Page 66 of The Wrong Costar

“I missed you while I was gone,” he said.

“You did?”

He nodded, his smile stretching wider as he looked at me. “Did you miss me too?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Though, perhaps, you’d know that if you checked your messages.”

A slight furrow formed in his brow. “You messaged me?”

I shrugged, trying not to show I’d been upset he hadn’t bothered to reply.

Realization dawned in his eyes. “I didn’t get it. I forgot to bring my school phone with me, and I came here as soon as I landed.”

“Oh,” I replied. I felt silly for being so worried about where he’d gone, and it was a relief to find out he hadn’t ignored my text. I wished he would have told me that he was leaving so I hadn’t fretted over him, but I wasn’t annoyed about it. We were still finding our feet in whatever this relationship was between us, and I didn’t think we were quite at the point where we needed to tell each other our every move.

“So, where did you go?” I asked.

“Back to L.A. I had a couple of meetings I couldn’t really miss. I only found out about them on Friday morning and had to get on the first flight out of here. It was all very last minute.”

“Sounds fun,” I said. I’d sounded so unenthusiastic he laughed.

“It was most definitely not fun,” he agreed. “I couldn’t wait to get back here.”

I really wished he’d stop looking at me with so much affection in his eyes. I was already struggling not to fall for the guy, and I couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him again.

“I should probably get these in some water,” I said, nodding to the flowers I still held in my hands. I started toward the kitchen, and Liam followed closely behind. As we walked, I noticed him finally realizing there was practically no furniture in the house.

“Sorry the house is in such a poor state. Mom’s refurnishing,” I quickly explained. The lie rolled so easily off my tongue, but the swell of guilt in my stomach was much harder to ignore. I hated lying to Liam. I might have only just met him, but it felt harder to cover up my sham of a life with him than it was with my friends. I’d always kept my home life a secret from them because I didn’t want them to bear my burden, but was it so wrong that I was sick of carrying the weight of my problems alone?

Liam might reject me if I told him the truth, but I didn’t want to keep parts of myself closed off from him. I’d seen firsthand what happened to relationships that weren’t honest after my parents’ marriage imploded, and I didn’t want to start whatever relationship Liam and I had with lies. As I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, I wondered if he would still like me if he knew all my deep, dark secrets. It felt like I needed to know either way, because there was no way I could ever care for someone who rejected me because of them.

As we entered the kitchen, Carol was picking up her handbag off the bench. “There’s no tea in the cupboards,” she said. “So, I’m going to the shops.” From the way she was looking at me, I could tell she wanted to say much more. She’d obviously seen there was no food in the house, and it was killing her not to ask me about it. Thankfully, she held her tongue around Liam.

“I’m also thinking of getting the ingredients to make my famous casserole for dinner. Would you like that?” she continued.

“That sounds amazing,” I replied. And it really did. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had used the oven in our house. My dinners mostly consisted of meals that could be microwaved.

“Will you stay for dinner, Liam?” Carol asked.

“I would love to, but I can’t stay too late. I’ve been away and need to get home to finish up some work before school tomorrow. Maybe next time though.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Carol said with a grin before excusing herself from the room. I stared after her, yet again wondering why I couldn’t have had my grandma in my life sooner. I know Carol felt like she’d been too hard on Mom, but Mom could be completely stubborn sometimes, so I was guessing that played a large part in their estrangement too.

“Your grandma seems nice,” Liam said, as we heard the front door click shut.

I nodded and went to get some water for the flowers. We no longer had any of the lovely vases Mom used to keep, so I had to use an empty glass instead. I wondered if Liam would notice I didn’t have a vase to use, and I worried I would have to lie again. The thought made me sick to my stomach though. I was tired of lying. I was done pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t.

“You have the same green eyes as her,” he added.

“Do I?” I asked, as I turned off the tap and looked up at him.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Haven’t you noticed?”

I swallowed as I stared at him, the color of my grandmother’s eyes the last thing on my mind. Instead, all I could think about was being honest with the boy standing before me. My secrets felt like a big wall between us that shrouded the true me from view. If Liam couldn’t see me properly, then how could he ever really like me? I needed to tear down the barrier between us and lay myself bare. He might not like what he saw, but if I wanted to be with him, then it was a risk I needed to take.

“I hadn’t noticed…” I bit down on my lip as fear pulsed under my skin. I’d made the decision to be honest with Liam about my home and my family problems, but it was really hard to put that honesty into words. I drew in a long breath as I went to continue. “I hadn’t noticed because today’s the first time I’ve seen her in years.”

It was a small truth in the scheme of things, but it still felt so hard to say. My small admission broke a hole in the floodgate doors though, and the rest of the secrets I’d been keeping started pushing at the hole, widening it and pressuring it like they wanted the truth to spill out of me in one torrent of emotion.

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