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I didn’t, but I would entertain her for a little while longer.
“Right, right. Now go change shirts. You look like Adam Sandler.”
“Ice cream? You’re taking me out on a date—”
“Not a date—”
“For ice cream?”
Liam shrugged. “My stomach spent a solid twenty-four hours seizing, so I have almost no appetite. You said you could eat, but you’re not starving. Ergo, ice cream.”
My tummy dipped. This sure felt like a date.
If I’d had any inkling that I’d leave the house with Liam tonight, I would have attempted to look more…put together.
My paint-speckled jeans and the FC Storm shirt he’d loaned me that hung to mid-thigh would not have been my first choice of date attire. I was, however, grateful that Liam had gone with sweatpants and a matching FC Storm shirt. At least I wasn’t the only one who looked like they’d rolled out of bed to get here. It helped. This way, the people who gawked as we wandered the sidewalk downtown looked at us both with the same confusion, rather than checking out Liam with hearts in their eyes and silently praising him for taking his homeless friend out on a walk.
Above us, the neon Sweet Scoops sign beckoned, its arrow pointing inside. Liam took a step closer and dipped his chin to the door in question.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I forced down my smile. “Lead the way.”
He lit up, his dark eyes warm with excitement. With one hand, he pulled the door open, and he swept the other in front of him, signaling for me to enter first.
A lone employee manned the counter, head bent over his phone, and an older couple sat near the front window, sharing a banana split. The lack of patrons eased my nerves a bit.
Even if this was a date, I had no interest in feeding the gossip mill around here. If we were spotted, the entire school district would be discussing our long and mildly tumultuous past, I was sure. We had always remained civil.
I never complained to my mom friends about the divorce or our current situation. What good could come of that? All it would do was hurt the boys if word got around that I’d badmouthed their dad. Even so, hanging out in public like this would raise some brows. How was I supposed to answer questions about our relationship, should they arise from this, when I didn’t even know what was happening here?
We each ordered a scoop. I chose rocky road, and Liam went with a snow cone with no flavoring—i.e., a cup full of ice—and sat at a table near the back.
Over and over, Liam flipped his spoon upside down and licked it. The movement was beginning to have an effect. How this man could look sexy in any scenario was beyond me. He’d tossed all his cookies this morning, and now he was sitting in front of me eating a cup full of snow in a way that made heat curl in my belly and fire lick up my spine.
It was impolite to stare. I didn’t know how many times I’d told my boys that over the years. Even so, I couldn’t tear my attention away from the man when he dipped his spoon into the ice, brought it up to his full lips, and guided it to his tongue. Slowly, smoothly, he’d drag it back out of his mouth, with his elbow propped on the table, forearm out on display. So veiny and tan. And lickable.
“Did you hear me?” His voice cut into my sexy, slow montage.
“Hmm?” I forced my gaze away from his marigold tattoo and up to his face.
Naturally, he was wearing that stupid grin that told me he could see every naughty thought flitting through my mind. “I asked how work was going.” He poked his tongue in his cheek.
I shrugged, ignoring the heat creeping into my cheeks and the way my palms tingled at the thought of squeezing his bicep. “I’ve been taking on fewer clients in hopes of spending more time with the boys and focusing on my personal life. So far, all that free time has been going into this project.”
Unfortunately, taking on fewer clients meant bringing in less money. Finding the perfect work-life balance had always been a challenge, but as the boys were getting older, it felt more and more impossible to do.
“It’s great that you can do that. Take a break and whatnot.” He looked down at his ice cream, his shoulders sagging.
“You’ve kind of been doing the same, right? Finding time for the boys, more family dinners, the project…” Ice cream dates with me, taking me to the hospital, making it not only to soccer games but practices, even on my nights.
A bark of humorless laughter left him. Lifting his face and meeting my eye, he cleared his throat. “No, no. I’m working about as much as always.”
“But you’ve been doing all this extra stuff. I just thought…”
“I’ve been, uh, working kind of late and going in early. When I don’t have the boys. And working through my lunches.”
Realization hit me like a freight train as I absorbed his confession. He was doing that for us. For our boys, the project, and maybe for me too, at least a little. This man, the man who, at one point, I dreaded even sharing air with, was sitting across from me confessing that he’d been devoting his every free moment to my family, his family. My heart didn’t know what to do with that. Gah. Staying friendly with Liam had already gotten ridiculously hard. And this? I wasn’t sure I could handle this knowledge.
“Oh…” I shoved an enormous bite of ice cream into my mouth. Instantly, my brain froze and my teeth ached, and I was considering spitting it back into my bowl. Only this torment was still better than stuttering through a response to that confession. What would I even say? How had it taken me so long to see the sacrifices he’d been making for us? Because now that I thought about it, there had been evidence of it even before we’d started this project.
