Page 14 of Keeping Our Secrets

“Good, I’m glad that’s settled,” I told her. “I’ll leave you to get settled.”

“Don’t worry, Liam. I’m not here to rock the boat, and I’m definitely not going to upset the delicate balance. Just remember I had no choice in where I lived when we moved here. The last thing I expected was to see you again.”

I nodded and closed the door when I left.

She was getting the last word this time. Only because I didn’t know what to follow that up with. All I knew was that my life as I knew it was fucked all to hell and right up the arse.

I still didn’t know why she never responded to any of my texts.

This was going to be one hell of a long summer.

CHAPTER 7

Mairi

Another week into my pregnancy, I continued to struggle with morning sickness and stress induced insomnia. If zombies were real, I would have resembled their second cousin, twice removed. There wasn’t a moment when I didn’t feel like utter shit. James and my mom thought I was still trying to acclimate myself to the new time zone.

Some days I wished that was the case.

Mom and James were still up in the clouds with their new lives, and I was up late at night worried about the future. Still unsure of what to say to them, or to Liam, I kept mostly to myself. Which was easy, since he had consistently avoided being anywhere near me since our conversation the night we moved in.

Which worked perfectly until this morning.

Our parents, upon emerging from their cocoon of love, were convinced that we all needed to sit down to have breakfast like a real family. Which was what they told both of us before we went to bed the night before. Apparently they were tired of us not spending any time together as a family. So when I rolled out of bed and walked downstairs, it didn’t surprise me to see Liam seated at the table.

When I glanced down at what I was wearing, I crossed my arms over my chest in an effort to hide a possible perky nipple.

What had I been thinking?

I wasn’t even wearing a bra!

Which had been something I hadn’t even considered until I saw the heated expression in his gaze. Why the fuck didn’t I take one second to worry about my appearance? Then I thought back to the moment I woke up from yet another fitful sleep. I was too fucking worn out to care. My head was so fogged up that I couldn’t seem to think straight.

“Hey honey, how was your sleep?” my mom asked, snapping me out of my minor freak out.

“Um, it was okay.” I glanced between the two of them. “Do I have enough time to go get dressed?”

“What’s wrong with what you’re wearing?” she asked from her tasks the stove, completely clueless to Liam’s perusal.

Surprisingly, even though we slept across the hall from each other, he hadn’t seen me in anything but my regular clothes. It was hard enough being around him in the house, but now he was in my room with the door closed.

“Do you need any help with breakfast?”

“I’m almost done. Liam already set the table when he came down, so why don’t you take the chair across from him?”

“Okay,” I responded and sat down.

James came out of his downstairs office, walked into the kitchen, said, “good morning.” Then he kissed my mom on the cheek and took a seat at the end of the table. He used to do the same thing when he would stay with us in our old home.

A few moments after we all sat at the table, mom placed breakfast in the centre of the table and we all started filling our plates.

“What are the two of you up to today?” James asked.

I shrugged my shoulders in response, stomach rolling as I watched him dip his toast in his runny eggs.

Maybe breakfast was a bad idea.

“Do you want to go shopping with us this afternoon, honey?”

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