Page 62 of False Confidence

“Oh, because of your dad and Maggie? I’d never. You know about that?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Know about what?”

Oh. Oh no. There had to be nothing worse than finding out that your dad’s wife, who was seven years younger than you, called him daddy. And as much as Jazz loved giving Liam shit, she didn’t want to be the one to scar him with that.

“Nothing!” she said too quickly, as she watched the realization sink into Liam’s eyes. He scrunched his face up in disgust.

“Oh my God. That’s… Ugh. Is that where the hand painted World’s Greatest Daddy mug he has came from? I knew I didn’t paint that for him.”

“I painted that for him. As a joke, obviously,” she admitted with a guilty smile.

“I’m never going to be able to look at them ag—what are you doing?” he asked, as Jazz lifted the covers and crawled beneath, kneeling between his legs.

“Apologizing for putting that thought in your head. Your turn to hold on to the headboard, baby.”

When Liam let himself into his dad and Maggie’s house, Peach immediately ran up to the front door to greet him. She was a fickle thing; sometimes she loved cuddles and company, and other times she hissed at you for so much as looking at her. But she stamped her little paws on Liam’s foot, which he took to mean today was a cuddling kind of day.

“Hi, sweet girl,” he cooed, reaching down and bundling her into his arms. She cuddled into his chest, rubbing her fluffy little head on his chin. He kissed the top of her head and she leveled him with a warning look. Peach despised the mustache. “My bad. Where’s your mom?”

“Meow.”

“Helpful. Very helpful. Maggie?”

There was no answer, but he knew she was here: her phone was sitting on the kitchen table, and her water tumbler was sitting open by the sink, as if she’d started to fill it, but something had distracted her. Peach leaped out of his arms and padded along the counter to the tumbler, where she immediately started licking the straw.

Liam grimaced. “How many times have you done that without being spotted? Gross.” He lifted her from the counter, rolling his eyes at her protesting hiss.

He wasn’t a cat person, but he was excited about finally getting a dog. Thank God dogs didn’t jump up on the kitchen counters to lick straws.

Although Liam loved his dad and Maggie together, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t relieved that the only children Maggie wanted were four-legged. Having a human sibling almost forty years younger than him would be more than a little strange, especially since he’d been an only child his whole life.

Peach wound around his legs as he checked for Maggie in the living room, before heading upstairs to her office. Although his dad had a rule against working from home, she still had an office in case of emergencies (and Liam knew she snuck in there to work when she couldn’t sleep).

Maggie’s office door was wide open, with no Maggie to be found, but their bedroom door was closed. Liam knocked, in case she was changing or something.

“Maggie? You in there?”

He heard a muffled curse through the door before Maggie answered. “Yeah?”

“Are you busy?”

“A little. Is it an emergency?”

What kind of question was that?

“Define emergency,” he called back. “Are you going to be long?”

Maggie said something that sounded suspiciously like, “For fuck’s sake,” before shouting, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sure enough, a moment later, Maggie exited the bedroom, closing the door behind her and adjusting her shirt. Her cheeks were red, her hair tied in a messy knot on top of her head.

“What were you doing?” he asked as she led him down the stairs.

She looked over her shoulder at him and glared. “I was trying to do your dad, but your son having a conversation with your wife while you’re inside her is kind of a turn off, wouldn’t you say?”

Liam shuddered. That was the last thing he needed to hear after what Jasmine had let slip the night before. “Please don’t talk about having sex with my dad.”

“Then take a hint and don’t interrupt me when I’m having sex with your dad,” she hissed under her breath, sounding strangely like Peach. She took a deep breath. “But also, it’s nice to see you. I just wish you’d shown up a couple of hours later.”

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