Page 241 of The Lies We Play

“For what?”

“For telling Creed without you.”

I shake my head before he finishes. “No.”

“Liv.”

“No.” I touch his face with both hands because sometimes Halston needs to be held in place before he can hear love. “I wish I had been there. That’s true. I hate that I wasn’t. That’s also true. But I am glad you told him. I am glad one of us could hold you when you finally said it.”

His eyes close for half a second.

When they open, they are bright.

“You always do that,” he says.

“What?”

“Make grief less humiliating.”

I swallow.

The car moves through Queens toward the bridge. Outside, the city starts becoming itself in pieces. Signs. Brake lights. The low dark stretch of road leading back to Manhattan. Inside the car, Halston’s hand is still at my waist.

“It is not humiliating,” I say.

“It feels that way.”

“I know.” I lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth. “That doesn't make it true.”

His breath catches.

There. A small break in the armor. A place where I can press my mouth and remind him he is alive.

I kiss him again.

This one is slower.

Deeper.

Less frantic, which somehow makes it more intimate. His fingers spread against my waist. Mine slide under his coat, over the expensive sweater beneath it, feeling him through layers I suddenly resent. He makes a low sound into my mouth, and every part of me remembers the bed in Chelsea, the couch, the way Creed’s hand looks against Halston’s neck, the way our life has been waiting in rooms we keep entering one at a time.

I pull back because if I don’t, I will climb into his lap before the Midtown Tunnel, and Aren deserves better than that.

Maybe.

Halston’s eyes drop to my mouth.

“Clean,” he says, voice rough.

“What?”

“You said clean. Bathed. Couch.”

I nod slowly. “Yes.”

“We can manage that.”

“Can we?”