Page 33 of The Summer I Destroyed You

EMMY

I wake from an extremely hot dream—Liam fixing things in the grocery store, demanding I remove a piece of clothing for each—to discover I’m lying on Liam’s couch, and he’s in the chair across from me with his legs spread wide, his head tilted backward, sound asleep.

I’m still turned on from the dream and even the way he sleeps is straight out of the alpha male handbook. I can think of a few interesting ways to wake him up, but I already asked if he was trying to get in my pants—his opening to ask ‘is getting in your pants an option?’ or to sexily remind me I wasn’t wearing pants—and instead he got mad. His failure to take advantage of the situation was deeply frustrating.

So I guess I’ll wake him the normal way—by being a bitch about it.

“Liam,” I bark. His eyes flutter open and he raises his head. He looks so adorably confused that I don’t have the heart to continue yelling. “I need to get home. If my mom dies, it’ll be on my head.”

He gives me a sleepy smile. “Most people would have just said they don’t want their mother to die.”

“I was attempting to make it sound believable.”

He laughs as he glances out the window.

“The truck’s in my driveway. Get your stuff out of the dryer and we’ll go.”

I go back to the bathroom and change clothes. Now that I finally get to leave, I’m struck hard by a sudden desire to remain. I move slowly, looking at every object in the guest room.

There’s a photo on the dresser that I didn’t notice earlier: Liam in a high school football uniform, with his arm around a little girl. That version of him, younger and bright-eyed, reminds me of something, but I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s whatever bullshit he did when I was in high school, that thing I can’t remember, but I guess it no longer matters. Even if he was a jerk in high school, it’s pretty clear he has a good side too, and that his good side now far outshines my own.

He’s waiting by the front door when I emerge. He looks good, standing there. He’s comfortable in his body. The arm that’s raised while he holds up his phone to read something is perfectly defined and not because he’s flexing like Donovan always does.

It makes it that much more annoying that he isn’t trying to sleep with me. And why isn’t he? He was flirty by text when I was still in New York—did he expect me to look better? Has my personality ruined things? Or was it just what I initially suspected—that he flirts with every female he works with in order to ease his way, and he’s eased his way with me enough?

“You should tell Julie she left her lipstick here,” I say, and though I regret how jealous it sounds almost immediately, I already know I’m likely to make it worse.

He frowns as he looks up from his phone. “Julie?”

“My former designer.” Ick. There it is again, that note of bitterness the words shouldn’t hold. “The one you seduced into changing the tile.”

His eyes narrow. “I’ve never even met Julie. Is that what you thought? That the tile thing was some kind of trick on my part?”

His voice is more than a little astonished, with a hint of outrage. For the first time, I wonder if I’ve made some wild leaps in coming to that conclusion. Maybe I was simply hurt that the guy who’d flirted with me so relentlessly had turned out to be someone who didn’t even appear to like me much. Believing he was an opportunist meant I didn’t have to examine my own flaws.

“It occurred to me,” I say quietly.

“Is that why you fired her?” he asks.

“No. She still made a huge, expensive mistake. Several mistakes.” Though it’s possible my decision was influenced by it a little.

He fishes his keys out of his pocket and opens the door. “I’m not sure what you heard about me, but…I didn’t sleep with Julie. And I wouldn’t have, even if I’d met her. That’s not who I am anymore.”

He nods toward the truck, and even as I run for it through the pouring rain, I’m wondering what he meant by that’s not who I am anymore. Does it mean he used to be some kind of lothario and no longer is? Did he find God and decide he was going to save his special gift for marriage?

I sort of doubt it—he’s too feral, too relentlessly physical. But if it’s true, then I’m deeply envious of the future recipient of all that pent-up sexual energy once he finally lets it out.

Which begs the question: when is he going to let it out? And with whom?

“What did you mean when you said that’s not who you are anymore?” I demand as he climbs in.

He frowns as he looks over his shoulder to reverse. “I meant that I used to make the most of being a young, single guy,” he says, “and I enjoyed it for a long time, but it got old. I want more now. I don’t do one-night stands or short-term.”

“You want a wife,” I say flatly.

“I fell through a roof over the holidays last winter and broke sixteen bones.” He swallows. “It took three days for anyone to realize I was missing because my friends all have their own lives now and no one was surprised when I failed to show up for shit. I don’t want work to be the only part of my life in which I’m consistent and reliable. I want to be able to count on someone, and I want someone to count on me.”

I wince at the idea of him there, alone.

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