Page 79 of Fall For Me
He moves toward me, bending down so his lips brush against my ear.
“Because no one would stop us here.”
His breath is warm against my neck. Goosebumps erupt down my arms.
“And we don’t want ‘kiss it out of our system’ to become ‘fuck it out of our system.’ Right?”
My mouth goes dry.
Right. Yes. That would be bad. That would complicate everything.
“Right.” I nod, trying to look sensible, even as other parts of my body wholeheartedly disagree.
28
LIAM
Peyton accepts my job offer on Sunday night. She tells me she’s settled things with her old firm over the phone after our visit to the office on Friday, and that she’s ready to start over.
And so we move into a new routine. We drive to work together every morning. Peyton in the passenger seat, clutching a massive travel mug of over-sweetened coffee. Me fighting the obsession with her perfume, glad the coffee steam at least partially covers it. We don’t talk; she spends the ten-minute drive staring dead-eyed at the dashboard, sipping mechanically as she waits for the caffeine to boot up her brain. She’s not fully human until we pass downtown.
We don’t share lunch. Our schedules rarely align. I’m often in back-to-back meetings while she’s knee-deep in data models with her new team. But I also don’t want to monopolize her. She needs people besides me, colleagues who will become friends, a life in this town that exists independently of our arrangement. So I eat at my desk or with my father, and she eats with her team.
Dinner, though. Dinner is ours.
Every night, we sit at the kitchen island, plates of whatever Mrs. Gable has left us warming in the oven, and we talk. Aboutwork, about the town, about nothing important. She tells me about the regional inventory patterns she’s identifying. I tell her about suppliers meetings and the real estate side of the company she’s not involved in. After dinner, we argue about which streaming show to watch, and she always wins because I’m pathetically incapable of denying her anything.
The evenings feel safe. Manageable. I’ve established firm rules: no kissing in the house. Not that I’m not thinking about kissing her constantly—I am, but knowing it’s off the table takes the edge off. Removes the possibility, so I can stop calculating distances, angles, and opportunities.
It’s working. Mostly.
The mornings are harder.
I keep waking up wrapped around her. My body has developed a mind of its own, seeking her heat in the night, pulling her close until we’re tangled together like we belong that way. Sometimes I wake first and extract myself before she notices, retreating to my side of the bed. But some mornings—more often now—she wakes before me.
The first time she caught me spooning her, I braced for awkwardness. For her to stiffen and pull away, to make a joke that would reset the boundary. Instead, she smiled. A sleepy, sunrise smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made my pulse thrum in the roof of my mouth.
And every morning since then, no matter who wakes first, she surfaces with that same smile. Like waking up in my arms is the most natural thing in the world.
It’s messing with my head.
Wednesdays have become the worst part of the week. She leaves for the book club, and the house feels empty. I can’t even hang with Lila because she’s there too. I need some guy friends. Or to re-learn how to be fine on my own.
Almost two weeks into this new routine, we’re at the kitchen island, destroying Mrs. Gable’s herb-crusted chicken and roasted vegetables, when my phone buzzes against the marble.
I glance at the screen; it’s Mike Webb, my lawyer.
“Sorry, I need to take this.” I slide off the stool and step toward the window, tapping the green button. “Mike.”
“Liam. Good news…”
The call is brief. He gets straight to the point.
“Thank you, Mike,” I say after five minutes. “I owe you.”
“Just doing my job. Give my regards to your wife.”
I hang up and turn to find Peyton watching me, fork suspended over her plate, her expression caught between hope and fear.
