by Callie Henry
She took a deep breath, reapplying her lip gloss as she looked at her face in the mirror and tried to see herself through a stranger’s eyes.
“Okay. You have a pretty face,” she said aloud, tilting her head to the side. Which part of her is so distracting? Hannah pursed her shiny lips together, remembering the way it felt to be kissed by Liam, and it occurred to her that although it scared her to spend more time with him, she really didn’t want to push him away either.
Could she find the courage to believe that this crazy-cute boy was interested in her? Oh, she would be careful not to expect anything serious or long term. She bet that by tomorrow, when he had a lot more choices than the other nonexistent teens at this wedding, he wouldn’t be interested in her anymore. But for now, for tonight, there was no one but her. Besides, she liked him. Maybe she could just allow herself to enjoy it while it lasted?
“Okay. But don’t you dare get attached,” she warned herself with a stern look. “You’re just having fun, not looking for love.”
She pushed her shoulders back and her chest forward, glancing at her face again and smiling. Then she grabbed her purse and headed back downstairs.
Standing at the edge of the tent, she scanned the open-air ballroom for a glimpse of him, but he was nowhere in sight, so she crossed over to the nearest bar.
“What can I get you?” asked the bartender.
“Diet Coke, please.”
“And you, sir?” he asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Another ginger ale.”
Hannah turned at the sound of Liam’s voice, unable to keep herself from beaming because she was so danged happy to be next to him again.
Liam’s face transformed immediately from closed and uncertain to surprised and pleased. “Hey, you.”
“Hi,” she said, a little bit dazzled by the wattage of his smile.
“Didn’t know if you were coming back.”
“Truth? Me neither.”
“Glad you decided to give me another chance.”
The bartender cleared his throat, and Liam reached around Hannah to take their drinks, his arm brushing her shoulder as he handed her a wineglass filled with soda.
“Listen,” she said and took a sip from the straw. “Could we forget about everything else and just have fun tonight? What do you think?”
He raised his glass and clanked hers gently. “To fun.”
She grinned back at him. “To fun.”
CHAPTER 4
Liam
They danced several times and cheered loudly, sitting side by side at their assigned table, when Bree and Todd cut the cake. As the evening progressed, Hannah loosened up, smiling more and brooding less, and every minute that went by, Liam liked her more and more.
The drunken—and fortyish—wedding guest seated beside Hannah kept staring at her chest, and two hours into the reception, Liam was fighting against his temper, ready to punch the guy in the face if Hannah indicated that she was feeling uncomfortable.
“Ignore him,” said Hannah.
“I’m trying,” Liam growled.
“Oh, wait!” she said. “I have an idea. Play along, okay?” She tapped the guy on the arm and said, “I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Liam.”
Surprised as hell, Liam forced himself not to laugh as he held out his hand to the old letch, who shook it sloppily. He put his other arm around Hannah’s shoulders, loving the way she leaned back against him.
“I’m Liam. Mina’s husband.”
The gross old guy narrowed his eyes, his head swaying on his neck. “Who t’ hell’s Mina?”
“I am,” said Hannah.
“No. No, no, nnnnnope,” the man insisted, poking a wobbly finger at her. “Yer Hannah. Hannah, Hannah, Hannah…”
Liam cleared his throat. “Pardon me, but I think I know my wife’s name.”
“You two…yer just—yer con-confusin’ me! On purpose!” The man swayed in his seat, staring at Hannah’s breasts for a long time before looking up at Liam. “Y’say yer her husband, huh?”
“That’s right.” Liam clenched his jaw, just daring the guy to say something inappropriate.
“Lucky bastard.”
Hannah gasped in surprise, but Liam laughed, tightening his hand around her shoulder. “Right again.”
“You seem—seem awful young t’me,” the man said, hiccupping loudly and wobbling in his seat.
“There’s no stopping true love,” Liam replied. “When you know, you know.”
Hannah widened her eyes at him over her shoulder, but she also grinned like he was adorable, so Liam counted it as a win. He bent his neck so that his lips were a breath away from her ear.
“Getting hitched was your idea,” he whispered.
Did she realize that she’d leaned her head slightly to the side, giving him perfect access to the soft, warm skin of her throat? He forced himself not to drop his lips to her neck, remembering that if he wanted a chance for something real with her, moving too fast tonight wasn’t going to help his cause. The end goal wasn’t just making out with her. The end goal was still knowing her tomorrow.
“Dance with me, wife,” he murmured, noticing the way her body readjusted just slightly against him as though she shivered or trembled from his words. He raised his voice, looking at the man. “Going to dance with my bride now.”
“D-Damn kids gettin’ married”—he hiccupped—“all over the…damn place.”
Liam stood up and offered his hand to Hannah, who took it, letting him help her to her feet. As they walked onto the dance floor, he realized for the first time that the crowd was starting to thin out. He glanced at his watch. Ten to nine. The reception would be over soon.
Just as they reached the floor, the music switched from an upbeat song to the Beatles’ “In My Life.”
He held her hand a little tighter, pulling her close and placing his other hand on her lower back as they found a spot on the edge of the floor. Looking into her eyes felt too intense, so he broke eye contact, looking over her shoulder but leaning so close that her hair brushed against his cheek. Where her hand rested on his back, just over his shoulder, he felt the heat of her palm through his shirt.
After a few notes, she inhaled, her chest pushing against his, and he leaned back to look at her, searching her eyes with wonder and thinking that if she kept looking at him like that, he’d have no choice. He’d be forced to kiss her again. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.
But just then, as though she’d read his mind, she glanced down, staring at his shoulder, so he leaned his head forward again, smelling the sweetness of her hair against his cheek. Her fingers moved on his back, stroking, kneading absently, and it was so distracting and so nice, he drew back to look into her eyes again.
When she bit her bottom lip, his breath caught, but he caught sight of Todd watching them from across the dance floor, so he spun her gently under his arm, which won him a small grin and broke the tension between them for a moment.
Friends and lovers.
As she folded back into his arms, he didn’t extend their hands but pulled them close to his chest, still laced together. And after her hand landed back on his shoulder, she slid it up to his neck, her fingers finding his skin over the collar of his shirt as she nestled closer to him.
No one like you.
His breath caught from the incredible feeling of holding her so close, and he dropped her hand to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her flush against his body. His heart skipped a beat when her other hand skated up his arm to his back, tentatively clasping her other hand on his neck, lacing together against his skin—pulling him to her, not pushing him away.
Memories lose meaning.
Their feet barely moved at all now as they swayed slowly back and forth, their shallow breathing pressing their bodies into each other as the soft music played on. Liam clenched his jaw against the rush of his feelings, leaning down to nuzzle her ear with his nose as her forehead rested in the curve of his neck and her breath f
anned the skin of his throat.
And love is new.
He wasn’t ready to say good night to her, let alone good-bye. He didn’t want tonight to end. Not here. Not yet. She was holding him, her thumbs sending shivers down his back as they dusted back and forth across his skin in time to the music. She was holding him, and more important, she was letting him hold her.
He drew back again to look at her, and her eyes were dark and drowsy, staring at his lips, and he gazed back at her, knowing she could feel his ragged breath against her face.
“Hannah,” he murmured. He was desperate not to break the moment, but he also was afraid to kiss her in public, no matter how much he wanted to. “What are you doing after this?”
She wet her lips, finally looking away from his mouth and into his eyes. “After?”
He nodded. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“Bree’s place.”
“Do you, um…” He didn’t want to push her by inviting himself over. He wanted it to be her idea. “Do you want me to drive you?”
“Yes,” she whispered quickly, glancing back at his lips again.
“You’re killing me,” he groaned.
His words, delivered like a plea, seemed to break the spell she was under just enough so that she took a deep breath and looked around to find her sister. “We should say good-bye first.”
“Mmm,” he murmured, leaning forward again to brush her cheek with his. “Wait till the song’s over.”
She relaxed in his arms, dropping her head to his shoulder, and suddenly Liam wished the song would never end. He didn’t know exactly what was happening between them or what would happen at her sister’s house—let alone what would happen after they said good-bye. But holding her felt better than anything he could remember, and after being her constant companion for the last four hours, he couldn’t imagine watching her walk away. He could barely imagine letting her out of his arms.
When the song ended, they swayed back and forth for an extra moment before she loosened her hands from around his neck and leaned back, looking up at him with a sad smile. Regretfully, he unclasped his hands and let them skim from her back to her waist, where they lingered for a moment before he pulled them away.
“Say good-bye?” he asked.
Her brows knitted together. “But I thought you were going to drive me—”
“To Bree and Todd, not to each other.”
“Oh.” She exhaled, laughing softly. “Right.”
And if he hadn’t kissed her under the willow tree or just danced with her like they were falling in love, then watching her face in that moment would have been the best part of his entire evening. Because it told him something that rocked his world and gave him hope: she wasn’t ready to walk away from him either.
***
Hannah
As Liam pulled into traffic, Hannah glanced over at him.
Was all of this real? Or was it just some beautiful dream she’d wake from at any moment?
Trying to convince herself that they were “just having fun” was getting tougher as the evening progressed, and she knew the smart thing would have been to say good night after the reception and go their separate ways. But the idea of saying good-bye to him was strangely unbearable.
Growing up an only child, chunky, supershy Hannah had been ripe for teasing from the get-go, and short of being bullied outright, she had certainly been the target of more than one pulled pigtail. By junior high, she always had her nose in a book, and her lack of athleticism contributed to a more rounded shape than most of the other preadolescent girls. And so the teasing had continued…especially when her breasts and butt became her roundest parts of all.
By high school, teasing was exchanged for a different kind of attention: Hannah had become attractive to some of the same boys who used to call her Titanic Tits or Bookworm Boobs. She’d watch as their eyes dropped to the front of her shirt and widen with wonder. But their reactions to her developing body made Hannah more uncomfortable and distrustful than ever. The same boys who’d ridiculed her were now interested in her? She avoided them as much as possible, secretly longing for a boyfriend who would see her heart, who would like her for who she was. And until then, it was easier to believe that love was just a pretty myth.
When Liam had mentioned The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado about Nothing, Hannah had flinched inwardly, recollecting the happily-ever-afters at the ends of both plays. For all her protestations about true love—for as much as she’d tried to convince herself that she wasn’t interested in her own happily-ever-after—she longed for a boyfriend, yearned to fall head over heels for someone. Someone who loved her curves and her brains, someone who would make her want to say yes instead of no when he put his hands on her body, someone who would make her laugh and see life from a different angle and try new things. But most of all, someone she could trust. Until she found someone she could trust, Hannah simply wouldn’t allow herself to fall.
“Next left?” Liam asked.
She started, surprised to hear him speak after riding in silence for so long. “Mm-hm.”
His profile was chiseled and handsome in the dim light of the car, and she stared at him for an extra second. Could Liam possibly be that someone? Was there even the remotest chance that she could meet a boy at her sister’s wedding and he could somehow turn out to be someone special in her life? Her heart leaped, whispering a hopeful maybe.
“So, will, um, Bree and Todd be home tonight?”
“No,” said Hannah. “They’re staying in a suite at the Vintner’s Inn tonight.”
“Oh. So you’re…”
“Staying on my own. Bree didn’t want me to have to pay for a hotel room,” she added nervously.
“You don’t mind?”
“Staying alone? No, not at all. There’s twenty-four-hour security patrol. Plus, I’m sort of excited to have a whole apartment to myself tonight.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. While she had looked forward to having the apartment all to herself when Bree had first suggested it, she realized it sounded like she didn’t want him to hang out for a while. And though it made her nervous to think of being alone with him, she definitely didn’t want him to go.
“Oh,” he said softly. “Then I’ll just make sure you get there safely.”
She sat miserably beside him as he turned, braking at the stoplight at the end of Bree’s street. Damn, but she wasn’t good with boys. She wasn’t smooth. Never had been. And mustering the courage to invite him to come inside suddenly seemed insurmountable.
***
Liam
“Which number again?” Liam asked, his hopes for spending more time with her dwindling as they approached Bree’s apartment. Hannah couldn’t have been more clear: she was looking forward to a night alone.
“Thirty-two,” she answered.
He slowed down, pulling into the marked parking space. He glanced at Hannah, who wasn’t exactly hurrying to leave, and he felt an intense awkwardness settle between them. There was really nothing else he could do. He’d asked her out twice, and twice she’d been evasive. He’d offered her a ride home, but she hadn’t taken it a step further to invite him inside. As much as he liked her, as much as he wanted to follow her inside her sister’s apartment to find out what would happen next between them, it was her move.
She looked up at him with those big, worried eyes, and he made one small decision: he put the car in park and cut the engine.
As silence overtook them, she looked down and took a deep breath, holding it for several seconds, like maybe she was counting to ten or gathering up her courage to say something. When she looked up, her cheeks were pink in the parking lot lights, but there was a determined glint in her eyes as she asked, “Liam, um, I was wondering if…I mean, do you want to—”
“Yes.”
“Phew,” she said, her shoulders sagging with relief.
He didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind. “Wait there.”
He exited the car, rounded it quickly, then opened her door and offered her his hand. And when she placed it in his—where, frankly, he was starting to believe it belonged—all the awkwardness of the drive home slipped away.
She stood up, and he felt so happy that she wasn’t saying good night or good-bye, he put his hands on her waist and drew her close. She stared up at him, flattening her hands on his chest, which flexed automatically under her palms. Man, he liked her.
“I want to kiss you again,” he said. “Ever since we danced, I—”
“Me too.”
Caught off guard by her quick yes, he smiled at her, flicking his eyes to her lips, which she parted softly in invitation. Dipping his head, he caught the bottom one, holding it between his for a moment before tilting his head to seal his lips over hers more fully. She whimpered, and her fingers curled into his shirt as he touched his tongue to hers. He tightened his arms around her, and she ran her hands up his chest until they circled his neck, as they had when they were dancing, and Liam groaned into her mouth because while they’d danced, all he’d thought about was kissing her. All he’d wanted then was this. And now, by some miraculous stroke of luck, his fantasy was coming true.
“Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,” he mumbled softly, kissing her cheek and her jawbone and the soft skin of her neck that she’d bared to him at the table when he had teasingly called her his wife.
“Let’s go inside,” she said, letting her hands part and skim down his arms as she stared at his neck. She cleared her throat. “Liam, I just…I mean, I want you to come in, but we just met each other, and I’m not the sort of girl who—”
“Look at me,” he demanded in a low, serious voice. “Nothing’s going to happen unless you want it to. You understand?”
She nodded.
“I promise, Hannah. The second you say no to anything, we stop. Okay?”
She nodded, tilting her head to the side. “I’m so glad I met you tonight.”
“Not as glad as I am. You’re the first girl I’ve met in a long time who…” He was about to say “who I can actually see myself falling for” but stopped himself. If he’d said it, he would have meant it, but it felt like too much too soon, and he didn’t want to scare her away again.
