Page 115 of Falling for Love

Well, not at first. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he was more concerned about whether I’d hurt myself. It wasn’t until I started laughing that he let himself laugh too, a deep, vibrating sound that wrapped around me like a blanket.

“Why am I not cringing right now?” I muttered to myself, pacing the kitchen.

Normally, a scene like that would have sent me running for the hills, never to see the guy again. But with Liam? It just felt... different.

Maybe it was the way he made me feel like I didn’t have to be perfect. That it was okay to let my guard down, to just be me—awkward, clumsy, and all.

Or maybe it was the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered.

I set my mug down on the counter as my heart did that weird fluttery thing it always seemed to do when I thought about him.

I could still feel his arms around me, how he’d pulled me close after we untangled ourselves from the floor.

Now, standing in my kitchen with the morning light streaming in, I realized just how much that meant to me.

“Mom!” Hayden’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I turned to see him bounding into the room, his hair sticking up in every direction. “Can I have pancakes?”

“Sure thing, little dude,” I ruffled his hair as I grabbed the pancake mix from the cupboard.

As I whisked the batter, I thought about how nice it was not to keep him at arm’s length any longer.

“Mom, are you okay?”

I poured the batter on the griddle and blinked, startled by the question.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling,” he said, tilting his head. “Like... a lot.”

I laughed, flipping a pancake. “Am I not allowed to smile?”

“You are.” He shrugged. “But it’s weird. You’re usually, like, normal happy. Not super happy.”

“Super happy, huh?” I handed him a plate of pancakes and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “Maybe I’m just in a good mood today.”

“Maybe,” he said, digging into his pancakes.

As I watched him eat, I felt a pang of guilt. Part of me wondered if I was crazy for even entertaining the idea of a relationship when my focus should be solely on Hayden. But another part of me—the part that hadn’t stopped thinking about Liam since the moment he walked into my life—knew that this was different.

He wasn’t just some guy. He was... Liam.

And as ridiculous as it sounded, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he might be exactly what I’d been waiting for all along.

Later that afternoon, as I stood in the living room folding laundry, my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I picked it up and saw Liam’s name on the screen.

Did you survive the fall the day after or are you all bruised and sore?

I laughed, shaking my head as I typed back.

You mean from the fall?

He wrote back.

What else would I be talking about?

I sent back a winky emoji.

Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. I knew I had moves.

---