Page 178 of Dream On, Liar

“Maybe.”

His smile was small and easy, but his eyes stayed on my face.

Not really leaving it.

“You don’t like it,” he said suddenly.

My stomach dropped slightly. “Like what?”

“Trouble.”

The word sounded different now. Less playful. More deliberate. As though he had been paying attention.

My fingers curled against the edge of the laptop.

“Why do you say that?”

He set the bags down on the counter, slower this time. “You always make that face when I say it.”

“What face?”

“That one.” He pointed lightly towards me. “Like you’ve just swallowed a lemon.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, although it did not quite reach my chest.

“I don’t hate it.”

“You don’t like it.”

I exhaled and leaned back into the sofa, as though the cushions might somehow steady me.

“It’s complicated.”

His expression softened almost immediately. “Most things with you are.”

I shot him a look, but there was no real bite behind it. I closed my laptop because suddenly there was no way I was going to concentrate on anything else.

“Ever since I was little,” I said quietly, “my dad has only ever called me Eve or trouble.”

The air in the room changed.

I felt it almost immediately. His posture shifted, and the easy expression on his face disappeared. The cabin seemed to settle around us.

“Why?” he asked.

His voice was careful now. Not casual. He sounded as though he were stepping closer without actually moving.

“Because I was always doing something,” I said, staring down at my hands. “Or trying to. I was just a lonely kid who wanted some attention from her parents.”

He did not interrupt.

He simply waited.

Somehow, that made it harder.

I did not have to fill the silence, but I found myself doing it anyway.

“He was always working. Always travelling. Always doing something more important than being there, and my mother hated dropping me for his days, as much as she hated him not having enough of those days.”