Page 121 of The Overtime Persuasive

“James,” someone calls in the background. “Thirty seconds.”

I glance at the time again. “Wait. Are you playing right now?”

“I am technically between leaving the stage and pretending to be surprised when they ask for an encore.”

My jaw hits the floor. “Did you answer your phone in the middle of a show?”

“Technically, the show is wrapping up, but if my baby girl calls, I will drop everything to talk to her.” His voice softens. “I know I didn’t always do it when I should have, but a tiger can change his stripes, sweetheart.”

“That is not the saying.”

He snickers. “I write songs. I don’t do zoology.”

“Go. Before several thousand people turn against me.”

“Okay,” he says with a laugh. “Eva?”

“Yeah?”

“Judge Liam for who he is. Not for who I was. And if he hurts you again, I’ll write something devastating about him in B minor.” Someone calls his name again. “I gotta go. I love you, Eva.”

“I love you too.”

And the call disconnects. For a while, the only sound in my apartment is Mitch shredding one corner of the tissue paper.

One missed moment may be real, but so are all the moments Liam didn’t miss.

The night he stayed to help pack boxes. The forecast he worked on without ever treating me like I was incapable of understanding it. His hand wrapping around mine beneath the Halloween lights. The way he walked into my father’s world without being dazzled by it, then looked at me as though I were the only person in the room worth seeing.

Then he made a mistake. But now, he’s looked directly at the place he hurt me and is refusing to look away.

I can hold tightly to what happened until it becomes proof that no one stays. A grudge to hold on to.

Or I can give him the chance to show me that this isn’t his pattern.

My irrational fear has history on its side.

But love has Liam.

And I think love is winning.

I pick up my phone, scrolling to a photo we’d snapped at the team dinner of the two of us and finally let the truth arrive without trying to protect myself from it.

I’m in love with Liam Snyder.

CHAPTER 30

EVA

I’ve rearranged the same shelf of staff picks four times since I opened this morning, which either means I have unusually strong opinions about where a Dolly Parton memoir belongs, or I’m stalling.

It’s the second one. I own a bookstore. I know what stalling looks like when it’s wearing a cardigan and holding a feather duster. The same sentence has been circling my head for hours, occasionally changing direction but never leaving.

I’m in love with Liam Snyder.

Apparently, my brain believes repetition will make this information less terrifying, but it really doesn’t. Every time the words come around again, my stomach drops as though this is breaking news instead of something the rest of me figured out weeks ago.

I look down at my phone where four different texts to Liam have been written and deleted beneath them. One said hi. Another asked if he was free tonight, which I know he won’t be because there’s a game––his first as an alternate and one I’ve deliberately been not letting myself think about all week. The third was a paragraph so carefully casual it deserved its own publicist.