I blushed, greedily heaping peaches onto my spoon. Nana was the only one who ever called me smart.
Sweet syrup dribbled down my chin, and Liam offered me a napkin. “Thank you,” I muffled through my bite.
“Nana said taking care of you is my full-time job now.”
“Like forever?”
“Guess so.” He shrugged, running a piece of ribbon from the crown through his fingers. “But I don’t mind.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest. My mom was sugary-peaches proud, and Liam thought I was a fairy princess.
It was all downhill after that.
I tilt my head toward the sun, blinking through the branches of a chestnut tree, and ignore the nettling earworm that my life peaked at the age of five. Drawing in a cleansing breath, I collect myself before acknowledging Liam.
“I’d prefer it if your stalker tendencies could remain dormant while you’re visiting my city, Mr. Kelly.”
“I’d be a pretty lousy stalker this out in the open,” he says, blinking himself out of a daze. A small child on a scooter undercuts his path. He jumps back, the box wobbling in his grasp, and he comes perilously close to dropping everything.
“Never stopped you in the past.” I shrug. “You always bumble more than usual when I catch you.”
“I was never stalking you.” Liam sighs, placing his food, coffee, and briefcase down next to me. “That was always a weird fantasy of yours.”
“Trust me—my fantasies of you aren’t weird.” Open mouth. Wince. Repeat.
He quirks an eyebrow. “Good to know.”
“They’re . . . bloody.”
“Ah. And obviously that’s not weird,” he says, an easy smile playing on his lips. His deft fingers work at undoing the button on the cuff of his white-collared shirt.
The steadiness of my pulse gives way to chaos as he rolls his sleeve up past his elbow and his sun-kissed olive complexion shines in the mid-afternoon light.
He still wears his shirt sleeves like Gene Kelly—high and tight. Neat. That doesn’t make me weak in the knees at all. Le nope. His corded forearms are leaving me completely unaffected. It’s fine. I’m fine.
The unsettling stomachache reserved for him flutters to focus, right on schedule.
It’s really not fair that just his presence and a slight lift of his sleeves have this much of an effect on me.
Seriously, I’m as bad as a Victorian man seeing a woman’s ankles for the first time.
“Not with our history.” I fold my hands in my lap, eyes falling to the box on the bench. He’s far too trusting in this situation—I could grab this box of happiness and make a mad dash to freedom. Be out of this dangerous situation with a satiated appetite in no time.
“One. I want one concrete example where I ‘stalked’ you.”
“Just one?”
He gestures for me to proceed and crosses his arms in front of his chest. The stretch pulls his white shirt taut across muscles he has no business possessing.
In high school, I accepted that my body’s traitorous attraction to him shifted the playing field in his favor. Liam didn’t suffer a thousand restless nights, tossing and turning, imagining what my lips felt like pressed to his. And he certainly didn’t know the horrors of coming face-to-face with him in the morning after having a vivid, punishing dream. But still. He could tone it down. It’s quite frankly indecent and rude for a man with a face like that to havethose.
“Okay, well, off the top of my head, there’s the time you followed me halfway across the country for college.”
He tsks, peering at me beneath thickly hooded lashes. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, Peaches, but I believe I accepted first. So by that logic,youfollowedme, you little creeper.” He reaches out and ruffles my hair.
“Oh, bullshit. You had so many other colleges to choose from.” I swat his hand away. “You knew with Caroline I only had one choice.”
Thisis the dynamic I remember. Whateverthatwas a few days ago, it was for show.
