I move closer. “You’re prettier than Cassiopeia.”
He laughs, and I do too, then we’re quiet.
Wishes shift inside me, making room for new wants and desires. Still, I don’t know how to move past this huge roadblock.
He wants a bigger family. I don’t.
I don’t want to start over in the family-making department, but I don’t want to lose him either.
Just focus on the here and now.
“Tell me what you did today,” I say, trying to root myself to the moment.
“I saved a dog’s life,” he says. He tells me about a dog who was hit by a car and brought in immediately, and how he devoted all his focus and energy to saving the poor pup and now the pooch is doing better.
My heart, my God, it melts to pieces.
“That’s amazing,” I choke out.
“I’m glad I was there.”
That’s all he says about it. I reach my hand up, stroking his hair. He closes his eyes and relaxes a little bit as I touch him.
“Are you going to get a dog still?” I ask.
With his eyes closed, he whispers, “Yes. Are you going to get a cat?”
“I hope so,” I say. “Do you like Jason Segel movies?”
He opens his eyes and laughs at me. “That’s a non sequitur. Jason Segel?”
“I Love You, Man and Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets. I think he’s really funny.”
His lips curl up in a grin. “Why are you asking me if I like Jason Segel movies?”
“Because I do. I like him.”
“And do you want me to have the same taste as you?”
“I just want to know what your taste is.”
He brings his face closer, brushes his lips across mine, and whispers, “I love Will Ferrell like crazy.”
It sounds like he’s talking about Will Ferrell, but not about Will Ferrell at the exact same time. When we kiss, I’m positive neither one of us is thinking about Will Ferrell or Jason Segel at all.
As Liam’s hands skate up my body and mine slide under his shirt, I’m aware of a brand-new desperation at the thought of losing him.
Because I might not be able to figure us out.
But right now, I’m getting lost in pleasure, getting lost in sensation as he touches me, making me want him even more.
I can tell where this night is going. To the bedroom. Before we venture there, I touch his face, stroke a thumb along his cheek, and meet his gaze. “What am I going to do about this?” I ask, feeling brave.
Wildly, incredibly brave.
“About what?”
“About you,” I whisper.
“What do you want to do about me?”
“I don’t know what to do about the fact that I’m falling so hard for you, Liam.”
He tries but fails to contain a grin. “What am I supposed to do about the fact that I’m falling for you?”
We don’t have any good answers. So we answer it in a way that we’re both quite good at.
“Let’s go inside,” I say.
In his room, I take off my clothes. He climbs over me, grabs my wrists, pins them over my head, and sinks inside me.
We’re quiet tonight. Thoroughly, completely quiet, saying nothing, only murmuring under our breaths.
I’m quiet for one reason.
I’m afraid that if I speak, I’ll tell him that I might, just might, be willing to change everything for him.
24
Liam
My mother is tense and worried the whole time my father’s in the operating room. I take the day off for this latest surgery, distracting her by playing Words with Friends on our phones, and that settles her down until we get the good news that all is well.
We take him home, and he rests most of the day.
When he wakes up, he jokes and says, “I can see again. I can see again.”
I don’t want to laugh, but I do anyway. It makes him happy, and we all know he can’t see that well, not like he used to. Still, the procedure should help lengthen the time until he loses his vision fully.
After spending the afternoon with him at their house, I give him a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I keep my word, stopping by after work with Ethan, who reads his grandfather some Percy Jackson, then he says he has to go play with Galinda and Elphaba.
“Did you pick a cake for your birthday?” my dad calls out.
“Yes! I want every flavor imaginable. Vanilla, chocolate, coconut, and caramel,” Ethan says.
“That’s only four.”
“I’ll take anything else you want to get too. I’m easy like that.” Then he races out to the backyard, flops down onto the grass, and lets the dogs lick his face.
As I stare at my son from the kitchen window, a barrage of questions flies through my mind. I know he’s always loved dogs, baseball, and the water.
I know he liked sweets when he was younger too.
But what did his mom leave out on her list of instructions? What if something changed? Like I said to January, I’ll never know.
