Page 127 of The Lies We Play

Ten to nine, we call Liv—when it’s almost midnight in Connecticut.

Halston sets the phone against the champagne bucket so she can see both of us. The fire is low behind us. The suite is warm. Outside, Coal Harbour is black glass and scattered boat lights, wet snow dissolving against the windows before it can land.

My mouth still knows the shape of Hal’s.

That is not helpful.

Halston sits beside me on the couch, close enough that our shoulders nearly touch. The screen rings.

Once.

Twice.

Then Liv picks up, and finally her beautiful face appears.

She’s in her childhood bedroom in Greenwich, wearing green flannel pajamas. Behind her, the room is teal and gray. There are framed photos on one wall, a shelf crowded with books and old ribbons, a white desk with a lamp shaped like a moon, and, absurdly, a small elliptical machine in the corner beside a set of hand weights, that makes the whole thing strange and crowded.

Then she smiles.

“You called,” she says, ecstatic.

Like she has been pretending not to wait for the phone and has failed at the exact second we appear.

“Happy almost New Year,” Halston says.

“I can’t believe you’re together and I’m not.” She pouts, then immediately looks embarrassed by the pout, which makes it worse. “It’s just . . . the new year, special and all that. What if I don’t spend the year with you because⁠—”

“That’s a superstition,” Halston says, cutting in before she can build a full structure out of anxiety. “Don’t do that.”

Liv’s mouth closes.

Halston leans closer to the screen.

“We’ll be together all year,” he says. “In fact, I’m picking you up from the apartment on the second, and we’re heading to my place for at least a month.”

Liv crinkles her nose.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I don’t know if moving temporarily is a good idea.”

Halston doesn't react right away.

That is how I know he reacts.

His fingers shift against his knee, once, then stop.

“I have three bedrooms,” he says. “You’ll be spoiled, baby. Say yes.”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“His roof is better than ours,” I remind her. “It has more than one chair.”

She smiles despite herself. “We’re not switching ‘for better.’”

“We’re switching ‘for practical,’” Halston says.

Liv gives him a look. “You say practical when you mean emotionally loaded but organized.”