CAROLINE: Are you doing anything special for your birthday next week? Can’t believe you’ll be the same age I was when I had you. Your father and I were already married for eight years by now, how funny!
I slump in my chair. “It’s five in the morning her time, and she’s already chosen passive-aggressive violence,” I mumble.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I toss my phone across the table so it can’t hurt me anymore. “Just Caroline’s patented seemingly innocuous statements that stab you in the subtext.”
“Ah.”
I rub my temple with a forefinger. I hadn’t even thought about how my birthday would affect my visit. Turning twenty-seven is whatever, but on Caroline’s Hopes and Dreams for Her Daughter Checklist, I might as well be an elderly Rose Dawson Calvert on the ship going “It’sbeen eighty-four years.”
Whether I think I can handle this or not, dream me was right. I am desperate and I do need help.
“So.” I drag out the “o,” still biding my time. “Have you thought about what I asked you last night?”
Liam leans back. His eyes narrow to mine as he considers me. “I have. Have you?”
Thought about it. Had vivid dreams about it. Tomato-tomahtoe.I nod, finally taking a sip of my coffee and biting back a grimace. This coffee was made for the sugar and cream-loving American I used to be. Not the dark-as-my-soul ex-patriot I’ve become. “I still think it would help keep the peace while I’m home.”
He places his elbows on the table, clasping his hands in front of his face. A weird, mischievous smirk hangs firmly in place. “If you’re sure, I’m in, provided you agree to my conditions.”
Of course there’d be conditions.
I train my features to neutral and wave him to continue.
“I don’t want to risk someone figuring out we’re faking it,” he says, sliding open the cover of his yogurt and dipping his spoon in.
“Right, that’s kind of the point.”
“But I don’t know how you expect to do that when you still don’t trust me.”
“I trust you enough.”
He snorts. “No, you don’t.” He brings a spoonful of yogurt to his lips and wraps his mouth around the head. His eyes raise and collide with mine as he licks the back of the spoon with broad strokes. I’m too poorly caffeinated to maintain composure while his tongue is out and doingthat. His brow furrows, and he reaches out and touches the back of his hand to my forehead. “Hey, you okay?”
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a fever.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look flushed. I don’t want you making a decision like this when you’re ill and your judgment is cloudy.”
“Of sound mind and body.” I cross my heart and will the images of his tongue away, summoning split meringues and curdled whipped cream.
“Were you ever?” He angles his body forward, his pouty, upward curving lips hovering far too close to mine. I give in to the pull for half a second before my breath hitches, and I shake myself back to reality.
“I was until you showed up last week.” My eyes flit away, avoiding the dangerous gold flecks in his eyes.
“I can really feel the trust here, good.”
I pick up my eyes and glare at him. “I’m sure my mother is so desperate for this to be an actual thing it’ll be easy to convince her. It’s fine.”
“Evie, you can’t maintain eye contact with me for longer than two seconds. In what world is how much you hate me going to translate as a convincing relationship?”
“I don’t hate you,” I mumble, which forces Liam to cock his head to the side. But it’s the inconvenient truth, I don’t hate him, not like this, not now. “But the eye contact thing is entirely your fault. Nobody else looks at me as intensely as you do.”
“I look at you how you should be looked at.” He shrugs.
