That earns me a deep laugh. “Now who’s spewing bullshit.”
My giggle settles between the two of us until comfortable silence fills the air again. It’s so easy with him. It takes no effort. I know we’ve still got a lot to talk about, but it’s nice that even with the chaos and crazy of today, and the heartache of the last ten days, we can still lie here together and laugh.
“You gonna tell me what you were thinking about?” he asks, his fingers running through my hair, relaxing me to the point I could fall back to sleep.
At least until I think back to what I was thinking about. I don’t want to scare him off when I just got him back. He may have been willing to declare his love for me, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to hear a lot. Especially after today.
“I don’t want to freak you out,” I tell him in a hushed tone as my face turns into his chest.
I may not be able to see it, but I can practically feel the smile on his face. “Well now you have to tell me.”
There’s no hesitation in him. No stutter in the way his fingers move through my hair. It feels safe. He feels safe. Like I can tell him anything, and I don’t need to worry about his reaction.
No, that’s not quite it. It’s more like I can trust that he’s ready to hear these things. I don’t need to hold things back. He’s ready.
“I was thinking how this… you, wrapped in your arms… it feels like home,” I whisper, turning my head back towards the living room. “Safe. Comfy. Protected.”
His fingers don’t stop moving, but silence falls back over us. Heavier than the last one, but that could just be the nerves I’m suddenly feeling. My heart has picked up the pace and started to race as I wait for him to say something, but he remains silent. Seconds turn into moments which definitely turn into minutes. At least in my estimation. It feels like eternity, and I can’t handleit.
“Did I freak you out?” I venture.
Liam’s hands still, his head lifting from his pillow. It has my own head raising to peer up at him. The most tender smile I’ve ever seen Liam wear meets me. His brown eyes are soft, earnest, and full of love. It makes my stomach swoop with a swarm of butterflies that take my heart on a ride like no other I’ve experienced. It cracks my chest wide open, but instead of the heartbreak I’ve been experiencing, I open myself up and allow him inside, deeper than I’ve ever let any other person in my life.
With his hands beneath my arms, he pulls me further up his body, sliding me along him, and then shifting both of us. A gasp of breath later, and we’re face to face, with me sandwiched between the back of the couch and him. But despite the interruption, it’s as though nothing has happened. The same expression meets me, except it’s more potent now that we’re eye to eye, and only inches away from each other.
“The opposite, my love,” he says in a quiet, gentle voice, and my heart nearly leaps out of my chest. His love. “I’ve spent nearly my whole life thinking that home, and the feeling of it, was an existence of loneliness. It was comprised of me and my dad, and while I know he did his best, it wasn’t home.”
His hand comes to my face, his knuckles skimming across my cheek. “It was one broken man, living with a broken boy, who turned into another broken man. And I thought that’s all there was to life because I didn’t know any better.”
My heart aches. Not only for him, both the little boy and the man before me, but for his dad, too.
“I didn’t allow myself to know any better because I’ve been running scared all these fucking years, Jor,” he whispers, pushing my hair back until it’s tucked behind my ear. “Until you.”
“Liam,” I breathe.
“The last time we were together I lied to you. More than once. I told you this was a mistake, and it shouldn’t have happened. That my dick was doing all the talking,” he says, his fingers sliding through my hair to cup the back of my head as his body presses closer to mine. “I was lying to both of us, Jor. For months it’s been my heart talking. In Vegas it was screaming. In joy, in happiness, in pleasure. It was fucking rejoicing that I’d finally come to my senses and crossed the line with you.”
I suck my bottom lip between my teeth to keep my mouth shut. To keep from bursting into tears at his acknowledgement that all along, he’s felt the same way I do. But Liam brings his free hand between us and thumbs my chin, pulling my lip free so he can run the pad over it.
“Nate was wrong for everything he said to you,” I murmur against his touch.
Liam’s head shakes immediately. “No, he wasn’t. Not for everything. His delivery could have been better, but he was upset, and let’s face it… I’ve been around the block a time or two. I won’t hide from that fact.”
“But I don’t care,” I interject with a frown, my eyebrows knitting together.
“I know,” Liam soothes. “But he wasn’t wrong about it. And he wasn’t wrong that I don’t deserve you—”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I push up onto my elbow, interrupting. “You do! Don’t say that. You do deserve me. I’m not some special thing that should be placed on a pedestal. Please don’t put me there.”
“Hey, hey,” he says gently, trying to soothe my sudden anxiety.
Pushing himself up to a seated position, he eases back againstthe other section of the couch and then reaches for my hands, tugging me towards him. I go easily, finding myself straddling his lap as he wraps my arms around his neck. His hands find the outside of my thighs, and he lightly runs them up and down my legs, again trying to coax me back into a state of relaxation.
“What do I always tell you?” he asks, pausing for a couple of seconds. When I don’t answer, he continues, “You’re perfect. I always tell you that you’re perfect. Does that mean that you have zero flaws? No, definitely not. I know you do. Everyone does.”
I wrinkle my nose at him, but it’s mostly in jest.
“What it means,” he continues with a smile, “is that I think you’re perfect despite those flaws. And what I’ve come to realize is that you’re perfect for me. Which means you are special. You’re the most special thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, Jor. You make my world light up. You make everything dark seem manageable. You are everything I didn’t know I wanted and needed.”
