Page 115 of Just Between Us

Scanning my surroundings, I listen for any sounds indicating where Liam might be in the house when my eyes track movement on his back deck. Liam stands, shirtless, arms braced on the deck railing head tipped to the sky. I think about the time I watched him play piano, how he looked like an angel. But right now, with the sun shining on his skin he looks like a god, a deity who has earned my devotion.

I make my way outside quietly so as not to disrupt his moment of peace. At the sound of the door, Liam glances back, and a smile breaks across his face.

“Want some company?”

“I always want your company,” he says, taking my hand and guiding me to a chair. He situates me onto his lap, just the way we like it. Even when we’re doing nothing but sitting, we want to be as close as possible. I quietly sip my tea, content to listen to the birds singing to one another from the trees.

“What were you thinking just now, before I came out? It looked intense.”

I coast my fingertips along his jaw, the shell of his ear, the hair at his temple, and his eyes fall closed. He doesn’t answer me right away, leaning into my touch.

“You. It’s always you.” Opening his eyes, he takes my hand and presses it flat against his chest, where I can feel the steady, insistent beat beneath my palm. “I’ve read hundreds of poems about love. Memorized some of them. And I still couldn’t find the right words for what happens to me when you walk into a room. Tell me this isn’t magic,” he says. “Tell me there’s another word for whatever this is, because I’ve been trying to find one and I can’t.”

I don’t tell him it isn’t magic. I press my hand harder againsthis chest and feel his heart. “I stopped trying to break the spell months ago,” I whisper. “Now, I just fall deeper and deeper with each passing day.”

Liam studies me, emerald eyes moving between mine and he smiles softly. I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of his smiles. The ones when he’s trying to charm the pants off me, that lopsided one when he’s being a big goof, and the one that’s reserved just for me, like he’s wearing right now. That’s my favorite smile, like he’s got nowhere else to be and no one else he’d rather be looking at. He kisses my nose, and pulls me closer to nuzzle into him.

“What are your plans today?” he asks after several long seconds.

I sigh, an exaggerated beleaguered sound. “Laundry. I’ve been slacking since somebody can’t keep their hands off me.” I squeeze his ticklish spot that I only recently discovered and he yelps. “What about you?”

“It’s a beautiful day. Thought about taking a ride. Wanna come?”

Going on a ride with Liam sounds like a slice of heaven, but the laundry really is piled high. If I don’t wash clothes soon, I’ll have to walk around naked. Then neither of us will ever get anything done.

“You go without me. I’ll whip us up something for lunch when you get back.”

I climb from his lap and he stands, pressing a quick kiss to my lips, then to each cheek and heads inside. Sitting in the spot he just left, I watch Mutt in the field and finish my tea.

“Mutt is a good boy, yes he is. The bestest boy with the sloppiestkiss,” I sing, while folding T-shirts. Mutt watches me from his bed, tail wagging in approval.

Heading to our bedroom, I’m still humming my silly little made up song while I put clothes away. As I pass Liam’s nightstand, my eyes land on his phone still lying there, plugged into the charger. Liam’s always leaving his phone lying around. I bet his screen time is insanely low in comparison to mine. I’m just stepping away when it lights up with a text notification.

Liam’s never given me a reason to be nosy. Once he started opening up to me, I trusted him, full stop. But my eyes betray me by reading the words on the screen anyway.

Rhonda Pierce

We miss you in Nashville. The kids ask about you all the time.

What. The. Fuck.

I drop onto the edge of the bed, phone trembling in my hand, and scan the words over and over. Who is Rhonda? And who the hell are these kids that ask about Liam. You read all the time about men who have entirely separate families in other cities and take years to get caught. That’s not what this is, right?

I feel like I might vomit, and all I can hear is the sound of my pulse, the hammering of my heart and a sharp ringing sound. Squeezing my eyes shut, I work to gain composure.

“Stop it,” I say aloud. “Think rationally about this.” I know this is me projecting. My body is responding like this because of a lying ex-boyfriend. But Liam isn’t Alan.

As calmly as possible, I walk back to the living room and open my laptop. It takes me three tries to get the words typed correctly, but when I hit the return button, several articles populate. I click the first one and skim the page.

Rhonda Pierce, founder and director of the One Note Foundation, will host a fundraising gala this fall. The Nashville-based nonprofit connects at-risk teens with professional musicians for mentoring and music instruction.

Relief, an all-encompassing feeling, washes over me. Rhonda isn’t some long forgotten significant other raising kids that look like Liam. But why not tell me about something this special?

I jump at the sound of a door opening and closing, then Liam shouting, “Honey, I’m home.” He chuckles aloud and comes around to sit next to me. “You watching that hockey show again?” he asks, motioning at the laptop perched on my thighs.

Wordlessly, I turn the screen for him to read the article.

His eyes skim down the screen and his face falls slack.