Page 1 of The Liar in Room 5

THE LIAR IN ROOM 5

Sometimes the hardest person to find is yourself.

Andrew Greene

I always thought I was pretty good at relationships.

Sure, they ended eventually, but people break up. You dust yourself off, meet someone new, and move on. Looking back, I suppose I should have found it a little odd that my next boyfriend almost always came from my last boyfriend's group of friends. No one seemed to mind, though, so I didn't question it.

Then I came home from vacation to discover I'd already been replaced.

Now I'm staying at Halo House while I figure out what comes next. Getting a job would probably be a good place to start. It turns out "professional boyfriend" isn't something you can exactly put on a résumé. Unfortunately, getting a real job would mean leaving my room.

And then I met Henry Mercer.

The problem with Henry is that he never seems interested in the version of me standing in front of him. Every question he asks makes me wonder if he's looking for someone I haven't met yet.

Henry Mercer

I've built a career figuring people out.

Clients lie. Studios bluff. Everyone wants something, and it's my job to figure out what that is.

Andrew should have been easy to read.

Instead, he's the first person I've met in a long time who doesn't make any sense. Andrew says he loves pickleball, but he clearly doesn't know the first thing about it. Every question I ask somehow ends with me doing all the talking, and before I realize it, I've learned almost nothing about him.

The more time I spend with Andrew, the more I'm convinced he's spent so long becoming what everyone else wanted that he never took the time to figure out what he wanted for himself.

I'd have a much easier time with that if I were interested in any version of him besides the real one.

I hope that when Andrew finally learns to want something for himself, it's me.

This low-angst hurt/comfort MM romance features found family, fresh starts, a lawyer who asks far too many questions, and a man who's finally given himself permission to have answers of his own.

For the one who went along to get along but didn’t like the destination.

Consider this your permission to leave.

You deserve to love where you end up.

1

Andrew

“Honey, I’m home.”

After two weeks at a spa retreat, I’d really hoped Jonathan would have met me at the door. He said he’d be home today. He wasn’t at the airport to meet me, and he hadn’t sent a car. It was a little surprising, but I was perfectly capable and got myself into a cab to bring me straight back here.

The cab driver had been kind enough to help me with my luggage. I could’ve done it myself, but he looked like the type who liked to be useful, so I let him do it for me and gave him an extra tip as a thank you.

Maybe Jonathan was on a call or out getting lunch. The house was completely silent except for the deep, velvety voice coming from the direction of the living room. But that wasn’t Jonathan, whose voice was both squeaky and a tiny bit nasally.

Strange.

The bench I’d sourced from a salvage store wasn’t by the door anymore. It had originally been a church pew in Mexico. There were cuts and dings that had aged into an interesting patina. In its place was a mass-market, boring piece of nothing. Was Jonathan’s taste changing? I hadn’t picked up on it.

My flip-flops made a soft padding noise on the Spanish tile that led to the sun-drenched room and the sound of the voice. It had always been my favorite. In the bay window sat a piano that I didn’t know how to play particularly well, aside from a silly pop-song cover I could perform perfectly. Whenever someone asked if I played, it was in my back pocket, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice.