Chapter Thirteen
After the toy fundraiser had ended and all the presents had been picked up, Liam and I had plans to meet again.
I knew that it was not a good idea. I had developed a bad habit of letting myself daydream of Liam and me in increasingly dirty scenarios, and it only seemed to be getting worse. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking of him in that way.
Staying away would be for the best. I knew that. But unfortunately, when he proposed the idea of meeting up later that evening in his shop, he was looking at me with that smile that I had grown to find charming. With those amber eyes that I had known all my life. I couldn’t say no.
I had, at the very least, shut down the idea of us going out to dinner to discuss the results. That would have been far too intimate and much too close to the concept of a date.
Dating was something that I had gone all my life never really caring about.
I had spent all my teenage years competing with Liam.
Even if I had the slightest interest in dating back then, no boy would have had any interest in me.
A girlfriend who would spend every waking moment thinking about another man, even if those thoughts were competitive in nature, would not have been an ideal partner.
Even after mine and Liam’s competitions ended. We both went our separate ways off to college, but dating still never became something I cared much about. It wasn’t even that I had no interest in boys or that I didn’t find them attractive.
I wasn’t sure what it was. Not until I became an adult. An adult who suddenly couldn’t take her mind off of Liam. It seemed that my issue was that there had always been one man at the forefront of my mind.
That is exactly how I found myself, twenty-three and having never dated or even kissed a man. Those had always been facts of my life—never bothering me until that day.
But as the toy drive carried on and my mind continued to drift to thoughts of him, I found that it did bother me a little.
Love, dating, and romance—those things shouldn’t have been a competition, but that was precisely what they felt like.
I had gone so long without caring about any of those things. Until now. Why did Liam have to be the only person who could make my heart race? Why did dating and romance only exist for me when he was involved?
I wondered if he had felt anything in the moments that my own heart had skipped a beat, or if all of this was the same as it had always been—just a means of amusement for him.
The question that haunted me the most was a question of what it all meant to me. Whether Liam felt anything at all, I did. I felt something. Something that I hadn’t ever felt before. Something that felt impossible to describe.
Suddenly, I found my mind bombarded with all sorts of ideas.
Would dating Liam be anything like the time we had spent together over the past few months?
Him cooking me dinner or bringing me coffee?
Us falling asleep on the sofa together? Was there more to it than that?
Was love flowers and fireworks, or was it remembering someone’s favorite flavor of ice cream and burning their handwriting to memory?
What a ridiculous thing to even consider.
What Liam and I had—whatever it was—couldn’t be love. A silly crush, maybe. My body finally feeling relaxed enough to fixate on the hottest man in proximity and start thinking up fantasies, sure. But love?
That was utterly absurd.
Even if I caught myself daydreaming more than once about what his lips would feel like on mine.
Even if I wanted to know what he would do with his hands when he kissed me.
If they would find their way to my hips, just as they had when he led me through his crowded shop, or if they would tangle in my hair, pulling me in deeper.
“What are you thinking about?” I nearly jumped out of my skin when Liam’s voice cut through my thoughts.
We were sitting in the very back of his shop in the section close to the cafe, where several couches sat in front of a wall lined with the biggest TVs I had ever seen.
“Nothing,” I said all too quickly. A warm flush was already creeping across my cheeks.
“Liar,” Liam said. My gaze was fixed firmly on the blank TV in front of me, but I could hear the grin on his face from his tone. “Spill it.”
As if I could ever simply turn to him and tell him what I was feeling. Maybe in a thousand years. Only if I could ever learn to be honest with myself.
“I was just…” I paused for a moment, trying to think of something believable to say. “I was thinking about the charity drive. About who won and everything. If you won this time, that’ll probably be it, right?”
“What do you mean?”
I turned to face him, taking note of the confusion etched across his face. “You’d be two wins ahead. I don’t think I could make a comeback like that before the spring.”
It was like I was processing that fact for the very first time as the words fell past my lips.
I realized that maybe it would be a good thing.
I would hate to lose to him. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to bear it.
But at least then, I could go away. Far, far away from him.
Maybe then, I could get a handle on myself and my obnoxiously intrusive feelings.
If I hadn’t been staring right at his face, I would have missed the way his expression seemed to drop. So subtle, but still there. “Right,” he said. I wondered if that brief flicker of emotion meant anything. If any of this did.
Even if it did—even if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I meant something to him, it wouldn’t matter.
I couldn’t. Not with him. Not ever.
“I don’t know where I would move my shop if I lost,” I admitted.
“Not once in my life have I ever seen you concede defeat before the winner has even been announced.”
There was a steady frown etched across Liam’s lips now. Unlike the crinkles that would form at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, I wasn’t a fan of the way his whole face followed suit when he frowned. His lips, his cheeks, his eyes—they all held that same expression.
“Do you really want to—” Liam began to say. His words were hushed, and if we hadn’t been sitting so close in an empty shop, I wouldn’t have been able to hear them.
He didn’t seem to have any intent on finishing that thought, but I wanted to hear it. I felt like I needed to hear it. “Do I what?”
Liam sighed. “Do you really still want that, Jess?”
Jess. Liam had called me Jess.
I ignored it. Even if it meant something to him, I needed it to mean nothing.
“Deals a deal,” I said with a shrug.
It was easier that way. Easier than digging into the emotions I would rather keep buried.
“It’d probably be for the best anyway,” I joked emotionlessly.
“My customers are probably tired of the music that comes blaring through the walls. Yours are probably tired of the scent of my superior coffee wafting in, only to get a cup of disappointment when they order from your cafe. And you and I are both probably sick of each other.”
Four fingers, warm, like a steaming mug of coffee, pressed gently beneath my chin. Liam’s thumb, feathery light but just as warm, touched my bottom lip, tugging it down. His eyes found mine, and all the panicky thoughts in my mind went silent.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, stating the words as though he were reciting a fact.
I had to remind myself to breathe. Liam and breathing, that was all my mind could handle as it short-circuited beneath his gaze. That, and the loudest question of all—was Liam Ashford about to kiss me?
“Tell me you don’t mean that,” Liam commanded. I had only heard his voice sound like that once or twice before—deeper and almost dominant in a way that sent a boiling wave of heat pooling in my stomach.
I tried to resist. “I do,” I said, even though my words came out like an exhale.
“You don’t. Say you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t mean that,” I whispered.
Liam smiled. “Good.”
My heart was ready to beat right out of my chest, and my entire body felt like it was on fire.
We stayed frozen like that until, after what felt like an eternity, Liam began to move in closer.
Liam’s lips were millimeters from mine when he whispered, “Do you want me to kiss you, Jess?”
I stared right into his warm amber eyes, speechless. Every ounce of resistance or hesitation went right out the window. I would have given anything for him to kiss me at that moment. My heart, my soul, I decided that all he really had to do was ask, and I would willingly give it all to him.
But I couldn’t seem to form the words to tell him that.
Liam pulled away. A self-satisfied grin on his face as he positioned himself all the way on the other end of the couch.
“What—”
“I can wait,” he said, grabbing two game controllers. He handed one to me. My heart was still beating a mile a minute when I took it from his hand—his hand that was just touching my face. “I’ll wait for you to be ready,” he said decisively, loading up an old game that we used to play as children.
We played in silence, side by side. I did not utter a word for the entire hour or so that we played. Liam did not bring up the almost-kiss for the rest of the evening.
Just before I left to head back to my apartment, my head still in a daze, Liam asked me, “So, how many toys did your shop collect?”
“Huh?” I asked, as if that wasn’t the entire reason I came.
The winner of our competition felt so very unimportant at that moment. All I could think about was the fact that this same man had almost kissed me three times. That, and the fact that he always pulled away.
I wanted to ask why. I wanted to know if he was messing with me, but I couldn’t seem to form the words.
The grin on Liam’s face told me he was amused. “Toys? From the toy drive? How many did you guys collect?”
“Right. Two thousand and twenty—I think it was twenty-two?” It was an unbelievable number.
I had to call the organization twice before the day ended to keep up with the massive present pile in the shop.
It was also a number that I was incredibly proud of.
Win or lose, kiss or not, I was so proud of what The Prologue had accomplished.
“You win,” he said, sounding far too excited for someone who just lost. “I barely got half of that. Looks like we’re on for one more competition.”
“Right. A tie breaker,” I agreed.
I felt so small standing there, lingering outside The Prologue in the coat I still hadn’t given back to him. Liam’s gaze burned into me.
I had no idea how a man, who always felt so burning hot to the touch, could get cold so easily. From the way he was shivering in the frigid December air, it was apparently possible.
“Here,” I said, shrugging off his coat.
Liam took the coat from my hands, our fingertips brushing just barely. I watched him with all too much care as he put the thick jacket on with gratitude. “Thanks, Jess.”
Maybe I was tipsy off that almost-kiss from hours ago, but the way he said my name made me want to drop to my knees right there on the sidewalk and beg him to kiss me.
“Have a good night,” he said, a teasing smile on his lips. As if he knew.
“Right. Night, Liam,” I said, not making any move to open the door.
He waited for a moment before saying, “Remember, whenever you’re ready, Jess.”
“As if that’ll ever happen,” I said. My face was already heating with a traitorous blush.
I turned on my heel, unlocked the door, and rushed inside. Not turning back to face him and ignoring the hushed snicker I could hear from behind me right before I shut the door.