by S. Cook
I was grateful for the distraction. I stuffed my mail into my purse—telling myself that I would deal with Bryan’s letter when I got home—and grabbed my cell. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Usually, I would have let the call go to voicemail to avoid any telemarketers who had somehow managed to get a hold of my number. The alternative of answering the phone was facing Liam, and I wasn’t ready for it quite yet.
“Hello?” I said into the earpiece.
“Is this Misty?”
I didn’t recognize the man on the other end of the phone. It might have been a business call. I hoped I didn’t sound too upset.
“Yes, it is.”
“This is Mark. I hope you don’t mind me calling. Tammy gave me your number.”
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t discern whether I felt relieved to hear from Mark or disappointed. The fact that Liam stood so close by, his presence making my insides feel hot and bothered in more ways than one didn’t help matters either.
“Hi Mark,” I said.
Liam stepped closer. I tried to ignore him.
“It’s great to hear from you.”
“You too.” His voice was cheery and friendly.
I imagined what he must have looked like. A strong figure, a man who knew what he wanted and didn’t play around when it came to women’s feelings. Unlike the man who was standing two feet away from me and not backing down no matter many dirty looks I shot him.
“Listen, I’m really sorry to have to do this,” Mark said, “but something’s come up on my end.”
I tried not to groan out loud. Great, just what I needed.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it tonight,” he continued.
I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Of course this was happening to me now. Who did I think I was? Expecting, just once, for things to go my way? What right did I have to one happy night without complications?
I forced a small amount of cheeriness into my voice. “That’s all right.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Mark said. “Tammy has been raving about you for months, and I was so excited that you finally agreed to meet with me. Trust me, if this wasn’t so important, there would be no chance in hell I’d be canceling our date.”
Good thing I was in marketing and had learned years ago that the key to presentation was perfecting the great, life-saving fake laughter. I choked one out now.
“Well, don’t worry,” I said. “It’s perfectly fine.”
“I hope you’re not averse to rescheduling.”
I pulled the phone away from my mouth and exhaled exasperatedly. “Of course not. I understand.”
“Great. I’ll call you once I sort through my schedule.”
“Thanks Mark. I can’t wait.”
We said goodbye and then I hung up my phone. I had a moment to reflect on the conversation before my thoughts were rudely interrupted by Liam.
He crowded me with his taller form, his muscles bulging. I took several steps back, my eyes widening. I felt my pulse quicken, but it wasn’t because I was scared. No, I was experiencing a much different reaction, one that caused moisture to collect between my legs and my thighs to squeeze together.
“Who was that?” Liam asked. “Mark? What did he want? Was he canceling the date? Did he bail on you?”
I placed a hand on his chest, more to push him away than anything else. The moment I touched him, I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t bring myself to push him away either.
I was suddenly exhausted, overwhelmed.
First Bryan’s letter, then having to face Liam, and now being rejected by some stranger I hadn’t wanted to meet with in the first place.
The last was a new low for me.
“Yes, that was Mark,” I said. “He said something came up so he would like to reschedule our date for later this week.”
Liam made a funny sound. “Yeah, right.”
If I had had a bit more energy, I might have fought back. Might have argued with him some more. As it was, I only wanted to get home and scarf down the rest of the brownies Tammy made when she came over the other day.
He must have seen something in my expression, because he started to back down. “Hey.”
I looked at him. Then away. I couldn’t stand the pitying look he was giving me. I didn’t need his sympathy. I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself, of standing on my own two feet. I reminded myself that I was a successful, power player in my company.
I was great at what I did as a marketing manager, and I didn’t need anyone else to take care of me. Just because I wanted a man in my life didn’t mean that I needed one. I could survive on my own.
“You all right?” Liam asked.
If he had been angry, if he had made fun of me, if he had been mean, I might have been able to handle it. I knew how to deal with assholes. Hell, I’d dated my fair share of them. My office was full of them. I could handle jerks and jackasses. But nice guys...especially nice guys who looked like Liam...they were in a whole new territory.
I crumpled. I tried to shield him from the brunt of it, covering my face with my hands, turning away so he didn’t have to see my face. He wasn’t having any of it. He grabbed my arms, pulled me close, and pressed my forehead to the middle of his chest. His hand stroked my hair, smoothing over the strands, combing his fingers through the tresses.
I tried to pull away, but he didn’t let me. His arms wrapped around me, and there was no way I would be able to break their hold, even if I really wanted to.
And I didn’t.
There was something so strangely comforting about leaning against him, resting my cheek on his chest, feeling the weight of his hand on the back of my head. I sighed, and then took in a deep breath. The scent of him was so satisfying that I breathed in deeply again. My arms wrapped around his waist, and my body pressed against his automatically.
“I didn’t realize you liked this guy Mark so much,” Liam said in a neutral voice.
I laughed. He smelled so good. That cologne mixed with the natural scent of his clean, male skin. I rubbed my face on him instinctively, as if my body was trying to absorb as much of him as possible.
“Feel free to wipe your tears on my shirt,” he said generously.
I wiped at my face, thankful that I had never been the type to cry that much. A part of me was embarrassed about breaking down in front of Liam. I had never been that type of woman. I almost never cried around Bryan. Mostly because he hated it.
He got angry whenever he made me cry—and it wasn’t even because he was angry at himself for hurting me, but because he was afraid others would see and assume that he was doing something to make me tear up. It didn't matter if that was exactly the case. He just didn’t like the fact that others would think badly of him.
I sighed and pulled away. “I’m sorry for crying in front of you. It’s been a stressful day. That’s all.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
He didn’t let me go.
“He doesn’t deserve to take you out anyway,” he said.
I blinked up at him. “What?”
“Mark,” Liam explained. “If he’s canceling on you, then he’s a dick. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.” His hand slipped down to my ass suggestively.
I swatted his shoulder. “Stop it.” I laughed, despite myself. “You don’t have any rights to these goods.”
He grinned. His eyes didn’t leave mine, even as his fingers kneaded my flesh defiantly.
“I mean it, Liam. Hands off.”
“I don’t think you really do.”
He was right. His fingers on me made me warm all over and woke something inside me that had been lying dormant since the night we slept together. But it also brought back the conflicting emotions that followed.
“Let me take you out instead,” he said.
My eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Just because Mark canceled on you doesn’t mean you can’t have a good night.”
I broke away from him, securing
my purse strap over my shoulder. “No, that would not be a good idea.”
“Why?”
“You said you wanted to be friends.”
“Friends can go out and eat together.”
“Not friends who slept together.”
“Correction. Not friends who are sleeping together. Those types of friends can’t go out for dinner. But we’re not sleeping together anymore, so I say that we can.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t seem very logical to me.”
“Of course it is. When you’re friends with benefits, you try to avoid doing things that would go beyond the physical aspect of the relationship. But since we are not friends with benefits, I don’t see why we can’t get a bite to eat.” He shrugged. “Unless you were thinking of continuing the benefits part of our friendship. In that case, we can’t eat dinner because it would be breaking the rules.”
“Hell no.”
One of his eyebrows crooked upward. “Wow. Thanks for the compliment.”
I shook my head, fighting back a smile. “Not that you weren’t good on the benefits part of the friendship,” I said quickly. “I mean, you were good.” I swallowed. “Very good.”
He crossed his arms. “Keep talking.”
“What I mean is that I’m not interested in picking up that part. Especially after not what happened.”
“Good. Neither am I.”
“Exactly.”
“Right.”
“Okay.” I licked my lips.
“So what’s the big deal about us getting a bite to eat?”
I blinked and shrugged. “I guess there is none. So long as we understand that there is absolutely no way we can sleep with each other again.”
“Yeah.” He settled his hands on my hips. “Absolutely. No way. We’re friends now and friends don’t do that.”
I nodded vigorously. “Friends.”
He laughed. “Now that we’ve established that we’re going to be friends—without benefits,” he said. “How about sushi?”
Chapter Eleven
“I’m not saying that Bilbo’s story is better than Frodo’s,” I said. “I’m just saying that there is a lot more readers could learn from Bilbo’s story than they can from Frodo’s.”
Liam shook his brown plastic spoon at me. “Frodo is the one hobbit that changed the course of the universe. Come on, it’s in the log line.”
“Without Bilbo, Frodo would have ended up in an orphanage surrounded by country hobbits that would have only taught him how to get fat and settle on his ass.”
Liam scooped more frozen yogurt into his mouth. “Nope.” He shook his head and laughed. “You don’t give up, do you?”
I shrugged. My frozen yogurt wasn’t so frozen anymore and I stared down at the puddle wistfully. “I like winning arguments.”
“Remind me not to argue with you again.”
“You won’t need reminding.” I winked at him.
Our gazes met and held. Again, I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a date, even though I desperately wanted it to be one. Compared to the dates I’d gone on recently, this “hang-out” with Liam was much more preferable.
We had opted for a casual burger at the amazing stand around the corner from our building. For dessert, he’d suggested we stop for frozen yogurt, which was the perfect thing to complete the night.
I had no idea that Liam could be so fun. I supposed it was kind of unfair to make that judgment, considering the only time we’d spent together up until now had been in bed, in a fight, or in avoidance.
I learned that we listened to the same type of music. That both of us loved to watch old movies and had read a lot of the same books. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he liked to read. Bryan hated books, saying that he didn’t have time for reading, choosing to spend his free time shouting at the TV or with his hands glued to his video game remote.
“What are you thinking about?” Liam asked me.
I wondered if I should try to hide it from him, but I decided that I’d had enough of keeping my thoughts to myself. “That I wish this was a real date. I’m having fun.”
To my surprise, he didn’t seem put off by my admission. A smile curved his lips. “What would your ideal date be?” he asked. “I can imagine all the crappy ones you’ve been on lately, considering the jerk-offs you’ve been seeing.”
“Hey,” I said. “In my defense, if I knew where to find the decent men, I’d be happily married to one now.”
He shrugged. “That’s true, I guess.”
“My ideal date...” I nibbled on the inside of my lip. When I looked up, I was shocked to see him staring at my lips. I ignored the flip in my stomach. “Have you ever been to the Long Beach Harbor?” I asked instead.
“Of course.”
I nodded. “It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”
“Why?”
“There’s this lighthouse there.”
He nodded. “The Lion’s Lighthouse.”
“I love the boardwalk that leads up to the lighthouse. It’s beautiful at night. The lamps are lit and they play soft music on the speakers. The view of the ocean is amazing. The walk is about a mile, but it’s so romantic, and when you get to the lighthouse, to the very top of that hill, the view is just...beautiful.” I smiled to myself.
“Sounds really nice.” He leaned back in his barstool.
“I would go by myself even.”
“Why don’t you?”
I shrugged. “I’ve seen it so many times. It would be nice to share it with someone else.”
We were quiet for a long moment. “We’ll go,” he said. “Together.”
I laughed. “Really? Why would you want to drive all the way there just to see a lighthouse?”
“You have me convinced of how beautiful it is.”
“But it can’t be a date.”
He shook his head from side to side dramatically. “Not a date.”
“Just a hangout.”
“Just two friends walking to a lighthouse.”
“On a romantic boardwalk.”
“Exactly.”
I laughed and shook my head. “What about you? What’s your idea of a perfect date?”
“Guys don’t have perfect dates, sweetie. Only perfect nights.”
I tried not to let his use of an endearment affect me. “What would a perfect night be, then?”
“As long as the chick is in our bed towards the end and gone in the morning, it would be perfect.”
“Liam,” I said. I swatted his knee.
“What?”
“That’s so unromantic.”
He shrugged. “Maybe that’s why I can’t be in a relationship.”
“No. The reason you can’t be in a relationship is that you don’t want to be in one.”
“No argument there.”
I leaned my elbow on the edge of the bar. “Do you mind me asking?”
“What?”
“Why you’re so against them. Relationships.”
He contemplated my question. “Relationships are messy. They’re hard work. And sometimes it all goes down the drain. Not for any reason other than it wasn’t meant to be.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Isn’t that just life?”
“I’d rather spend my time on something worthwhile.”
“And you don’t think relationships are worthwhile.” It wasn’t a question.
“I spent two years with one girlfriend,” he said.
I almost choked. “Really? You? Two years. With one girl.”
He smirked. “See? I’m capable of commitment.”
“I would’ve never guessed.”
“Her name was Sarah.” He looked serious then, and I straightened.
“What happened?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me. “I asked her to marry me.”
“And?”
He shifted more securely in his chair. “We were engaged for a long time. But...then, I don’t know what happened.” His shoulders grew taut. �
��Sarah was...depressed. She’d had a bad childhood and she suffered from mental issues.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Did she see a therapist for it?” I asked.
He nodded. “She was pretty good for most of our relationship, and she told me that her problems wouldn’t come between us. For the most part, I thought she was a normal girl. She took medication sometimes until she went off it again. And sure, she would get upset and frustrated about certain things, but so do most people. She wasn’t half as bad as some of the other crazy chicks I dated. But once we got engaged.”
He shrugged.
“She was just different. Depressed. Crying for no reason. Angry at the smallest things. Everything I did seemed to bug her and she would always be bitching at me for every little thing.”
He laughed, but it was humorless.
“It wouldn’t have been so difficult if she had been consistent with what bothered her. The way I coughed would make her blow her top one day but it wouldn’t the next. She hated how I drove, said that I turned too sharply. But the next, she said that I went too slow. After a while, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe the problem wasn’t her. It was me.”
“Liam,” I said. “Of course it wasn’t you.”
“I know that now.” He coughed into a fist. “But it wasn’t easy to live with when everything I did bothered her. It felt like I had to apologize for existing, you know? And I would’ve put up with it.” He sighed. “I thought it would be worth it. I wanted to spend all my life with her. I wanted the house, the yard, and the dogs. Even the kids.”
My chest expanded with a peculiar sensation. “So what happened? Did you leave her?”
He shook his head. “One day, she woke up and decided she didn’t love me anymore. That she had never loved me. Too bad she told me after I’d already closed escrow on our house.”
I made a sympathetic sound and touched his shoulder.
“Anyway, we called it all off.” He shrugged. My hand dropped. “And that was the end of it.”
He straightened on his stool and averted his face from my gaze. I wanted to say something comforting. I wanted to erase the tension from his shoulders, to ease the tautness in his jaw. But I had no idea what to say and I also knew that Liam was not the type to invite pity.
