A deep voice sneaks up behind me.
“Sweet baby Debbie, don’t take the mixer!” I shout with a jump. My hands flail. My macarons toss in the air, dropping to the ground with my phone and heart in a thud. My gaze oscillates between my fallen treats and Liam, who’s trying his darndest not to laugh. The mirthful set of his lips sits at odds with his sharp tailored suit pants, white-collared shirt, and tie.
Swiftly, I pick up my phone and lock the screen to black. “You scared me.” I place my palm over my heart and rub it. I don’t know if I’m close to cardiac arrest because of his sneak attack or him. “I’m sorry, I lost track of time. Is it one already?”
“Yeah, a little after.” He bends to pick my fallen pastries up.
“Leave them.” I sigh, trudging back into the apartment. “They’re Philomène’s now.”
“Philomène?”
“The bird I was talking to.”
A bouquet of lilacs rests on the almond flour-covered butcherblock countertop. My pulse thuds in my ears. Don’t read too much into this. Maria could have stopped and left them there. I pour myself a larger glass of rosé, attempting to soothe my nerves.
Why did I think I’d be able to handle interacting with Liam after knowing what kissing him felt like?
“How’d you get in here, anyway?” I grab a dishcloth, wiping the almond flour off the counter.
“Maria let me in. I guess she stopped in and then left again.” He rubs his neck.
I pause my wipe down, catching deep circles under his eyes, accentuated in the kitchen light. His usual neat layer of scruff shadows his cheekbones in a scraggly, unkempt mess. Something is off. My chest tightens with the accompanying thought. Liam never used to open up to me about whatever was bothering him, even on the rare occasions when I asked. He’d grumble and brood, isolating himself instead.
True, our dynamic has shifted these past two weeks, but I don’t know if he’d consider more than a surface inquiry into his wellbeing an intrusion or not, and I don’t want to risk upsetting our progress now.
“Oh, these are for you.” Liam grabs the bouquet, and the cellophane rustles in his grip. “I thought you could take a picture of them for Instagram.”
“Thank you. That’s a good idea—easy way to continue the narrative.” I blush, reaching out to accept them. My fingers brush against Liam’s on the exchange, begging to linger there. The brief contact sends sparks flying straight into the deepening ache in my chest. Our eyes connect, and he looks at me as if he desperately wants to say or dosomething.
I sway. Lips part.
Shit.Blinking myself out of the rom-com in my mind, I hastily pull my fingers off his and take possession of the flowers.
“Hi,” he says on an exhale, a light laugh rattling his chest while I emit a similar nervous one. “How are you today?”
“Oh fine,” I squeak, inhaling the sweet floral scent of the lilacs, hoping to steady my pounding heart and breathless lungs.
He zeroes in on my face like he doesn’t buy my response.
And, well, it’s a patented Evie O’Shea half-truth, so fair.
Fine, except there’s a throbbing pain searing into the back of my skull and a matching one hovering slightly above the uterus, and this is a “good” day.
“Do you want help cleaning up?” Liam asks, glancing around the destruction Hurricane Evie left behind.
“No, thank you. I’m almost done.” I pour the remaining rosé into a glass for Liam and hand him a wedge of cheese, shooing him out of our narrow kitchen. We need a ten-foot barrier of space, or I’m liable to do something reckless, like grab his loosened tie and pull him to my lips. “Seriously, shoo.” I motion to the table again.
“I’m going. I’m going. Believe me, I know better than to get in your way in the kitchen.” The corner of Liam’s mouth tips into the beginnings of a smile. He takes the glass and plate from me and heads to the gateleg table, where scatterings of pages for the pastry shop litter the top like a graveyard to my deadened dream. I haven’t looked at or moved them for months, only having the brain power for survival and not much else. “So what’s the plan for today, Peaches?”
I shrug, feigning like I didn’t stay awake the past two nights planning a fake date for us.
Best not to appear too eager and freak him out.
“I thought we could meander and find a good area with cherry blossoms to picnic under, like Square Gabriel-Pierné or Palais-Royal. But we’ll have to go grab some picnic food now.”
“That sounds good.” He smiles softly at me, propping his hand on the table and leaning against it. A paper from the table flutters to the floor. He retrieves it, studying it as he straightens. “These for the shop?”
“They were, yeah.”
