Page 102 of I Can't Even

Liam patted his pants pocket and then smiled at me and put his hands on my hips, jumping all in with the shenanigans. Man, I loved this guy. It hit me then, hard, like a punch to the chest. I loved him, I was in love with him, there was never going to be anyone for me but Liam Mahony.

“What?” he asked. Probably, because I looked like I’d been slapped upside the head.

“Nothing,” I said.

I smiled as if to make it so, because I’m a big, stupid chicken, and I couldn’t manage the three little words that start with “I” and end with “You” and have “Love” wedged in between like peanut butter holding the bread together. Ugh, I was such a loser.

Dante and Jessie missed their plane, the cats were not speaking to me because of the party, which apparently was a doozy and likely the conga line didn’t help. They don’t really like people other than me. Hippie-turtle guy introduced himself when the conga line broke up.

He was Troy, just Troy, because last names were “bad energy full of tribalism which led to isolationism, and he was an inclusive sort of guy.” Okay, dude. Good thing he was nerdily cute. He was also completely enamored with Em, who seemed to think no more or less of him than any other accessory she might have like a belt or cute earrings. Given the state of Em lately, I almost took the poor boy aside to warn him off, but when I saw the way he looked at her I realized that he would heed no warnings of any kind. Poor bastard had it bad.

Hannah and Harry came to tuck their mother in, whose nerves had been soothed by three margaritas which left her unfit to tend to herself. Yes, this was Soph’s first real-life embarrassing moment in front of her kids. I tried to cheer her up by assuring her there would likely be more as the twins got older. Shockingly, she was not comforted by this in the least.

I wasn’t surprised that Stan didn’t show up to check on his wife. Jerk. I wondered if Soph had made any decisions about him and their marriage yet. I hoped she left him. I hoped she burned his practice down and left him. Okay, maybe that was going too far. Still, a nice case of chlamydia wouldn’t be out of order for the cheating prick. I could only hope.

When everyone moved to the kitchen to forage for food, Liam grabbed me by the arm and escorted me to the door.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“My place,” he said.

The way he said it made it clear that there would be no discussion. This was fine with me. I was exhausted. I waved and blew kisses at our people and then the door shut behind us and we were striding over to his house.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Pretty great. We got rid of Paisley, and both Em and Soph seemed better today,” I said. “Maybe we’re all going to come out the other side of this grief thing.”

“You will,” Liam said. “You’re stronger than you know.”

He paused in front of his door and studied my face. “So, surfer girl, do we get to pick up where we left off?”

“You mean where you were literally picking me up? Yes, please!”

He smiled, opened the door, and we slipped inside. I made for the stairs, figuring we were headed straight for the make-up sex we’d been denied that morning, but he hooked me by the back of my baggy shorts and steered me to the back of the house. He took my hand and led me outside where we could see the Pacific sparkle in the late day sun.

“No upstairs yet,” Liam said. “I need to talk to you about something first.”

Oh, no. I started to panic. Had he changed his mind about us? Did he not want to get back together? We were getting back together, right? Oh, man, what if he’d only been kidding when he said we were going to get married and all. Ack! Why did I text that to my sisters? I felt like an idiot.

Suddenly, the lone margarita I had quaffed was making a desperate bid to come back up. I did not, not, not want to have my heart pulverized again. Was that overly dramatic? Yeah, well, Babs hadn’t raised me for nothing.

We stood on the deck that overlooked the petite backyard and gave us a view of Gull’s Harbor below and the sea beyond. The sun was just dipping down toward the horizon and in moments it would be gone. I thought the cover of darkness might be a good thing, especially if the big jerk was going to dump me and make me cry.

“I had an interesting conversation with Mr. Loren,” he said.

I sucked in a breath. Oh, no, what did the lawyer do? Had he said something to Liam? Warned him away? Told him to run? I mean, really, who could blame him? My mind created and discarded a million scenarios all before I said, “Really? How so?”

“Do you remember the ring your mother stuck in my bag?” Liam asked.

“Oh, just a little since it’s what caused me to leave you and all,” I said.

“Do you remember what it looked like?”

“Yes, it was obnoxiously big,” I said. “Three stones, each a carat, because my dad gave her a new diamond every time she popped out one of us girls, or, in my case acquired a baby.”

“Well, did any of you wonder what happened to it when she died?” Liam asked.

“Huh.” I blinked at him. I hadn’t and I didn’t think Soph or Em had either. “She always said we’d each get our own stone when she passed, but I guess we all assumed she put it in her safe deposit box or something. We haven’t been processing very well.”

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