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“I’ve been looking into it, though.” He cleared his throat and examined my face, his dark eyes swimming with trepidation, like maybe he was worried he’d upset me. “Stepping back a bit.”
“Stepping back?” I said around a mouthful of ice cream.
The corners of his lips lifted. “Yeah, you know. Making more time for family. Other opportunities and whatnot.”
Other opportunities? I swallowed, my heart fluttering in my chest. “Such as?”
Chin low, he peered at me through his lashes, lifting one side of his mouth, that slow pull of his left cheek giving me a glimpse of that near-dimple. “I think you know.”
My chest went tight, and a low, rippling warmth brushed through my core. Deep down, maybe I did know what he was thinking. And maybe a small sliver of me wanted to think it too. Though I’d fought the visions, and I still wasn’t sure I could pull them out into the light and face them, they existed. Images and fantasies of a life with Liam. Family trips to the park, date nights at drive-ins, sharing blankets at soccer games, and drinking hot chocolate while looking at Christmas lights downtown.
It was easy to envision all the good moments. But it was just as easy to conjure up mental pictures of how it could all go south. Then came the memories. Withering away more and more each day as time went on. Becoming a shell of the woman I used to be. Signing the papers, hiring the lawyers, picking custody days. I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t risk drowning just for the swim.
Even so. Even after I’d drilled all that knowledge into my head hundreds of times and reminded my heart that a love between us was an impossibility and that dreams were for people with no concept of reality, a tiny piece of me still clung to that hope. And I was still holding tight. Because that little glimmer was what had made me feeling so light these last few weeks.
Breaking the connection, Liam tipped his head back, examining the speakers installed in the ceiling. That smile split into a grin, which quickly morphed into a deep, loud laugh. When he lifted a finger, I looked up too. I scanned the ceiling, finding nothing out of the ordinary. But it only took a moment to pick up on the song playing quietly through the speakers. “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith. Because of course this song would be the soundtrack to the moment it felt as though I was reevaluating every aspect of my life.
Liam stood and held out a hand. When all I did was frown at it, he shook it in front of me and grinned again. “Dance with me.”
I reared back. “No, that’s weird.”
“Why?” He laughed. “No one else is here.”
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, the older couple was gone, and the single employee was nowhere in sight. We were alone in our own world here.
With a sure hand, he grasped my good wrist and ducked in close. “Come on. It’s our song.”
I let him pull me to my feet, but I avoided his gaze and let out a snort. “We don’t have a song.”
“Oh yes, we do. Prom night, 2007. You were wearing a strapless blue dress, and you kept stepping on my feet, so you tossed your heels across the gym floor. My hands may have drifted a little too low, and since our moms were chaperoning, I got a good tongue lashing. I wore a black tux, but I ditched the tie and popped the collar because I thought it made me look like Heath Ledger.”
He said it as if every detail of that night wasn’t branded on my soul. As if I couldn’t still feel the imprint of his hands on my hips as we swayed together on that dance floor. And on our wedding night a few years later and the nights he’d pull me as close as my rounded belly would allow and spun me around in the kitchen.
I squeezed his hand and twisted my lips. “Hmm, sounds familiar.”
“Need me to remind you?”
Trying my hardest not to smile, I nodded. “Just a little.”
He laughed and tugged me out into the open space between our table and the register. The music floated around us with the sugary scent of ice cream and waffle cones as Liam squared his hips with mine and pulled me so close all I could feel was him. Gently, he draped my right arm over his shoulder, wrist brace and all, and brought my left hand between us, lacing our fingers and squeezing tight. His thumb worked small circles over my skin to the rhythm of the music. The hand on my hip forced me closer until we’d melded into one.
This close, the scent of his cologne overpowered the sweetness in the air, bringing with it flash after flash of memories of good days. Dancing in the kitchen, at our friends’ weddings, parking lots, in the snow, and in the rain. We could add ice cream shops to the list now too. We always loved a good slow dance. Any excuse to have our hands on each other.
I rested my cheek on his shoulder, and he dropped his lips to the crown of my head, planting a soft kiss to my hair. As the chorus hit, the shop went dark. The only illumination came from the string of lights hanging above the entrance.
I lifted my head and scanned the space. We were still alone. No teenage employee in sight. Was the shop closing? I was sure they were open for at least another hour. Maybe the kid was sick of us, and this was his way of kicking us out.
I tried to step back, but Liam tightened his fingers around mine and moved his hand to my low back so I couldn’t escape. Then he shot me a smile. That smile. The one I’d convinced myself to hate for so long. For years, I wanted to smack it right off his face. Now, though, I wanted nothing more than to sink into it. I wanted that smile framed at my workstation, my phone lock screen, on my bathroom mirror, in my shower.
“Did you do this?” I asked, cocking a brow at him.
He shrugged and kept swaying. “I may or may not have tipped the kid twenty bucks when you weren’t looking.”
I laughed and surveyed the string lights, at a loss for what to say. At a loss for what to feel.
He scrunched his eyebrows together and tipped his chin. “Is it working?”
Smiling and blushing like a schoolgirl, I laid my head on his shoulder again. “Oh yeah.”
