What The Heart Learns

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Nine at night and everyone was in bed.

  God, she loved this town.

  Even if there was a creepy killer just lying in wait to cut off her head.

  "Do you want to unload tonight, or crash?" Liam asked as they parked in front of the store.

  "The movers are going to be here at ten. I say we reserve all our energy until then."

  Decision made, they grabbed the essentials - her laptop, their plant, the books they were both reading, her bag of toiletries, and a small supply of junk food, and made their way through the darkened bookstore and into Liam's apartment.

  No.

  Their apartment.

  That realization made a smile tug at her lips.

  "Let me guess. You want coffee even though it is too late for coffee."

  "Get to brewing," she agreed, finding places to store her things, feeling a swelling in her chest at the rightness of it all as the smell of the perfect cup of coffee filled the air, as she was brought a cup by the perfect man for her.

  "So when do you think everyone is going to start showing up?"

  "Maude the second the store opens," Liam told her, kicking out of his shoes and climbing into bed, patting the spot beside him. "And then everyone else is going to trickle in pretending to be in dire need of a book. Dev, Meggie, Em."

  She should have been grumbling.

  The store opened before she usually even woke up.

  But just this once, just for these people, she was happy to wake up early.

  "Don't worry. You'll have coffee and not-burnt eggs waiting for you."

  "Well, there is some incentive," she said, curling into him as she sat up until she finished her coffee, then lowered down to curl up on his chest.

  And everything within her said it.

  Home.

  She was home.

  Liam - 3 weeks

  "She can't name her pet Devil Dog," he insisted, shaking his head at her cork board she had set up for her new book.

  "Why not? He's literally from hell. Devil Dog."

  "It's silly," he insisted.

  "Liam, I am writing a book about a girl starting a new life on a planet where everyone is purple, and you think Devil Dog is going to be the standout silly part?"

  She had been secretive at first about the writing, having spent most of her adult life alone, never having anyone around to see her process, seeming oddly insecure about it.

  He had been the one to buy her the cork board, to set it up on an art easel in their apartment, putting up a little label at the top saying Jupiter Series #2 since she hadn't come up with a name yet for it.

  He wanted her to settle in.

  And not just have her things there.

  Because her things were definitely there.

  The furniture had been moved inward a bit to allow her bookshelves to move in, getting immediately filled with her books like she couldn't bear to leave them in dusty boxes for a moment longer.

  The closet had a new shelving system to allow for all their clothes to fit together. She had taken over the three empty drawers in the bathroom with hair ties - literally at least a hundred of them - and all her varying face washes, creams, and makeup that she rarely wore. The bed had extra blankets. The walls had more art.

  It wouldn't take long, he realized, for them to outgrow the space.

  But while they were still there, he wanted her to feel like it was hers, that she could be comfortable there, that she could have all her book plotting stuff out in the open to work on.

  It took several days before pictures started showing up on the cork board, ideas for hell beasts she had found online, alien pictures. Then she had started tacking up sheets of notes, the handwriting so messy it was barely legible.

  But they were there.

  And within a few days of that, she started bouncing ideas off of him.

  Having lived in books so much of his life, he had never considered the possibility of being a part of the process of creating one, not even in a minuscule way. Like picking purple instead of pink when she had asked.

  But she was giving him that chance.

  Breaking Jupiter was quickly becoming what Riley was known for, outselling her historical fiction titles. It turned out the sci-fi dudes from the bookstore had a lot of online friends who also picked up the book until all the blogs started picking it up as well, reviewing it, getting it even more exposure.

  He'd walked in to her hugging her laptop to her chest the day before, eyes misty to find she had finally got it. The coveted title. New York Times Bestselling Author.

  She was officially in the big leagues.

  And everyone was begging for the next installment.

  He'd meant what he had said at the sci-fi store.

  He was so fucking proud of her.

  But more than that, happy for her.

  She got to do what she loved, do it well, and still get all the success, all the accolades she craved, she got to be at the top of the game, at the top of the charts.

  And he got to share that with her.

  Forever.

  Riley - 3 months

  "Shush, Mr. Grinch," she told Liam as she strung twinkle lights in the window of the bookstore.

  "I don't do Christmas lights."

  "You still don't. I am doing them."

  "Couldn't they just be white?" he asked, and she could feel him shaking his head at her.

  "Um, what about white says Christmas? Christmas is about gaudy gold and silver and green and red. It's all about happiness. White isn't a happy color. White is just... ugh... white."

  "This is a ridiculous conversation."

  "It amazes me that you are insisting on having it knowing I am going to put these up regardless. And move all those cutesy holiday romance novels up here too."

  "Nothing with naked people on the cover, Ry," he demanded, sounding resigned to her meddling.

  "Well, duh. There are kids in the town. Did you get those book sets in?" she asked, meaning the ones she had encouraged him to order for Christmas, sets of all the popular children's books. They were her favorite gifts to get as a kid. And, she figured, a way to get more traffic in during the shopping season.

  She was just thinking ahead.

  Nesting, if you will.

  Because, well, they were going to need a new nest in the near future. To do that, they would need a downpayment. She was planning on putting a few more books out now that the demand was higher, socking away as much of that as she could, then using that. But she knew Liam. She knew he would insist on putting money down too. And she didn't want that to affect his bottom line either.

  She actually had her eye on a little house just around the corner from the inn - a sweet three-bedroom colonial that already had a library in it. She'd stalked it online, seeing the built-ins that made her heart skip around. It was brick-fronted with a cobblestone driveway, black shutters, and a back porch perfect for setting some chaises on for outdoor reading.

  It was perfect.

  Close to the bookstore.

  Close to town.

  She could get all the comforts of a larger space but also the city type bustle she enjoyed.

  It was a topic she was planning to bring up after Christmas when Jupiter Avenging came out, hopefully doing as well as she had dreams it might, when she was sure she had the money for it.

  Maybe it was a bit backward to buy a house before they had been together a year, before they married, whatever the customs were.

  But she never cared too much for tradition.

  She preferred making a life that worked for them.

  And she was pretty sure life would work better for them if she didn't have to trip over his shoes everywhere she turned.

  "When are we supposed to be at the school?" she asked as a little girl passed by in a ballerina outfit, waving happily, her face full of makeup.

  "Five minutes after the play ends?" Liam suggested, making her lips curve up.

  Love hadn't softened him all that much.
r />   He was still a bit of a loner, maybe even grumpy a lot of the time.

  But he was her grump.

  And he knew she would drag him if she needed to.

  So she was okay with it.

  "It's going to be fun," she insisted.

  "Two dozen elementary school kids doing The Nutcracker," he mused. "I think I would rather someone actually cracked my nuts, Ry."

  She laughed at that, rolling her eyes at him. "The proceeds go to the food bank for Christmas meals," she reminded him.

  "We could just write a check."

  We.

  That word still caught her off-guard when it came up.

  We.

  They were a we.

  In a very official way.

  "We could. But we won't. Now where is your grandpa Christmas sweater?"

  "My... what?" he asked, eyes small, mouth open. Looking utterly horrified at the very idea.

  "Your grandpa Christmas sweater. The green one," she specified.

  "That is not a Christmas sweater."

  "Liam, the stitching is a very subtle red. And as we have just established," she told him, waving a hand at the twinkle lights, "red and green are Christmas colors."

  Liam let out a grumbling noise but moved to grab the sweater.

  He thought he was slick, slipping a book into his pocket when she wasn't looking.

  But it didn't matter.

  They were going.

  And as they stepped out of the door, his hand reaching to curl into hers, she could see the first few tufts of snow starting to fall, fat and promising something spectacular when they came out of the school in a few hours.

  She was spending her first Christmas with Liam.

  Liam - 4 months

  "Can I open my eyes yet?" Riley grumbled.

  He figured it was because he had literally walked her around town blindfolded three times in the freezing cold so she was just disoriented enough not to guess what her surprise was.

  He'd even gotten the people in town in on it, asking that everyone be as silent as possible, take the bells off their doors, play along in her surprise.

  "Almost," he told her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as they got close.

  He knew it was a bit over the top.

  But when someone made a years' worth of a salary in the two weeks following their book release, they deserved something over the top.

  He took a deep breath, settling her into place, then reaching up to undo the blindfold around her eyes.

  "Don't open yet though," he demanded, needing to pocket the scarf then move forward a step to look at her. "Okay," he decided, heart hammering in his chest.

  "What..." she started, looking at the house, then at the sign on the yard, everything in her deflating at the Sold sign plastered across it.

  "Ry," he called, dragging her gaze up to him, her eyes moving down his arm until she saw what he was holding.

  The key.

  To her new house.

  Their new house.

  "No," she exhaled hard, shaking her head.

  "Yes."

  "No!" she grumbled, all but stomping her foot, making his brows draw together.

  "What?" he asked, his heart freezing, making him wish for the hammering again.

  "You weren't supposed to buy it. I was supposed to buy it!" she declared, voice raising a bit hysterically.

  "What?"

  "I've had it picked out for months. I have furniture saved and paint palates and stuff on a secret Pinterest board. I was supposed to buy it. I have an appointment with Georgia next week."

  "Well, you're going to need to cancel that," he told her, feeling the relief move through him.

  She wasn't rejecting him.

  She was just mad that he beat her to it.

  That he could deal with.

  That, in fact, was very like them.

  Being on the same page.

  Trying to beat each other to something.

  "There is no ladder on the bookshelves yet, but Dane promised he would come over to help me put one in for you once we're done painting."

  "But... how?" she asked, shaking her head.

  "How what? Could I afford it?" he asked, not offended. It was a small town. The shop wasn't exactly overrun with customers.

  "Well... yeah."

  He shrugged his shoulder. "I own the building," he told her. "So I am just paying utilities. I even get a discount on all the books I buy, being a retailer. Over the years, I socked away a nice nestegg."

  "And bought us a nest with it," she said, her smile a little wobbly.

  See, Riley wasn't a big cryer.

  As a rule.

  Except, as it turned out, around him.

  And right then, with them standing in front of the house that was going to host their future, her eyes filled up and overflowed, making him pull her to his chest, hold her until it ran through her system.

  Quickly.

  As it usually went.

  Then she pulled away, wiping at her cheeks, then grabbing his hand, pulling him up the path.

  "Come on. We need to break it in," she declared, a wicked sparkle in his eye.

  God, he loved this woman.

  Thank fuck he was an asshole who wrote a nasty review once upon a time.

  It seemed like it was going to lead to their very own happily ever after.

  Riley - 11 years

  "Mom!" Ama called, voice shrill, suggesting she was mad at her sister. There was a certain voice that said such things, as all mothers know.

  Ama was ten. Their firstborn. Her full name Amarantha, a name that had nearly given Liam a conniption before she explained that, no, she did not mean from that fairy book, but from the Richard Lovelace poem. She had turned out a perfect combination of both her and Liam - short-tempered, grouchy, but quick to try new things, a bottomless pit of curiosity and enthusiasm. She had her mother's face and black hair and her father's gray eyes - a combination that Riley knew was going to be startlingly lovely when she was a grown woman.

  But she was not a lovely grown woman.

  She was a surly ten-year-old screaming down from the top banister, leaning half over it as Riley moved into the living room to look up at her, her brow raised.

  "What happened?"

  "Harper colored inside my Narnia book!" Ama squealed, full of the kind of rage and indignation that only a girl her age could possess.

  "You hated the Narnia books," Riley reminded her even as a part of her cringed at the very idea of defacing a book in such a way. But it was true. Ama had scoffed at the whole world with the lion - Aslan - that, even at nine, she knew was a very thinly veiled representation of God, enraging her that C.S. Lewis had wanted to 'force his religion on her.' Her words. Their too-smart girl.

  "They're still mine," Ama shot back, having a point.

  Riley sighed. "Harper," she called, making their second-born, a six-year-old who was stubbornly pretending she didn't know how to read for reasons no one understood, move out into the hallway.

  Harper seemed to somehow inherit all her traits from her Uncle Eric. She was a troublemaker, but so charming that no one ever wanted to call her on her actions.

  She'd been named after Harper Lee, of course, though Riley had championed hard for Anais since that was the book that, essentially, had brought Liam and her together. Anais and Me. Which he had hated, which had enraged her, sent her to Stars Landing in the first place.

  To which Liam had so sweetly replied, Let's not go backward, Ry.

  "Did you color in your sister's book?"

  "It's a coloring book," Harper insisted, lying through her loose front teeth.

  "You know that it is not," Liam called from behind Riley, surprising her enough to falter back a step, crash into him. But his arm went around her belly, holding her there.

  "It had a picture."

  "On one page," Liam reminded her. "And the rest were words. So you owe your sister an apology. And you are going to be buying her a new copy of that book she
hates out of your allowance."

  "Daddy..." Harper tried, doing her sweet-girl voice.

  Luckily for Harper - since she needed someone in her life who would hold her accountable for her actions - Liam was not swayed.

  "Case closed. You don't want to lose your money, then don't ruin things that belong to your sister."

  Ama jutted her chin, whipping her hair over her shoulder, storming off, victorious.

  Harper stomped her foot, huffed, and stormed back into her room, trying to slam her door, but they knew her tricks and had installed a bumper up at the top where she couldn't reach it.

  "We've created monsters, I'm afraid," Riley mumbled, looking up at the space they had vacated.

  "Well, really, what were the chances the two of us would end up with a couple of those honey-sweet Instagram kids?"

  "This is true," Riley agreed, turning her head into Liam's neck, taking a deep breath, still never having had enough of his scent, not after all the years. "And it's not a couple."

  "Hm?" he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her arm, making goosebumps prickle over the skin.

  "You said a couple of kids," she told him.

  His hand paused for a long moment; his breath stopped behind her.

  His hand slid from her hip, pressing into her belly.

  "Yeah?" he asked, rubbing the belly that was going to start rounding out sooner rather than later. She liked to call them pregnancy cravings, but Liam was always quick to remind her that she ate terrible shit long before Ama was a bun in the oven.

  "Mhmm," she agreed, smiling when his arms curled around her, squeezing her tight. "Maybe we will get a Cully this time," she told him, meaning a boy that he had wanted to name Caulfield after The Catcher in the Rye. She had objected to it at first, but over the years, the name had grown on her.

  "Or maybe a Poe," Liam said, having no real preference on the gender, naming their third choice for a girl name, echoing her favorite figure in literature. "Or Shelley," he suggested, naming her second favorite. Mary, not Percy, of course.

  "I like them all," Riley declared, feeling all warm and fuzzy having finally told him the secret she had been keeping.