Page 63 of Harboring Secrets
Slowly, I made my way to the living room. Brodie had unpacked a few of the things I’d brought with us and there, hanging on the wall next to pictures of his brothers, was one of Piper and me.
I turned to him, my heart in my throat. “What’s this?”
Brodie slid his arms around me and pressed his chest against my back. “She’s not the only one who made it out of the suitcase. I can’t believe you slept through me hanging all these.” Brodie pointed to another familiar picture. “I assume that’s Oren?”
“Yeah.” The word came out strangled. I cleared my throat and blinked at the wall, taking it all in. Mingled in among pictures of him and his family were pictures of my family. Carol and me. Oren and his hot firefighter husband. Piper and me on our wedding day. And there at the center, a picture of Brodie and me. Sometimes we’d stop to take pictures for other travelers and then they’d offer to do the same for us. We looked wind burned and tired, but so very in love.
“I was head over heels for you even then.” The picture had been taken somewhere around the two-week mark of our meeting. “I can’t believe you did all this.”
“Your condo broke my heart, Liam. You deserve a home. I want you to feel like you belong here. I want it to feel like we both live here.”
“I belong wherever you are. That’s home for me.” I turned my head to look over my shoulder at Brodie. “I love you. Thank you. For everything. For the pictures and the support and the second chance, even though sometimes I worry that I’m not worth it.”
His hand closed over my mouth. “Hush. Stop bad-mouthing my boyfriend. His opinion of himself is skewed. He no longer gets to determine what he’s worth. That’s my job. And I think he’s everything.”
I licked the palm of Brodie’s hand and all he did was narrow his gaze at me.
“Do you really think that’s going to work? We just came all over each other in the shower. I’m not afraid of a little saliva.”
He did, however, peel his hand away and wipe it on my pant leg instead of his.
I turned and brushed my lips against his. “Thank you,” I said again. I’d never stop saying it. I’d never stop meaning it.
Chapter 31
Brodie
“We’regoingtobelate,” I heard Liam call from the patio.
“I was just making sure he went to the bathroom first.” Fall had given way to winter and then spring, and as summer approached, Liam and I were still together. We still lived in the sunset house and we’d recently added to our family. Shady was a small, wriggly mutt of some sort. A terrier mix, by the look of him. Liam, with the help of Shane, got him for me a month ago for my birthday and it was love at first sight.
“There’s grass where we’re going,” Liam said, still patient as ever.
“Okay, fine. Come here, Shady.”
He bounded over to me and flopped down on my feet, belly up, still wriggling. I bent down and clipped the leash to his collar and whistled for him to follow.
Liam waited for us at the patio door and stole a kiss from me as I passed him.
“Do we have everything?” I asked him one more time on the way to the car. I still only drove when absolutely necessary. Liam spoiled me.
“The suitcase and garment bags are in the back.”
The drive out to the lake took three hours and I glanced nervously at the time. “Are we going to be late? We should have stayed over last night.”
“We have plenty of time. I might have fudged about when it starts.”
“You’re a bad man.” I buckled in and let Shady get comfortable on my lap and keeping him away from Liam as he drove. Though every once in a while, Liam would reach over and scratch him behind the ears.
Ever since the trip to Boston, Liam had come alive in ways I’d never imagined. Every day that went by he said he felt more like himself. The app he’d been developing with Clay had sparked his drive and Liam had thrown his money and expertise into other similar endeavors. Some of the apps he’d funded were already up and running. Some earned him a tidy profit, others were passion projects not expected to earn anything.
I was still trying to find my way. Writing a book had seemed like a great idea at the beginning, but six months in I wasn’t sure I’d written anything worth reading. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue to pursue it with the idea of it becoming my purpose in life.
Saying any of that out loud felt a lot like giving up, and I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. But I was almost certain I didn’t want to do anything with my life that required me to need a home office.
Liam worked wherever he wanted. Sometimes he lounged on the couch and fired off emails on his phone. Other times he went down to Bennett’s and sat next to Nash, a local writer who was dating the cook at the diner. He and Liam had struck up a nice friendship. The two of us had gone for drinks with the three of them—Taylor and Nash were two parts of a triad—something we hadn’t done for a while.
Liam and Nash weren’t Liam-and-Oren-level close, but it was nice to see him make friends and put down roots.
