Page 29 of The Summer I Destroyed You

It doesn’t take long to grow accustomed to the weight, to the motion, and there’s nothing else to do while I wait anyway, so I continue on after I’ve thrown the fifteen sandbags I owe him. Other people have come out too, to assist stores that are not their own. Why are they all helping? What could compel this many people to get their asses out of bed before sunrise on behalf of strangers? And how can they be so good to each other when they were all so awful to me?

My heart sinks because I’m the common denominator. There’s always been something inside me that my mother was unable to like. And there was something that made my dad feel okay about abandoning me, and made the kids at school feel okay about the bullying.

It makes me want to give up, the way I’ve given up before, but a tiny part of me looks at Liam and wants to give this one more shot.

I want to see if just a little of this care they all feel for each other could possibly rub off on me. If I could care, if they could care about me in turn.

We work for hours, until every single store on the street is protected. My arms hurt so badly I can no longer lift them to push the hair out of my face. I won’t be able to do Chloe’s yoga class for at least a week.

“Come on,” says Liam. “I live about two blocks from here. You can get some dry clothes while JP borrows my truck and then I’ll take you home.”

I should probably ask why JP needs his truck, why JP can’t take me home on the way or why JP can’t wait until I’m delivered, but I’m too fucking tired.

He leads me uphill in the driving rain, toward the town’s historic section. We walk as fast as we can, but we’re too exhausted and soaked to move all that quickly. “It’s just ahead,” he shouts, placing a hand on my back to steer me down a side street. There’s something sweetly possessive in the gesture. I wish I could hate it.

A moment later we arrive at a restored cottage with a little white picket fence that looks like something out of a movie set in the 1950s.

“You live here?” I blurt.

He looks at me over his shoulder. “No, Em. I just thought we’d break into this stranger’s home to get dry.”

I smile. “It’s just not what I pictured.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what you pictured,” he says, opening the door and flicking on the light.

Inside the cottage is warm and dry and perfect. Completely restored, with fresh paint and built-in shelves.

“Come in,” he says, shutting the door behind me.

He pulls his jacket off. The T-shirt and jeans beneath it are soaked, clinging to his very, very defined chest.

“I don’t want to drip on your floors.”

He kicks off his boots with a quiet laugh. “I’m a single guy who works in construction. They’ve seen worse.”

He walks into another room and emerges after a moment with several towels and dry clothes. Our eyes catch as he hands them to me. In bare feet, he’s a foot taller than me and…very close. Suddenly, I’m considering a lot of ways we could pass the time waiting for his truck.

“Use the guest room,” he says, nodding over his shoulder. “There’s a bathroom in there, too, if you want to shower.”

Apparently, I’m the only one of us considering how we should pass the time.

He turns to go into what I presume is his bedroom while I head to the guest room to change. There was definitely a female around here at some point. Most single guys don’t keep Dior lipstick and La Roche moisturizer in the guest room medicine cabinet.

Are they his girlfriend’s? My former designer’s? I don’t know why I care. I don’t know why there’s a pang in my chest at finding them here.

I turn on the water, strip off my damp clothes, and shiver with pleasure as I step into the hot shower. I help myself to the expensive shampoo and conditioner that definitely isn’t Liam’s either.

Once I’m dry, I pull on the sweatshirt, which is five times too big, and skip the shorts, which would barely fit a child.

I don’t love the fact that Liam has clearly dated someone half my weight, but I do sort of like the idea of being nearly naked in Liam’s home.

And then I walk into the living room…where Liam is pretty much naked too.

18

LIAM

Emerson’s gaze sweeps over me as she emerges from the guest room. “I guess I won’t explain why I’m not wearing the children’s shorts you gave me since you’re wearing less.”

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