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His face didn’t so much as budge, but there was an anticipatory gleam in his eyes.
“You are impossible,” I said slowly, making sure I enunciated every syllable. “And I look forward to the end of the weekend, when you admit that I’m right.”
“I’d rather shove splints up my fingernails.”
Instead of rising to the bait, I smiled. “I’ll sharpen them before I get home.”
He stood. “That it? I can move my stuff in now?”
I rubbed at my forehead. Was I getting another headache? “I guess. I’ll call the lawyer and let him know about the house.” I paused. “We still have a lot to figure out, Liam.”
“Don’t overthink it, Valentine.” He took a few steps nearer, and if we’d been standing closer, I would’ve had to tilt my chin up to look himin the face. He was so tall. And big. And somehow those two things were the least intimidating aspects about him. “I’ll stay here, help where I can. No need to bug the scary neighbor. It’ll be fine.”
“Fine? The last month, you’ve done everything in your power to avoid me, and now you think you can waltz in and take care of a two-and-a-half-year-old without any instruction?”
“I’ve got friends with kids. Little shits always love me.”
Honestly, my jaw was about two inches off the floor.
“It’s amazing because youlooklike the same Liam,” I said, leaning back to study his face. “But you must be a clone or something.” Then I tapped my chin. “That’s not a logical answer either, because why would anyone want to have two of you walking around this earth unchecked?”
He sighed again. “We done here?”
“No.”
Liam crossed his arms. The biceps bulged in a way that I did not appreciate. “What, then?”
What, then?I had a list of concerns the length of my arm.
First, and the one I couldn’t say out loud, was:How the hell are we supposed to coexist and coparent without killing each other?I could hardly have a single conversation with him without becoming overtaken by vivid fantasies of inflicting some sort of violence on his big, grumpy person.
But I decided to start with the most obvious.
“What about the fall? I have to go back to work. And the regular season starts in August.”
He gave me a look. “Right now, we’re taking this one week at a time. We’ll get it figured out.”
“You really think it’s that simple?” I asked him. Maybe ... maybe he was a little bit off his rocker, and I just hadn’t noticed yet.
“I’ll watch her next weekend, and we’ll talk again when you get back. It’s just one pint-size little girl. How hard can it be?”
Chapter Nine
LIAM
I was fourteen the first time I lined up on a field to play American football. My mum had remarried by that point, and decent bloke that he was, Nigel suggested we find a league where I could learn how to play properly, if that’s what I wanted.
And I did.
He didn’t press as to why I wanted to play that sport; maybe my mum had told him not to ask.
They knew soccer—the real football where I was from—would never serve as a proper outlet for all that shit I kept bottled up all the time.
They didn’t press me on that either. Trying to talk through any of the things I felt bubbling under the surface only served to make me angrier, because it was hard to find the right words for the things I felt. Mainly the things I didn’t want to be feeling.
But on the field, I could let them go.
The first time I landed a clean tackle, on a mouthy little shit of a running back, I felt the most surreal sort of high.
