Page 26 of A Series of Rooms
“Right,” she said. “Well, since you’re not busy tonight, a few of us are going to Stanley’s after close. Come out with us for once.”
“I didn’t say I don’t have plans,” he said. “I’m going to see a friend in the city.”
“Oh, a friend?”
“Yes, afriend.”
“Good,” she said. “You need to hang out with someone other than those twin behemoths you’re always dragging around.”
“I haven’t spoken to them in weeks,” he said. “So I can’t imagine they’ll be coming around any time soon.”
“What did they do?”
Oh, you know. Took me to the city, abandoned me on my birthday, set me up with a prostitute who may or may not be being coerced, whom I am now meeting up with, platonically, on a weekly basis.
Liam shook his head. “I’ve just been busy.”
Kim narrowed her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“I know you’ve been busy,” she said. “You’ve been picking up shifts left and right. You worked three doubles last week. You were here on Wednesday during breakfast, when I know for a fact you have class.”
“It was canceled,” he lied.
“As your manager,” she said, ignoring him, “I appreciate the initiative. As your friend, I need to know you’re not spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling,” he promised.
“Liam. You’ve been here since you were sixteen. I know what it looks like when things are getting bad for you. Is that what’s happening?”
He was shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “No," he insisted. He didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t like the reminder that the people in his life held the teenage version of himself in their memory. If he could wipe it from his own, he would. “No, Kim. I’m fine. Just trying to save up.”
She stubbed out her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe. “You know you can tell me if that changes, right?”
He nodded, eyes on the ground.
“Hey,” she said, waiting for him to look at her before she continued. “Have fun tonight. You deserve it.”
Liam’s hands were nearly vibrating by the time he got behind the wheel, though he told himself it was in anticipation of the night ahead, and not a result of the conversation behind him. He tucked his tips away in his wallet, turned on the radio, and let the muscle memory pull him toward the city.
CHAPTER 10
Liam
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25TH
Liam looked up at the sound of soft snoring coming from the bed next to him. He pushed his glasses up his nose, squinting away from the harsh light of the laptop.
Jonah had fallen asleep reading. His most recent borrowed book was propped open against his chest, his head tilted back against the headboard. Liam didn’t dare put a name to the feeling in his chest at the sight of him, warm and comfortable enough to sleep in Liam’s borrowed sweatshirt, when, only recently, it had been a challenge to convince Jonah to fall asleep in his presence at all.
Some selfish part of him thought, or maybe just hoped, that it was a sign of trust. That Jonah finally felt safe with him. Whatever the reason, Liam was glad for it.
He reached over and flicked off the small light that hung over Jonah’s bed, watching the darkness fall over his sleeping face. Then he adjusted his laptop back into position on his legs, ready to buckle down again and crank out the rest of hisEnglish Lit paper, but he found his eyes pulling almost magnetically back across the room.
After a moment of deliberation, Liam set his computer off to the side, his knees and ankles cracking as he unfolded them. Carefully, quietly, he crossed the gap between the beds, hesitating before gently pulling the book away from his chest. Slender fingers that just barely poked out of the sleeves of the sweatshirt fell lightly against his chest. Liam dog-eared the page he’d left off on, setting the book on the nightstand.
He considered him for a moment, standing back with his hands on his hips. Jonah’s lips were parted just enough for a light whistle to escape with each steady exhale, the muscles in his face completely at ease for what had to have been the first time since Liam met him.
