heart.
“Andrea …” He looked at me like he was about to say something important.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, after a pause. “I’m just glad you came.”