Page 55 of Seeking Stars
Ana had turned the camera off a while ago; she now put it in the backpack. Liam tracked her movements, still seemingly lost in thought.
"I should probably reapply sunscreen," she said.
"Good call." He whipped his shirt off. He glanced at her with a glint in his eye. "You mind giving me a hand?"
If her face warmed up, she could blame it on the walk under the sun.
"I can help," she said, pretending nonchalance.
She rummaged in the bag for sunscreen and kneeled behind him.
Shit. Shit! C'mon. You should be used to these shoulders by now. Act chill!
She squirted cream on her palms, warming it up before putting her hands on his shoulders. She bit her lips as her fingers rubbed his sun-warmed skin, slippery with lotion. She didn't make a conscious decision to allow her thumbs to massage his neck in a wide arc. His resulting groan made her close her eyes, muscles tightening in her core. She sighed. He shivered.
"Sorry, didn't mean to do that." He reached for the sunscreen bottle and applied some of it to his chest and arms, while she finished with his back. "Thanks. Your turn."
She was sure it'd be easier to have his hands on her. He'd be at her back and she wouldn't have to see him; plus she didn't plan to take off her shirt. Liam moved behind her, and his hands were sure on her skin as he helped her. He lifted the combo of shirt and bikini strap to put lotion there, slowly rubbing sunscreen where she couldn't reach; when his hand continued to travel lower on her back under the edge of her clothes, she had to admit she'd been wrong.
"You don't have to answer this," he said, his hands shifting to the other strap. "But I was wondering. Why have you been single for so long?"
She didn't know what she'd expected he'd been thinking during this trek, but her reasons for being single were not part of the mix.
"Because Dave was an asshole and a liar and I don't want that again in my life." Bluntness erected a solid wall between what his hands did, what she felt, and what they were discussing. "I can wait."
"Right, waiting." He chuckled. "But it's been more than two years since you broke up with him. I'm sure you must have met someone at some point that caught your attention?"
She didn't dare wonder why he questioned her about this. One thing was to hold her hand, another to challenge her decision to be single. It was harder to look at both together and not hope that he asked out of his own interest.
"I am in no rush to meet someone," she said. "If it happens, that'd be great, but if it doesn't… that's fine, too."
"Not looking for happily ever afters, Ana?"
She shrugged. "People can have their happily ever afters without a partner, too."
"I suppose." One of his hands rested on her shoulder, unmoving. After a moment, it left her. He sat next to her.
"I just think we should be able to find contentment on our own, you know?" she continued. "Not only if we have someone to hold our—to share our lives with."
"Yes, of course."
They fell into a brief silence, the roaring of the waves and bird calls filling in the space.
"Are you looking for happily ever afters, Liam?"
He sighed. "Yes. I want someone in my life."
He didn't hesitate. It took her breath away.
"If you want someone in your life, why be single?" she asked. "If I remember correctly, you said you chose not to be involved with anyone until you figured out how to know if it was right."
He stole a glance at her. "Yes, that's what I said. I needed to give myself time to learn. I was afraid I'd simply fall back into how things were, otherwise. I knew myself well enough to know that I could easily repeat my mistakes, if I didn't learn better. I needed to stop clean, no casual sex and no casual relationships. I'm sure there are plenty of people I could click with and find something meaningful, but I didn't know how to find them. It felt important to make sure I got to know myself a lot better, and did some work to make sure I could get to know other people as well."
"Okay, I can see that. And does it still feel like that? 'Cause in my head, wanting someone in your life and staying single don't quite align."
"They do, in my head. Doing things as I had been, I was never going to find what I was looking for. Nothing would have changed. I would only know how to have shallow encounters, and that's not what I want. I'm not going to find what I want in casual relationships, so why bother?"
"So you haven't been with anyone since that time you told me about?"
